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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Fall 2008
Volume VII, Number 1
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research, now in its seventh year, is an
interdisciplinary journal which provides an arena where students can publish their
research. Papers are reviewed with respect to their intellectual merit and scope of
contribution to a given field. To enhance readability the journal is typically subdivided
into three sections entitled The Natural Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical
Essays. The first of these two sections are limited to papers and abstracts dealing with
scientific investigations (experimental and theoretical). The third section is reserved for
speculative papers based on the scholarly review and critical examination of previous
works.
As has become a tradition, the abstracts of papers and posters presented at the Eastern
Colleges Science Conference have been reprinted and placed in a special section. The
ECSC is the largest undergraduate research conference in the United States and Wagner
College has factored in prominently over the past several years. We hosted this annual
event in 2000 and again have been asked to host it on April 25th, 2009. In addition, some
of our faculty members serve on the Board of Directors, including Professor Donald
Stearns who is the current president. Most importantly, though, is the outstanding work
that our students contribute year after year.
A quick glance at the table of contents reveals that students of all disciplines are
passionate about their work and eager to contribute to their chosen fields. Lauren
Brillante and Anthony Pircio explore the importance of play and social interaction
amongst young children. Rebecca Giannattasio stresses the need to motivate young
minds and counteract the deficit that the United States is beginning to have in technical
fields. Also, be sure not to miss the papers dealing with art and literature in turn-of-thecentury Paris.
Congratulations to all who have created an environment conducive to the pursuit of
knowledge and the exploration of new ideas.
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
��Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference1
Abstracts
2 Insults as Predictor of Popularity in a Social Organization
James Hodnett and Dr. Amy Eshleman
2
Antimicrobial Properties of Chios Mastic In Vitro
Michael Bois, Edmond Kurtovic and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
2 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and
Educators
Kristen Solheim, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and Elizabeth Kurzawa
3 Pathogenesis of Various Induced Bacterial Infections of the CardioThoracic Region of Adult Zebrafish
Lauren Maltese, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
4
The Need for Creativity in the Physics Lab
Rebecca Giannattasio
4
Hydrothermal Growth of Zinc Oxide Utilizing Aqueous Speciation
Calculations
Lindsay Lucas and Dr. Maria Gelabert
5 Teratogenic Effects of Lithium Chloride Exposure on Eye
Development during Embryogenesis in Zebrafish (Danio Rerio)
Christina Lamb, Dr. Ammini Moorthy and Dr. Zoltan Fulop
5 Relational Aggression Intervention
Lauren Bernardo, Christina Herrera, Leah LaPrate, Dana Trottier and
Amy Eshleman
6
The Effects of Different Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage of the
Isolated and Perfused Anterior Midgut of Larva Aedes Aegypti
Sejmir Izeirovski and Dr. Horst Onken
1
Dr.
Papers and posters presented at the 62nd Eastern Colleges Science Conference held in Niagara,
NY on April 12, 2008.
�6 The Role of Micro RNA’s in the Regulation of Both Normal and
Malignant Hematopoiesis
Andrew Pistilli, Chris Roxbury and Dr. Elias Zambidis
7 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and
Educators: Residency Program on Composites
Kathryn Chepiga, Emily Mihalick, Kristen Solheim, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and
Elizabeth Kurzawa
8 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and
Educators: Biosensors and Polymers
Jennifer Lewis, Cassie Bray, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and Elizabeth Kurzawa
8 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and
Educators
Christopher Cappelli, Dr. Wendy Driscoll, Elizabeth Kurzawa and Lindsay Lucas
Section II: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Papers
12 Teratogenic Effects on Eye Development Resulting from Lithium
Chloride Exposure in Early Embryogenesis of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Christina Lamb, Dr. Ammini Moorthy, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Zoltan Fulop
Section III: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
34 The Understanding and Dynamics of Play and Imitation: Observation
and Interpretation of Two-Year-Olds
Anthony Pircio
45 Childhood: Social Interaction, Pretend Play and Imitation of Life
Lauren Brillante
�Section IV: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
56 Atonement, Guilt and Masochism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe: Charles
Baudelaire, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig
Austin Handcock
63 The Need for Creativity in the Physics Laboratory
Rebecca Giannattasio
87 Emilie Flöge: A Modern Figure of Correspondence amongst the Arts
in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Courtney Perez
94 Forster’s Symbolic Use of Female Characters
Marina McFarland
105 Mother’s Kiss and the Madeleine: The Feminization of Time and
Space in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way
Kaite Belmont
��Section I: Eastern Colleges
Science Conference
�Insults as Predictor of Popularity in a Social Organization
James Hodnett (Psycholgy) and Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology)
In a study of norms within a significant social group, playful insults were identified as a
possible marker of popularity. In a conceptual replication of Crandall’s (1988) study on
binge eating in sororities, we examined whether the most popular members of a fraternity
would set specific norms for playful insults within the group. Popularity predicted the act
of insulting others, but not being the target of an insult. Implications for leadership within
the fraternity will be discussed.
Antimicrobial Properties of Chios Mastic In Vitro1
Michael Bois (Microbiology), Edmond Kurtovic (Microbiology) and
Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
Chios mastic is a natural plant resin, which was purified using two slightly different
methods. All extracted products were used in this study. Various organisms including
Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis,
Streptococcus equi, Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus bovis, Actinomyces
odontolyticus, Propionibacterium acnes, Enterococcus durans, and Enterococcus feacalis
were challenged against mastic's antimicrobial properties. Minimal inhibitory
concentrations (MIC) were obtained by the broth dilution method. Mastic's antimicrobial
properties were evaluated. This study represents the first attempt to test the antimicrobial
properties of mastic against these clinically important gram positive bacteria.
Introducing Materials Science to
Middle School Students and Educators
Kristen Solheim (Chemistry), Dr. Wendy Driscoll (Chemistry) and
Elizabeth Kurzawa (Liberty Science Center)
Three years ago a collaboration was formed between Wagner College, Picatinny Center,
and Liberty Science Center. The project was funded by Picatinny Center, with the
intention of introducing the abstract field of materials science to middle school students
and educators in the New York/New Jersey areas. Interns from Wagner College
developed numerous forty-five minute lessons on a wide-range of topics in the materials
science field including sports materials, food packaging materials, composites, and
1
Recipient of Excellence Award for Best Manuscript in the Biological Sciences
2
�concrete. The lessons were based on Materials World Modules Kits developed at
Northwestern University through an NSF-funded grant. The lessons were prototyped by
the Wagner Students with middle school students in schools in New Jersey and New
York. In year one of the project, six Wagner College interns developed lessons on
ceramics, smart sensors, and sports materials. The following year, eight interns
implemented lessons on concrete, food packaging materials, biodegradable materials, and
biosensors. In the summer of 2007, a new task was set to develop a residency program
based on materials science and revolving around Liberty Science Center’s new
Skyscraper! exhibition. The residency, “Building Materials,” was developed using
lessons from the ceramics, concrete, and composites modules. Throughout year three,
eight interns revised and delivered previous lessons on food packaging and biodegradable
materials, biosensors, and smart sensors and developed and led new lessons on polymers
and composites. All of the individual lessons and residency lessons were mapped to
national educational standards as well as local New York and New Jersey educational
standards.
Pathogenesis of Various Induced Bacterial Infections
of the Cardio-Thoracic Region of Adult Zebrafish2
Lauren Maltese (Microbiology), Christopher Corbo (Microbiology) and
Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
Due to its fully developed immune system, the zebrafish has become an important model for
immunological studies. In this study, a method of examining the pathogenesis of various
induced bacterial infections of the cardio-thoracic region of adult zebrafish was established
using Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus pyogenes, and Streptococcus viridans. An
infection with these microbes, in an attempt to mimic bacterial myocarditis or pericarditis,
was established intrathoracic injection of the cardio-thoracic region of the adult zebrafish.
Tissue samples were collected, fixed, and processed using paraffin infiltration. Slides of semithin sections (7-10m) were stained using Hematoxylin and Eosin and a modified Brown and
Hopps’ method. The study showed bacteria present around the periphery of the zebrafish heart
when infected with Streptococcus viridans at one and four hours post infection. No bacteria
were found in or around the tissue of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Streptococcus
pyogenes infected zebrafish. The tissue was also examined for signs of inflammation and
compared to a mock-infected control.
2
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Microbiology
3
�The Need for Creativity in the Physics Lab
Rebecca Giannattasio (Physics)3
The United States is facing a great deficit of technical minds. Many would-be scientists
are never discovered because of a negative experience with science in high school. The
secondary level physics laboratory experiments as well as those at the introductory
collegiate level are highly undervalued and a greater emphasis on creativity might be the
solution. Physics should be taught in such a way that is engaging and effective; science
classrooms should uphold the same academic integrity as other disciplines. Students
should be expected to write research papers and laboratory reports, design and execute
experimental procedures, analyze error analysis, and clearly present classroom material
before their peers. All of these skills are true of scientists and other technical
professionals. A special attempt to design low cost experiments that can be tailored to
either educational level is essential to encourage young scientists and engineers. The
teaching of these skills in high school and at the beginning of college will cultivate a new
generation of technical minds.
Hydrothermal Growth of Zinc Oxide Utilizing
Aqueous Speciation Calculations
Lindsay Lucas (Chemistry) and Dr. Maria Gelabert (Chemistry)
In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) crystals were grown hydrothermally using zinc chloride
(ZnCl2), zinc sulfate (ZnSO4) or zinc acetate [ Zn(CH3COO)2 ] and multidentate ligands:
diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (DTPA) or ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA). Employing
aqueous speciation calculations (OLI Systems, Inc.), with a zinc concentration of 0.05 m,
the reactants for each zinc-ligand combination, and additional KOH and water, were
added to produce a desired pH level ranging from 6 to 14. The maximum ionic strength
for each complex was calculated using OLI software and each trial was calibrated to meet
this ionic strength. Teflon-lined, stainless steel autoclaves were used for synthesis at
200ºC, generating pressures of 15 atm. Optical microscopy on the products demonstrated
crystals with needle, cluster, and plate habits depending on pH levels and the zinc-ligand
system. Connections between synthesized crystals and speciation calculations will be
described.
3
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
4
�Teratogenic Effects of Lithium Chloride Exposure on Eye
Development during Embryogenesis in Zebrafish (Danio Rerio)4
Christina Lamb (Biology), Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biology) and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biology)
This experiment focuses on the teratogenic effects of lithium chloride in zebrafish (Danio
rerio) eye development from a morphological perspective. In order to explore the effects of
lithium chloride (LiCl) exposure on the molecular morphology of developing zebrafish
embryos, a blind study was performed with exposure to 0.15M LiCl, 0.3M LiCl, 0.45M
LiCl, and a control. Embryos exposed to 0.15M LiCl showed no abnormal defect in eye
development. All embryos exposed to 0.3M LiCl failed to develop eyes. 100% mortality
was seen in embryos exposed to 0.45M LiCl. Using scanning electron microscopy and
semi-thin histology sections, exposure defects were viewed at the cellular level. Scanning
electron microscopy revealed no external morphological differences between the 0.15M
LiCl exposure group and the control. Histological sections revealed normal eye
development in embryos exposed to 0.15M LiCl. Failure of optic cup formation and
associated bipolar neurons and ganglion cell development were seen in the 0.3M exposure
group.
Relational Aggression Intervention
Lauren Bernardo (Psychology), Christina Herrera (Psychology), Leah LaPrate
(Psychology), Dana Trottier (Psychology) and Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology)
Relational aggression often goes undetected in a school setting due to its often covert
nature. Therefore, this study examines the ability of fourth grade students to identify acts of
aggression, including direct verbal aggression and indirect or relational aggression. In order
to alleviate relational aggression in the classroom, the SARA (Students Against Relational
Aggression) program was developed. SARA is a 12-week relational aggression intervention
program in which participants learn to identify, recognize, and combat the varying forms of
relational aggression. The program covers such topics as body language, gossip, and the
role of the bystander. Over the 12 weeks, the intervention utilizes role playing,
videotherapy, and art to demonstrate the harm of bullying, empowering participants to take
an active role in eliminating aggression. After participating in the SARA program, sixteen
fourth grade participants completed scenario questionnaires. Each participant was randomly
assigned into one of two conditions: reading a scenario about an incident of direct
aggression or one of indirect aggression. The results indicate that participants identified
4
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Molecular Biology/Genetics
5
�both scenarios as aggression. Across conditions, most participants indicated that they would
take an active role as a bystander when someone else was the victim of either direct or
indirect aggression—most students indicated that they would comfort the victim and that
they would defend the victim. These results demonstrate that despite the covert nature of
relational aggression, fourth graders can come to recognize and respond prosocially to
relational aggression.
The Effects of Different Nutrients on the Transepithelial
Voltage of the Isolated and Perfused Anterior
Midgut of Larva Aedes Aegypti5
Sejmir Izeirovski (Biology) and Dr. Horst Onken (Biology)
The effects of luminal nutrients on the lumen negative transepithelial voltage (Vte) of
anterior midguts of larval mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) were studied with isolated midgut
preparations bathed in aerated mosquito saline and perfused with 100 mM NaCl. In all cases
the quality of the preparation and mounting was tested by observing the typical increase of
the lumen negative Vte to more negative values with hemolymph-side serotonin. Luminal
addition of nutrients (arginine, glutamine, histidine, proline, malic acid or succinic acid,
each at a concentration of 10mM) in the presence of serotonin resulted in further increases
of the lumen negative Vte, suggesting active absorption of the amino acids and metabolites.
Washout of hemolymph-side serotonin reduced Vte, indicating that nutrient absorption is
stimulated by this hormone.
The Role of Micro RNA’s in the Regulation of
Both Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis6
Andrew Pistilli (Biology), Chris Roxbury (Johns Hopkins University) and
Dr. Elias Zambidis (Johns Hopkins University)
MicroRNA’s constitute a novel class of small, non-coding RNAs that regulate gene
expression at the post-transcriptional level. The microRNA-RISC complex binds to the 3'
UTR of target messages based on sequence complementarity and silences gene expression
by either degrading the message or by interfering with its translation. In this study, the
regulatory role of mir-155 microRNA in blood cell formation was examined. A novel
5
6
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Physiology
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Health Sciences
6
�construct for the overexpression of mir-155 using a loxP-Cre conditional expression system
was created using standard recombinant DNA technology. The mir-155 loxP-Cre construct
is flanked by an upstream β -Geo cassette and a downstream eGFP reporter transgene.
Florescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and fluorescent microscopy demonstrated that
mir-155 and eGFP expression was conditional and depended on co-transfection of pGK/Cre
plasmid. In addition, the possible involvement of five additional microRNA’s in leukemia
cells was examined using TaqMan RT-PCR. The results indicate that mir-10a, -10b, -181,
-196a, and -196b are significantly over-expressed in RS4:11 MLL-fusion leukemia cell
lines, which suggests that microRNA dysregulation may be involved in the molecular
pathogenesis of blood cancers.
Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students
and Educators: Residency Program on Composites7
Kathryn Chepiga (Chemistry), Emily Mihalick (Psycholgy), Kristen Solheim (Chemistry),
Dr. Wendy Driscoll (Chemistry) and Elizabeth Kurzawa (Liberty Science Center)
The objective in this project is to introduce materials science to middle school students
through inquiry-based lessons based on Materials World Modules (MWM). MWM were
previously developed at Northwestern University and were made possible through an NSF
funded grant. A team of three Wagner College undergraduate students has worked together
since the summer of 2007 to develop a three-day residency program titled “Building
Materials” which was linked to Liberty Science Center’s new exhibition Skyscraper! The
program was designed to teach middle school students about ceramics, concrete, and
composite materials. Some of the lessons included in this residency involve working with
Zinc Oxide powder to understand the concept of porosity, testing and comparing concrete to
cement, exploring the strength and stiffness of different types of foam boards, and, finally,
obtaining three different materials to collectively construct a composite building material.
The team completed the 80-page residency program and once prototyped, the program will
be used by educators at Liberty Science Center. A 45-minute lesson on composites for
middle school classrooms was then developed based on the residency program. Through the
45-minute lesson, students explore the different properties of composites and test composite
foam boards for their strength and stiffness. This lesson will be delivered in four middle
schools in New York and New Jersey this spring. At the conclusion of each semester an
evaluator compiles the feedback from both the middle school students and interns to gather
feedback about the impact of the lessons.
7
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Education
7
�Introducing Materials Science to Middle School
Students and Educators: Biosensors and Polymers
Jennifer Lewis (Chemistry), Cassie Bray (Biopsychology),
Dr. Wendy Driscoll (Chemistry), Elizabeth Kurzawa (Liberty Science Center)
The objective in this project is to introduce materials science to middle school students
using Materials World Modules (MWM) obtained from Picatinny Center. MWM were
developed at Northwestern University and were made possible through an NSF funded
grant. Teams of two students worked together to develop 45 minute inquiry-based lesson
plans for delivery in four middle school classrooms over the course of each semester. In the
fall of 2007, one team of interns explored biological molecules and bioluminescence
through the use of a firefly experiment. A dead whole firefly and a crushed up firefly were
used to demonstrate how adding the necessary substances used in a chemical reaction such
as the reaction where a biosensor, ATP, and oxygen react to yield a result of
bioluminescence. In the spring of 2008, the team is currently developing and implementing
a new lesson plan relating the properties and implications of polymers. Polymer pellets are
used in an experiment analyzing absorption and viscosity. At the conclusion of each
semester an evaluator compiles the feedback from both the middle school students and
interns in order to determine the success rate of each experiment.
Introducing Materials Science to
Middle School Students and Educators
Christopher Cappelli (Chemistry), Dr. Wendy Driscoll (Chemistry),
Elizabeth Kurzawa (Liberty Science Center), Lindsay Lucas (Chemistry)
The following lessons have been developed in an effort to teach middle school students
concepts related to materials science throughout the New York City/New Jersey
metropolitan areas. The lessons were mapped to the NY, NJ, and national science standards
and were based on Materials World Modules developed by Northwestern University
through an NSF-funded project. During the fall semester of 2007, one team of interns
developed and implemented a 45 minute inquiry-based lesson to introduce biodegradable
materials and packaging materials. Through the lesson, students were able to understand the
uses of packaging materials and their different properties, determine how structure affects
material durability, and the importance of biodegradable materials in society and our
environment. For the spring semester of 2008, the same team of interns has developed and
is currently implementing a second lesson on smart sensors: devices that use external
8
�stimuli such as motion, sound, or temperature, and create a usable response. This
technology has been used in items such as the clapper, car alarms, and motion detectors.
This interactive 45 minute lesson will allow students to identify piezo-electric forces and
various smart sensors, as well as the concepts of a natural stimulus being transformed into a
mechanical response. Students will now understand how smart-sensors are used in our
society, and the importance of them in our everyday lives. At the end of each classroom
visit, the students completed a survey to determine the success rates of each experiment, and
the results have been analyzed.
9
��Section II:
The Natural Sciences
�Teratogenic Effects on Eye Development Resulting
from Lithium Chloride Exposure in Early
Embryogenesis of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)1
Christina Lamb (Biology)2, Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biological Sciences),
Christopher Corbo (Biological Sciences), Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences)
This experiment analyzed the teratogenic effects of lithium chloride on zebrafish (Danio
rerio) eye development from a morphological perspective. In order to explore the effects
of lithium chloride on the molecular morphology of developing zebrafish embryos, a
blind study was performed with exposure to 0.15 M LiCl, 0.30 M LiCl, 0.45 M LiCl, and
a control. Using light microscopy, semi-thin histological sections, and scanning electron
microscopy, exposure defects were viewed at both the gross and cellular level. Embryos
exposed to 0.15 M LiCl showed abnormal defects in eye development including the loss
of one eye and irregular eye shape. Scanning electron microscopy revealed slight
morphological differences between the 0.15 M LiCl exposure group and the control
including misshapen eyes. All embryos exposed to 0.30 M LiCl failed to develop eyes.
Scanning electron micrographs of the 0.30 M LiCl exposure group displayed
development of the skull but a complete lack of eye formation. 100 percent mortality was
seen in embryos exposed to 0.45 M LiCl.
I. Introduction
Lithium has become of great interest as a teratogen in laboratory research, not only
because of its influence on development but also because it is one of the most common
and successful drugs used in the treatment of bipolar disorder (Klein & Melton 1996).
Bipolar disorder is a disease characterized by rapid changes in mood, energy level and
normal functioning (NIMH 2007). Approximately 5.7 million American adults age 18
and older in any given year have bipolar disorder (Kessler et al. 2005). This illness is
long term but treatable with specific medications that stabilize the mood. Through
clinical trails, El-Mallakh and Karipot (2006) concluded that lithium should be
considered a key drug to treat acute depression caused by bipolar disorder. Although its
1
This work was presented at the 2008 Eastern Colleges Science Conference (ECSC) and
the 2007 Metropolitan Association of College and University Biologists (MACUB)
Annual Conference. Christina Lamb received an Excellence Award for her poster
presentation at the Eastern Colleges Science Conference.
2
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biological Sciences)
and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences) in partial fulfillment of the Senior Program
requirements.
12
�use as a treatment option has been supported, the use of lithium must be monitored in
pregnant women who suffer from bipolar disorder, because it has shown teratogenic
effects in early pregnancy (Viguera et al. 2000). Currently, the mechanism for lithium’s
effect remains unclear, but continued research is elucidating some of the molecular
pathways involved (Klein & Melton 1996).
The zebrafish has become an important vertebrate model in developmental
analysis. Because of the transparency of the embryos and simplicity of chemical exposure
in the water environment, zebrafish should be considered a main model in developmental
toxicology. In addition, zebrafish possess conserved gene expression with other model
organisms such as Drosophila (Nusslein-Volhard 1995). The mutant masterblind shows
the development of posterior structures in place of the eye which is similar to homeotic
transformation (Nusslein-Volhard 1995). Because of observations such as these, the
zebrafish is a powerful model of gene expression and is a more reliable model in
vertebrate developmental studies than Drosophila. These characteristics allow zebrafish
research to be applied to development in more complex organisms.
Lithium chloride is a known teratogen that has been shown to cause severe
defects on morphological development in early embryogenesis of numerous organisms
(Klein & Melton 1996). Klein and Melton’s (1996) work with Xenopus embryos has
shown that lithium inhibits the cell fate determination regulator glycogen synthase
kinase-3B (GSK-3B). Further evidence for this hypothesis is that the loss of GSK-3B in
Xenopus and Dictyostelium produces the same phenotypic response as lithium treatment
(Klein & Melton 1996). These results suggest a possible mechanism for lithium activity
within developing embryos. In studies with zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos, exposure to
lithium chloride caused defects in anterior-posterior development (J. White, unpubl. data,
2004). Abnormal eye and tail development were noted with escalating severity with
increased lithium chloride concentrations (White, unpubl. data, 2004). Because of these
observations, it is critical to further document the developmental defects caused by
lithium chloride.
Lithium chloride has been shown to affect zebrafish development during two
specific stages, and these two transitions corresponded to separate defect patterning found
in the embryos (Stachel et al. 1993). The first transition of lithium chloride is the initial
entry of the chemical at the 16-cell stage (Stachel et al. 1993). Embryos exposed in the
early stages of development (before midblastula stage) develop bustled and radialized
defects (Stachel et al. 1993). The bustled embryos appear twisted above the yolk and
notochord cells become stacked while radialized embryos have distinct notochord regions
separated by yolk (Stachel et al. 1993). The second transition occurs after the midblastula
stage (Stachel et al. 1993). Embryos exposed after the midblastula stage and prior to early
13
�gastrulation display eye and head defects (Stachel et al. 1993). This is attributed to
reduced expression of the goosecoid gene in the lateral wings which is the site for
abnormal cell differentiation (Stachel et al. 1993).
It is critical to conduct experiments with lithium to study its effects on early
development. Previous research has revealed defects in anterior posterior development,
but no histological analysis has been performed for lithium chloride exposure in zebrafish.
This study is the first purely morphological analysis of the teratogenic effects of lithium
chloride. The effects of 0.15 M, 0.30 M, and 0.45 M lithium chloride (LiCl) solutions on
eye development in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos were studied. To analyze the data
fully, histological sections of the eyes and electron microscopy were utilized to locate the
specific sites of the morphological defects. A photographic catalog of zebrafish
development with control specimens and specimens exposed to lithium chloride was
produced.
II. Materials and Methods
Care of Adult Zebrafish
Adult zebrafish were housed in the Megerle Science Building on the Wagner
College campus (Staten Island, New York, USA). Fish were maintained in four tanks
with water kept at 28oC. Filters were changed approximately every two months, and
tanks were inspected daily for water temperature, salinity, and water level. Tanks were
located in a windowless room so light levels could be controlled. Fish were fed
TetraMin® flake food once a day and three times a day the day before breeding.
Breeding fish were also fed brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) along with the flake food.
Light patterns simulated the sunrise and sunset (photoperiod of 12 h daylight:12 h night),
and eggs were laid at approximately 10:00 am EST on breeding days. Fish were trained
to eat food in breeding boxes so that they would be comfortable in the breeding
environment. For additional information concerning care and breeding of adult zebrafish
please refer to (Westerfield 2000).
Collection and Care of Zebrafish Embryos
The night before breeding, a plastic grate was placed over breeding boxes and
green plastic plants were placed in the boxes to give fish a covered area to lay eggs (Figure
1). Before breeding, all objects in the tank were removed, plants were placed in breeding
boxes, and the fish were fed brine shrimp in addition to flake food. Zebrafish embryos were
transferred from breeding boxes in the adult fish aquariums to beakers. Beakers were filled
with 100 ml of egg water (1.5 ml stock salt/ 1000 ml de-ionized water [stock salt- 40 g
14
�Instant Ocean®/1000 ml de-ionized water]) and twelve embryos were placed in each
beaker. Zebrafish aged 1-4 weeks ate 2 ml of Paramecium twice a day. At four weeks, they
began to eat brine shrimp. A mixture of three drops brine shrimp and 1-2 ml Paramecium
were fed until the fish ate flake food when sprinkled into the beaker. When they willingly
ate flake food, they were slowly weaned from Paramecium and had a diet of flakes and
brine shrimp. The egg water in the beakers was cleaned every day by transferring the fish
with a plastic pipette into fresh beakers. All beakers were kept in a water bath at
approximately 28oC to ensure proper growth and hatching times.
Paramecium Culture Instructions
Four culture bowls were filled with 175 ml of de-ionized water. Paramecium
culture (1 ml) was added to the culture bowl. Half of a tablet of NOW® Brewer’s Yeast
and 6 boiled, frozen wheat seeds were added to each bowl. Bowls were kept covered
when not using.
Brine Shrimp Culture Instructions
Instant Ocean® (26 g) was dissolved in 1500 ml distilled water and poured into
a cylinder with an aerator at the base. Frozen brine shrimp eggs (1 g) were added and the
aerator was placed in the middle of the cylinder to allow for constant circulation. After 23 days, a pinch of wheat germ was crushed with a mortar and pestle and added to the
brine shrimp solution.
Lithium Chloride Exposure
Zebrafish embryos at the sphere dome stage of development (Nüsslein-Volhard
1995) (Figure 2) were obtained and washed twice in an egg water bath for 10 min. As
part of a blind experiment, lithium chloride concentrations (0.45 M, 0.30 M, 0.15 M, and
a control (0.0 M LiCl) ) were prepared ahead of time in 500 ml flasks labeled A, B, C,
and D. Research by Jessica White was used as a basis for concentration amounts (J.
White, unpubl. data, 2004). Prepared lithium chloride solutions were placed in labeled
beakers, with only egg water for the control. Embryos were transferred to the beakers
with transfer pipettes and exposed for 10 min. A maximum of 12 embryos was placed in
each beaker. The control group consisted of 44 fry, the 0.15 M LiCl group consisted of
53 fry, the 0.30 M LiCl group consisted of 15 fry, and the 0.45 M LiCl group consisted of
30 fry. After 10 min, embryos were removed and washed twice in egg water for 10 min
each. Embryos were placed in beakers containing egg water and the fish were allowed to
develop in the beakers, monitored daily, and photographed to view morphological defects
15
�in eye development. Beakers were maintained in a 28oC water bath and fry were fed 1 ml
Paramecium once a day after hatching. The experiment lasted ten days.
Histological Sectioning
On the 10th day, fry were fixed with Karnovsky solution and allowed to sit at
4oC overnight. Fry were placed in porcelain wells, and washed twice with filtered
phosphate buffer for 10 min each. Fry were then post fixed in 1% osmium tetroxide for
30 min under a fume hood. Fry were washed with phosphate buffer to remove osmium
for 5 min and dehydrated through increasing concentrations of ethanol (50%, 70%, 80%,
95%, 100%, 100%) for 10 min each. Remaining fry were prepared for electron
microscopy after completing the dehydration sequences. Specimens reserved for
histological sectioning were treated with propylene oxide twice for 15 min each time.
Spurr medium was prepared using standard component volumes (Spurr 2007). A 2:1 ratio
of propylene:Spurr was created and each fish was allowed to sit in the mixture for 15
min. A 1:1 ratio of propylene:Spurr was created and each fish was transferred and
allowed to sit in this mixture for 30 min. A 1:2 ratio of propylene:Spurr was created and
fish were transferred and allowed to sit in this mixture for 15 min. Plastic embedding
tubes were filled halfway with Spurr media and fish were transferred to individual tubes
and oriented. The tubes were then filled to the top with Spurr media and hardened for 24
h at 50oC. After embedding, fish were cut from tubes using a razor blade and trimmed
under a dissecting microscope. Glass knives were made using LKB KnifeMaker Type
7801B. Semi-thin sections were obtained using a Reichert OM-1 ultramicrotome and
were collected with a paint brush in boats made from Scotch # 850 Silver Tape filled with
de-ionized water. Sections were expanded by heating on a hot plate and heat fixed to a
glass slide. Slides were stained with toludine blue by covering each slide with the stain
and waving it over a hot plate for approximately 4 s and running cold water over the
slide. Samples were analyzed using an Olympus BX40 microscope with a Sony ExWave
HAD digital camera.
Scanning Electron Microscopy
After the dehydration sequence, the fry used for electron microscopy were fully
dried through evaporation with Hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS). Specimens were
mounted on aluminum chucks, coated in gold using the Hummer VI Sputtering System
and viewed using a Topcon ABT-32 scanning electron microscope.
16
�Statistical Analysis
Statistical analysis was performed by comparing the number of dead fish and
surviving fish on the final day of the experiment (day 10) between each of the three
experimental groups and the control using the Fisher’s Exact Probability Test (Samuels
and Witmer 1999). Because multiple sample data were not available and each
experimental group was individually compared to the control, the alpha level was
adjusted using Bonferroni’s Method (Samuels and Witmer 1999). This adjustment is a
conservative measurement to limit the risk of a Type I error. The Bonferroni’s Method
application used an adjusted alpha level of 0.05/3 = 0.017 for comparison between each
of the three experimental groups and the control.
III. Results
Lithium Chloride Exposure
Control fish developed normally and possessed no deformation in eye
development (Figure 3). Fish were active in beakers and avoided the transfer pipette
during cleaning. This behavior was considered a sign of normal behavior when
comparing specimens.
Zebrafish exposed to 0.15 M LiCl showed a variation of eye defects including
small and irregularly shaped eyes (Figure 4F). Some evidence of disrupted symmetry of the
yolk sac was noticed (Figure 4C). Histological sections revealed development of only one
eye on rare occasions (Figures 11 & 12). Despite the occurrence of developmental defects,
fry exhibited normal behavior such as actively avoiding the transfer pipette, energetically
eating during feeding times, and constantly swimming in beakers. Zebrafish exposed to 0.30
M LiCl failed to develop eyes in 100 percent of the 58 cases (Figure 5). Not only did fish
fail to develop eyes, but their behavior was completely disturbed. Fish remained sedentary
and exhibited almost no swimming or dodging movement when transferred in a pipette.
Many embryos did not survive past day 2 (Figure 20), and throughout the 10-day time
course, a large portion of fish did not hatch at all. Fish that did hatch were lethargic; no
visible catching of food was observed. Although feeding behavior was not seen, several fish
survived until day 10. Electron microscopy determined the cellular position of
morphological defects (Figures 16 & 19).
Zebrafish exposed to 0.45 M LiCl did not survive past day 1. All treated embryos
clouded over within 24 h and could not be analyzed. No images exist for this exposure
group, because once the embryos cloud over, they are no longer transparent and an image
cannot be captured.
17
�Histological Sectioning
Histological sections revealed the cellular organization of eye cells. As
predicted, control fish displayed normal cellular organization (Figures 6, 7, & 8). Fry
exposed to 0.15 M LiCl appeared to have a variation of eye defects including
development of only one eye (Figures 11 & 12). Despite this, eyes that did develop
showed normal patterning and layering of eye cells (Figures 9 &10). Fry exposed to 0.30
M lacked normal eye tissue (Figure 13).
Scanning Electron Microscopy
Scanning electron micrographs of exterior morphology were taken to compare
control specimens (Figures 14 & 17), specimens exposed to 0.15 M LiCl (Figures 15
&18), and specimens exposed to 0.30 M LiCl (Figures 16 & 19). Analysis of external
morphology revealed a slight difference in eye shape between control and 0.15 M LiClexposed fry (Figures 17 & 18). Vascular tissue was maintained in both systems, but
detailed photographs of eyes showed a slightly malformed eye in the 0.15 M LiCl
exposed fry due to chemical exposure (Figure 18). This effect is relatively minor
considering the dramatic effect of the 0.30 M LiCl exposure. The 0.30 M LiCl exposure
group displayed a complete lack of eye development. The skull appeared to develop
normally, but no eye tissue or cellular organization was seen in the system (Figure 16).
There is a hole where the eye was expected to develop (Figure 16). A highly magnified
view of this depression shows the eye socket but with the absence of any noticeable
tissue (Figure 16B).
Statistical Analysis
The number of dead and surviving fish from the final day of the experiment (day
10) were tested for significance against the observed control data using the Fisher’s Exact
Probabilty Test with Bonferroni’s Method adjustment (Samuels & Witmer 1999). The P
value for the control versus 0.15 M LiCl was 0.533681 and the result was not significant
at an adjusted alpha level of 0.017. The P value for the control concentration group
versus 0.30 M LiCl was 4.646 x 10-6 and was highly significant at an adjusted alpha level
of 0.017. The P value for control versus 0.45 M LiCl was 9.886 x 10-17 and was highly
significant at an adjusted alpha level of 0.017. A graph of zebrafish mortality shows the
number of deaths in each concentration group over the 10-day time course.
IV. Discussion
Control fish developed normally and were used as a standard for comparison to
analyze lithium chloride effects. All fish exposed to 0.45 M LiCl died within 24 h. The
18
�embryos became white and cloudy and could not be analyzed under the microscope. All
fish exposed to 0.30 M LiCl failed to develop eyes (Figure 5). Previous work by Jessica
White (unpubl. data 2004) showed cases of failed eye development but never reported
such a severe result. Because of this, the 0.30 M exposure group was replicated two
additional times, and each of these subsequent tests revealed the same result of 100
percent failed eye development (total of 58 fish in the three populations). This dramatic
effect was coupled with defects in anterior-posterior development (Figures 5E & 5F).
Fish survived for the 10-day period but limited swimming and no eating behaviors were
observed. The survival of the fish showed that the fry must have been able to eat without
vision because control fish raised previously would die within two days post-hatching if
not fed. Fish remained on the bottom of the beaker and many did not hatch from eggs.
Because of these results, embryos exposed to 0.15 M LiCl were expected to show a
moderate teratogenic effect lying somewhere in intensity between the control fish and the
0.30 M LiCl exposure group. This prediction was seen but on a less extreme level than
expected. Some abnormal eye shape was seen, and certain specimens developed only one
eye (Figures 11 & 12). What was more interesting in light of the minor but apparent
defects caused by lithium chloride was that embryos exposed to 0.15 M LiCl did not
reveal any behavioral abnormalities such as lack of eating and movement. Surprisingly,
the embryos in the low dose acute exposure (0.15 M LiCl) were often more energetic and
tended to avoid the pipette at a higher rate than control fish. This could be viewed as
evidence for hormesis, but no analytical calculations were recorded to test that
hypothesis. Hormesis occurs when exposure to a teratogen or historically harmful
substance (e.g. ethanol) in very low doses actually has a beneficial effect on an organism
(Calabrese 2002). Future studies should perform a range of low-dose exposures (e.g.,
0.05 M, 0.08 M, 0.1 M, 0.12 M, and 0.15 M LiCl) and perform an analytical study of
behavior compared to a control population to test for the possibility of hormesis.
Semi-thin histological sections of the control specimens revealed normal cellular
organization and development as described by Raymond et. al. (2006) (Figures 6-8). The
zebrafish eye showed several distinct cellular patterns that characterize development.
Figure 7 showed the round lens in the center of the developing eye. The next layer was
the ganglion cell layer followed by the bipolar neurons, the developing rods and cones,
and finally the pigmented epithelium. When viewing specimens from the 0.15 M LiCl
exposure group, the cell patterning remained intact with the presence of the pigmented
epithelium and cell layers leading to the lens (Figures 9D & 10). It is interesting to note
that this detailed view showed no striking difference in cellular organization within the
eye compared with the control group even though defects in eye shape and size were
seen. Even though normal cell patterning was viewed, there were examples of
19
�development of only one eye in the 0.15 M LiCl exposure group (Figures 11 & 12).
These images present horizontal sections through the gills and the brain. Because
membranes are intact throughout the entire fish in these histological sections, there is no
reason to suspect that the missing eye was an artifact of preparation. A small segment of
tissue was present where the eye should have been on the left side (Figure 12 arrows). It
seems likely that the tissue may correlate with the initiation of eye development but with
subsequent failure of optic cup formation. Arezana et. al. (2006) noticed similar defects
seen in the lithium chloride exposure in developmental studies with ethanol. Data showed
optic tectum impairment in zebrafish that only developed one eye (Arezana et. al. 2006).
Because of these results, it is possible that exposure to lithium also impairs the formation
of the optic tectum. Future studies should focus on the optic tectum formation throughout
a developmental time course to see if impairment of the optic tectum is also seen in
lithium chloride exposure. Specimens exposed to 0.30 M LiCl failed to develop eyes in
all histological analyses (Figure 15). Figure 15 does not show evidence of any eye
formation; however, rudimentary eye tissue could have been undetected due to the fact
that the section was not deep enough into the tissue. Because the sagittal orientation for
sectioning is not the most revealing position in this case, further analysis should orient fry
for horizontal sectioning. Scanning electron microscopy explains this lack of eye tissue
much further by showing the complete absence of the eye (Figures 16 & 19).
A slight difference in external eye morphology was found between control fish
and fish exposed to 0.15 M LiCl under the scanning electron microscope (Figures 5 and
6). The 0.15 M LiCl eyes were misshapen and did not possess the perfect roundness of
the control eyes (Figure 18). Eyes from the 0.15 M LiCl exposure appeared slightly more
sunken (Figure 18). However, it is difficult to attribute this result entirely to the lithium
chloride exposure, because the dehydration steps in the preparation can lead to an
indented appearance postmortem. This indentation was occasionally seen in control fish,
so one should be cautious when attributing the change to a teratogenic effect. Scanning
electron images of the 0.30 M LiCl exposure group revealed a complete lack of eye tissue
(Figure 19). Interestingly, the skull developed into the eye socket, but no optic cup was
formed under these conditions. These results explain the apparent lack of eye tissue in
histological sections of the 0.30 M LiCl group (Figures 16 & 19). Klein and Melton
(1996) attribute the teratogenic effects of lithium chloride to the inhibition of the cell fate
determinator, GSK-3β. Their data showed that GSK-3β is a kinase that may play a role in
neurological signal transduction, and they believe treatment with lithium inhibits the
expression pathway (Klein & Melton 1996). Viewing the effects of lithium chloride
exposure, the lithium pathway must involve the disruption of cell fate determination
during embryogenesis. Continued research should be conducted to monitor changes in
20
�protein expression and gene expression of developmental genes that are involved in
zebrafish eye development.
Zebrafish mortality was analyzed for each of the three test groups and the
control. The graph (Figure 20) shows the trends of zebrafish deaths over the 10-day time
course. The 0.45 M LiCl exposure group showed 100 percent mortality within one day.
The graph revealed that among all of the concentration groups, the majority of fish deaths
occurred before the second and third days. This is due to the fact that the embryos are the
most sensitive to lethal developmental defects in the earlier stages of development. The
Fisher Exact Probability Test with Bonferroni’s Method adjustment (Samuels & Witmer
1999) revealed a significant difference between the number of deaths in the 0.45 M LiCl
experimental group versus the control and in the 0.30 M LiCl experimental group versus
the control. Because the only variable between the groups was the concentration of
lithium chloride, the deaths are attributed to the chemical effect. The 0.15 M LiCl deaths
did not significantly differ from the control (P = 0.533681). Despite defects in eye shape,
size, and development, the dose did not cause a significant change in mortality.
V. Conclusion
Control fry developed normally while embryos exposed to 0.15 M LiCl revealed
a range of eye defects, including small eyes as well as development of only one eye.
Embryos exposed to 0.30 M LiCl failed to develop eyes in all treated populations and had
disruption of anterior-posterior development and behavior. Electron microscopy revealed
a complete lack of eye tissue in the head region. Embryos exposed to 0.45 M LiCl died
within 24 h of exposure and could not be analyzed postmortem. Future studies should
focus on the possibility of hormesis through an analytical study of behavior. Another
interesting study would be a low-dose, chronic exposure to lithium chloride during
embryonic development followed by a long-term study of adult behavior. These
experiments would give more insight into the effects of lithium chloride on zebrafish
embryogenesis.
VI. References
1. Arenzana, F. J., Carvan III, M. J., Aijon, J., Sanchez-Gonzalez, R., Arevalo, R.,
Porteros, A. 2006. “Teratogenic Effects of Ethanol Exposure on Zebrafish Visual
System Development”, Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 28, 342-348.
2.
Calabrese E. J. 2002. “Hormesis: Changing View of Dose Response, a Personal
Account of the History and Current Status”, Mutation Research/ Reviews in
Mutation Research, 511, 181- 189.
21
�3.
Karnovsky, M. J. 1965. “A Formaldehyde Glutaraldehyde Fixative of High
Osmolarity for use in Electron Microscopy”, J Cell Biol 27, 137A.
4.
Kessler, R.C., Chiu, W.T., Demler, O., &Walters, E.E. 2005. “Prevalence, Severity,
and Comorbidity of Twelve-Month DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity
Survey Replication (NCS-R)”, Archives of Gen. Psych. 6, 617-627.
5.
Klein, P. S. & Melton, D.A. 1996. “A Molecular Mechanism for the Effect of
Lithium on Development”, Nat. Aca. of Sci. 93, 8455-8459. National Institute of
Mental Health. Bipolar Disorder with Addendum January 2007. Bethesda (MD):
National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, US Department of
Health and Human Services; 2002 [updated January 2007; cited 2007 February 11].
(NIH Publication Number: NIH 3679). Available from: http://www.nimh.nih.
gov/publicat/bipolar.cfm.
6.
Nusslein-Volhard, Christiane. 1995. “The Identification of Genes Controlling
Development in Flies and Fishes”, Nobel Lecture (Germany).
7.
Raymond, P.A., Barthel, L.K., Bernardos, R.L, & Perkowski, J.J. 2006. “Molecular
Characterization of Retinal Stem Cells and their Niches in Adult Zebrafish”, BMC
Developmental Biology, 6: 36.
8.
Samuels, M.L., & Witmer, J.A. 1999. Statistics for the Life Sciences. 2nd Ed. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
9.
Stachel, S. E., Grunwald, D. J., & Myers, P.Z. 1993. “Lithium Perturbation and
Goosecoid Expression Identify a Dorsal Specification Pathway in the Pregastrula
Zebrafish”, Development 117, 1261-1274.
10. Spurr Low-Viscocity Embedding Media, for Biological, Material and Mineralogical
Specimen. 2007. Polysciences, Inc. Technical Data Sheet 127.
11. Viguera, A. C., Nonacs, R., Cohen, L. S., Tondo, L., Murray, A., & Balsessarii, R. J.
2000. “Risk of Recurrence of Bipolar Disorder in Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women
after Discontinuing Lithium Maintenance”, America Psych. Assoc. 157, 179-184.
12. Westerfield, M. (2000) The Zebrafish Book: A Guide for the Laboratory use of
Zebrafish (Danio rerio). University of Oregon Press, Eugene.
22
�13. White, J. N. 2004. “The Effects of Different Concentrations of Lithium Chloride on
the Development of Brachydanio rerio Embryos”, Experiments in Developmental
Biology at Swarthmore College, 1-8.
Figure 1: Tank setup for embryo collection.
A
Figure 2: Sphere Dome Stage.
C
C
B
E
D
F
Figure 3: Control fish development. A) Somite Stage B) Early development C) before exit
from egg D) 4 days E) 5 days F) 9 days. Notice normal eye development.
23
�A
D
B
C
E
F
Figure 4: 0.15 M LiCl exposure A) Early development B) before exit from egg
C) 4 days D) 5 days E) 8 days F) 10 days.
A
B
C
E
F
D
Figure 5: 0.30 M LiCl exposure A) Somite Stage B) Early development
C) before exit from egg D) 4 days E) 5 days F) 10 days.
24
�Figure 6: Control specimens: Semi-thin histological sections of the eye, 10x.
Pigmented
Epithelium
Rods and Cones
Bipolar
Neurons
Ganglion
Cells
Lens
Figure 7: Control Eye, 40x.
25
�Figure 8: Atlas of Control eye, 14 day old fish, 10x.
A
B
C
D
Figure 9: 0.15 M LiCl: Semi-thin histological sections of the eye, 10x.
26
�Figure 10: 0.15 M LiCl eye, 20x. Notice normal patterning as compared to Figure 7.
Figure 11: Atlas of 0.15 M LiCl exposure fish, 14 day old fish, Horizontal
sections through gills, 10x, notice the absence of one eye.
27
�Figure 12: Atlas of 0.15 M LiCl exposure fish from Figure 12, Horizontal
sections through brain. Arrow: Potential incomplete formation of the left eye.
Figure 13: 0.30 M LiCl: Semi-thin histological sections of the eye, 10x.
28
�A
B
Figure 14: Scanning electron photographs of control eyes. A) 580x B) 400x.
A
B
Figure 15: Scanning electron photographs of eyes exposed to 0.15M LiCl. A) 400x B)750x.
29
�A
B
Figure 16: Scanning electron photographs of eyes exposed to 0.15M LiCl. A) 290x B) 490x.
Figure 17: Control Specimen, 200x.
30
�Figure 18: 0.15 M LiCl exposure group, 280x. Arrow shows malformation of eye.
Figure 19: 0.30 M LiCl exposure group, 175x.
31
�Percent Survival
120
Percent Survival
100
80
Control
60
0.15 M LiCl
40
0.3 M LiCl
20
0.45 M LiCl
0
-20 0
5
10
15
Days
Figure 20: Percent survival in each concentration group.
32
�Section III:
The Social Sciences
�The Understanding and Dynamics of Play and Imitation:
Observation and Interpretation of Two-Year-Olds
Anthony Pircio (Psychology)1
Play and imitation are two elements of childhood in which will forever be embedded in
our memories. As adults, these elements are still quite prominent in our lives. We often
imitate people and things almost everyday; however, the root of imitation exists only in
our childhood. The cause and reason for imitating is still being researched and
psychologists are putting conclusions together every day. Through understanding the
concept of imitation we can conclude that it is a part of learning and helps children to
develop entirely. This thesis reviews recent literature and observations in an attempt to
clarify the root cause and understanding of play and imitation in a general scope.
I. Literature Review
The human race is an entity unlike anything we can imagine. Our capabilities
and imaginations are extremely influential yet sometimes become a threat to our own
existence. The human race is comprised of individuals whom vary almost entirely from
one another on the basis of DNA, genetics, behavior, personality, body composition,
height, weight…etc, to name a few. However, beyond the numerous variations that exist,
it is safe to say that the human race has at least one thing in common: at one point in our
lives we were all once children. For some, our childhood was a vivid memory and for
others it was a mere blur. Whatever the case may be we have all experienced the long,
tedious (or for some, exciting) years of childhood.
The majority of people, including myself, remember only certain aspects of our
childhood. These aspects are usually milestones and/or times worth storing in our
memories, whether it may be taking our first step, using the “potty” for the first time, or
perhaps going to our first amusement park. Since we have a tendency as children to
remember only the aspects of our lives in which stand out, we often forget the normal
everyday activities that we partook in. More specifically, the general mechanics of
childhood, which include: behavior among other children, play tactics, reactions to
certain situations, behavior during solitude…etc. These general mechanics often explain
why children act in certain ways, the reasoning they use to justify the act, as well as, their
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
34
�thought processes throughout the reasoning. Many times we cannot measure these
mechanics as children, which is why we study childhood and the way in which children
perform certain tasks.
Play and imitation during the childhood years are two tasks which are
thoroughly studied by psychologists. It makes sense that these tasks are studied
thoroughly, because of the fact that the majority of our childhood experiences engulf play
and imitation. When discussing any topic in psychology or any discipline, a definition of
the subject matter is always appreciated. In an article titled Effects of Play on Associative
Fluency in Preschool-Aged Children by Dansky and Silverman (1973) the authors turn to
no other than Piaget, who supplies us with the definition of play as, “…any behavior,
which is characterized by a predominance of assimilation over accommodation,” (p. 38).
In addition to this definition of play, Piaget follows it up with a definition of imitation in
which he describes as the contrary to play, or a predominance of accommodation over
assimilation. To better understand exactly what Piaget means by play and imitation, we
must first dissect the words assimilation and accommodation. From what I understand,
assimilation describes the process of receiving new facts or of responding to new
situations in conformity with what is already available to consciousness. Similarly,
accommodation can be described as the adjustment/adaptation to
differences/circumstances. With that said, Piaget’s definition of play can now be
interpreted as any behavior in which there is an excess of observing differences rather
than adjusting/adapting to them. At the same time, Piaget’s definition of accommodation
can now be interpreted as any behavior in which there is an excess of adjusting/adapting
to differences rather than simply observing them.
It is obvious that children of all ages engage in playful activities throughout their
childhood. Playful activities can be defined as playing tag with another child, playing
“make-believe” in solitude or with another child, and various other games children play
when they are young. One may bring up the question concerning the child’s awareness
and understanding of what they are doing when they engage in these playful activities,
and whether or not they are the least bit aware of what they are doing. In an article titled
Young Children Know That Trying Is Not Pretending: A Test of the “Behaving-As-If”
Construal of Children’s Early Concept of Pretense by Rakoczy, Tomasello, and Striano,
two theories on the idea of awareness in children are introduced. The first is a theory by
two psychologists, Leslie and Fodor, which states that, “…children as young as 2 years of
age apply the same concept of pretense as do adults” (p. 388). It should be noted that
when the authors use the word “pretense” it could be translated to mean “make-believe”.
The authors then use an example to help better clarify the explanation, “In pretending that
35
�a telephone is a banana, for example, and in observing someone else pretend in this way,
children do not represent the counterfactual situation ‘this is a banana’ as literally true.
Rather, to avoid this, the child makes use of a specialized innate cognitive architecture
involving an adult concept of pretense, meta-representing his or her own and others’
pretense in the form ‘person pretends (this is a banana)’” (p. 388). This first theory
simply attributes children to a more mature thought process. The second theory,
however, is not as encouraging for children. The authors make a note that the second
theory can be referred to as the “behaving-as-if” construal of children’s early pretense
performance and understanding. The main idea behind the second theory is one in which
says that, “…children do not yet have the mature adult concept of pretending as acting
intentionally and knowingly according to a counterfactual proposition that one believes to
be false” (p. 388). The authors continue by saying that, “The behaving-as-if theory thus
predicts that young children should make overextension mistakes, applying their concept
of pretending both to behaving-as-if unknowingly and to behaving-as-if unintentionally”
(p. 388). The figure below shows for the 2- and 3-year-olds, respectively, the numbers of
pretense and trying responses as a function of model type.
Figure 1: Mean numbers of Children’s Pretense and Trying Responses as a
Function of Age and Model Type (Rakoczy, Tomasello, Striano p. 391)
When observing children either in public or behind closed doors, it is often
common to see them imitating whatever they are looking at and/or playing with or
whomever they are playing with. I feel as though engaging in the act of imitation is a
crucial part in the development of young children. If one were to analyze how adults
learn to perform certain tasks or learn how certain operations work, one may realize that
36
�adults, like children, also engage in the act of imitation. Imitation by young children is
said to occur as early as minutes after birth. Whether or not the children know exactly
what and why they are imitating is to be researched later a bit more in detail. In an article
by Colwyn Trevarthen titled First Things First: Infants Make Good use of the
Sympathetic Rhythm of Imitation, without Reason or Language, the author makes an
interesting observation that newborn babies imitate facial expressions, hand gestures,
head shifts, looking and/or closing the eyes, and even simple sounds. These actions are
almost always observed, however, the idea of imitation is never really within the limits of
the reasoning. The author continues by explaining that, “In experimental demonstrations,
imitating, defined as reproduction of the same form of act as the act presented, is a rather
puzzling activity, elicited by a ritual of exaggerated ‘modeling’ behavior of an adult
interrupted by waiting for a reaction from the infant” (p. 94). Simply stated, imitation is
the reproduction of an act that was previously observed by the imitator. With prior
knowledge of Piaget’s terminology, we can make the conclusion that there is a
predominance of accommodation over assimilation.
Most people would agree that a young child playing “make-believe” is a form of
imitation. Someone may be wondering how the child learned this form of play. Two
answers that will properly address the question are readily at hand. The first is the idea
that the child learned the behavior by himself. The child simply thought of playing
“make-believe” in solitude. The second is the idea that the child learned the behavior
through imitation or by watching another person engage in the act of “make-believe”. A
recent study by Striano, Tomasello, and Rochat, found that before the age of two, young
children displaying acts of “make-believe” with objects was a direct result of imitations
and/or verbal instructions of adults.
Furthermore, in an article titled On Tools and Toys: How Children Learn to Act on
and Pretend with ‘Virgin Objects’ by Rakoczy, Tomasello and Striano, the authors make
mention that if two-year-old children were not exposed to other people playing “makebelieve”, the children would not have invented the solitary activity to play by themselves.
In the same article, a study was performed to test the claims that pretense or “make-believe”
actions on toys and instrumental actions on tools can be obtained by imitative learning. The
experimenters presented ‘virgin objects’ (unfamiliar objects with no prior function) to a
group of children and showed them that the objects can be used for different types of
actions. In the “model phase” part of the experiment, the experimenters presented the
‘virgin objects’ to the group of children in which they demonstrated instrumental actions as
well as different ways to play “make-believe” with the objects. The experimenters then
initiated a “test phase” where they allowed the children to act on each object themselves up
37
�to three times (Trials 1-3). The authors noted that the organization of the experiment
allowed the researchers to take the children’s actions on the objects during the “test phase”
as a simple measure of imitative learning and “make-believe” creation. Two interesting
hypotheses were made for the experiment at hand. The first is the idea that both “makebelieve” and instrumental actions can be learned through imitation. The second is the idea
that since “make-believe” intentions are more complex, for children, they should be more
difficult to understand and imitate than instrumental actions. These claims were consistent
with and supported the major findings in the study.
Another article in which the main goal is to analyze the basics of which type of
children engage in the act of pretending, as well as, general motives for which children
perform this activity, is titled A Transformational Analysis of Pretending written by Fein
(1975). The author makes an observation that at about 12 months of age, children may
engage in simple forms of pretending. These may include drinking from an empty cup,
or perhaps sleeping, when they really are not. At this young age, when children engage
in the act of pretending, they usually use common household objects, and the act of
pretending seems to be quite notable because the child desires food or sleep when it
clearly is not necessary. A bit later in life, at around 18 months or so, the act of
pretending takes on two new characteristics. The first characteristic is a shift of focus
from the self to others (p. 291). An example of this shift can be seen when a child
pretends to feed his mother, a doll, or perhaps a toy animal. The second characteristic is
the idea that between 20 and 26 months the act of pretending becomes more independent
of the features of immediate stimulation (p. 291). An example of this can be seen when a
child treats an inanimate object as if it were animate. Below is a figure illustrating the
scheme for a child pretending to feed a toy horse with an empty cup. It should be
Figure 2: Transformation categories in role-related pretends (Fein p. 292)
38
�understood that in figure 2 there are three categories of transformations. The first
transformation is one in which there is a shift from the self to others. The second
transformation involves the transition of an inanimate object into an animate one. The
third transformation is a bit similar to the second, however, instead of the path going
from inanimate to animate, the path goes from inanimate to another inanimate object.
When one thinks about the mechanics behind the activities of play and/or
imitation, one may find that in order for children to engage in playful activities they must
have two properties established. The first is that the children must be mindful they are
partaking in the activity. This property encompasses the idea of cognition as well as the
idea that children are using their minds to engage in the activities of play and/or
imitation. The second is that the children must establish some sort of social structure in
order for playing with other children to be possible. This may include becoming friends
with another child/person, or perhaps just playing with another child/person for the time
being. To further exhaust the subject at hand, in order for the activities of play and/or
imitation to exist, there needs to be some correlation between cognition and social
development.
In the article titled It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know: Older Siblings
Facilitate Imitation during Infancy, Barr and Hayne (2003) feel as though there has been
much research on these two entities; however, the introduction of behaviorism slowed
any further research between the two down to a halt. The authors state that Vygotsky’s
social constructionist theory stimulated the idea that social interaction plays a part in
shaping children’s cognitive development (p. 8). For Vygotsky, he feels as though,
“…all cognitive functions develop in the course of social experience” (Barr and Hayne
2003). Furthermore, Vygotsky states that, “Only after a child has mastered a skill in a
supportive social context will that skill be internalized so that it can be used outside the
social context in which it was originally acquired” (Barr and Hayne, 1978).
In a study by Barr and Hayne (2003), exploration of the role of older siblings in imitative
learning during the infancy period took place. As I stated before, imitation plays a
crucial role in the development of children and is a “potentially powerful mechanism” for
incidental learning, especially during the infancy period. The authors continue by
explaining that, “A small arsenal of studies has now shown that very young infants can
acquire a wide range of new behaviors, simply by watching and repeating the actions of
others” (Barr and Hayne, 2003, p. 9). To anyone reading this paper, they may have
noticed that this argument has already been presented and supported in various studies.
More so to anyone in general really, this argument, that children (infants) learn many new
behaviors through imitation, is quite obviously true and makes the most common sense.
39
�Much research was examined and recorded in the article by Barr and Hayne
(2003), regarding play and imitation. The authors stated that the main goal of their
research was to really analyze imitation in real-world settings. In order for the authors to
execute this research, they asked parents to keep detailed diary records of their infant’s
imitations on a daily basis. Using the diary records enabled them to address two issues.
The first issue dealt with age-related changed in imitation by 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old
infants in the safety of their own home environment. The second issue dealt with the
effect of siblings on the quantity and quality of behaviors acquired through imitation.
Having formulated the two issues the authors were then able to directly compare
imitation by age-related and sibling-related effects.
II. Observations/Case Study
My interest in play and imitation has grown throughout the years of my studies
in psychology. Since childhood is the root of the human race, it must have a powerful
impact on the development of children and eventually adults. I have recently been
volunteering my time at the Early Childhood Center (ECC) at Wagner College. The
Early Childhood Center is a positive environment for young children to learn and grow
under the supervision of trained teachers as well as amongst each other. My particular
volunteer work encompassed the youngest group of children at the ECC, the two-yearolds. The children in this group varied slightly in age from the youngest being two years,
to the oldest being two years and seven months. It never really occurred to me how much
of an effect one month can have on the development of a child until volunteering at the
ECC. When using the word development, this includes speech and vocabulary,
understanding concepts, as well as, simple directions, and even physical facial
development!
One child, in particular, in which I took an unusual interest in was a boy named
John (John’s real name will be kept incognito due to rules of confidentiality). John was
slightly younger than the other children. John was about 2 years of age while the other
children averaged around 2 and 6 months years of age. To the average person this span
of age may not seem to be of significance, however, after volunteering at the ECC it is a
crucial difference. Due to this span of age, although not assumed as the only cause,
John’s vocabulary and speech were virtually non-existent. I say that the span of age may
not be the only cause of his lack of speech because his nationality was not that of
American descent. Rather, both of John’s parents did not speak English at home, so a
language barrier definitely hindered John’s performance.
40
�The first day at the ECC, John immediately took a liking to me. Until this day, I
still am not sure why he felt so comfortable around me. It was quite hard to establish a
relationship with him since he did not have much of a vocabulary. On the other hand, his
emotions, interestingly enough, took the place of a vocabulary. The emotions I observed
were mostly those of frustration and/or confusion. These emotions, I feel, originated at
John’s home. In the back of my head, while observing John, I couldn’t help but feel as
though something from home was bothering him. Perhaps it simply could have been that
he was cranky, or over tired at that time of the morning, some people are simply not
morning people (myself included)!
The second day volunteering at the ECC John noticed me as soon as I walked
into the room. I felt as though his noticing me was a bit concealed because when I
walked into the room he did not necessarily move toward me, however, his head turned
and then focused back down to what he was doing prior to me walking into the room.
John’s interactions at the ECC were strictly solitary. He rarely interacted with the other
children and only would interact with me. Our interactions together consisted of me
mostly following him around the ECC, walking to and from the playground, and
occasionally he would sit on my lap. I did not mind these limited interactions. Although
John could not talk, his emotions spoke loud enough for me to hear.
One morning while observing at the ECC, John was rolling the fire truck on the
floor contently. He appeared as though he was having fun and enjoying himself. At a
random moment he let out a short four to five second cry, sounding most like frustration.
He then stopped and acted as if nothing happened. It was as if a thought came into his
head in which he did not like and so let out a cry, and as soon as the thought left his head
he stopped crying. I am not sure if it was a coincidence or not but the day he was letting
out these cries of frustration, he unusually wanted me to hold him in my arms. I
correlated the random cries of frustration with the fact that John wanted to be held more
than usual. The next couple of days I observed at the ECC John continued to let out the
random cries, however, after about a week or two they subsided.
The children participated in a musical parade on one of the days I observed in
the ECC. The majority of the children enjoyed the parade, including John. The children
were given rhythm sticks and bells to play. Even though the children marched back and
forth between the two classrooms, they seemed to have had fun.
Perhaps the most prominent example of imitation that I observed while
volunteering at the ECC was when the children were on the playground. Once the
children are let loose into the playground, the majority of them run wild all around as if
the slides and toys are going to disappear. John was one of the children that did not
41
�usually run while in the playground. On the contrary, there was this one boy who
constantly ran to where he had to go. Even while in the classroom he often ran from toy
to toy. John observed the boy run from one spot of the playground (point A) to another
(point B). Once John had observed the boy run from point A to point B, he walked over
to point A and walked slightly fast to point B. He seemed curious as to why the boy ran
in that particular path, and it seemed as though he was testing it out to see what was so
enthusing about it. After he had given it a trial run John retreated back to point A and
again scurried over to point B, but this time a smiled from ear to ear appeared on his face,
and he immediately went back to point A. His last trial was at a running pace and he
appeared to have loved every minute of it. Seeing his little legs scurry across the
playground seemed to have made me especially happy. It was as though we both felt as
if we had accomplished a great feat. The following observations could best be explained
using the article by Barr and Hayne (2003), in which states that children learn to imitate
simply by watching other children/people do certain things. John imitating the other boy
running on the playground is exactly what Barr and Hayne (2003) talk about in their
article.
Another prominent example of imitation was a time when I was observing John
play in the sandbox in the classroom. He was playing with a bucket at the time and
would fill the bucket with two handfuls of sand and then pick the bucket up and tilt it
upside down. When he tilted it he spilt sand all over himself and the floor. After he
repeatedly spilt the sand, I felt as though he did not understand that he had to keep the
bucket over the sandbox, so I felt I needed to intervene. When he went to tilt the bucket
upside down, I assisted him and helped him to keep it over the sandbox. I did this about
four times. After a couple of attempts he would lift the bucket in the air and then briefly
look over his shoulder to see if I was going to assist him in tilting it upside down. I felt
this behavior was interesting because it appeared as though John knew that I was helping
him in pouring the sand correctly back into the sandbox, however, looked to me to assist
him in the process. He enjoyed the fact that he was able to imitate me pouring the sand
into the sandbox but was not confident enough to do it himself.
Aside from John, all of the children at the ECC exhibited play and imitation one
time or another. One girl, in particular, that comes to mind is a girl named Alice (Alice’s
real name will be kept incognito due to rules of confidentiality). Alice was not
particularly close with me and actually, we really did not start talking and playing
together until the last weeks of my volunteering. Compared to the other children her
speech was quite impressive. Although she was somewhat shy, she spoke when she had
to. One time at the ECC we were playing with play-dough and it seemed as though she
42
�was imitating her mother make cookies. She verbally asked me to “make cookies” with
her and insisted that we put “chocolate chips” on them (small rolled up balls of playdough). Aside from “making cookies” with her she also wanted me to “make pancakes”
with her. Once we “made the pancakes” she pretended to eat them. She did not
necessarily put them in her mouth but it was close to it. Another time I was playing with
play-dough with a boy and he was pretending that he was eating it however he actually
put the play-dough in his mouth! His reaction was funny because play-dough does not
necessarily taste that well and after putting the play-dough in his mouth he told me not to
eat it. I thought him telling me not to eat the play-dough was also funny. Alice
pretending to be her mother baking cookies with the play-dough would most likely
support the information in the article by Rakoczy, Tomasello, and Striano about children
engaging in the act of “make-believe”.
In my opinion, the beauty of life is that every person living or deceased has
experienced a childhood at one time or another in their lives. As said before, whether
enjoyable or something someone wants to forget, the memories will always be implanted
in our heads. Childhood is a time when rules, norms, dos and don’ts are learned,
however, at the same time we engage in that wonderful activity called play. Through
play we learn to imitate which is a crucial part of development for children and is
something we continue to do even when we get older. The unfortunate thing, however, is
the fact that no one really remembers their childhood as vividly as one would like.
Knowing this makes it difficult for people to understand why we imitate and how well it
helps in the development in children. The fact that we continue to engage in play and
imitation, as we grow older is helpful to psychologists and researchers; however, it is not
the root of our play and imitation years, so knowing the cause of imitation may always be
a mystery. As a growing society we must never forget the precious things we learned in
our childhood, and play/imitation is definitely something we should never let leave our
lives.
III. References
1.
Barr, R., & Hayne, H. (2003). “It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know:
Older Siblings Facilitate Imitation during Infancy”, International Journal of Early
Years Education, 11, 7-21.
2.
Dansky, J., & Silverman, I. (1973). “Effects of Play on Associative Fluency of
Preschool Age Children”, Developmental Psychology, 9, 38–43.
43
�3.
Fein, G. (1975). “A Transformational Analysis of Pretending”, Developmental
Psychology, 11, 291–296.
4.
Lukowski, A. F., Wiebe, S. A., Haight, J. C., DeBoer, T., Nelson, C. A., & Bauer,
P. J. (2005). “Forming a Stable Memory Representation in the First Year of Life:
Why Imitation is More than Child’s Play”, Developmental Science, 8, 279–98.
5.
Rakoczy, H., Tomasello, M., & Striano, T. (2005). “On Tools and Toys: How
Children Learn to Act on and Pretend with ‘Virgin Objects’”, Developmental
Science, 8, 57-73.
6.
Rakoczy, H., Tomasello, M., & Striano, T. (2004). “Young Children Know that
Trying is Not Pretending: A Test of the ‘Behaving-as-if’ Construal of Children’s
Understanding of Pretense”, Developmental Psychology, 40, 388–399.
7.
Trevarthen, C. (2005b). “First Things First: Infants Make Good Use of the
Sympathetic Rhythm of Imitation, Without Reason or Language”, Journal of Child
Psychotherapy, 31(1), 91-1
44
�Childhood: Social Interaction,
Pretend Play and Imitation of Life
Lauren Brillante (Psychology)1
The current paper aims to demonstrate the importance of social interaction, pretend play,
and the imitation of life among children between the ages of 2.3 to 3 years old. It contains
a literature review of past findings on how social interaction, pretend play, and the
imitation of life play a major role in the development of a child. My own findings based
on my placement of observing children at an Early Childhood Center help to confirm past
findings as well.
I. Introduction
The current paper aims to discuss the importance of social interaction, pretend
play, and the imitation of life among children between the ages of 2.3 to 3 years old. Play
and interacting with others are the building blocks for proper child development and the
foundation for adulthood. The paper discusses previous research and findings on
childhood development as well as my own findings based on naturalistic observation of
children in a preschool setting.
Social interaction, pretend play, and the imitation of life allow for a child to
enter a world of imagination. By pretending, a child imitates life based on what they
observe, acting in a way in which they believe they are socially expected to act.
Pretending enables proper development for a child as well as strengthens their mental
capacities through this fun process of learning. In addition, interacting with others trains
them with the skills needed for forming relationships with others throughout life.
Burns & DeLoache (1994) believe the preschool curriculum is “designed to
foster symbolic skills.” To introduce children to symbolic play in a preschool setting, a
variety of objects must be available. These include dolls, trucks, play kitchen, stories,
blocks, painting, and so on. With objects like these readily available for children, they are
able to grasp their abstractedness and begin to engage in symbolic play by realizing what
these objects may represent (Burns & DeLoache, 2004).
Koch & Leary (1992) explains how it was not until the 17th century that
childhood was different than adulthood, that in fact, children were not small adults, it was
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
45
�something more. Instead, childhood is a distinct period of life. In order to understand
children, one must possess a “child sense”, “a special insight into the children and
childhood that has roots in the investigator’s personal history” (Koch & Leary, 1992). In
other words, it is an empathetic approach to children, a way of connecting to a young
mind.
Meyers (2005) discusses Piaget’s theory of child development whereby a
“child’s mind is not a miniature model of an adult’s”. Instead, “children reason in wildly
logical ways about problems whose solutions are self-evident to adults”. Piaget believed
that children between the ages of 2 and 6 are in the preoperational stage of development.
In this stage, children represent things with words and images, lack logical reasoning,
develop language, and think symbolically. During this stage of life, as the mental states
develop, children interacting with others may engage in trying to understand what made a
playmate angry as well as understanding the concept of sharing (Meyers, 2005).
In addition, Meyers (2005), discusses Erikson’s view on children at the
preschool age. He believed that children around the age of 2 are in the “autonomy vs.
shame and doubt” stage of development whereby they attempt to perform tasks
independently. A child between the ages of 3 and 5 are in the “initiative vs. guilt” stage
of development whereby they learn to begin tasks and be persistent in plans.
It is believed children learn how to develop relationships through pretend play
(Bonawitz & Schulz, 2007). According to Piaget, he believed children learn about
relationships through play and exploration of the environment. Piaget once stated
“children construct knowledge by active exploration” (Bonawitz & Schulz, 2007).
Also, Meyers (2005) explains the egocentric self in that a child is unable to
understand another point of view. Hence, the child believes only their point of view
matters and can be perceived by others.
Around the age of two, children begin to associate abstract objects with the real
world. By playing, they are better able to understand the relationship of both, as well as
learn about communication and mental representations through symbolic play. Once
again, Piaget’s theories are discussed in that he was a strong believer in mental
representations through play, along with Vygotsky who believed symbolic play was
significant in the development of a child (Bornstein, Haynes, O’Reilly, & painter, 1996).
Casby (2003) states “symbolic play is active, a purposeful use of symbols,
something standing in for and representing something else.” Casby (2003), discusses how
play is important in sensorimotor and preoperational stages of life, along with the
development of communication and language skills (Casby, 2003). When analyzing
children, the only qualities of a child that can be observed are play, behaviors, and
46
�interactions. By observing children while engaging in such activities, observers are able
to gain insight on how a child is developing (Casby, 2003). Early symbolic play
demonstrates a child’s mental representation of symbolic play and functioning (Casby,
2003). Children demonstrate functional-conventional play which includes the use of
familiar objects while playing. A child will reproduce certain tasks with objects that are
familiar to them. For example, a child may take a spoon and stir it in a bowl (Casby,
2003).
During early childhood, play progresses from the sensorimotor to preoperational (Bornsetin et al., 1996), as mentioned above, a stage in childhood where
children engage in pretend play, develop language, but lack abstract thinking. Children
will engage in pretend scenarios, such as a child pretending to feed a doll, talking on a
toy telephone, or using a block as if it were a camera to take pictures.
Bogdan (2005) discusses pretending in great depth, and how the earliest form of
pretending is pretend play allowing for a child to act out imaginary scenarios. During
pretend play, there are three types of activities taking place. A child usually engages in
role playing, plays with functional objects, and bases their play on shared behavioral
scripts (Bogdan, 2005).
Bogdan (2005) illustrates what pretend play is; an imitation of life. Pretend play
occurs early in childhood and is caused by current and past interactions with adults as
well as observing how others act in the environment. Pretend play is a solitary and
interpersonal initiation of the young child into the ways of adult society and culture – a
playful and often creative exercise in cultural conformity” (Bogdan, 2005). In other
words, when a child pretends, they are imitating life and molding into the cultural norms,
roles, and ways in which they are expected to act in society (Bogdan, 2005). “Young
children must also figure out and emulate what adults do, how they do it, the norms they
are obeying, and how they respond to and correct the youngster’s progress” (Bogdan,
2005).
Most believe pretend play is crucial because it prepares a child for the adult
world. Bogdan (2005) addresses the question “Why pretend play?” He believes playing is
an “early fine-tuning” of adult behaviors, “rehearsing playfully is an old trick for selftraining.” In addition, pretend play is a way in which a child is able to overcome
temporary challenges (Bogdan, 2005). It allows for a child to create new experiences that
help organize the ways in which they are developing.
El’Konin (1966), discusses symbolism and play “in which the use of objects and
actions occurs is symbolical.” In addition, he explains a theory of two worlds that
children possess; a world of reality and a world of play. The world of play is a child’s
47
�freedom, in which “the child leaves the world of restraint and reality” (El’Konin, 1966).
In addition, he discusses Piaget’s conception of play as containing an integration or
assimilation in which children alter their existing schema to fit new schemata. In other
words, a child adjusts existing knowledge to fit new knowledge.
Fein (1989) suggests pretending is important because it “reflects the child’s
growing capacity to create analogies (or symbols) which are increasingly ‘distant’
representations of events to which they refer.” It aids in a child’s growth and
development of analogies and symbols. A child engaging in pretend play constructs
internal representations of familiar objects with activities (Fein 1980).
Fein (1989) conducted a study addressing the question of how young children
are able to pretend that one thing is another. When engaged in pretend play, there is a two
role transformation whereby the child adopts the role of nurturing another while the other
receives nourishment (Fein, 1989). The study consisted of sixty-six children exposed to
cuplike objects and plush horse toys. The children were observed and results displayed
93% of the children engaged in pretend play by using the cuplike object to nourish the
horse. Findings allow for a better understanding of previous research on pretend play in
that “mental structures and processes underlie behavior in young children.”
Elder and Pederson (1978), discuss how Piaget and Vygotsky believe symbolic
play is linked to the development of representational skills. Vygotsky (1967) believed
early skill representation development is a perception of an object which dominates over
its meaning. “Symbolic play is part of the process of liberating thought and meaning from
concrete objects” (Vygotsky, 1967). In addition, Vygotsky (1967) believed that children
require a “concrete signifier before they can represent objects symbolically”. Elder and
Pederson (1978) explain the difference of symbolic thinking which is absent in the mind
of a young child in comparison to that of an older child. A young child would use part of
their body to represent something whereas an older child will think symbolically. For
example, a young child will use their finger to represent a toothbrush and an older child
will pretend to hold a toothbrush.
A study conducted by Edler and Pederson (1978) examined two factors: objects
presented within pretending activities and similarities between the objects and those
objects represented. Children between the ages of 2.5 to 3.5 were presented with six
realistic objects (comb, spoon, etc) and two dissimilar objects. They were asked if they
were familiar with the objects and asked to perform the appropriate task with each. Also,
when asked to perform a task in which the object was not intended to perform, some
children stated “I can’t”. All age groups performed equally well except for the 2 ½ year
olds because older children were able to relate certain objects with their appropriate task.
48
�Kearsley, O’Leary, Ungerer, & Zelazo (1981) believe symbolic play is the most
important of cognitive development for a child. Symbolic thought increases the mental
processes. Kearsley et. al. (1981) stated, based on research by Piaget, “a gradual increase
in the ability to use objects symbolically in play are physically dissimilar from those used
in real life.”
Bornstein et al. (1996) analyzes the question on how much influencing parents
have on their children. Parents assist in their children’s development by sharing in
experiences with them such as play and other enjoyable activities. Parents shape their
children and prepare them for the real world as they grow. Parents induce learning when
playing with children, displaying to a child what is appropriate and what is not
(Bornstein, et al., 1996). Since children imitate what they see, nonetheless are they
reenacting based on their own observations.
In addition, Bornstein et al., (1996) explains the differences in language
development among children in a play situation. Children whose language is more fully
developed are expected to engage in more symbolic play. Girls tend to have more
advanced language skills than boys.
Slade (1987) believes that symbolic play occurs in stages developed by Piaget.
Early symbolic thought development leads to the appearance of representational function
in objects as well as play. Symbolic play is one of the most noticeable and important
transitions from infancy to childhood. Slade (1987) discusses how attachment styles
affect the rate of symbolic exploratory play in children. The maternal relationship acts as
the facilitator for the amount of symbolic play a child engages in (Slade, 1987).
II. Observations
At the Early Childhood Center (ECC), I observed children between the ages of
2.5 to 3 years old in a preschool environment. Each observation took place on Tuesdays
and Thursdays from 1:00 to 4:00, and consisted of play time, snack time, story telling,
sing a longs, playground, and arts/crafts. I observed ten children, Steven, Ava, Joey,
Brian, Alex, Isabella, Natalie, Michael, Luke, and Leila.
Before working at the ECC, I was allowed to look around the classroom to
obtain an idea of the type of setting I would be working in. The classroom was arranged
exactly how Burns & DeLoache (1994) stated a preschool classroom should consist of. I
observed a play kitchen, dolls, trucks, blocks, painting, books, and so on. Any object a
young child is interested in was present in the classroom.
When I arrived at the ECC, it was the first day the children were without
parents. I wanted to make an impression as if I was there to be a playmate, not an older
49
�figure who they must listen to. My very first observation took place in the playground
and I must admit I was a little overwhelmed. It took some time for me to adjust and learn
how to connect with the children at their mind level considering I have never worked
with children before.
Steven, Ava, and Joey were constantly crying asking for their mothers. I tried to
comfort them as well as explain to them that school is a fun place where you play and
make friends with others and mommy would be coming shortly. The first thing I noticed
among the children was the attachment styles, anxious-resistant insecure attachment,
secure attachment, and anxious-avoidant insecure attachment.
I was able to confirm Slade’s (1987) theory on how attachment predicts a child’s
interest in playing and exploring an environment based on what I observed. Steven, Ava,
and Joey were displaying signs of anxious-resistant insecure attachment, whereby they
were not interested in playing or participating with other children. Isabella displayed
signs of secure attachment in that she was slightly distressed when her mother would
leave, quickly showing an interest in exploring and playing, then becoming very excited
when her mother arrived for dismissal.
Midway during my placement, a new arrival, Leila, displayed extreme levels of
anxious-resistant insecure attachment. She would cry the entire time, did not interact with
any children, and constantly wanted an adult by her side. If at times she did calm down
and you left her for a moment, she would begin crying once again. As weeks went on, she
showed major improvement, crying every so often, only for a few minutes. Although I
did notice she would cry when easily frustrated, not necessarily for her mother.
The remaining children displayed signs of anxious-avoidant insecure
attachment in that they explored freely on their own, playing, somewhat interacting with
each other.
At the start of my placement, Joey displayed signs of aggressive behavior
whereby he was unable to keep his hands to himself several times. At times he would
engage in rough and tumble play with others a little younger than himself. As a result,
some children kept away from him, or backed away when approached. I believe this is
due to his presence in a new setting with others his age and may be unsure how he is
expected to act. He may have been upset or frustrated, not understanding why he is at the
ECC. Therefore, he displayed his emotions through aggressive play, making sense
because depression in children is expressed through aggression. Joey’s behaviors
improved throughout the placement as a result of adapting to his new surroundings and
realizing it is a place of discipline.
On the other hand, Steven misbehaved throughout the entire placement. He did
50
�not display signs of aggressive behaviors, only problems with listening. He ignored any
instructions given, often told numerous times until he did listen. In addition, if others
were not listening, he would approach them telling them what they should be doing. He
exemplified the understanding that rules need to be followed but failed to do so himself.
As time progressed, I noticed the children were beginning to show an interest in
being at the ECC. The attachment styles eventually dissipated, although some of the
children did cry at arrival, which then stopped upon entering the classroom. They began
interacting with others, but still displayed some signs of solitary play. As days passed,
they began socializing taking part in playing with each other.
I was able to confirm theories on pretend play scenarios presented by Bornstein
et al. (1996). When observing the children, I noticed make believe role playing occurring
throughout the classroom with one another.
About three weeks into my placement, I noticed more significant amounts of
pretend play occurring than in the beginning. Many of the children were taking part in
make believe scenarios, particularly one child named Steven. Steven became fascinated
with a doll insisting he play with and only with the doll. He was not interested in any
other toys, or partaking in any activities. At some points he would place the doll in a
highchair in the play kitchen, sitting alongside, feeding her and talking to her. A few
times he asked me to wrap her in a blanket and put her in his shopping cart. He would
take the doll shopping, placing some toys from around the room in the cart. When
playtime was over, he would place her with the rest of the dolls telling her to go to sleep.
One of the teachers believes this is due to him having an infant baby sister at home, and
reenacting the role of taking care of a baby.
In addition, according to Bogdan (2005), he believes there are three types of
activities taking place within pretend play. A child usually engages in role playing, plays
with functional objects, and bases their play on shared behavioral scripts. Two of the
children, Natalie and Michael, were both pushing a shopping cart around the classroom
with a doll in the baby seat. Natalie stated “Come on honey, we need to buy the baby
some toys” to Michael. By observing this, I was able to confirm role playing based on
shared behavioral scripts.
Also, Joey would sometimes ask me to sit in the play kitchen so he can cook me
dinner. He would set the table with dishes and utensils and tell me “The food is almost
ready.” He would then place food on the table telling me “It’s hot don’t touch!” At times,
he pretended to have burned himself on the stove.
In addition, Michael would frequently pretend to be a cashier in the play
kitchen. The remaining children were given play money by Michael and were asked to
51
�come buy some food. The children lined up, some with dolls in shopping carts, and
bought several foods. The first thought that came to mind was the imitation of life based
on what they observed in both the household as well as settings outside the home.
Also, according to Bornstein et al. (1996) and their discussion in language
competence among children in the play situation, I was able to confirm the differences
between the males and females. When engaged in various activities throughout the
classroom, girls tended to talk more than the boys. I was also better able to understand the
girls, and observed they were more sociable than the boys. Those children who did not
have fully developed language, only speaking in phrases, were engaged in more solitary
play. I was unable to understand what these children were saying to me, only a few
words, but realized other children did understand them. As a result, these children acted
as a translator telling me what the child was trying to say.
According to Meyers (2005), egocentric self inability to understand another
point of view, is present in children. In other words, the child believes only their point of
view matters and can be perceived by others. This was clearly evident among the children
in that they only care about their own reasoning, not an adult’s. When the children were
given instructions, some can be resistant at first asking “Why?”. When given an
explanation, they asked “But why?” It was an ongoing pattern among them.
Besides working with children between the ages of 2.5 and 3, I had the chance
to observe children between the ages of 3 and 5. The major difference I observed among
the children is independence. When I arrived for the first time to work with the older
children, I was asked to assist them in the bathroom. I approached a young girl at the sink
asking her if she needed any help, attempting to place some soap on her hand. She
grabbed it from me saying “I can do it myself!” The first thought that came to my mind
was how mature and independent they were compared to the younger children. It seemed
as though she was offended when someone offered any assistance. I realized I was still at
the mind level of 2 ½ year olds. At this point, I felt the need to once again connect with
the children at yet another mind level.
I was able to relate my observations of the older children to Eikson’s view
discussed by Meyers (2005). He believed some children at the preschool age are in the
“autonomy vs. shame and doubt” stage whereby they express independence.
III. Conclusions
Overall, social interaction, pretend play, and the imitation of life among children
between the ages of 2.3 to 3 years old play a major role in child development. These
activities during childhood are the building blocks for the development of a person.
52
�Pretend play is considered a fun way of learning and what child does not want to play?
As mentioned above, social interaction, pretend play, and the imitation of life
allow for a child to enter a world of imagination. Through imagination, a child leaves the
world of reality and enters a world of play, a world of learning, free of restraints.
Of all previous research on pretend play in childhood, I believe Bogdan’s (2005)
view is the strongest when supporting the importance of pretend play in childhood.
Pretending for a child is acting out imaginary scenarios. It is an imitation of life. What a
child sees, a child does. Bogdan (2005) believes pretend play is a type of self-training
which molds and prepares you for the real world.
In addition, I strongly agree with Piaget’s beliefs mentioned in the previous
literature. Piaget, believed children learn about relationships through play and exploration
of the environment. I honestly feel if a child is able to interact with others starting at a
young age, they will be able to form relationships throughout life very easily. Piaget once
stated “children construct knowledge by active exploration” (Bonawitz & Schulz, 2007).
My placement at the Early Childhood Center was a wonderful learning
experience. I was able to gain insight on how children learn through play. Being able to
observe children has given me a better understanding of how children learn at an early
age. I have been thinking of working with children in the future for a while now, but this
experience has clearly made up my mind.
IV. References
1.
Bogdan, R.J. (2005). “Pretending as Imaginative Rehearsal for Cultural
Conformity”, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 5 (1-2), 191-213.
2.
Bonawitz, E.B., & Schulz, L.E. (2007). “Serious Fun: Preschoolers Engage in More
Exploratory Play When Evidence is Confounded”, Journal of Developmental
Psychology, 43(4), 1045-1050.
3.
Bornstein, H., Haynes, M.O., O’Reilly, A.W., & Painter, K.M. (1996). “Solitary and
Collaborative Pretense Play in Early Childhood: Sources of Individual Variation in
the Development of Representational Competence”, Journal of Child Development,
67, 2910-2929.
4.
Casby, M.W. (2003). “Developmental Assessment of Play: A Model for Early
Intervention”, Journal of Communication Disorders Quarterly, 24(4), 175-183.
53
�5.
Elder, J., & Pederson, D. (1978). “Preschool Children’s use of Objects in Symbolic
Play”, Journal of Child Development, 49, 500-504.
6.
El’Konin, D.B. (1966). “Symbolics and its Role in the Play of Children”, Journal of
Soviet Education, 8, 35-41.
7.
Fein, G.G. (1989). “Pretend Play in Childhood: An Integrative Review”, Journal of
Child Development, 52, 1095-1118.
Kearsely, R.B., O’Leary, K., Zelazo, P.R., & Ungerer, J.A. (1981). “Developmental
Changes in the Representation of Objects in Symbolic Play from 18 to 34 Months of
Age”, Journal of Child Development, 52, 186-195.
8.
9.
Koch, S., & Leary, S.K. (Eds.). (1992). A Century of Psychology as Science.
Washington, DC: McGraw-Hill.
10. Meyers, D. (2005). Exploring Psychology, 6th edition, New York: Worth Publishers.
11. Slade, A. (1987). “Quality of Attachment and Early Symbolic Play”, Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 23(1), 78-85.
12. Vygotsky, L.S. (1967). “Play and its Role in the Mental Development of the Child”,
Journal of Soviet Psychology, 5, 6-18.
54
�Section IV: Critical Essays
�Atonement, Guilt and Masochism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe:
Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig
Austin Handcock (English and French Studies)1
Rejection of modern post-industrial society and its subsequent lifestyle pervades
throughout literature, art and science in fin-de-siècle Europe. This zeitgeist of historical
pessimism led writers such as Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig to a
pessimistic view of the male, who as the sex charged with leadership of the human race,
was guilty of leading humanity into the industrialized age which these writers found so
unlivable. Man’s folly was a sin against all humanity, but particularly against the
patriarch’s traditional charges: women who were seen as innocent victims led astray by
their male leaders, and the next generation. In atonement for their sin Baudelaire, Zweig
and Mann idolize these innocents, and this atonement is at the root of these writers’
fascination with Masochism.
Heilleiner defines historical pessimism in his “Essay on the Rise of Historical
Pessimism in the Nineteenth Century” (1942) as a pessimistic view of “what place men
assigned their own epoch in relation to the past and particularly to the future…as defined
by the contemporary ‘time-consciousness’ ” (Helleiner 514-15). This “time
consciousness”, according to Helleiner, exists not only separately from the realms of
Philosophy and History, but in fact serves as the edifice of the prevailing historical
philosophy (Heilleiner 515). The time consciousness of fin-de-siècle Europe as defined
through the theories of decadence and degeneration (West) is decidedly pessimistic; the
prevailing thought of the late nineteenth century was that European society had run its
course and factors such as the stress of life in the industrialized metropolis and the
degeneration of the human gene pool would soon lead to the fall of the Modern European
Empire.
These factors of society’s degeneration seemed to have their roots in empirical
science. As European society advanced itself towards industrialization, a higher standard
of living and the centralization of different ethnicities in urban areas was to many
scientists a society which had escaped from Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” rule for the
1
Written under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the teamtaught Honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-theCentury Paris, Vienna and Berlin.
56
�advancement of a species (West). The evidence of this degeneration of the human gene
pool was found in the “depopulation” of Europe in the late nineteenth century which
France, already demoralized after the loss of the Franco-Prussian War, was the first to
witness in the 1850s (Offen 650). Heilleiner suggests that “the invasion of History by
Natural Science” (Heilleiner 535) such as the work of Darwin, not only provided a
rationale for the pessimism of the fin-de-siècle, but also furthered pessimism towards an
overall feeling of nihilism. By replacing God as the driving force of human history with
science, mankind found that blame for his failures could only rest on his own shoulders.
However, contemporary thought often did not place blame for society’s woes on all of
mankind, but instead focused its blame on men. Offen describes the placement of guilt
upon the male in relation to the European depopulation in “Depopulation, Nationalism,
and Feminism in Fin-de-Siècle France” (1984). Using the views of Jacques Bertillion, the
founder of the Alliance Nationale pour l’Accroisement de la Population Française, Offen
demonstrates that the contemporary view of the cause of depopulation was that it was a
“man’s issue” caused by a lack of “patriarchal pride” (Offen 648). As absurd as it may
have been for Bertillon and his contemporaries to dismiss the role of women, they
nonetheless remained innocent of any blame in the “time-consciousness” of the era. It
seems that man, by replacing God with the ideals of progress and science had, by leading
society into the industrialized age, taken the burden of original sin off of the shoulders of
Eve and onto his own. The guilt of this new original sin prevails in the works of Charles
Baudelaire, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig as these writers show the callous and selfdestructive nature of man in relation to the women and children who they exonerate of
their transgression through idolization.
Throughout his works, Baudelaire idolized the Vieux Paris which man had
destroyed in his push towards industrialization. Baudelaire creates a manifesto for his
view of the inhospitable Post-Industrialization Paris in his poem The Swan (1861). Using
the metaphor of the Swan without water to symbolize mankind in a modern world devoid
of humanity, Baudelaire expresses humankind’s inability to cope with a society that has
progressed too fast for its people to keep pace; “The form of a city changes more quickly
alas! than the human heart” (Baudelaire). Baudelaire’s description of the city where both
he and the swan wander alludes to the Vieux Paris which Baudelaire loves; “the new
Carousel” fails to match his nostalgia for the old Carousel, described in the third stanza.
Baudelaire then mentions that the Carousel used to be the location of a menagerie. This
allusion to royalty allows the reader to infer that the swan has been released from this
menagerie to fend for itself in world which it is not suited, and creates a political message
that man’s progress towards capitalistic republics may have been false. Without the
57
�royalty there to care for the swan, the swan is free but lost; just as mankind is lost under
the republic where his freedom has become a burden. This burden of personal
responsibility leads Baudelaire to reminisce over the society which man has squandered
in the name of progress, which make his memories “heavier than rocks”.
The following stanzas of The Swan shift their focus from Baudelaire and the
swan to the story of Andromache weeping for her husband at the banks of the River
Simoïs, thereby creating a parallel between the forsaken Paris and the forsaken woman.
Andromache is the ultimate symbol for a woman’s devotion to her man. In fin-de-siècle
Europe this devotion has become tragic, as the male has led women down the same selfdestructive path he has taken. By alluding to the Greeks, Baudelaire also draws
comparisons between Modern Europe and the fallen civilization of Ancient Greece. The
modern Parisian woman replaces Andromache, using the Seine as her Simoïs, as she
weeps over her man and his society as they rot in decay. Baudelaire furthers this
idolization of women in To a Passerby (1861).
An ambiguous and universal “woman” passes Baudelaire on the streets of
industrialized Paris as they “roar with a deafening sound”, which prevents
communication between the two as they pass. The woman is described as being in “heavy
morning (and) majestic grief”, much like the Simoïs mourning over decay in The Swan.
However, in the context of the poem’s shifting narrative voice, “The street (3rd person)…
I drank (1st) … O you (2nd)”, Baudelaire could very well be the party in this majestic grief
over the sins of the male. The passerby, unlike the Simoïs, does not allow the man
(Baudelaire) to corrupt her as he has corrupted his world. The verse “For I know not
where you fled, you know not where I go” tells the reader that this woman stopped
following the man with blind faith, and instead runs from him and his self-destructive
nature. However, it is “too late” for the woman to change her course because she is
victim to the same fall of civilization as the rest of Europe. Baudelaire once again
demonstrates this by alluding to Ancient Greece with the verse “Her leg was like
statue’s” reminding the reader of that women are victims of the approaching “eternity”,
which in the pessimistic philosophy of the time period connotes the approaching collapse
of civilization into emptiness; Nietzsche described the contemporary view of the future as
a belief that there would be no “day after (tomorrow)” (Heilleiner 536) because of the
degeneration that man has brought upon himself.
Similar to Baudelaire, Thomas Mann’s allusions to Ancient Greece build a
metaphor about the hopelessness of modernity in the novella Death in Venice (1912).
Like Baudelaire’s Paris, Mann presents his own city in decay with the romanticized city
of Venice under the spread of cholera. The city itself had long been regarded in
58
�nineteenth century thought as a “timeless” place (Leppman 67), which in combination
with Mann’s use of a “classist” style, allows the author to disorient the reader’s sense of
time reference. Mann uses this disorientation as a way to further the impact of his
allusions to fallen civilizations (by the fourth paragraph he has already alluded to the
Romans, Byzantines Greeks). By imparting his story with a timeless quality, he implies
that this tale of a civilization’s downfall is not mere fiction, but rather the story of all
great civilizations which must eventually perish. Aschenbach, the main character, lives
in a “rustic cottage” and his dedicated work ethic recalls quiet, dignified nobility that
seems out of place in the fin-de-siècle era. Mann describes Aschenbach as a man “ready
for life in the world before its time” (Mann 12), however like Baudelaire, Aschenbach
cannot escape the reality of man’s post-industrialized world.
This reality is that the post-industrialized world has no place for beauty or
passion, and Aschenbach’s downfall results from his submission to passion over his
restrained and professional persona. The young Polish boy Tadzio, the object of
Aschenbach’s desire, is the representation of beauty itself and is described as “of
consummate beauty” so great that he “had never beheld anything so accomplished, be it
in nature or art” (Mann 45). For Aschenbach, Tadzio’s idealized beauty results from his
innocence; as a young boy who has not yet entered the capitalist work force, Tadzio has
escaped the burden of guilt described by Heilleiner. Mann furthers Tadzio’s innocence
from the sin of the male by giving him an androgynous appearance “honey colored
hair…lovely mouth” (Mann 45). Tadzio’s uncorrupted and natural beauty represents for
Aschenbach the ideal of a natural “fiery, playful fancy, the product of joy” (Mann 9),
which Aschenbach has never been able to achieve through his rigid work as a writer, but
has always desired as his crowning achievement (Mann 9). Mann uses imagery in
Tadzio’s description as a “Greek statue” (Mann 9), to further Tadzio as a symbol of
natural and innocent beauty. The image of the Greek statue of pure white marble
symbolizes a beauty which is untainted by history or reality and exists as a piece of
beauty for the sake of beauty alone.
Unable to create the same natural beauty that Tadzio embodies, Aschenbach’s
diligent and methodical creative process is overly stressful and likened to a clenched fist,
rather than a hand at rest. However successful this method may be for Aschenbach, the
constant demands he places upon himself lead him to illness (Mann 13). Aschenbach’s
overly ambitious work habits serve as a metaphor for the male’s blind drive for progress
which has led his society into the illness of the industrialized era. Man’s constant drive
towards progress has made passion and beauty impossible, therefore when Aschenbach
gives in to his passion, it leads to a complete loss of dignity, and ultimately to death.
59
�Aschenbach’s attempt at vanity and subsequent demise symbolize the futility of attempts
at beauty in man’s industrialized world; in man’s drive for progress he has sacrificed art,
and to believe that beauty still has a place within the industrialized world is as false as
Aschenbach’s makeup; therefore Aschenbach’s only method of survival in the world the
male has created for himself is to continue his constant drive for progress by ending his
vacation early and escaping the plague (Mann 69). However, this same drive for progress
has driven Aschenbach to illness in the past (Mann 13). This is Aschenbach’s dilemma;
Modernity and its frantic pace are too much for him and lead him to exhaustion, but to
chase Tadzio’s natural and innocent beauty will lead to illness as well.
This same paradox imposes itself on the city of Venice. The Venetian
government denies the presence of the disease in order to maintain its industry which is
based on the ideal of Venice as a city of beauty (Mann 98), however the disease itself
stems from Venice’s idealized beauty; cholera is a disease transmitted through
contaminated water, and Venice’s charm is largely based on its canal system. The
Venetian government’s corruption places guilt on to the male as the unsuspecting tourists
fall victim to the disease. Throughout the epidemic, Tadzio and his other young
playmates remain uninfected by the disease while the older Aschenbach and others die in
Venice. However, Mann’s description of Tadzio reveals that despite his beauty and
innocence, he too will one day fall victim to the inhospitable industrialized world: “he is
sickly, thought Aschenbach” (Mann 62). Mann foreshadows that eventually Tadzio will
fall victim to the same fate as others in the industrialized world and his beauty will be
lost.
Like Baudelaire and Mann, Stefan Zweig also idolizes the victims of man’s
industrialized world in his epistolary work Letter from an Unknown Woman (1922).
Zweig’s unnamed woman serves the same purpose as Baudelaire’s anonymous passerby
in To a Passerby; by leaving the woman’s identity unknown, he presents a commentary
on all women. Zweig also makes his man the anonymous “writer R.” (Zweig 182) to
symbolize the male in general. Zweig furthers the woman’s ambiguity by classifying her
in four traditional roles: the young girl, the young adult, the prostitute and the mother.
Three of these four roles convey the innocence of the traditional view of women; the girl,
the young woman, and the mother are devoid of sexuality and act towards the male with
an innocent and naïve infatuation. The woman refers to R., a man who repeatedly rejects
her love, as “darling” (Zweig) and despite the unrequited nature of their romance, she
“remember(s) every passionate detail of their relationship” (Zweig 184). The woman’s
exaggerated naivety allows Zweig to create a strong sense of Pathos towards women who
have been abused by their patriarchs. The woman follows her man back to Vienna and
60
�gives him her virginity, but R. treats her callously and forsakes his patriarchal
responsibilities as he takes on more and more partners without ever returning the love
these women feel towards him. The writer’s sexual conquests serve as a metaphor for the
male’s drive for progress, and like the men who brought about the Industrial Revolution,
he forsakes women in his drive for the ‘more is better’ view of industrialized society.
Much like Baudelaire’s dying Paris and Mann’s plague, Zweig’s male protagonist is
charged for his sins when he finds out about the death of this young child and the woman
kills herself after sending him a farewell letter. This tragedy is a symbol for the decay of
society brought about the inhumanity of the industrialized world; the death of a mother
and child can only contribute to the plague of depopulation.
The fourth role of the woman in this text, however, is decidedly against the
traditional role of the “fairer sex”. The prostitute represents the notion of the “femme
fatale” who uses her sexuality to prey on men rather than rely on them, but somehow the
woman in this work retains the Pathos of a woman completely devoted to man. Zweig
accomplishes this by showing that the woman’s decision to sell herself is done only for
the sake of R. The idolization of the innocence of femininity is never questioned.
The woman’s devotion to R. and her willingness to sell her own body in order to
serve him are classical characteristic of masochism as outlined in the novella Venus In
Furs (1870) by Leopold von Sacher Masoch. Masoch’s novella is the tale of a man
named Severin, who in order to maintain a relationship with Wanda, the woman he
idolizes, becomes her personal slave and relishes her abuse as it serves as proof of his
devotion. Zweig’s novella certainly portrays the description of a masochistic relationship
as the female protagonist endures mistreatment all the while continuing to see her lover
as the intellectual and moral superior, and lives vicariously through his happiness “I lived
only through you in those days” (Zweig 193). The woman’s Masochism serves as
Zweig’s greatest tool for Pathos as the reader sees the error of the woman’s sacrificial
relationship to a man who is beyond moral reproach. Zweig uses this Pathos through the
use of metafiction; the woman’s letter is actually a text within a text. Masoch’s work also
makes use of metafiction. The story of Severin and Wanda is actually a manuscript given
to Severin by an unnamed mentor as a thinly veiled warning of the dangers of the
submissive relationship he plans to develop with the real life Wanda. Both works also
serve to teach lessons to their readers. As Zweig’s story ends, R. has a revelation of the
sin he has committed against his “undying love” and feels the “cold current” (Zweig 211)
of remorse sweep over him. With this revelation, Zweig adds a final message that men
are guilty of mistreating the women that rely on them, and if they do not resist their
hunger for progress soon the “flowers in the vase” (Zweig 211) will be gone as their
61
�world falls into decay. Zweig’s open ending leaves room for R. to repent for his sins
against women.
During the fin-de-siècle, the rise of feminism was certainly a source of blame for
the depopulation phenomena which afflicted most of Europe, however the prevailing
thought of the time, the era’s “time consciousness”, was that the inherent blame for the
degeneration of society lied on the shoulders of men. Writers such as Baudelaire, Mann
and Zweig all placed blame for the decay of society on man’s decision to progress into
modernity. In atonement for the sins of their gender, these writers idolized the feminine
and used masochism to further their penance for the unworthy male.
Works Consulted
Baudelaire, Charles. The Flowers of Evil. Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954.
Helleiner, K.F. “An Essay on the Rise of Historical Pessimism in the Nineteenth
Century”, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 1942. 514-36.
Leppmann, Wolfgang. “Time and Place in Death in Venice”, German Quarterly
1975. 66-75.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Von. Jewish Tales. Chicago: McClurg Comapany, 1894.
Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Von. Venus in Furs. New York: Tark Classic Fiction, 2008.
Noyes, John K. Mastery of Submission; The Inventions of Masochism. Ithaca: Cornell
UP, 1997.
Offen, Karen. “Depopulation, Nationalism and Feminism in Fin-de-Siècle France”,
American Historical Review. 1984. 648-73.
Thum, Reinhard H. The City: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Vehaeren. New York: Peter Lang,
1994.
West, Shearer, Fin-de Siècle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty. NewYork:
Overlook Hardcovers, 1994.
Zweig, Stefan. The Royal Game and Other Stories. New York: Holmes and Meier, 2000.
62
�The Need for Creativity in the Physics Laboratory
Rebecca Giannattasio (Physics)1
The United States is facing a great deficit of technical minds. Many would-be scientists
are never discovered because of a negative experience with science in high school. The
secondary level physics laboratory experiments as well as those at the introductory
collegiate level are highly undervalued and a greater emphasis on creativity might be the
solution. Physics should be taught in such a way that is engaging and effective; science
classrooms should uphold the same academic integrity as other disciplines. Students
should be expected to write research papers and laboratory reports, design and execute
experimental procedures, analyze error analysis, and clearly present classroom material
before their peers. All of these skills are true of scientists and other technical
professionals. A special attempt to design low cost experiments that can be tailored to
either educational level is essential to encourage young scientists and engineers. The
teaching of these skills in high school and at the beginning of college will cultivate a new
generation of technical minds.
I. Introduction
In March 2005, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) published
“Trends in Undergraduate Career Education.” By comparing data from the Completions
Survey of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System (IPEDS) and the Higher Education General Information Survey
(HEGIS), the NCES found that the number subbaccalaureate and baccalaureate degrees
awarded in engineering and architectural fields (including science and math, but not
medical or computer fields) declined from the 1984-1985 to 2000-2001 school years.
Subbaccalaureate degrees in these areas declined by 5.8% and baccalaureate degrees
declined by 4.2%. The NCES suggests that since the number of degrees awarded in these
technical fields declined for both subbaccalaureate and baccalaureate students, there must
also be a decline in the jobs available in that career market.2 The United States Department
of Labor (DoL) Occupation Statistics show a similar trend. In 1998, technical fields
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics) in partial fulfillment
of the Senior Program requirements.
2
Hudson, Lisa, and Ellen Carey. Trends in Undergraduate Career Education. National
Center for Education Statistics. U.S. Department of Education, 2005. 1-3. 14 Mar. 2008
<http://nces.ed.gov>.
63
�comprised 4.7% of the American workforce. As predicted, in 2001 the figures fell to
4.52%.3 Yet, statistics in 2006 do not follow this trend. The percentage of engineering and
architectural baccalaureate degrees fell from 6.5% in 2001 to 5.4% in 2006,4 while the
percentage of jobs in the same fields rose from 4.52% to 5.0%.5 This discrepancy in
statistical data suggests that when the current technical workers retire, there will not be
enough qualified people to fill the open jobs. Since there are not enough people graduating
in science related fields, it might be assumed students are not given adequate exposure to
technical fields before postsecondary education.
Organizations such as the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)
and the National Science Teacher’s Association (NSTA) have released guidelines for
science classrooms in order to pursue excellence in the quality of education as well as to
provide students with an in depth exposure to science in high school. As explained by the
National Research Council (NRC), “A school laboratory investigation (also referred to as
a lab) is defined as an experience in the laboratory, classroom, or the field that provides
students with opportunities to interact directly with natural phenomena or with data
collected by others using tools, materials, data collection techniques, and models.”6 The
writers of these criteria are specific that a lab should be an “experience” that allows
students to “interact directly” with physical properties. The NSTA’s formal position
statement on science courses explains specific skills students should acquire as a result of
these experiences.
Throughout the process, students should have opportunities to design
investigations, engage in scientific reasoning, manipulate equipment, record
data, analyze results, and discuss their findings. These skills and knowledge,
fostered by laboratory investigations, are an important part of inquiry—the
process of asking questions and conducting experiments as a way to understand
the natural world. 7
With this in mind, laboratory experiments should not simply allow students interaction with
phenomena, but challenge them to create, discover, present, and analyze the phenomena as
3
"Occupational Employment Statistics." U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor
Statistics. 24 Oct. 2007. 01 Mar. 2008 <http://www.bls.gov>.
4
"Digest of Education Statistics." National Center for Education Statistics. June 2007.
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. 04 Apr. 2008 <http://nces.ed.gov>.
5
“Occupational Employment Statistics.”
6
National Research Council (NRC). 2006. America’s lab report: Investigations in high
school science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. p3.
7
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). 2004. NSTA Position Statement:
Scientific Inquiry.
64
�well. These ideals also give teachers ideas of how to create diverse lesson plans to allow
students with different learning styles opportunities to fully understand the material.
The NSTA has certain expectations for lesson plans in the high school physics
classroom. Students should receive instruction every day and have opportunities to
collect data weekly. Laboratory experiments should help increase students’ understanding
of the concepts being explored and the group work involved should challenge students to
complete complex tasks together and to assume different roles within the group.8 With so
much for the physics teacher to consider, the guidelines of the NSTA and AAPT help
give a teacher clear goals to follow during class. According to the NSTA and NRC a
laboratory course should:
have a definite purpose that is communicated clearly to students.
focus on the processes of science as a way to convey content.
incorporate ongoing student reflection and discussion
enable students to develop safe and conscientious lab habits and
procedures.9
Similarly, the AAPT’s Classroom Guidelines are clear that effective physics teaching
includes:
laboratory activities as an integral part of classroom instruction.
interactive demonstrations
opportunities to make presentations to classmates on topics being studied.10
According to these standards, teachers should make their purpose and goals for the class
and make those goals clear to students. Teachers can use experiments, reports, and
presentations to teach content in alternative ways to lecture-based lessons. By making
reflection and discussion an integral part of the classroom, students might begin to feel
more comfortable using their critical thinking skills and presenting information to groups
of people. Laboratory activities and procedures are important for students to participate
in, in order to learn laboratory etiquette. Even the students who are not pursuing science
any further than high school will have the opportunity to learn to how to work with their
peers, follow directions, solve problems, and present information. When using
demonstrations, teachers should make sure to do so in such a way to keep students
involved.
8
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). 2007. NSTA Position Statement: The
Integral Role of Laboratory Investigations in Science Instruction. p2.
9
NRC 2006, 101-102
10
American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). 2002. AAPT Guidelines for High
School Physics Programs. p10.
65
�The use of interactive demonstrations is also helpful for teachers to appeal to
students of all learning styles. To illustrate magnetic fields, a teacher could make a threedimensional magnetic field in a bottle as suggested by Richard Cannon of Southeast
Missouri State University of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Cannon suggests using a 250-ml
gas bottle, 15-cm test tube, #12 cork stopper, clear tubing, a cow magnet, and 25 g of iron
fillings.11 Students can look at and hold the bottle to gain greater understanding of
magnetic fields. Similarly, students can demonstrate the properties of friction as in
Jonathan Reichert’s article “How Did Friction Get So ‘Smart’?”
Imagine a block of plastic on a smooth wooden horizontal plane. Is there any
frictional force acting on the block? Certainly not any in the horizontal direction.
If there were such a force, it would cause the block to accelerate in the particular
horizontal direction that this frictional force was acting. Since the block remains
at rest, there is no frictional force. Now tilt the wooden plane an angle. Suppose
the block remains at the same location on the plane; it does not slide. There must
be a frictional force acting on the block in the direction along the plane and to
the right. Tilt the plane in the other direction at [the same] angle and again the
block remains at rest along the plane. There must be a frictional force acting,
this time to the left. If the plane is returned to its original horizontal position, the
friction disappears.12
According to Reichert, the most important question is “How did the friction ‘know’ to
change direction when we changed the [direction of the] plane’s angle?”13 Students have
the opportunity to lift the horizontal plane themselves, change its direction, and find how
much to tilt it in order to get the box to slide. This might be an excellent introduction to
friction; after seeing this demonstration, students will have a foundation of understanding
to then learn the equations and properties associated with friction. A third useful
demonstration illustrates lens polarization. Gerd Kortemeyer from Michigan State
University suggests using the Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) of basic pocket calculators
to illustrate the use of lens polarization in students’ daily lives. Kortemeyer suggests that
a teacher should remove all the top polarizer layers from the calculators before class.
During the lesson, the students will perform a simple calculation on the calculator. Since
the top polarizer is gone, the students will not be able to see their results. The teacher will
pass out the polarizer layers to each student and they can hold it over the screen to see his
11
Cannon, Richard. “Three-Dimensional Magnetic Field in a Bottle”. The Physics
Teacher. Volume 29. Number 5. May 1991. p311.
12
Reichert, Jonathan F. “How Did Friction Get So ‘Smart’?” The Physics Teacher.
Volume 39. Number 1. January 2001. p29-31.
13
Reichert, 29.
66
�or her results.14 This demonstration, coupled with lecture based learning about lens
polarization, will aid in students’ in depth understanding of polarization concepts.
Another tool for teachers to illustrate classroom concepts is the NSTA Science
Objects. The NSTA has created these computer-based tools to enhance the science
classroom and give teachers an alternative way of introducing new concepts. These
Science Objects can be used for a whole class, but are best suited for individual
exploration. For example, the Science Object based on Newton’s First Law of Motion,
begins with two videos. In the first, a plastic cup is placed on a table with an index card
on top. A quarter is placed on the index card. Next, someone flicks the index card off the
cup in such a way that the quarter falls into the cup. The second video is similar, but
shows a man pulling the tablecloth out from underneath three place settings on a table. At
the end of this section, students are encouraged to try one, or both, themselves.15 The cup,
index card, and quarter would be easy and inexpensive to demonstrate in class. The next
section of this Science Object leads students through a logic-based discovery of the
Inertia Law; they establish this law as “Objects at rest tend to remain at rest unless acted
on by an unbalanced external force.”16 To finish this section, the students have a moment
to gain clarification and then check their understanding by answering a series of
questions. They are able to check their answers immediately to aid in the learning
process. The next section challenges the first by showing a video of objects such as a
book and a golf ball being pushed, but eventually stopping. There is an optional hands-on
activity is as follows:
Grab a few things from around the house---some you can roll across the floor (a
ball, toy car, rolling pin, or glass) and some you can slide across the floor (a box,
a book, or your cat, who won't get out from in front of the refrigerator). Roll and
slide these things across various level surfaces, such as tile and carpet. Watch
carefully what happens. What do they do? Speed up, slow down, or keep going
forever?17
Students will discover that ultimately, the things they pushed or rolled across the floor
will slow down and stop. Next, they are asked to think of examples of objects in every
day life that move without slowing down or stopping. There are several examples on the
page with descriptions as to their validity. To begin to describe the phenomena of
14
Kortemeyer, Gerd. “Little Gems: A Polarizer Demo Using LCDs”. The Physics
Teacher. Volume 46. Number 1. January 2008. p58.
15
"Learning Objects: Newton's First Law." The NSTA Learning Center. National Science
Teacher Association. 16 Mar. 2008 <http://www.nsta.org>.
16
Learning Objects: Newton’s First Law.
17
Learning Objects: Newton’s First Law.
67
�friction, there are videos of a ball rolling on three differently sloped tracks and asking
questions for understanding. The next activity allows students to change the amount of
friction on a track to model ice, hardwood flooring, sandpaper, low pile carpet, deep pile
carpet, grass, and Velcro. The computer program models how a ball would roll on these
materials. Once friction is established, the final law is written as, “Every object persists in
its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that
state by forces impressed upon it”18 and the word “intertia” is introduced. To conclude
the Science Object, common misconceptions are addressed and a short quiz is presented
to evaluate understanding. A teacher would be best to do one section at a time with
students to be sure students understand the concepts and to keep their attention. Other
Science Objects from the NSTA include Mechanics, Energy, Matter, Sound, and Light,
as well as topics in Astronomy, Biology, Ecology, Earth Science, and Chemistry. These
free, computer-based teaching tools are excellent ways for a teacher to introduce
technology into the classroom.
While these demonstrations and computer activities are helpful tools for learning
and teaching, a teacher should not depend on them. The NRC has stated, “While reading
about science, using computer simulations, and observing teacher demonstrations may be
valuable, they are not a substitute for laboratory investigations by students.”19 Actual,
hands-on laboratory experiments are the best way for students to learn concepts from an
inquiry point of view. Creativity on the part of the teacher, as well as the student, is
crucial.
The NSTA and AAPT are both clear that creativity is an integral part of the
learning process. One way of including creativity in the lab course would be to give
students a problem to solve and allow them to create their own process and method of
solving it. Students will have to practice problem solving skills as well as reasoning skills
to be able to asses the success of an experimental design. This type of experiment will
give students the opportunity to present their procedure and results to the class. The
opportunity to present in the physics classroom is not only important to learning
professional laboratory skills, but will be beneficial to students in every area of life.
Every profession includes opportunities to present information to an audience.
Giving students the opportunity to present gives them confidence and pride in
their work. Undergraduate institutions continue to be involved in science conferences to
share research and foster a sense of scientific community. High school level science
conferences would encourage pride and confidence as well as get students excited about
18
19
Learning Objects: Newton’s First Law.
NRC 2006, 3.
68
�science. When students spend time designing an experiment, carrying it out, and
analyzing their data, they will be eager to share what happened. Students might even
want to participate in such an event multiple times.
Allowing teachers to be creative is just as important. Perhaps a more appropriate
word for creative, in this instance, would be innovative. Teachers must find new and
exciting ways to introduce material. They should be able to peak students’ interest, hold
their attention, and still be able to communicate the lesson content clearly so students
gain understanding of the material. The use of innovation in laboratory experiments will
keep material fresh, as well as exciting. An innovative teacher will, hopefully, encourage
and inspire creativity in his or her students. It is especially important that experiments are
designed so that it is possible for students to gather incorrect data. This way students
must problem solve to correct their procedure requiring active participation. All too often,
experiments are cut and dry and students rush through the procedure in order to finish
and end up missing the intent of the experiment. Creativity on the part of the teacher is
essential in keeping a class of students engaged. If students are engaged, they are more
likely to absorb material and less likely to be distracted from the lesson.
Second in importance to students understanding lesson material, students should
learn laboratory procedures. A critical component of this should be the discussion and
application of data analysis and error. Students should know how to read a graph and
interpret what it might mean. Teachers can encourage this by assigning graphing projects
along with each experiment. For example, if the experiment was to find the gravitational
force by dropping tennis balls from some height, students should be expected to plot the
distance the balls fell over what time and interpret their graph to find their experimental
terminal velocity. As well as being a useful tool for data interpretation, these graphing
assignments will help to enforce the subject matter addressed in the experiment.
Error analysis is equally as important as data analysis. A good scientist will use
their points of error to help refine an experimental procedure. However, the concepts of
data analysis are not simple. Some college students may be able to handle statistical
analysis with Χ2 tables, but that would be too much to expect from a high school
classroom. If a teacher’s goal is to teach students the skill of analyzing error, then the
traditional method is not appropriate either. When the following equation is used, it gives
students an unrealistic perception of experimental error analysis:
Measured Value – Expected Value
Expected Value
x 100 = Percent Error
69
�The flaw in this equation is the “Expected Value”. If teachers are trying to train a
generation of scientists and other technical professionals, they cannot assume an expected
value for anything. In any type of industry laboratory, the experiments have never been
performed and, therefore, no expected value exists. In his article “Having Fun With Error
Analysis”, Peter Siegel of California State Polytechnic University proposes an alternative
way to introduce error analysis to his students. He states the importance of teaching
uncertainty to physics students,
For the most part, students are more interested in the value of measurement itself
than its uncertainty. They tend to view error analysis as tedious busy work,
which takes away from the enjoyment of the experiment. This is unfortunate but
understandable since in undergraduate laboratory experiments, uncertainties
usually seem neither particularly relevant nor exciting to determine. To best
motivate the students, activities should be designed for which the uncertainty is
as important as the value of measurement itself.20
Siegel splits his class into several small groups and gives each group an empty
M&M bag, 10 loose M&Ms, and a scale. There is one unopened bag of M&Ms that each
group is given the opportunity to take measurements from. The class is told to figure out
how many M&Ms are in the bag as well as to estimate an amount of uncertainty. The
group closest to the actual number of M&Ms in the bag with the smallest uncertainty
wins the bag of M&Ms. Each group is given the freedom to establish their own
procedure, but most groups will measure the weight of the M&Ms in the bag by
subtracting the empty bag weight from the full bag weight. Students then acquire the
weight of an individual M&M by measuring all 10 loose candies and dividing by 10.
Most groups will find an amount of uncertainty by guessing. In a post-lab discussion,
Siegel teaches his class a technique for finding uncertainty:
We need to estimate the uncertainty for each of the three measurements and
propagate the errors. The absolute uncertainty in M is the sum of the absolute
uncertainties in Mbag and Mwrapper, ie., ∆M = ∆Mbag + ∆Mwrapper. The relative
uncertainty in N is the sum of the relative uncertainties in M and m [where m is
the mass of the individual M&Ms], i.e., ∆N/N = ∆M/M + ∆m/m. Using our
balance, whose smallest division on the scale is 0.1g, the engineering students
first estimated an instrument uncertainty of 0.1g for a single mass measurement:
Mbag = (90.2 ± 0.1) g and Mwrapper = (2.2 ± 0.1) g. This gives M = (88.0 ± 0.2) g,
or a .25% error in M…Adding the [percent error of M and m] results in a 1.45%
error or ± 1.5 in N. Since N for the different groups varied by more than one
20
Siegel, Peter. “Having Fun With Error Analysis.” The Physics Teacher. Volume 45,
Number 4. April 2007. p232.
70
�M&M, students felt that this error estimate was too small…After some
discussion, the class as a whole was comfortable with a 2.2% error [found with a
scale on 0.15g increments] or an uncertainty of N of 2 or 3.21
Using this classroom activity, students have an engaging, creative, and fun first
experience with error analysis and uncertainty. This type of analysis can be used with
each experimental assignment throughout the semester to reinforce practical laboratory
skills with students.
Participating in laboratory experiments is the most effective way to teach both
classroom material and laboratory skills. Therefore, it is essential that a physics teacher
have well thought out experiments and questions for students to consider. The following
are discussions on sample laboratory experiments for high school as well as introductory
physics laboratories.
II. Laboratory Experimental Procedures
Circuits LEDs
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are an inexpensive and effective indicator for use
in electricity experiments. Inspiration for this experiment came from Martha Lietz’s
article “Make a Mystery Circuit with a Bar Light Fixture” from the April 2007
publication of The Physics Teacher. The original experiment used “black box circuits”.
In a black box circuit, only the light bulbs are visible and the wiring in these
circuits is hidden from the students. The students are then presented with the
challenge of deducing the nature of the electrical connections hidden by the
black box. The students may remove one or more light bulbs from the circuit to
watch how the brightness of the other bulbs changes and, from this, deduce
which bulbs are connected in series and which are connected in parallel.22
In the case of this particular experiment, light bulbs were originally considered, but the
LEDs are a much safer option when used with a breadboard. The intention for this
experiment was to allow students exposure to technical materials while also exploring the
properties of series and parallel circuits. In order to create specific instructions for this
assignment, I spent time in the laboratory, building simple circuits and more complex
ones. I found that the circuits would short out if there were not equal amounts of LEDs
used. For example, if a parallel circuit were to be set up as in figure 1, only the green
21
Siegel, 233.
Lietz, Martha. “Make a Mystery Circuit with a Bar Light Fixture.” The Physics
Teacher. Volume 45, Number 4. April 2007. p244-245.
22
71
�Figue 1: Parallel Circuit
LED would light up because there would be too much resistance. However, if there were
two green LEDs and two yellow LEDs, all four would light up. This posed a problem
since one of my requirements for the college level students would be to construct a
complex circuit made of series and parallel LEDs. So, I spent more time working with the
circuits until I found my final design.
The use of LEDs in the classroom will also help students to make connections to
every day examples of circuits. Most traffic lights now use LEDs instead of a single bulb.
The LED Light website has a whole list of household and other products using LEDs
instead of more traditional light bulbs. Students will be able to observe the Physics
concepts learned in class outside of the classroom.
High School Experiment:
Goal: For students to make drawings of circuits. Several circuit boards will be set up
around the room and groups have an allotted time at each station. They can turn the
power source on to see the LEDs light up and make a conceptual drawing of how the
circuit is wired.
Materials:
9 LEDs (three yellow, green, red, or white LEDs)
Breadboard
Wires for connecting circuits
A 1ohm resistor
Voltmeter and Ammeter (for College level experiment)
Power Source
72
�Procedure:
1. Connect the power source to the circuit board.
2. Plug in the power source and turn it on.
3. Write a few sentences of observations.
4. Draw a diagram of the circuit.
5. Turn off the power supply, unplug it, and disconnect it from the circuit board.
6. Repeat above procedure at each station.
Thinking Points:
What did you notice about the LEDs in series? Why were they not all along the
same line?
What did you notice about the LEDs in parallel? Why were there even numbers
of LEDs?
What was difficult or simple about making drawings from the circuits observed?
College Experiment:
Goal: For students to construct several circuits based on drawings given in the
assignment. Each group will have a breadboard, a voltmeter, a ammeter, ten LEDs, a
1ohm resistor, wires, and a power source.
Materials:
9 LEDs (three yellow, green, red, or white LEDs)
Breadboard
Wires for connecting circuits
A 1ohm resistor
Voltmeter and Ammeter (for College level experiment)
Power Source
Procedure:
1. Measure the resistance for each LED. You will need this information in the
Thinking Points section, so it may be helpful to label your diagrams based on
which resistance LED is used.
2. Construct a circuit based on the drawings in the lab experiment assignment.
3. Connect the power source to the circuit board and turn it on.
4. Make note of which LEDs light up and which do not.
5. Turn off the power supply and disconnect it from the board.
6. Repeat for each diagram.
73
�Thinking Points:
Calculate the total resistance over each circuit.
What reasons might account for the LEDs that did not light up? What changes
could you make to the diagram in order that they all light up?
What makes LEDs practical and useful? What are some examples of common
uses of LEDs
Diagrams:
Circuit 1
Circuit 2
74
�Circuit 3
Circuit 4
75
�Circuit 5
Collisions
It is difficult to illustrate collisions in the physics classroom in such a way to
help students to understand the equations and lecture material; this is especially true of
the high school classroom when the force due to friction is traditionally ignored. Also,
many of the collision illustrations students are familiar with are not completely inelastic
and, therefore, more complicated. For example, many students are familiar with the game
of pool and can identify and explain what happens when a cue ball hits another ball. They
might say one ball goes in one direction and one goes in the other, or that the second will
follow the first and slowly roll to a stop. Yet, these are illustrations of elastics and
partially inelastic collisions.
This particular experiment was designed in an effort to show clearly an inelastic
collision in an inexpensive fashion. Cathy Abbot of Lexington High School in Lexington,
Massachusetts created the original experimental design as an alternative to the traditional
ballistic pendulum design. In her article in The Physics Teacher, Abbot says,
The basic physics treatment for this situation is similar to the ballistic-pendulum
problems that appear in every introductory text…While trying this as a
76
�demonstration with my class this year, I was pleased both with the level of
interest it generated, and the apparently reasonable results we got from our
calculations…Students were able to produce accurate, confirmable results using
very inexpensive materials (less than $3 for a complete classroom set.)23
Abbot’s experience with this experiment shows its effectiveness as an experiment in
allowing students the ability to get quality measurements that can be analyzed.
High School Experiment:
Goal: To observe inelastic collisions and compare expected (calculated) results to
experimental results.
Materials:
1 inch steel balls
Grooved Rulers
Stop watches
Clipboards
Graph paper
Balances
Paper cups or Chinese food cartons
Thick, light weight foam sponges
Procedure: Before the experiment is performed, the teacher will have assembled the
cup or food cartons with the sponges in order that the ball will fit securely without
rolling out.
1. Assemble a ramp by placing one end of the ruler on a stack of two textbooks.
2. Measure the weight of the steel ball and the cup/food carton with sponges secure
inside.
3. Tape the graph paper to the clipboard and place at the end of the ramp.
4. Place the cup/food carton at the end of the ramp so that the ball can roll into it.
5. Roll the ball down the ramp and measure the distance the ball and cup/food
carton travel.
6. Perform 10 trials, recording data each time, and finding the average travel distance.
7. Use the measured weight of the ball and cup/food carton to discover the
theoretical distance the ball and cup/food carton will travel.
23
Abbot, Cathy. “‘Pretty Cool’ Collision Experiment”. The Physics Teacher. Volume 35,
Number 7. October 1997. p397-398.
77
�Thinking Points:
Were the theoretical and experimental values the same or different?
If the values were different, by what factor were they different? (Divide the
theoretical value by the experimental value).
Why do you think the values were different?
College Experiment:
Goal: To observe inelastic collisions and compare expected (calculated) results to
experimental results and to calculate the force due to friction and find the velocity of
the ball.
Materials:
1 inch steel balls
Grooved Rulers
Stop watches
Clipboards
Graph paper
Balances
Paper cups or Chinese food cartons
Thick, light weight foam sponges
Procedure: Before the experiment is performed, the teacher will have assembled the
cup or food cartons with the sponges in order that the ball will fit securely without
rolling out.
Part 1:
1. Assemble a ramp by placing one end of the ruler on a stack of two textbooks.
2. Measure the weight of the steel ball and the cup/food carton with sponges
secure inside.
3. Tape the graph paper to the clipboard and place at the end of the ramp.
4. Place the cup/food carton at the end of the ramp so that the ball can roll into it.
5. Roll the ball down the ramp and measure the distance the ball and cup/food
carton travel.
6. Perform 10 trials, recording the distance the ball and cup/food carton travel and
the time that elapses between the collision of the ball and when the ball and
cup/food carton stop moving.
7. Find the average travel distance and time elapsed.
78
�8. Use the measured weight of the ball and cup/food carton to discover the
theoretical distance the ball and cup/food carton will travel.
9. Find the velocity of the ball and cup/food carton after collision.
Part 2:
1. Place the ball and cup/food carton on the clipboard and tilt it until the ball and
cup/food carton begin to slide. Measure the height of the clipboard in order to
find the angle it makes with the table.
2. Find the force of sliding friction by multiplying the weight of the ball and
cup/food carton with the gravitational force and the angle found in the first
step.
3. Using the equations for conservation of energy and conservation of momentum,
find the velocity of the ball.
Conservation of Energy: ½ (M + m) v’2 = fad
Conservation of Momentum: Mv = (M + m) v’
NOTE: M is the mass of the ball, m is the mass of the cup/food carton, f is the
force of friction, d is the distance the ball and cup/food carton slide, v is the
velocity of the ball, and v’ is the velocity of the ball and cup/food carton.
Thinking Points:
What was the difference in values when friction was ignored and when it was
taken in to account?
What was difficult in this experiment?
Center of Mass
Inspiration for a center of mass experiment comes from Joseph L. Spradley’s
article “Meter-Stick Mechanics” in the May 1990 edition of The Physics Teacher
publication. Spradley explains experiments for reaction time, center of mass and friction,
equilibrium, acceleration greater than ‘g’, and pendulums, using meter sticks almost
exclusively. Spradley explains, “Opportunities to teach introductory physics overseas or
in a small school are often hindered by a lack of adequate scientific equipment. The
possibilities of innovation can be illustrated by several quantitative demonstrations that
79
�use meter sticks and require little else than a few known weights.”24 These
demonstrations provide inexpensive, simple, and effective ways to use investigative
experiments as a teaching tool.
Spradley’s equilibrium demonstration is the foundation for this center of mass
experiment. He stacks meter sticks off the end of a table to show that equilibrium will
cause the meter sticks to stay balanced and not fall. For this experiment, students will be
expected to calculate the center of mass for the system.
It might be best for students if the table is taped before the beginning of the
experiment in order to have a physical and visual reference point for zero. If 1/8 of the
bottom meter stick hangs over the table (that is, 12 centimeters), the table should be taped
88 cm from the end; the end of the table will be the reference point. The first stick’s
center of mass will be at -32 cm. The second stick will hang over the edge of the table so
its end is at 28 cm (with the end of the table as the reference point). Therefore, the center
of mass of this meter stick will be at -22 cm. The third stick will hang over the table by
53 cm and its center of mass will be at 3 cm. The fourth stick will hang over the table by
103 cm (it will not be over the table at all) and its center of mass will be at 52 cm. The
equation to find total center of mass for the system will include all this information:
x cm =
m1 x 1 + m 2 x 2 + m 3 x 3 + , m 4 x 4
m1 + m 2 + m 3 + m 4
Considering all the masses are equal, the equation can simplify to:
x cm =
mx1 + mx 2 + mx 3 + mx 4 x 1 + x 2 + x 3 + x 4
=
4m
4
The masses cancel, making the center of mass the sum of the individual center of masses:
xcm=(-38)+(-22)+3+53=-4cm. As this indicates, the center of mass is over the table, so the
meter sticks do not fall. The goal of the experiment is for students to make this
connection. Introductory college students should also be able to make the assumption that
this holds true for all different shapes.
High School Experiment:
Goal: To observe and discover the properties of center of mass.
Materials:
Four meter sticks per group
24
Spradley, Joseph L. “Meter-Stick Mechanics”. The Physics Teacher. Volume 28.
Number 5. May 1990. p312-314.
80
�
Scale or given weight of meter stick
Procedure:
1. Place the first meter stick on the table so that 1/8 of the stick hangs over the
edge of the table.
2. Place the second meter stick on the first stick so that 1/6 of the stick hangs over
the edge.
3. Place the third meter stick on the second so that 1/4 hangs over the edge.
4. Place the fourth meter stick so that all four are balanced without toppling over.
Thinking Points:
What length of the fourth stick hangs over the one underneath it?
How much of the fourth stick is still on the table?
What can you determine about center of mass for these meter sticks?
In general, what can you assume about center of mass?
College Experiment:
Goal: To observe and discover the properties of center of mass by designing an
experimental procedure for multiple shapes of materials.
Materials:
Four meters sticks per group
Four Jenga blocks per group
Four building blocks per group
Any other rectangular shaped material (four per group)
Scale or given weight of materials
Procedure:
Part 1:
1. Find a way to balance all four meter sticks one on top of the other, off the edge
of the table without any of them lying directly on top of or below another. The
end of two touching meter sticks should not be at the same point.
2. Record how far each meter stick hangs off the one below it.
3. Calculate the center of mass for the given system. (Measure the weight of the
meter sticks if not provided)
81
�Part 2:
1. Choose another material and find the theoretical center of mass based on the
information found in Part 1.
2. Perform the experiment with the second material.
3. Record how far each block hangs off the one below it.
Part 3:
1. Choose a last material and find the theoretical center of mass based on the
information found in Part 1 and 2.
2. Perform the experiment with the second material.
3. Record how far each block hangs off the one below it.
Thinking Points:
Was the center of mass proportional for each system?
Were your results surprising?
How was your experimental procedure? What would you have done differently?
Rotational Motion & Inertia
This experiment originated as an activity for the 2001 Eastern Massachusetts
Physics Olympics. Karen Bouffard explains, “This activity was first demonstrated for me
by Bill Franklin as part of his [Physics Teaching Resource Agents] workshop…[I was]
pleased to find it an important teaching tool for the concept of circular motion.”25 In this
activity, students push a heavy ball through a masking tape course and into a goal without
crossing the tape or hitting any obstacles. They are timed and given penalties for leaving
the course, hitting obstacles, or missing the goal. The competitive nature of the game
allows students to work together in teams towards a common goal. It also allows for
interesting class discussions because students are thinking more about winning and less
about physics.
We observed that our students, without thinking about it, exerted an inward
(centripetal) force on the ball with a broom a number of times to keep it going in
the circle. So at the end of the activity we asked the students in what direction a
force must be exerted to keep an object in circular motion. Some replied with
the standard “outward” or “centrifugal” force. When we called attention to their
25
Bouffard, Karen. “Physics Olympics.” The Physics Teacher. Volume 39. Number 1.
January 2001. p46-47.
82
�behaviors in executing the course, grins appeared on their faces as they
confronted their preconception. The relationship between inertia and straightline motion, with an added centripetal force, suddenly gave them a kinesthetic
appreciation of what had previously been a theory many of them never took to
heart. It is a wonderful bonus when an Olympics activity provides such a
“teachable moment”.26
This activity uses creativity from all participants. Teams must figure out how to complete
the course quickly without error and teachers must create a course that will challenge
students, but not be so difficult so that they are unable to realize the forces at work. The
original activity used an old bowling ball, acquired from a bowling alley. If one is not
available, bocce balls are a good substitute.
High School Experiment:
Goal: To discover some properties of rotational motion and inertia by using this
experiment as a race.
Materials:
Bocce Ball or Bowling Ball
Broom
Cones and Other Obstacles
Some sort of goal
Stop watches
Procedure:
1. The course will be set up before hand by the teacher to include a starting line,
two complete circles, some swerving, and a goal.
2. Each team gets 5 minutes to “sweep” the ball through the course as a warm-up
and decide who will be their “sweeper”. The ball can be pushed with the broom
from behind to get it rolling, but not dragged with the broom from in front or
behind – the ball must be rolling at all times.
3. Each team runs the course while the other teams time them.
4. The team with the shortest time wins. Time penalties are as follows: Knocking
over an obstacle – 10 seconds; Going off course – 20 seconds; Missing the goal
– 30 seconds.
26
Bouffard, 47.
83
�Thinking Points:
How much force did it take to get the ball rolling?
What was your team’s technique to win? What worked and what did not?
Were the circles easy or hard? What did you have to do to stay on course? Did
you rotate centrifugally or centripetally?
College Experiment:
Goal: To discover some properties of rotational motion and inertia by using this
experiment as a race and to calculate a theoretical time for a constant velocity.
Materials:
Bocce Ball or Bowling Ball
Broom
Cones and Other Obstacles
Some sort of goal
Stop watches
Procedure:
Part 1:
1. The course will be set up before hand by the teacher to include a starting line,
two complete circles, some swerving, and a goal.
2. Each team gets 5 minutes to “sweep” the ball through the course as a warm-up
and decide who will be their “sweeper”. The ball can be pushed with the
broom from behind to get it rolling, but not dragged with the broom from in
front or behind – the ball must be rolling at all times.
3. Each team runs the course while the other teams time them.
4. The team with the shortest time wins. Time penalties are as follows: Knocking
over an obstacle – 10 seconds; Going off course – 20 seconds; Missing the
goal – 30 seconds.
Part 2:
1. Measure the length of the course, including the radius of the circles, and
calculate the total distance.
2. Determine a reasonable velocity by having someone push the ball across the
room and timing them.
84
�3.
4.
Given the coefficient of friction for the surface, find the amount of power
needed to keep the ball moving.
Calculate the time it would take, theoretically, to run the course.
Thinking Points:
How much force did it take to get the ball rolling?
What was your team’s technique to win? What worked and what did not?
Were the circles easy or hard? What did you have to do to stay on course? Did
you rotate centrifugally or centripetally?
How did the experimental and theoretical values compare? What would be an
explanation for any discrepancies?
Works Cited
“3-Dimensional Magnetic Field. Exploring Magnetism. University of California”, 6 Apr.
2008 <http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu>.
Abbot, Cathy. “Pretty Cool Collision Experiment”, The Physics Teacher, Volume 35,
Number 7, October 1997, p397-398.
American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). 2002. AAPT Guidelines for High
School Physics Programs. p10.
Bouffard, Karen. “Physics Olympics”, The Physics Teacher, Volume 39, Number 1,
January 2001, p46-47.
Cannon, Richard. “Three-Dimensional Magnetic Field in a Bottle”, The Physics Teacher,
Volume 29, Number 5, May 1991, p311.
"Digest of Education Statistics", National Center for Education Statistics, June 2007,
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. 04 Apr. 2008 <http://nces.ed.gov>.
Hudson, Lisa, and Ellen Carey. “Trends in Undergraduate Career Education. National
Center for Education Statistics”, U.S. Department of Education, 2005. 1-3. 14 Mar. 2008
<http://nces.ed.gov>.
Kortemeyer, Gerd. “Little Gems: A Polarizer Demo Using LCDs”, The Physics Teacher,
Volume 46, Number 1, January 2008, p58.
85
�“Learning Objects: Newton's First Law”, The NSTA Learning Center, 16 Mar. 2008
<http://www.nsta.org>.
Lietz, Martha. “Make a Mystery Circuit with a Bar Light Fixture”, The Physics Teacher,
Volume 45, Number 4, April 2007, p244-245.
National Research Council (NRC). 2006, America’s Lab Report: Investigations in High
School Science, Washington, DC: National Academy Press, p3.
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). 2004. NSTA Position Statement:
Scientific Inquiry.
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). 2007. NSTA Position Statement: The
Integral Role of Laboratory Investigations in Science Instruction, p2.
“Occupational Employment Statistics”, U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor
Statistics. 24 Oct. 2007. 01 Mar. 2008 <http://www.bls.gov>.
Reichert, Jonathan F. “How Did Friction Get So ‘Smart’?”, The Physics Teacher,
Volume 39, Number 1, January 2001, p29-31.
Siegel, Peter. “Having Fun with Error Analysis”, The Physics Teacher, Volume 45,
Number 4, April 2007, p232.
Spradley, Joseph L. “Meter-Stick Mechanics”, The Physics Teacher, Volume 28, Number
5, May 1990, p312-314.
86
�Emilie Flöge: A Modern Figure of Correspondence
amongst the Arts in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Courtney Perez (Arts Administration)1
During the turn of the century in Vienna, the attitudes of a select group of artists
and scholars began to change along with the exterior aesthetics of the city. The Secession
group and its followers strived to break free from the restraints of a country controlled by
conservative and Christian bourgeoisie in order to obtain political and economic
freedoms. Women in particular played an important role in the reform movements in
Vienna, especially Emilie Flöge, a predecessor to feminists and leader of the dress reform
movement. Emilie Flöge was a vital figure in Viennese culture during the fin-de-siècle,
representing the correspondence of all art forms emerging from fashion, jewelry, design,
architecture and painting.
The youngest of four children, Emilie Flöge was born in the suburbs of Vienna
on August 30th, 1874. Her mother, Barbara Martin Flöge, was Catholic and her father was
a Protestant art school graduate named Hermann August Flöge. After years studying
French, piano, and needlework, at the age of thirty Flöge and her two sisters, Pauline and
Helene, opened a fashion salon specializing in the new reform dress. The salon, called
Schwestern Flöge, was created by three middle class women thanks to an important
award won by the Flöge sisters for successfully designing
commissioned outfits.
The reform dress was the specialty of the
Schwestern Flöge, granting women comfort and freedom in
movement. This new dress was to replace the restricting
and unhygienic corset which doctors and feminists were
denouncing at the time as it lead to disease and fertility
problems. “Turn-of-the-century Vienna, with a population
of nearly two million, was the political, cultural, and
fashion center of the multinational Austro-Hungarian
Empire” (Wagener 1). With such a growing population and
Emilie Flöge. Vienna
1
Written under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the teamtaught Honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-theCentury Paris, Vienna and Berlin.
87
�the corset outdated by the year 1902, the Schwestern Flöge salon was in a prime position
to sell their newly designed dresses.
Flöge was truly a model for the feminist woman of the fin-de-siècle. Not only
was she the owner of a successful business, she was a truly independent woman
dedicated to her craft. The only relationship that has ever been documented between
Emile Flöge and a man was her tie to the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt, which appeared
to be based on platonic companionship. According to Isabella Ackerl, Flöge “remained
the woman he always worshipped from afar and the only one he called to his deathbed”
(24). Although Klimt had the reputation of being a very sexual individual (he was the
father to at least fourteen illegitimate children), he always maintained a deep respect for
Flöge and never grew tired of her as he did with his models. The two belonged to the
same social circle and influenced each other greatly in design and style.
Emilie Flöge and Gustav Klimt’s relationship formally began when Flöge’s
sister Helene and Gustav’s brother Ernst married in 1891. Although the two families had
been friendly prior to this engagement, the marriage strengthened the bond between the
Klimts and the Flöges. However, fifteen months after the marriage between Ernst and
Helene, Ernest passed away, leaving Klimt to be the guardian of Helene as the uncle of
her child. At this point the relationship between eighteen-year old Emilie Flöge and
Klimt began to emerge. Flöge not only respected Klimt’s commitment to her family but
also admired his impressive artistic talents.
Emilie Flöge’s first step into the artistic world took place when she was only
fifteen years old and possibly before she was even aware of her interest in the arts. For
economic purposes and convenience, “The Flöge sisters and their mother as well as the
Klimt girls were used as models in the Burgtheater frescos” (Fischer 16). Emilie Flöge
was not originally included in the first version of the sketch entitled The Harlequin at the
Fair in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (1982) that hung in the Burgtheater. However, she
was added to the second version of the painting. Not only did this painting assist Klimt in
displaying his affections towards Flöge but it foreshadowed her future as one of the most
influential women of the Secession Movement. In the second version of the Harlequin
sketch, Flöge is positioned front and center, standing in an evening dress amongst the
Viennese elite.
The Harlequin sketch was only the beginning of Emilie Flöge’s role as a model
for Gustav’s paintings. As their relationship became more intimate and exclusive,
Klimt painted Emilie in many guises – as a young girl in the Burgtheater fresco,
conventionally sweet, as a young woman in the portrait at the Historisches
Museum der Stadt Wien – confident and at the beginning of her professional
88
�career, and finally as a model for his most famous painting Der Kuß…The
models for the embracing couple in Klimt’s famous picture, which has since
become a twentieth-century icon, were none other than Emilie Flöge and Klimt
himself. (Fischer 125)
Throughout his lifetime, Klimt completed three paintings of Emilie Flöge, each at a
different stage of her life and all equally important and majestic. His second painting of
her entitled Portrait of Emilie Flöge (1902) displayed many qualities of Viennese art.
Flöge is positioned in the center of the painting
wearing a long dress, one of her own designs,
covered with black, white and gold circles and other
geometrical patterns. The geometrically designed
circle displayed behind Flöge’s head resembles a
halo, portraying her as an angelic figure, a depiction
common among Symbolist painters. The fact that
Flöge is a concentrated figure in a painting otherwise
displaying a plain and unornamented background
typifies the overall principles of functional artwork
Klimt, Gustav. The Kiss.
being created in Vienna at the turn-of-the-century.
Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna
The third and final painting of Emilie Flöge by Gustav Klimt is one of his most
famous works: Der Kuß or The Kiss (1907/1908). This work incorporates two lovers who
appear to be Klimt and Flöge embracing as the man leans over to the kiss the woman
kneeling on the floor. Once again the figures in this painting are concentrated in the
middle of a bare background, similarly to the Portrait of Emilie Flöge. Klimt is wearing a
smock-like dress like those seen in Flöge’s salon, covered in black and white rectangular
designs. In this painting Flöge is illustrated as an object of fantasy, as she so gently
accepts Klimt’s kiss submissively. The pale tone of her skin and exaggerated tilt of her
neck calls to mind the image of the Vampire, popular in the art and literature of the finde-siècle. Furthermore, The Kiss is an “allegory about the power of love to draw lovers
out of their individuality and merge them with another person, and with the universe”
(Kränsel 41). The allegory of the lovers and their vampire-like traits not only reveals
Klimt’s views of love but also the public opinion of love amongst the Viennese as the
cause of a loss of self-identity. In The Kiss, Klimt magnifies Emilie Flöge’s role as the
femme fatale which he had earlier established in his second painting of her. Painting was
only one avenue of the arts that Flöge and Klimt were committed to. For instance,
“Emile helped Gustav in the production of cartoons for the Stoclet frieze, and Gustav
89
�encouraged Emilie to design new Reform-style fashions” (Kränsel 94). Since Flöge’s
expertise was in fashion design, she and Klimt were constantly designing and wearing
new styles of clothing. Often inspired by Japanese
art, Klimt and Flöge created original dresses
tailored to the personality and body type of the
client. These reform dresses and “smocks” have
been documented in many photographs, another art
form that Flöge was interested in. Photographs of
both Flöge and Klimt were printed in various
magazines featuring articles on feminism or
fashion at the time. It is important to note,
however, that the dresses sold by Schwestern Flöge
Nähr, Moriz. Gustav and Emilie
were not worn by the mass population in Vienna:
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna
Flöge wore flowing caftans, which resembled workers’ smocks … [and] these
were a success within their circle as several friends-male and female-ordered
similar garments, among them writer Herman Bahf (1863-1934) and sculptor
Anton Hanak (1875-1934). Carl Moll (1861-1945) a Secession artist (and
stepfather of Alma Mahler-Werfel), depicted his wife, Anna, attired in reform
garb in his painting My Living Room … All members of the Viennese cultural
elite, supported the modern reform movement in the fine arts as well as the
applied arts (Wagener 31).
Schwestern Flöge. Vienna
The union of the fine and applied arts is greatly attributed
to Emilie Flöge. Within Vienna she was the one artist who
truly brought together all forms of art through fashion.
The styles of her clothing were seen in paintings and hung
throughout various artistic venues in the city.
Furthermore, her designs were incorporated in
architectural patterns, furniture and jewelry creation.
The Wiener Werkstätte was one place in which
the importance of Emilie Flöge’s designs in architecture,
furniture and jewelry was extremely prevalent. Owners
Josef Hoffmann and Kolo Moser based their products
mainly on the style of the arts and crafts movement and
used many of the decors seen in Emilie Flöge’s works.
90
�One style that epitomized the Wiener Werkstätte and was seen in the interior
design of both Flöge’s salon and Klimt’s studio was “quite justifiably called
‘Constructive Judendstil’: black and white articulation in vertical and horizontals,
undecorated geometrical designs in elongated rectangles…and square panels
corresponding to the preferred pictorial formats of the Klimt circle and the Secession”
(Fischer 32). Patrons of Schwestern Flöge were very familiar with these simple geometric
patterns which were not only displayed around the salon but also used in concentrated
areas of the bonnets, wrap skirts, scarves and dresses designed by Flöge. Josef Hoffmann
and Kolo Moser were not the only ones to incorporate their styles into the architecture of
Flöge’s salon. According to Flöge’s apprentice Herta, “In Emilie’s large flat a room
adjoining the salon was set apart as a ‘museum’ or ‘Klimt room’ with the two tall chairs
and the table from Klimt’s studio…and a collection of Klimt’s drawings and oriental silk
garments” (Fischer 33). Flöge’s salon was a space in which all of the elements of art in
fin-de-siècle Vienna emerged and blended.
In addition to the Wiener Werkstätte’s influence on the architecture of Flöge’s
salon, the jewelry that Flöge wore in many of her photographs to ornament her dresses
are also products of Kolo Moser and Josef Hoffmann. Many of these pieces are made of
silver and small colorful geometric stones. The black and
white judendstil décor of Schwestern Flöge is even seen
in the design of various brooches created by the Wiener
Werkstätte. According to Wolfgang G. Fischer,
The finest of the Wiener Werkstätte objects in
Emilie’s private collection are the pieces of
jewellery she wears in the Klimt fashion
photographs…The long silver chain with the
heart-shaped pendant was designed by Joseph
Hoffmann and the initials ‘JH’ can be found on
Hoffmann, Josef. Pendant .
the back of the extension clasp. (60)
Neue Gallery, New York City
By wearing the jewelry of the Wiener Werkstätte with her new reform dresses, Flöge was
definitely a model of the Secession Movement. She represents the ideals behind a
Viennese culture obsessed with creating everything to be both functional and aesthetic.
Everything that Emilie Flöge owned or designed in someway or another had an
imprint of the Secession Movement attached to it. Flöge’s relationship with Gustav
Klimt made her the center of a group of artists and scholars of the avant-garde. Her
network of friends and business partners were essential in establishing her fame and
popularizing her creations. The Secession Group truly was one that fostered creativity
91
�and functionality. Each member of the group was constantly striving to create products
that would be acceptable and adored by its contradicting society. Flöge herself was a
collector of crafts created by members of the Secession. In Flöge’s estate, unknown until
1981, discoveries were made of
(…) approximately 400 letters and postcards from Klimt to Emilie, spanning a
period of twenty years, and a collection of jewelry and silver work from the
Weiner Werkstätte which Klimt had given her as presents. No less important is
the famous photo album containing the fashion photographs, already published
on numerous occasions, in which Emilie presents Klimt designs made by her.
(Fischer 7)
With this evidence it is made apparent that Emilie Flöge truly tore down the lines drawn
between different art forms in order to portray Viennese art as a collective ideal.
Although the Schwestern Flöge was closed down in 1938 when Hitler took
power, its creations, along with the creations of the Weiner Werkstätte, continued to live
on through the photographs and letters between Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge. Flöge
was not only an artist but also a model who constantly displayed the patterns and designs
of fin-de-siècle Viennese art through fashion. She represented liberation through
modernism and was the one public figure to display multiple facets of modern art
simultaneously. Flöge was not only a monumental figure in the Viennese art world of the
1900’s, she inspired the entire fashion industry through her dress reform movement by
liberating women from the physical and psychological restraints of the corset. As a
modern and advanced woman of her era, Emilie was unquestionably a figure to inspire
the feminist movement soon to emerge.
Although Emilie Flöge may not be a well-known name amongst the general
public today, her effects on the fashion and art world are astounding. She was a vital
influence in the life of Gustav Klimt and an important figure amongst the Secessionists.
With a network of architects, jewelry makers, craftsmen, painters, and photographers,
Emilie Flöge can be seen as a canvas displaying all the elements of Viennese art and
design. She truly represented the Secessionists beliefs in the Gesamtkunstwerk or a
‘symbiosis of the arts’, which was to comprise all areas of
Life. … Josef Hoffman expressed the Secessionist point of view as follows: “It
can never be sufficient merely to acquire paintings, even if they are truly
magnificent. Unless our towns, our houses, our rooms, our cupboards, our tools,
our clothes and our jewelry, unless our language and our feelings express the
spirit of our time in a clear, simple and beautiful manner, we fall incredibly far
behind our predecessors, and no lie will dissimulate these weaknesses. (Ackerl 17).
92
�In light of the profound impact she had on the cultural life of Vienna at the turn-of-thecentury, it is clear that Emilie Flöge set the standard for years to come. Every aspect of
her life emerged through the artistic creations of the time, and in return every facet of art
that came in contact with Emilie Flöge became blessed with the gifts of her influence and
designs.
Works Consulted
Ackerl, Isabella. Vienna Modernism 1890-1910. Vienna: Federal Press Service, 1999.
Fischer, Wolfgang. Gustav Klimt & Emilie Flöge: An Artist and His Muse. Woodstock,
NY: The Overlook P, 1992.
Houze, Rebecca. “From Wiener Kunst im Hause to the Wiener Werkstätte: Marketing
Domesticity with Fashionable Interior Design”, Design Issues 18 (2002): 2-23.
Klimt. London: Grange Books, 2004.
Kränsel, Nina. Gustav Klimt. New York: Prestel Verlag, 2007.
Wagener, Mary L. “Fashion and Feminism in ‘Fin de Siècle’ Vienna”, Women’s Art
Journal 10 (1989 –1990): 29-33.
93
�Forster’s Symbolic Use of Female Characters
Marina McFarland (English)1
Though generally considered a scathing indictment of imperialism, Forster’s A
Passage to India is rarely addressed for its curious depiction of females, particularly the
characters of Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore. Whereas the male characters’ actions hold
symbolic significance, they nevertheless stand alone as actions worthy in themselves.
Forster’s women, however, are ultimately reduced to the meaning they evoke—both in
assisting the literary plot and in what they represent in the frame of the narrative. Rather
than portray women as characters of substance and innate worth, Forster employs them as
instruments between characters and in satirizing imperialistic rhetoric. Furthermore, the
importance placed on homosocial relations—not only in the context of Aziz and Fielding,
but also in the Empire’s interactions with India—serves to marginalize and depreciate the
novel’s female characters.
In a novel that focuses primarily on the importance of homosocial relationships,
Maria M. Davidis asserts that the onerous presence of women disrupts the system of
“New Chivalry” practiced by the male protagonists. This form of New Chivalry, which
depreciates traditional heterosexual romance in favor of homosocial friendship, renders
the novel’s female characters irrelevant, if not an unwelcome intrusion. Davidis attests
that the novel’s male-centric New Chivalry is an integral component of Forster’s antiimperialism, as it stresses the racial transcendence of male friendship. Indeed, the central
theme of A Passage to India lies in the question of “whether or no it is possible” for an
Englishman and an Indian to be friends (6—7). Given that this concern—chronicled
through the vacillating relationship between Aziz and Fielding—comprises the heart of
the novel, all outlying forces are judged according to their influence on this friendship.
This relegates the novel’s women, particularly Adela and Mrs. Moore, to the role of
secondary characters in relation to the plot surrounding Aziz and Fielding. Their worth—
both as characters and literary tools—is contingent on their ability to impel or undermine
relations between English and Indian men.
The amorphous character of Adela Quested, who Davidis describes as “the chief
scapegoat in the novel” (260), is most conveniently contrived to serve the novel’s
overriding themes. Her unformed identity is easily manipulated, both by other characters
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Erica Johnson for the honors course EN311: Modern
English & Irish Literature.
94
�and Forster himself, to represent the various ideals projected onto her. Like the majority
of the novel’s females, however, Adela’s primary purpose derives from her influence on
homosocial relationships. Initially, Adela enters the text as the archetypal “New Woman”
of feminist England, determined to “see the real India” (Forster 22) that has thus far
eluded her privileged scope. Because of her masculine desire for adventure, Davidis
argues, Adela “represents an intrusion from the future” (265) to the relationship of
Fielding and Aziz, a microcosm of British-Indian relations as a whole. Not only does
Adela’s individualism defy Anglo-India’s traditional gender roles; her intellectual
curiosity of Indian culture is crucial in the disintegration of British-Indian relations. It is
in the form of New Woman that Adela, accompanied by Mrs. Moore, first impedes the
development of Fielding and Aziz’s friendship, by truncating the intimacy of their first
meeting. Enamored of his new acquaintance, Aziz finds himself “disappointed that other
guests were coming, for he preferred to be alone with his new friend” (69). In fact, this
instance proves prescient of a pattern of intrusion that ultimately severs their relationship.
Adela’s eventual use as a symbol wielded by the British Empire is reminiscent
of actual events, of which Forster was keenly aware at the time he wrote the novel. Jenny
Sharpe, in her analysis of the Anglo-Indian woman in fiction, attributes great importance
to the events of the 1857 Mutiny in Cawnpore in shaping the rhetoric of the British
Empire. Details of this anti-colonial rebellion were libelously skewed in favor of the
British, with reports quickly circulated of “the barbarous attack of mutinous sepoys on
innocent women and children” (Sharpe 61), including the systematic raping of
Englishwomen. These rumors, though quickly denounced, permeated the context of
colonial discourse: “The domestic virtues of self-sacrifice, moral duty, and devotion to
others gained currency only after the violent upheavals that encouraged the colonizers to
see themselves as the innocent victims of native hostility” (Sharpe 8). The fictional
accounts of rape, in particular, justified the elevation of English womanhood to national
status symbol, meant to confer honor on those men who avenge her violation. Within this
context, of course, the violence of rape was not seen as a violation of the woman, but of
the British Empire. Such dire circumstances called for the old system of chivalry “that
called on Victorian men to protect the weak and defenseless” (76), thus justifying any
retributive violence from the British.
This historical context is necessary in understanding Forster’s portrayal of Adela
as a tool of imperialism, implicit in McBryde’s allusion to “the Mutiny records; which…
should be your Bible in this country” (187). Rather than use Adela solely for her literary
convenience, here Forster demonstrates the pretext on which the British Empire justified
95
�its fierce rule over a rebellious nation. Adela escapes the label of Memsahib (acquired
after accepting Ronny’s marriage proposal) by becoming the alleged victim of attempted
rape, which transforms her into a nationalist symbol for her fellow Anglo-Indians.
Though initially unpopular among the English, “she brought out all that was fine in their
character” (199) by offering them a cause to rally behind. Once again, Adela’s
importance lies not in her character, but in what it represents: a justification of Britain’s
chokehold on India.
Adela’s passive symbolic position is not solid, but rather easily transferred to
those who better represent English ideals. Forster describes a young mother whose
“abundant figure and masses of corn-gold hair” qualify her as a “more permanent
symbol, perhaps, than poor Adela” (200). In fact, Adela’s victimization further
marginalizes women by extolling the bravery and martyrdom of their male counterparts
(like Ronny Heaslop) who so valiantly bear “the sahib’s cross” (205). Although this form
of discourse shifts the focus from womanhood to male superiority, the female is reserved
for her use as scapegoat following any male conflict. Declaring that Adela’s trauma “is a
damn good thing really… It’ll make them squeal and it’s time they did squeal” (239—
40), the Major implies Adela’s unimportance in the frame of imperialism. As her position
“conveniently exculpates English men from any wrongdoing” (Sharpe 124), she can
subsequently be blamed for whatever tension such wrongdoing creates.
They had started speaking of ‘women and children’—that phrase that exempts
the male from sanity when it has been repeated a few times. Each felt that all he
loved best in the world was at stake, demanded revenge, and was filled with a
not unpleasing glow, in which the chilly and half-known features of Miss
Quested vanished, and were replaced by all that is sweetest and warmest in the
private life. (203)
Sharpe accurately interprets this passage as a “sobering reminder of the
retributions against a rebellious Indian population that were committed in the name of
English womanhood” (124). With the exception of Fielding, who remains loyal to his
principles of new chivalry, members of the Anglo-Indian community rally behind the
pretense of traditional chivalry in avenging this grave insult to England. Characteristic of
her treatment throughout the novel, Adela herself is cast aside in light of the issues she
has raised. “[O]nly a victim” (205), Adela is merely a weapon for the British vendetta
against India; indeed, whether or not her assault actually occurred is irrelevant to the
case. “You know you’re right, and the whole station knows it” (229), Ronny asserts in
face of Adela’s uncertainty. That Adela is denied a voice in the recounting of her own
story underlines her role as a symbol; valued only for the front she provides, she is forced
96
�to mirror the ideology of Empire. Any independent thought or action on her part amounts
to a betrayal—not only of her country, but of the values it claims to uphold. As Davidis
asserts, “the fact of her sex permits men to silence her, victimize her sexually, and use her
as a justification for imperial rule” (264). As a result, she too places her sense of worth on
her use to the empire, feeling “emptied, valueless… [of] no more virtue” (258) following
her retraction of the assault charge.
Forster’s caricature of the Memsahib (master’s wife), characterized by Mrs.
Turton and her fellow Englishwomen, acts as another dividing force within the
colonial/male relationship. Forster is generally fair in his portrayals of the reigning
English men in Chandrapore, critiquing their hypocrisy and small-mindedness yet
allowing for ambiguities that soften their image. Despite the implicit satire in his sketches
of the Collector and other male officials, Forster remains sympathetic to their redeeming
qualities. The English men’s wives, however, epitomize the most extreme malevolence of
British imperialism. This gender standard is established early in the novel, in a
comparison between Mr. and Mrs. Turton’s attitudes toward Adela: while she disparages
Adela for not being “pukka”, her husband attempts to maintain neutrality from a more
humanizing view (27). Mrs. Turton, for instance, epitomizes the cruelties of Empire in
her harsh, prejudiced attitudes toward natives. Incredibly arrogant and blinded by her
racial hatred, she reminds Adela and Mrs. Moore that, being Englishwomen, they are
“superior to everyone in India” (42). This unwavering feminine hostility prompts the
Collector to note, “it’s our women who make everything more difficult out here” (237),
implying that women are to blame for the deterioration of British-Indian relations.
Indeed, Sharpe focuses on the role of the Memsahib—whose notoriety reached
its peak following the Mutiny period—as “a scapegoat for imperialism, the remedy and
poison that both ensures racial segregation and threatens to undermine race relations”
(91). Not only does the Memsahib reveal the worst sides of imperialism; her very
presence serves to further alienate the colonizers from the colonized. The figure of the
Englishwoman in India functions as an emblem of English domesticity and femininity,
her presence serving to remind the men of their national obligations abroad. Her feminine
fragility emphasizes the sanctity of Empire and its need to be protected, thus underlining
the need for stern rule over India. Furthermore, the Englishwoman’s presence emphasizes
the racial disparity between the two races by offering a distinctly different image in
comparison with native women. These combined factors lead Sara Suleri to conclude that
the Anglo-Indian woman acts “as a segregated and segregating presence” (80).
Effectively, Forster casts the blame on Anglo-Indian women for both the evils of Empire
and its accompanying racial antagonism, which undermines the British imperial mission.
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�In focusing on the “English woman as an absent center around which a colonial
discourse of rape, race, and gender turns” (8), Jenny Sharpe addresses Forster’s original
description of Adela’s rape scene, which drastically differs from that which he eventually
published. In contrast with Adela’s vague, ambiguous recollection of her assault in the
caves, Forster’s original draft posits her assault as a triumphant struggle of self-defense
against a clear attack:
Silent, though the echo still raged up and down, she waited and when the breath
was on her wrenched a hand free, got hold of the glasses and pushed them at
/into/ her assailant’s mouth. She could not push hard, but it was enough to <free
her> hurt him. He let go, and then with both hands on her weapon/ she smashed
<him to pieces>… She was strong and had horrible joy in revenge. ‘Not this
time,’ she cried… (qtd. in Sharpe 126)
It is significant that Forster chose to portray Adela as the passive victim of an
equivocal crime, leaving her actions and the event itself open to interpretation. Rather
than allow Adela a substantive story to flesh out her character, the mystery of her assault
renders it purely symbolic. Sharpe stresses the “resemblance between the absent text of
her struggle and an official discourse that erases colonial women’s agency” (126),
contending that Forster deliberately cut the rape scene to indict the empire’s symbolic use
of women. In a similar vain, Sara Suleri insists that Adela’s delusional rape was
necessary “in order that her body may be transmogrified into that legal space over which
Fielding and Aziz can stake out… their mutual loyalty” (77). Despite the motive of
undermining imperial pretense, however, Forster’s deletion of Adela’s agency contributes
to the ultimate silencing of women in his novel.
In view of the ideological usage of woman as symbol and ideal within the
context of Anglo-India, it is crucial to examine Forster’s literary representation of
women, in which their purpose is best achieved in absence. As a novel focusing on the
importance of homosocial relationships, female characters are often rendered irrelevant to
Forster’s primary narrative of Aziz and Fielding. Given the feminine intrusion on and
disruption of male alliances, women are appreciated solely as symbols to be manipulated
by their male invokers. This is best exemplified through the spectral shadow of Aziz’s
deceased wife, who enters the text in the form of a photograph. Primarily, she serves as
Aziz’s ideal of feminine perfection, representing an unattainable, immutable love
achieved in retrospect—“no woman could ever take her place; a friend would come
nearer to her than another woman” (57). Thus, his undying devotion to an intangible
woman becomes his pretext for romantic unavailability, distancing him from
heterosexual relationships (and therefore removing potential obstacles to his friendship
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�with Fielding). However, the image of Aziz’s wife is also offered as a token of trust in his
budding relationship with Fielding, who understands its connotations. “Put it away, she is
of no importance… I showed her to you because I have nothing else to show” (126), Aziz
explains. As Davidis attests, “The action of showing takes on a greater importance than
the substance shown” (262), thus establishing women’s value as contingent on her benefit
to the male bonding experience.
The specter of Aziz’s dead wife is aroused for various reasons throughout the
novel, usually (but not always) as a point of reference for Aziz. It is significant that she
enters the text not as a living memory but as a motif indulging Aziz’s fluctuating moods.
When plagued by depression, Aziz evokes her as the object of his despair, becoming
happier as he reflects on his profound unhappiness. When able to otherwise amuse
himself, he admits to forgetting her, musing that “he mourned his wife the more sincerely
because he mourned her seldom” (58). Her memory later arises upon Aziz’s lament that
“he wanted to send sweets too and had no wife to cook them” (78). In absence of his
wife’s assets, he better appreciates her instrumental worth. He again reflects on her
posthumous use when in the caves with Adela, who asks whether Aziz is married.
Perhaps feeling threatened by Adela’s intimacy, Aziz responds with an invitation to see
his wife, feeling “it more artistic to have [her] alive for a moment” (168). In an ironic
reversal of symbolism, the picture of Aziz’s wife is also used as “evidence” of his
perversion, implicating him for possessing “photographs of women” (190). In this,
Forster emphasizes the vulnerability of symbols, which can be used in unexpectedly
sinister ways.
Heterosexual interaction (albeit that which effectively excludes women) seems
to dominate the beginning of Aziz and Fielding’s friendship, as their discussion of
Adela’s physique and exchange of the wife’s photograph cement their homosocial
connection. A true appreciation of women, however, is lacking in their discourse. When
faced with Fielding’s objections to marriage, for instance, Aziz’s sole concern is that his
“name will entirely die out” (128) due to lack of progeny—designating women as
instruments of reproduction. Fielding’s freedom in being a “light traveler”, he suggests,
enables him to “keep in with Indians and Englishmen” (66), as he has no wife invoking
racial animosity. Such conversation, Sara Suleri claims, indicates that the men are
operating from “a secret gesture of intimacy” (138) that was established when Aziz
offered Fielding his collar stud. Having created an instant connection, they remain
immune to the distracting intrusion of women—until, of course, said women interfere
with their connection.
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�For the majority of the text, the absent figure of Adela—both directly and
indirectly—impedes the burgeoning relationship of Aziz and Fielding. The most obvious
instance, of course, is Adela’s accusation of rape against Aziz, which unleashes “a mass
of madness” (180) that engulfs all of Anglo-India into a fierce battle. Fielding, in his
unabashed loyalty to Aziz, “hoped to save the man” (182) by aligning himself with
Indians rather than his fellow British. Fielding’s reluctance to choose sides, however,
means that he is drawn into British affairs whenever Aziz most needs him—“Cyril, again
you desert” (261), Aziz despairs. Fielding’s innate compassion proves most damaging in
the wake of Aziz’s acquittal, once Adela has morphed from National Symbol to Damsel
in Distress. Due to Fielding’s “natural sympathy for the down-trodden” (272), he
grudgingly takes the pathetic Adela under his patronage, eventually developing genuine
respect for her. Initially, Fielding resents his chivalric obligation to “die in her defense” if
necessary, preferring “to be rejoicing with Aziz” (260). Indeed, Adela’s desperation
“forces Fielding into the old chivalric code even as he desires to move beyond it”
(Davidis 273). Adela’s subsequent monopoly of Fielding’s attention further severs his
bond with Aziz, who is loathe to show compassion to his accuser. Aziz’s snobbery and
insensitivity towards Adela, with which Fielding cannot sympathize, creates “a barrier
between himself and Aziz whenever it arose” (268). Furthermore, Fielding’s allegiance to
Adela links him once again to the British, with whom Aziz desires to break all ties.
Fielding’s rumored affair with Adela proves fatal to his friendship with Aziz,
who declares, “All are traitors” (301) upon hearing the slander. At first, the
misunderstanding about Adela provokes a “tragic coolness” (302) in the men’s
friendship, inciting awkwardness even after the truth is discovered. Upon Fielding’s
departure for England, however, Aziz’s insatiable suspicion “built a satanic castle” (311)
confirming his friend’s treachery, and he ultimately convinces himself that Fielding and
Adela had wed (313). Davidis contends that Aziz’s paranoia rests on the frightening
prospect of his friend at home in England, where “not only are Fielding and Quested
racially equivilent, they are complementary in the heterosexual economy of the domestic
marriage plot” (273). Aziz’s mistrust of Fielding and hatred of Adela blinds him to the
real circumstances of their alienation, which is effectively achieved through his delusion.
The novel’s conclusion suggests that multiple factors are responsible for the BritishIndian divide; yet Aziz chooses to focus solely on Adela, who represents a tainting
feminine influence on politics. Despite her return to England, Adela continues to be “a
sacrifice for advancing a plot centered on the impossibility of a friendship between men
across the colonial divide” (Sharpe 130). Once again, Adela’s involvement in a non-event
employs her image as fuel for folly, invoked as a curse on homosocial relations.
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�The character of Mrs. Moore, on the other hand, is celebrated as a unifying
presence in India—largely due to her fostering of homosocial alliances. Whereas Adela’s
interaction with Aziz and Fielding only corrodes their bond, Mrs. Moore is instrumental
in securing their connection. The “Oriental” compassion that appeals to Aziz in their first
encounter in the mosque also attracts Fielding, and thus Mrs. Moore is the impetus
behind their first official meeting. Though a character of greater substance than Adela,
Mrs. Moore performs the similar function of existing on a largely symbolic level. This is
first apparent in the aftermath of Adela’s alleged assault in the Marabar caves, when Mrs.
Moore’s reticence incites Adela to question Aziz’s guilt. In spite of the older woman’s
silence, Adela insists that she has attested to Aziz’s innocence—“Doctor Aziz never did
it” (226). Yet when interrogated by an irate Ronny, she admits that Mrs. Moore had
implied “the idea more than the words” (226)—an accurate summation of her ultimate
use to the novel.
As if to confirm the disposable nature of women within the text, Ronny hastens
the departure of his mother—who “was doing no good to herself or to anyone else there”
(229)—upon her refusal to cooperate in Aziz’s trial. It is at this point in the novel that
Mrs. Moore achieves potency as a symbolic presence, which “allows her transformation
into a text that may be written upon” (Davidis 10) in the discourse of Aziz’s trial. Indeed,
Davidis argues that Mrs. Moore’s absence “is crucial for Aziz’s acquittal” (10), as the
defense invokes her as a potential witness to his innocence. Despite the Magistrate’s
insistence that “ as a witness, Mrs. Moore does not exist” (Forster 252), her name
“became Indianized into Esmiss Esmoor” (250), which is adopted as a mantra by the
Indian crowds outside the courtroom. This marks the inception of Mrs. Moore as an
“eternal goddess” (350), who continues to symbolize the Hindu ideals of unity and
oneness long after her death at sea.
Indeed, the ideal of Mrs. Moore extends to support multiple causes in the novel.
Attesting to women’s use-value, Ronny reflects that his mother may benefit him better
from a distance, as she could “stamp [his name] on Lady Mellanby’s imagination” (230)
by accompanying her on a ship leaving India. Just as Adela’s assault made him a
celebrity within the Government House, Ronny hopes his mother to be equally useful.
Just as Fielding once implemented the discussion of women in establishing a bond with
Aziz, he now “appeal[s] to the memory of Mrs. Moore” (290) in persuading his friend to
spare Adela’s fortune. Though not particularly fond of the woman in life, Fielding is
content to wield her name for Adela’s sake. To Aziz, Mrs. Moore represents his highest
ideals of compassion and love, eluding the racial boundaries that separate him from
Fielding. She thus establishes herself, to Aziz and many other Indians, as a haunting,
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�unifying presence, capable of bridging the gap between East and West. Her ghost has an
undying influence over Aziz, even appeasing the damage to his friendship with Fielding.
Mrs. Moore’s son Ralph revives her spirit in the final part of the novel, inciting Aziz to
pronounce him an “Oriental”, just like his mother (349). The presence of Ralph, acting as
a surrogate Mrs. Moore, softens Aziz’s attitude towards Fielding. The fact of Fielding’s
marriage, however, impels the demise of their reunion as friends. Generally considered to
represent Forster’s personal voice in the novel, Fielding ceases to fill this role upon his
marriage, an act Forster himself could not identify with. Thus, Fielding effectively
separates himself from the man Aziz once loved, rendering any future relations
impossible. Despite the encompassing spirit of Mrs. Moore (perhaps the most enduring
character of the novel), Aziz and Fielding are unable to overcome the obstacles women
present to a British-Indian relationship.
For further proof of the value Forster places on feminine absence, one must also
examine the presence (or lack thereof) of Indian women in the text. The reader’s first
impression of these native women is through Adela and Mrs. Moore’s initial encounter,
which occurs at the Bridging Party held in their honor. Most striking about these women
(who are rarely mentioned by name) is their apparent inability to speak or think for
themselves. The arrogant Mrs. Turton, after cursorily greeting the ladies in a
condescending Indian dialect, proceeds to refer to them in the third-person, ignoring the
possibility of real conversation. A male onlooker, one of the women’s husbands, provides
Adela and Mrs. Moore with a more thorough introduction of the Indian women; yet the
reader is never privy to any personal insight. Meant to evoke the mysterious
inconsistency and unknowability of their native land, the Indian women are described as
“uncertain, cowering” (43) figures, unable to communicate on a Western level. Denied
the agency of individual voices and characteristics, Indian women merge to form one
defining Indian Woman, which is subsequently reduced to a silenced, negated presence.
Indeed, Forster himself seems conscious of this characterization, wryly noting
that the death of Indian ladies by hunger strike “would make little difference… being
invisible, they seemed dead already” (238). This excerpt suggests a subtle criticism of the
cross-cultural misogyny of Anglo-India, in which women are considered negligible from
both a political and cultural perspective. Later in the novel, Nawab Bahadur accuses
Maharinis (Indian princesses) of being “uneducated… superstitious”, declaring that
“superstition… is the great defect of our Indian character” (99). By thus equating Indian
women with his race’s worst shortcomings, Bahadur attempts to feminize the nation’s
flaws. Aziz, too, is opinionated on the subject of Indian women, as his poems upon
leaving Chandrapore “were all on one topic—Oriental womanhood” (329). This suggests
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�that Indian women are merely ideas for men to express through art, without the privilege
of expressing themselves. Although Aziz is married again in the final part of the novel,
he fails to mention her name or allude to her character, suggesting that he forgets her as
frequently as he does his dead wife. Like Adela and her fellow Englishwomen, Indian
women are exploited for their confirmation and justification of male superiority,
becoming tools of political rhetoric rather than characters in their own right.
The prevalently enforced system of purdah (the practice of isolating women
from the male gaze) in India at this time could explain Forster’s depiction of Indian
women as vacuous mimickers, as his gender would have restricted much access to the
feminine population. Nevertheless, Sharpe argues that Forster’s fleeting references “work
to contain Indian women’s noisy resistance within the figure of the silent and hidden
purdah woman… not because they do not have a historical voice as such but because the
novel cannot deliver their agency” (Sharpe 131).
It is clear that Forster’s female characters were intended to perform a figurative
purpose, either through his tacit representation or the way they are exploited by other
characters. His portrayal of Adela, for instance, exposes the ease with which ordinary
people become instruments of political ideologies. In fact, one could argue that all of his
characters (including Aziz and Fielding) are at times relegated to serve symbolic
functions. However, his treatment of Adela and Mrs. Moore differs in the sense that they
are discarded after fulfilling their narrative functions. Adela, for instance, is quickly
dismissed after her active power is exhausted, rejected by Ronny lest she damage his
career and reputation. Both she and Mrs. Moore exercise greater power in their absence,
when their literal actions cannot interfere with others’ interpretations—perhaps indicative
of Forster’s discomfort in detailing femininity. Given the author’s lack of personal
interest in the female sex, it is possible that women enter the text only as an afterthought.
Disregarding biographical interpretations, however, Sara Suleri argues that women “play
a subservient role to [Fielding and Aziz’s] friendship… They remain peripheries upon
which male discourse locates constraints upon the operation of autonomous desires”
(147—8).
Forster’s largely symbolic depiction of women serves his anti-imperialist
motives by exploiting the sanctimony and self-righteousness that drives empirical
missions. However, his social critique comes at the price of compromising their
humanity. The use of Adela as a weapon within imperialist rhetoric has great literary
power, despite her solely instrumental value. While the character of Mrs. Moore is done
justice in spite of her symbolic absence, the non-entities presented as English and Indian
women demand greater substance. Overall, the women of A Passage to India play
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�inferior roles to those afforded the novel’s male characters, ultimately marginalizing them
to the point of irrelevance.
Works Cited
Davidis, Maria M. “Forster’s Imperial Romance: Chivalry, Motherhood, and Questing in
A Passage to India”, Journal of Modern Literature 23.2 (1999): 259—76.
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. 1924. San Diego: Harcourt, 1984.
Sharpe, Jenny. Allegories of Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text.
Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.
Suleri, Sara. The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992.
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�Mother’s Kiss and the Madeleine: The Feminization of
Time and Space in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way
Kaite Belmont (French Studies and English)1
Space is often recognized as a non-existent element, and sometimes merely a
theory. Time, on the other hand, is acknowledged as having a more clear-cut existence,
but still proves to be ambiguous in many ways. In Marcel Proust’s first volume of the
seven part semi-autobiographical work A La Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of
Lost Time, 1913-1927) the notion of time and space are challenged by the influence of
femininity. Many of the physical spaces in the novel are recognized in relation to a
woman, and time seems to move forward only through the memory of various female
protagonists. The prevalence of femininity in the physical spaces of the novel can also be
linked to the strong relationship that Proust had with his own mother. Throughout his
life, Proust clung to his mother, especially after his first traumatic asthma experience
(Barker, 8). Also, the nature of Proust’s style as stream of consciousness adds to the
passing of time in relation to femininity. The references to time and space in the first
volume, entitled Swann’s Way, are indeed tied to the feminine; both time and space are
recognized through the presence or the thought of a woman, especially in relation to the
author’s childhood bedroom, the memory of the “Madeleine” and his mother’s good
night kiss.
To understand the representation of space in Swann’s Way, it is important to
understand the role of space in narrative. In the article, “Space, Ideology, and Literary
Representation”, Mitchell explores the idea of space and its representation in literature,
including the way in which space is portrayed. According to Mitchell, “…the relation
between literary time and space…is filled with ambivalence,” (92). He describes space as
a “dubious fiction”, taking the shape of many different literary elements in readers’
minds. An interesting point that Mitchell makes is the concept of space as being dead
and static until some force, particularly a violent one, pushes it into motion. Only then is
space filled and brought to life. Space is always alien and questionable, and the nonexistent space is seen as a utopia. However, the word “space” in everyday life can have
many different meanings. In his article, Mitchell notes that William Blake once said,
1
Written under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the teamtaught Honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-theCentury Paris, Vienna and Berlin.
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�“Time is a man, space is a woman.” This statement brings up the idea of the femininity
of space. Mitchell explains this first by noting how anthropologists recognize primitive
cultures as existing only in the realm of space, usually outside the realm of time.
Therefore, space can place women in a prejudicial state of prehistoric condition; they are
only there for visual display. Since space is looked at as describing a primitive state, it
can also suspend “historical process”. Furthermore, the sense of space, as Mitchell says,
can be referred to as “Other”, much like women are portrayed as Other according to
feminist author Simone de Beauvoir.
“Space and spacing of theory are being radically transformed by women,” states
literary critic Ruth Salvaggio. In her study “Theory and Space, Space and Woman,”
Salvaggio focuses on feminine space and its relationship to the idea of “écriture
feminine” or writing through the female body. Women have often been associated with
“inner spaces”, since their function in society is traditionally linked to the domestic realm
as maternal figures and homemakers. Salvaggio claims the female space has been highly
transformed, and these transformative effects save women from mere objectification in
literature (271). She also ties the space of women to the female body and the notion of
“écriture feminine” in the contemporary works of French women writers (275). Once the
body is able to speak, she says, it can break free of its imprisonment, including that of
patriarchal language. By writing the space of their bodies, women can go beyond
stereotypical representations in the arts. Though Marcel Proust was neither a woman nor
a feminist writer, his works are highly praised by many feminists critics who greatly
admire his exploration with language and his unconventional representation of gender
roles.
On July 10, 1871, Marcel Proust was born in Auteuil, a small town outside of
Paris. At first, he was not expected to live. As a timid and emotional child, he clung to
both parents, but centered most of his affection towards his mother. Monsieur Proust was
a notorious pathologist who published books and articles on medicine, while Madame
Proust was the well-read daughter of a wealthy Jewish family. At the age of nine, Proust
suffered his first asthma attack, and from thereafter he became even more attached to his
mother, feeling secured by her presence and affection (Barker, 8). In school, he did not
fit in with the other boys; he was frail, emotional, and seen as too feminine. He found the
most comfort amongst older women, especially those who were well educated. After
graduating from the “lycée” he enlisted in the French army, where he served for one year
despite his poor health. During this time he became determined to be a writer and grew
particularly fascinated with the workings of upper-class society. Proust also discovered
his homosexuality, though he continued to spend most of his time in the company of
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�older women (Barker 25). He climbed the social ladder as he worked on his writings,
attending and throwing lavish dinner parties for other socialites. When his mother died in
1905, Proust’s health began to deteriorate: “he was either ill or afraid of being ill,”
(Barker, 139). He spent most of his time indoors and in his bed, sleeping during the day
and writing throughout the night. During the last three years of his life, he spent the
greater part of his time in his cork-lined bedroom working on A La Recherche du Temps
Perdu. The last three volumes were published after his death in 1922.
The first volume, Swann’s Way, follows the stories of the narrator, Marcel, and
the love affair of Swann and Odette. In the first story, Marcel recounts his memories of
the small French town Combray. This section, entitled “Overture”, describes Marcel’s
fear of going to bed without his mother’s good-night kiss. He recalls waking up in the
middle of the night and looking around the room, unsure of where he is, and longing to
be with his mother. One night, a friend of his grandparents’, Charles Swann, visits the
house and prevents his mother from giving him a good-night kiss. The young Marcel
stays up all night and eventually convinces his mother to spend the night in his room to
comfort him.
“Combray”, the second section of the novel, is largely about Marcel’s discovery
of his desire to become a writer. His friends and grandparents urge him to spend his time
reading, and soon all he wants to do is read and write. He loves the pastoral surroundings
of Combray, and often walks through the blossoming flowers on the path to Swann’s
house. The church on the outskirts of Combray inspires Marcel to write about its beauty.
He becomes a great observer and writes down what he sees. One day while on a walk, he
runs into Swann, his wife Odette and their daughter Gilberte. Marcel instantly falls in
love with Gilberte, so much so that he makes up characteristics about her that do not
exist, like her “black eyes” being blue.
The third section of the novel takes the reader back fifteen years to tell the story
of the love affair between Swann and Odette. Swann begins to have an interest in Odette
once he meets her, but is not aware of her questionable reputation. One day, after
realizing that she resembles Botticelli’s painting of Jethro’s daughter, he falls hopelessly
in love as he sees in Odette the same beauty as in Botticelli’s work. They begin a
passionate love affair which turns into an obsession for Swann, as he associates art and
music to Odette and her classical beauty. Eventually, Swann finds out about Odette’s
promiscuity. He suffers greatly, and by the end of the novel he is astonished by the
realization that Odette was not who he had perceived her to be.
In writing the seven parts of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, Proust reinvented
the modern Bildungsroman. He established a new form by involving readers in “a return
107
�journey from the past the present again” (Kristeva, 3). Though the plot itself has a
seemingly simple quality, Proust’s narrative techniques redefine the role of memory in
the protagonist’s journey. Simple events are intertwined with the narrator’s memories,
reflecting the nature of “involuntary memory” and reorganizing the present world
through memories of the past. What is especially interesting about Proust is the way in
which he tackles the confliction in human consciousness; for every person, time has a
different meaning, but it is never linear. It is only through fragmented time that one can
appreciate and understand all that has happened throughout one’s life, and Proust
expresses this through his style. “Proustian time,” according to Kristeva, “is a
metamorphosis,” (5).
The element of space in Swann’s Way is often presented as a space of memory
rather than a physical space. According to Mitchell, “space is static, visual, empty, and
dead,” (93). It is through something else that a space is created, and this is seen through
the space of memory which Proust creates. For example, in the very first section of the
novel, “Overture”, the childhood bedroom which the narrator describes comes to life
through the eyes of memory. Marcel looks back on his young life and recalls the times in
which he could not fall asleep and would stay up late looking around the room at various
objects and pieces of furniture:
…I would be awake again… to settle the shifting kaleidoscope of the darkness,
to savor, in an instantaneous flash of perception, the sleep which lay heavy upon
furniture….the whole surroundings which I formed but an insignificant part and
whose unconsciousness I should very soon return to share (10).
The space presented appears through memory. In the darkness of the early morning
hours, Marcel is consumed by thoughts, memories, and the heightened state of his senses
as he drifts in and out of sleep in his bedroom.
The representation of space in literature, though it is an entity which captures
certain aspects of a text, can be ambiguous. It never has a “recognized and clear-cut
status”, but can be often described as completeness in the world (Zoran, 310). For Proust,
“space” can be as complex as the various settings in which characters find themselves, or
as simple as the mere passing of time. Space can even be represented in the characters
themselves, because “time is also psychic time, and consequently the factor which
determines our bodily life,” (Kristeva, 4). In other words, it is memory as experienced
through the characters that creates space, because memory and time often determine
one’s physical life.
Another interesting point on space that is made in “Space, Ideology, and
Literary Representation” is the relationship between a presence of some form of
108
�“intrusion” and the empty existence of space (93). Because space in Proust is often
represented by memory, it is the nature of the memory that determines the nature of the
space. Especially in the first two sections of Swann’s Way, space is often connected
directly to a woman. In the beginning of the text, the narrator dreads each night when he
must retire to his room alone; left to his own vices, he fears the darkness and solitude of
his bedroom. He must wait for his mother while she sits outside in the garden with the
rest of his family, and it is only after he receives a good night kiss from his mother that he
can fall asleep soundly:
My sole consolation when I went upstairs for the night was that Mamma would
come in and kiss me after I was in bed. … So much did I love that good night
kiss that I reached the stage of hoping that it would come as late as possible, so
as to prolong the time of respite during which Mamma would have not yet
appeared, (20).
As a young child, his bedroom becomes a place where he waits, longs, and hopes for his
mother’s presence. It is only when she kisses him good night that he feels safe; before the
presence of his mother, the bedroom is an unkind and foreboding space. The mother’s
presence, however, changes the room into a safe and comfortable space for the narrator;
the room is at first an empty space, but is transformed into a meaningful one through the
presence of the feminine.
One night, when Swann is visiting, Marcel is told to go to his room and he is not
allowed to receive a good night kiss from his mother. Unable to sleep, the spaces
surrounding the narrator are described as violent and unfamiliar; the staircase becomes
“hateful”, and the smell of the varnish is “a far more poisonous thing that any moral
penetration,” (37). Once he enters his room, he feels like a prisoner in bed, clothed
beneath the “shroud” of his nightdress. The absence of the mother in Marcel’s room
creates a cruel and alien surrounding.
One of the most prevalent themes throughout the novel is the representation of
time. By playing with the temperament of time, Proust forces the reader to delve “deep
down into ourselves, in regaining the time of our inner lives, which has been so subtly
reordered that this time now comes to seem the only reality worth taking into account,”
(Kristeva, 6). Human beings remember past events through fragmented time, and Proust
successfully captures this idea by jumping from past to present often throughout his
work. The novel begins with a series of memories and jumps from the present time of the
narrator to his distant past. In his concluding paragraph in the final volume of In Search
of Lost Time, Proust states that the passing of time can only be saved through art
109
�(Quennell, 195). In contrast to the trouble and disarray of the world surrounding the
characters, time and memory ultimately provide safety.
Though time itself is extremely broad and ambiguous, the time represented in
Swann’s Way is feminine. It does not move forwards without the presence of a woman,
and memory is not present in the narrator’s mind without a woman. Every memory that
Marcel, the narrator, produces coincides with a woman who is important in the text. The
most prevalent example of this concept of time passing in relation to a woman is the
passage involving the Madeleine cookie. After coming in from the cold, Marcel’s mother
offers him a cup of tea and a Madeleine. The smell and taste of the Madeleine throws him
into a whirlwind of involuntary memory as he remembers the Madeleines of this aunt in
Combray. He also begins to question the nature of consciousness and reality, and the fact
that memory is vital in order to move forward with life.
The passage of the Madeleine represents the nature of time as feminine, because
of its association with his mother, as well as with Combray, where most of his memories
are inhabited by his grandmother and his aunt. But it is not only the physical presence of
women that makes time feminine; it is also the association of time with the senses. It is
the taste and the smell of the Madeleine that sends Marcel through a journey of memory,
and it is through the senses – thus through the body -- that he remembers:
I place in position before my mind’s eye the still recent taste of that first
mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its restingplace and attempts to rise, something that has been embedding like an anchor at
a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I
can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed, (57).
Memory is created involuntarily through the senses. In this way, Proust’s use of the body
as a tool for transcendence recalls the strategies employed by feminist French women
writers.
In Swann’s Way, time and space are intimately linked to femininity; whether it
is through the physical presence of a woman or through the appreciation of the senses and
the arts, femininity dominates the text. In his own lifetime, Proust associated time and
space with the women he was close to, and believed that the purest way to capture both
time and space was through the act of writing.
110
�Works Consulted
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space: The Classic Look at How We Experience
Intimate Places. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
Barker, Richard H. Marcel Proust: A Biography. New York: Criterion Books, 1958.
Kristeva, Julia. Proust and the Sense of Time. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.
Mitchell, W. J. T. “Space, Ideology, and Literary Representation”, Poetics Today, 10
(1989): 91-102.
Proust, Marcel. Swann’s Way. New York: Penguin Group, 1957.
Quennell, Peter. Marcel Proust: 1871-1922. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971.
Robinson, Brian S. “Some Fragmented Forms of Space”, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, 64 (1973): 549-63.
Salvaggio, Ruth. “Theory and Space, Space and Woman”, Tulsa Studies in Women’s
Literature, 7 (1988): 261-82.
Zoran, Gabriel. “Towards a Theory of Space in Narrative”, Poetics Today, 5 (1984): 309
-35.
111
�
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Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research
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Volume 7, Number 1
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Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference -- Abstracts -- 2 Insults as Predictor of Popularity in a Social Organization / James Hodnett and Dr. Amy Eshleman -- 2 Antimicrobial Properties of Chios Mastic In Vitro / Michael Bois, Edmond Kurtovic and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 2 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and Educators / Kristen Solheim, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and Elizabeth Kurzawa -- 3 Pathogenesis of Various Induced Bacterial Infections of the Cardio-Thoracic Region of Adult Zebrafish / Lauren Maltese, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 4 The Need for Creativity in the Physics Lab / Rebecca Giannattasio -- 4 Hydrothermal Growth of Zinc Oxide Utilizing Aqueous Speciation Calculations / Lindsay Lucas and Dr. Maria Gelabert -- 5 Teratogenic Effects of Lithium Chloride Exposure on Eye Development during Embryogenesis in Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) / Christina Lamb, Dr. Ammini Moorthy and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 5 Relational Aggression Intervention / Lauren Bernardo, Christina Herrera, Leah LaPrate, Dana Trottier and Dr. Amy Eshleman -- 6 The Effects of Different Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage of the Isolated and Perfused Anterior Midgut of Larva Aedes Aegypti / Sejmir Izeirovski and Dr. Horst Onken -- 6 The Role of Micro RNA’s in the Regulation of Both Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis / Andrew Pistilli, Chris Roxbury and Dr. Elias Zambidis -- 7 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and Educators: Residency Program on Composites / Kathryn Chepiga, Emily Mihalick, Kristen Solheim, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and Elizabeth Kurzawa -- 8 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and Educators: Biosensors and Polymers / Jennifer Lewis, Cassie Bray, Dr. Wendy Driscoll and Elizabeth Kurzawa -- 8 Introducing Materials Science to Middle School Students and Educators / Christopher Cappelli, Dr. Wendy Driscoll, Elizabeth Kurzawa and Lindsay Lucas -- Section II: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 12 Teratogenic Effects on Eye Development Resulting from Lithium Chloride Exposure in Early Embryogenesis of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / Christina Lamb, Dr. Ammini Moorthy, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- Section III: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 34 The Understanding and Dynamics of Play and Imitation: Observation and Interpretation of Two-Year-Olds / Anthony Pircio -- 45 Childhood: Social Interaction, Pretend Play and Imitation of Life / Lauren Brillante -- Section IV: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 56 Atonement, Guilt and Masochism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe: Charles Baudelaire, Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig / Austin Handcock -- 63 The Need for Creativity in the Physics Laboratory / Rebecca Giannattasio -- 87 Emilie Flöge: A Modern Figure of Correspondence amongst the Arts in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna / Courtney Perez -- 94 Forster’s Symbolic Use of Female Characters / Marina McFarland -- 105 Mother’s Kiss and the Madeleine: The Feminization of Time and Space in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way / Kaite Belmont
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Spring 2009
Volume VII, Number 2
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural
Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are
limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
This issue ushers in a newly formed editorial board. It has been a pleasure working with
such talented individuals. Their stimulating conversations and insightful comments have
already proven to be invaluable. Indeed, there was a great deal to discuss given the
outstanding quality of the manuscripts submitted and the wide range of disciplines they
spanned.
The articles on the pages that follow address questions including does the mercury in
vaccines cause or predispose a child to autism and what role did Quotidian Women play
in the French Revolution? They explore the connection between the stress placed on first
responders and various psychopathologies that result. The interested reader will most
certainly enjoy the paper on Malcolm X which challenges the popular misconception that
his goal was to incite violence. Also, be sure not to miss the first of three papers on
Renaissance Italy. It gives a fascinating account of how Vesalius composed the modern
text on human anatomy.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Prof. Patricia Tooker, Nursing
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Paper
2 The Anterior Midgut of Larval Yellow Fever Mosquitoes
(Aedes aegypti): Effects of Nutrients on the Transepithelial
Voltage and Strong Luminal Alkalinization
Sejmir Izeirovski, Dr. Stacia B. Moffett, Dr. David F. Moffett and Dr. Horst Onken
Section II: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
18 Traumatic Incidents: Psychopathology in Children of First Responders
Jacob Miner
37 The Link Between Autism and Childhood Vaccines
Stacy R. Stingo
46 The Influence of an Intervention with
Relationally Aggressive High School Females
Christina Herrera
Section III: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
66 Homosexuality and Gender Dissidence:
Acting Out in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, Vienna and Berlin
Shane Courtney
79 Vesalius and Renaissance Anatomy
Amanda Gland
90 The Women of Heart of Darkness
Jenna Pocius
�100 The Role of Quotidian Women in the French Revolution: 1789-1795
(English Summary)
Nicole Mahoney
102 The Role of Quotidian Women in the French Revolution: 1789-1795
Nicole Mahoney
113 Malcolm X: The Man and the Myth
Justina Licata
133 Religion and Aestheticism in Joyce's Portrait: Truth in Beauty
Jeanna Ritto
�Section I:
The Natural Sciences
�The Anterior Midgut of Larval Yellow Fever
Mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti): Effects of Nutrients on the
Transepithelial Voltage and Strong Luminal Alkalinization
Sejmir Izeirovski (Biology), Dr. Stacia B. Moffett1 (Biology), Dr. David F. Moffett1
(Biology) and Dr. Horst Onken (Biology)
Isolated anterior midguts of larval Aedes aegypti were bathed in aerated mosquito saline
containing serotonin (0.2 µmol l−1) and perfused with NaCl (100 mmol l−1). The lumen
negative transepithelial voltage (Vte) was measured and luminal alkalinization was
determined through the color change of luminal m-cresol purple from yellow to purple
after luminal perfusion stops. Addition of 10 mmol l−1 amino acids (arginine, glutamine,
histidine or proline) or dicarboxylic acids (malate or succinate) to the luminal perfusate
resulted in more negative Vte values, whereas addition of glucose was without effect. In
the presence of TRIS chloride as luminal perfusate, addition of nutrients did not change
Vte. These results are consistent with Na+-dependent absorption of amino acids and
dicarboxylic acids. Effects of serotonin withdrawal indicated that nutrient absorption is
stimulated by this hormone. Strong luminal alkalinization was observed with mosquito
saline containing serotonin on the hemolymph-side and 100 mmol l-1 NaCl in the lumen,
indicating that alkalinization does not depend on luminal nutrients. Omission of glucose
or dicarboxylic acids from the hemolymph-side solution had no effect on luminal
alkalinization, whereas omission of amino acids significantly decelerated it. Re-addition
of amino acids restored alkalinization, suggesting the involvement of amino acid
metabolism in luminal alkalinization.
I. Introduction
Strong midgut alkalinization is typical of a number of larval endopterygote
insects of the orders Coleoptera, Diptera, Trichoptera, and Lepidoptera (for references see
Clark 1999). Larval yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) reach pH levels of up to 12
in their anterior midgut (Senior-White, 1926; Dadd, 1975). The digestive enzymes are
adapted to this pH (Eguchi et al., 1990), and Berenbaum (1980) hypothesized that the
high pH is important for the dissociation of protein-tannin complexes and increases
assimilation of dietary protein. The high pH of the midgut is also essential for the
1
School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4236,
USA
2
�susceptibility to biological control agents such as Bacillus thuringiensis endotoxin
(Knowles, 1994).
Clark et al. (1999) perfused isolated anterior midgut segments of larval Aedes
aegypti and observed a lumen negative transepithelial voltage (Vte) that was stimulated
by submicromolar doses of serotonin, concentrations similar to those observed in the
hemolymph of the animals (Clark and Bradley, 1997). Vte was assumed to reflect acid
absorption and/or base secretion and it was analyzed in further detail to uncover the
complete mechanisms of strong alkalinization (Onken et al. 2004a). The mechanisms
proposed on the basis of these results were similar to earlier proposals based on studies
with intact and semi-intact larvae (Boudko, 2001a,b; Corena et al., 2002). However,
when luminal alkalinization was evaluated in isolated and perfused anterior midgut
preparations, it turned out that most assumptions about underlying transport mechanisms
could not be verified (Onken et al., 2008, Onken et al. 2009, Onken and Moffett, 2009).
The only unambiguous finding was that V-ATPases in the basal membrane pump protons
from the cells to the hemolymph and apparently generate the driving force for transapical
acid absorption and/or base secretion. V-ATPases had been immunolocalized in the basal
membrane of anterior midguts of larval Aedes aegypti (Zhuang et al., 1999). Proton
gradients on the basal surface of the cells – indicative of active proton absorption from
the cells to the hemolymph – were inhibited by addition of the specific V-ATPase blocker
bafilomycin (Boudko et al., 2001a). Concanamycin, another V-ATPase inhibitor (Dröse
and Altendorf, 1997), abolished the transepithelial voltage, the short-circuit current, and
strong alkalinization of isolated anterior midguts (Onken et al., 2004a; Onken et al.,
2006; Onken et al., 2008). On the other hand, the apical transport mechanisms involved
in strong luminal alkalinization remain uncertain (Onken and Moffett, 2009).
In most of the above studies with isolated anterior midguts, the tissue was
bathed and perfused with a mosquito saline based broadly on the hemolymph assays of
Edwards (1982a,b), which contains a number of nutrients, including glucose, amino acids
and dicarboxylic acids. Amino acid transporters have been identified in larval mosquitoes
with molecular techniques; these transporters were immunolocalized in the apical
membrane of midgut epithelial cells (Boudko et al., 2005; Okech et al., 2008a,b).
However, we have recently found that strong alkalinization persists in the absence of
luminal nutrients (Onken et al., 2009). The present study aimed to analyze the possible
contribution of nutrient absorption to Vte, and to investigate the possible influence of
hemolymph-side nutrients on strong luminal alkalinization in the anterior midgut of
larval Aedes aegypti.
3
�II. Materials and Methods
Animals
Aedes aegypti (Vero Beach strain) eggs were provided by Dr. Marc Klowden
(University of Idaho, Moscow, USA) from a continuously maintained colony. The eggs
were hatched and larvae were maintained in a 1:1 mixture of tap water and deionized
water at 27 °C and on a 16:8 L:D photoperiod. The water was replaced each day, and the
larvae were fed with ground Tetramin flakes (Tetrawerke, Melle, Germany). Fed 4th
instar larvae were used in all experiments.
Solutions and Chemicals
The mosquito saline used for the experiments as hemolymph-side bathing
solution was composed according to the hemolymph of larval yellow fever mosquitoes
(Edwards, 1982a,b) and consisted of (in mmol L−1): NaCl, 42.5; KCl, 3.0; MgCl2, 0.6;
CaCl2, 5.0; NaHCO3, 5.0; succinic acid, 5.0; malic acid, 5.0; L-proline, 5.0; L-glutamine,
9.1; L-histidine, 8.7; L-arginine, 3.3; dextrose, 10.0; Hepes, 25. The pH was adjusted to
7.0 with NaOH. The lumen of the isolated anterior midgut was perfused with NaCl (100
mmol L-1, pH 7) with or without nutrients. In experiments where Na+-free solution was
used as luminal perfusate, TRIS substituted for Na+ ions. When monitoring luminal
alkalinization, the luminal NaCl solution contained 0.04 % of the pH indicator m-cresol
purple. In some experiments, 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON), an inhibitor of
glutaminase (cf. Engler et al., 2002), was directly dissolved in the mosquito saline at a
concentration of 1 mmol L-1. All chemicals used were of analytical grade and were
obtained from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, Missouri, USA).
Isolation, Mounting and Perfusion of Anterior Midguts
Anterior midguts of larval yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) were
isolated, mounted and perfused as described before in detail (Onken et al., 2004a,b). To
summarize, after isolation, the midguts were transferred to a bath that contained mosquito
saline and tied with a human hair on an L-shaped glass perfusion pipette connected to
two syringe pumps (model Aladdin, World Precision Instruments, Sarasota, Florida,
USA). The bath (volume 200 µl) was continuously gravity perfused with aerated
mosquito saline at a rate of 15-30 ml h-1. The midgut lumen was perfused with one of the
syringe pumps at a rate of 50 µl h−1. After passing through the midgut, the luminal
perfusate entered the bath and was flushed away by the bath perfusion. As verified before
(Onken et al., 2004a), the open end of the preparation does not reduce the transepithelial
voltage.
4
�Measurement of the Transepithelial Voltage
To measure the transepithelial voltage (Vte) the bath (hemolymph-side of the
epithelium) and the luminal perfusate (apical side of the epithelium) were connected with
agar bridges (3 mol l−1 KCl in 3% agar) to two different calomel electrodes connected to
the preamplifier of a voltage clamp (model VCC 600, Physiological Instruments, San
Diego, California, USA). The Vte was measured with reference to the bath. Data were
digitized using a Labtrax 4 AD converter and analyzed with Data-Trax software (World
Precision Instruments, Sarasota, Florida, USA).
Measurement of Luminal Alkalinization
Alkalinization was qualitatively determined with the pH indicator m-cresol
purple (0.04% w/w) dissolved in the luminal perfusion medium. Luminal perfusion was
interrupted and a color change from orange to purple (pK2 = 8.32) was taken to indicate
luminal alkalinization (cf. Onken et al., 2008; see also Fig. 3). The color changes were
observed with a dissecting microscope and recorded with a digital camera. As a rule,
photographs were taken every two minutes for a period of 10 minutes during such stopflow experiments.
Statistics
All the data are presented in the Results as means ± standard error of the mean
(SE). Differences between groups were tested, using paired Student’s t-test. Significance
was assumed at P < 0.05.
III. Results
Effects of Luminal Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage
In addition to inorganic ions and buffer, mosquito saline contains glucose, two
organic acids and four amino acids (Edwards, 1982a,b; see Materials and Methods). In a
series of experiments, we studied the influence of these nutrients on the transepithelial
voltage (Vte) of the anterior midgut of larval Aedes aegypti when they were separately
added to the luminal perfusion medium (100 mM NaCl). After mounting the tissues in
the presence of hemolymph-side mosquito saline and luminal NaCl, an average Vte of –5
± 0.5 mV (n = 44, ± SE) was measured. Addition of serotonin (0.2 µmol l−1) to the
hemolymph-side bath drove this voltage to more negative values (-13 ± 1.1 mV; n= 44, ±
SE). Addition of arginine (10 mmol l−1) to the luminal perfusate significantly increased
the lumen negative Vte by about 180%, from -7 ± 1 mV to -17 ± 3 mV (n = 7, ± SE; P <
0.05). In 13 experiments, luminal addition of glutamine (10 mmol l−1) resulted in a
5
�significant Vte increase by about 75 %, from -15 ± 2 mV to -25 ± 4 mV (n = 13, ± SE; P <
0.05). Luminal histidine (10 mmol l−1) significantly stimulated Vte, from -23 ± 4 mV to 37 ± 6 mV (n = 4, ± SE; P < 0.05), and luminal proline (10 mmol l−1) resulted in a Vte
increase of about 80 %, from -12 ± 2 mV to -19 ± 3 mV (n = 11, ± SE; P < 0.05).
Luminal addition of the organic acids malate or succinate (10 mmol l−1) resulted in Vte
stimulations by about 80 % (malate: -22 ± 4 mV to -36 ± 3 mV; n = 7, ± SE; P < 0.05 and
succinate: -13 ± 2 mV to -23 ± 4 mV; n = 8, ± SE; P < 0.05). Luminal addition of glucose
(10 mmol l−1) did not affect Vte (-17 ± 6 mV before and after glucose, n = 6, ± SE). The
results obtained with nutrients in the luminal perfusate are summarized in Fig. 1.
The effects of nutrient addition were reversible. They also were enhanced by the
presence of serotonin. In some experiments, we washed out hemolymph-side serotonin in
the presence of a luminal nutrient. From the observed Vte changes it is evident that the
voltage stimulating effect of luminal amino acids or dicarboxylic acids is enhanced by
serotonin (Fig. 2). Sodium in the lumen is required for the stimulation of the voltage by
nutrients. In three experiments, arginine was added in the presence of hemolymph-side
serotonin to a luminal perfusate that consisted of TRIS chloride (100 mmol l−1) instead of
NaCl. In these experiments, glutamine did not induce a significant change of the
transepithelial voltage (before glutamine: -25 ± 16 mV; after glutamine: -25 ± 15 mV; n
= 3, ± SE).
Effects of Hemolymph-side Nutrients on Alkalinization
It is known that strong luminal alkalinization occurs in the absence of luminal
nutrients with perfusion medium containing only NaCl (see Onken et al., 2009). In
another series of experiments we studied the influence of hemolymph-side nutrients on
the capacity of the anterior midgut of larval yellow fever mosquitoes to alkalinize the
luminal medium. In all experiments, alkalinization was first observed during a control
interval with serotonin and all the nutrients present in the hemolymph-side bath. Under
control conditions, alkalinization was clearly visible after 2-4 minutes and intensified
afterwards. After this control experiment, the procedure was repeated in the absence of
hemolymph-side glucose, or the two dicarboxylic acids, or the four amino acids. Neither
omission of glucose (n = 6) nor of the two dicarboxylic acids (n = 4) affected the capacity
of the anterior midgut to alkalinize the lumen. However, in the absence of amino acids (n
= 7) no alkalinization was observed during the 10 minutes after luminal perfusion
stopped (Fig. 3).
In the last series of experiments, we observed the effect of hemolymph-side
addition of 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON, 1 mmol l−1) on the luminal alkalinization
6
�in the anterior midgut. DON is a glutamine analog that inhibits glutaminase (Engler et al.,
2002), an enzyme responsible for the conversion of glutamine to glutamate with release
of ammonia. There was no effect of DON on luminal alkalinization, neither with
mosquito saline as the hemolymph-side bath (n = 9), nor when all amino acids were
replaced by glutamine (n = 3).
IV. Discussion
Amino Acid Absorption
Antibodies have detected the presence of amino acid transporters in the midgut
of larval mosquitoes (Boudko et al., 2005, Okech et al., 2008a,b). The results of the
present study are consistent with the presence of amino acid transporters in the anterior
region of the midgut of larval Aedes aegypti and show that they are active in in vitro
preparations of the tissue (Fig. 1). We observed that voltage changes after addition of
glutamine were abolished when luminal Na+ was replaced with TRIS, consistent with the
reported cation dependence of the transporters (see Results, cf. Boudko et al., 2005).
Moreover, our observations confirm the electrogenic nature of the transporters and
indicate that amino acid absorption is stimulated by serotonin (Fig. 2). Absorption of
amino acids significantly contributes to the transepithelial voltage measured with isolated
midgut preparations in the presence of luminal mosquito saline, which is certainly of
importance for the re-interpretation of previous investigations with isolated anterior
midguts (Onken et al., 2004a, Onken et al, 2006).
Our observations diverge from previously reported characterizations of
mosquito amino acid transporters in two respects. First, glutamate and proline, two amino
acids that induced voltage changes in the present study, are not avidly accepted by the
transporters already characterized (cf. Okech et al., 2008b; Boudko et al., 2005).
Moreover, the amino acid transporter characterized in larval yellow fever mosquitoes
Aedes aegypti was mainly found in the posterior midgut and hardly expressed in the
anterior midgut (Boudko et al., 2005). Based on our results, it can be anticipated that
more types of amino acid transporters may be present in the midgut of larval mosquitoes.
Dicarboxylic Acid Absorption
Transepithelial transport of dicarboxylic acids has long been known and renal
transporters of this type were reviewed over 20 years ago (Wright, 1985). These
transporters accept a variety of dicarboxylic acids (including malate and succinate), are
electrogenic and Na+-dependent. Three Na+ ions are transported together with one
dicarboxylic acid molecule. To our knowledge such transporters have never been
7
�described for any insect epithelium. Our observation of voltage changes in response to
luminal addition of malate or succinate (Fig. 1) strongly suggests the presence of such
transporters in the anterior midgut of larval yellow fever mosquitoes. A hypothetical
transport model for amino acids and dicarboxylic acids is shown in Fig. 4A.
Glucose Absorption
Na /glucose cotransporters have been identified in epithelial tissues of many
animals, vertebrates and invertebrates. However, early studies with insects suggested the
absence of Na+-dependent, active glucose absorption in the gut and described the
absorption as passive, driven by the fast transformation of glucose into trehalose,
generally regarded as the major hemolymph sugar of most insect species (Treherne, 1957,
1958). However, in the hemolymph of larval Aedes aegypti glucose and trehalose are
present at almost equal concentrations (Edwards, 1982b), suggesting that active glucose
absorption is necessary for a effective absorption of dietary glucose. Recently, Na+dependent glucose absorption has indeed been reported for the gut of an aphid (Caccia et
al., 2007). However, in our experiments the addition of luminal glucose did not cause any
voltage change indicative of Na+-dependent glucose absorption (Fig. 1). Of course, on the
basis of our results we cannot exclude active glucose absorption in gut regions anterior or
posterior to the anterior midgut.
+
Hemolymph Nutrients and Strong Luminal Alkalinization
Strong luminal alkalinization in the midgut of larval Aedes aegypti was observed
when isolated anterior midguts were perfused with 100 mmol l-1 NaCl (Onken et al.,
2009), indicating that alkalinization is not obligatorily linked to nutrient absorption.
However, the results of the present study demonstrate an influence of hemolymph-side
nutrients on alkalinization. Whereas the omission of glucose or dicarboxylic acids was
without effect, alkalinization was abolished or at least significantly decelerated when
amino acids were not present in the hemolymph-side bathing medium (Fig. 3). This
observation can be explained in at least two ways. It could be that the energy metabolism
of the epithelial cells responsible for strong luminal alkalinization completely depends on
amino acids as fuels. Consequently, the omission of amino acids could result in a
decrease of intracellular ATP and, subsequently, in a decreased capacity to drive the
processes necessary for alkalinization. Alternatively, or in addition to the first point, the
products of amino acid catabolism, ammonium and bicarbonate, could be of importance
for the alkalinization. Interestingly, both products of amino acid catabolism are strong
bases in their unprotonated forms and both could result in strong alkalinization when
8
�secreted to the lumen. For a hypothetical model of how amino acid catabolism could
contribute to luminal alkalinization see Fig. 4B.
We used 6-diazo-5-oxo-L-norleucine (DON) to inhibit glutaminase (Engler et
al., 2002), and interfere with the catabolism of glutamine. However, DON did not affect
luminal alkalinization. A number of confounding possibilities could account for this
result. First, we have no independent evidence for the expression of glutaminase in this
tissue, or that DON is effective against any insect form of the enzyme. Furthermore,
although DON is regarded as a membrane permeant inhibitor, it could be that in this case
it does not enter the cells. Moreover, it could also be that inhibition of glutaminase does
not completely inhibit amino acid catabolism. Many amino acids are transaminated to
glutamate, but it is actually glutamate dehydrogenase that, downstream of glutaminase,
may produce the bulk of ammonia by oxidative deamination. Thus, the latter enzyme
could be a better target to interfere with the production of ammonia and bicarbonate from
of amino acid catabolism. Additional studies will be necessary to clarify these
possibilities. In particular, it will be of interest to determine whether ammonia is secreted
into the lumen of the anterior midgut.
Final Remarks
Altogether the results of the present investigation show evidence that a
significant part of the transepithelial voltage generated by isolated and perfused anterior
midguts of larval Aedes aegypti is related to nutrient absorption rather than alkali
secretion. Whereas absorption of luminal amino acids and alkali secretion appear to be
independent processes, amino acids in the hemolymph seem to play a crucial role in
luminal alkalinization. This observation supports the possibility that more detailed studies
of the link between hemolymph amino acids and alkalinization may contribute to our
understanding of the mechanisms of strong alkalinization in this tissue. It is for example
necessary to measure whether ammonia/ammonium actually appears in the luminal
medium.
V. Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge financial support by the National Institutes of
Health (RO1 AI 063463) to D.F.M, S.B.M. and H.O. and a Wagner College faculty
research grant to H.O.
9
�VI. References
1. Berenbaum, M. (1980). Adaptive significance of midgut pH in larval Lepidoptera.
Am Nat 115, 138-146.
2.
Boudko, DY, Moroz, LL, Harvey, WR, Linser, PJ. 2001a. Alkalinization by
chloride/bicarbonate pathway in larval mosquito midgut. Proc Nat Acad Sci 98:
15354-15359.
3.
Boudko, DY, Moroz, LL, Linser, PJ, Trimarchi, JR, Smith, PJS, Harvey, WR.
2001b. In situ analysis of pH gradients in mosquito larvae using non-invasive, selfreferencing, pH-sensitive microelectrodes. J Exp Biol 204: 691-699.
4.
Boudko, DY, Kohn, AB, Meleshkevitch, EA, Dasher, MK, Seron, TJ, Stevens, BR,
Harvey, WR. 2005. Ancestry and progeny of nutrient amino acid transporters. Proc
Nat Acad Sci 102: 1360-1365.
5.
Caccia, S, Casartelli, M, Grimaldi, A, Losa, E, de Eguileor, M, Pennacchio, F,
Giordana, B. 2007. Unexpected similarity of intestinal sugar absorption by SGLT1
and apical GLUT2 in an insect (Aphidius ervi, Hymenoptera) and mammals. Am J
Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 292: 2284–2291.
6.
Clark TM, Bradley TJ. 1997. Malpighian tubules of larval Aedes aegypti are
hormonally stimulated by 5-Hydroxytryptamine in response to increased salinity.
Arch. Insect Biochem. Physiol. 34: 123–141.
7.
Clark, TM. 1999. Evolution and adaptive significance of larval midgut alkalinization
in the insect superorder Mecopterida. J Chem Ecol 25: 1945-1960.
8.
Clark, TM, Koch, A, Moffett, DF. (1999). The anterior and posterior stomach
regions of larval Aedes aegypti midgut: regional specialization of ion transport and
stimulation by 5-hydroxytryptamine. J Exp Biol 202, 247-252.
9.
Corena, MDP., Seron, TJ, Lehman, HK, Ochrietor, JD, Kohn, A, Tu, C, Linser, PJ.
2002. Carbonic anhydrase in the midgut of larval Aedes aegypti: cloning, localization
and inhibition. J Exp Biol 205: 591-602.
10. Dadd, RH. (1975). Alkalinity within the midgut of mosquito larvae with alkalineactive digestive enzymes. J. Insect. Physiol. 21, 1847-1853.
10
�11. Dröse S, Altendorf K. 1997. Bafilomycins and concanamycins as inhibitors of VATPases and P-ATPases. J. Exp. Biol. 200: 1-8.
12. Edwards, HA. (1982a). Ion concentration and activity in the hemolymph of Aedes
aegypti larvae. J. Exp. Biol. 101, 143-151.
13. Edwards, HA. (1982b). Free amino acids as regulators of osmotic pressure in aquatic
insect larvae. J. Exp. Biol. 101, 153-160.
14. Eguchi, M, Azuma, M, Yamamoto, H, Takeda, S. (1990). Genetically defined
membrane-bound and soluble alkaline phosphatases of the silkworm: their discrete
localization and properties. Prog. Clin. Biol. Res. 344, 267-287.
15. Engler, JA, Gottesmann, JM, Harkins, JC, Urazaev, AK, Lieberman, EM, Grossfeld,
RM. 2002. Properties of glutaminase of crayfish CNS: Implications for axon-glia
signaling. Neuroscience 114: 699-705.
16. Knowles, BH. (1994). Mechanism of action of Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal δendotoxin. Adv. Insect Physiol. 24, 275-308.
17. Okech, BA, Boudko, DY, Linser, PJ, Harvey, WR. 2008a. Cationic pathway of pH
regulation in larvae of Anopheles gambiae. J Exp Biol 211: 957-968.
18. Okech, BA, Meleshkevitch, EA, Miller, MM, Popova, LB, Harvey, WR, Boudko,
DY. 2008b. Synergy and specificity of two Na+–aromatic amino acid symporters in
the model alimentary canal of mosquito larvae. J. Exp. Biol. 211: 1594-1602.
19. Onken, H, Moffett, DF. 2009. Revisiting the cellular mechanisms of strong luminal
alkalinization in the anterior midgut of larval mosquitoes. J. Exp. Biol. 212: 373-377.
20. Onken, H, Moffett, SB, Moffett, DF. 2004a. The transepithelial voltage of the
isolated anterior stomach of mosquito larvae (Aedes aegypti): pharmacological
characterization of the serotonin-stimulated cells. J. Exp. Biol. 207, 1779-1787.
21. Onken, H, Moffett, SB, Moffett, DF. 2004b. The anterior stomach of larval
mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti): effects of neuropeptides on transepithelial ion transport
and muscular motility. J Exp Biol 207: 3731-3739.
11
�22. Onken H, Moffett SB, Moffett DF. 2006. The isolated anterior stomach of larval
mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti): voltage-clamp measurements with a tubular epithelium.
Comp Biochem Physiol 143A: 24-34.
23. Onken, H, Moffett, SB, Moffett, DF. 2008. Alkalinization in the isolated and
perfused anterior stomach of larval Aedes aegypti. J Insect Science 8:43, available
online: insectscience.org/8.43.
24. Onken, H, Patel, M, Javoroncov, M, Izeirovski, S, Moffett, SB, Moffett, DF. 2009.
Strong alkalinization in the anterior midgut of larval yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes
aegypti): Involvement of luminal Na+/K+-ATPase. J. Exp. Zool. in press [published
online in December 2008: DOI 10.1002/jez.512 (7 pages)].
25. Patrick, ML, Aimanova, K, Sanders, HR, Gill, SS. 2006. P-type Na+/K+-ATPase and
V-type H+-ATPase expression patterns in the osmoregulatory organs of larval and
adult mosquito Aedes aegypti. J Exp Biol 209: 4638-4651.
26. Senior-White, R. 1926. Physical factors in mosquito ecology. Bull. Entomol. Res. 16,
187-248.
27. Treherne, JE. 1957. Glucose absorption in the coackroach. J. Exp. Biol. 34: 478–485.
28. Treherne, JE. 1958. The absorption of glucose from the alimentary canal of the
locust Schistocerca gregaria. J. Exp. Biol. 35: 297–306.
29. Wright, ER. 1985. Transport of carboxylic acids by renal membrane vesicles. Ann.
Rev. Physiol. 47: 127-141.
30. Zhuang, Z, Linser, PJ, Harvey, WR. 1999. Antibody to H+ V-ATPase subunit E
colocalizes with portasomes in alkaline larval midgut of a freshwater mosquito
(Aedes aegypti L.). J Exp Biol 202: 2449-2460.
12
�Effects of luminal nutrients on Vte [%]
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Control
Arginine Glutamine Histidine
Proline
Malate
Succinate Glucose
Figure 1: Effect of luminal addition of different nutrients (at concentrations of 10 mmol
l−1) on the transepithelial voltage (Vte) in percent + SE. For further details see Results.
Figure 2: Representative time-course of the lumen negative transepithelial voltage (Vte, in
mV), showing the effects of addition and withdrawal of hemolymph-side serotonin (0.2
µmol l−1) and luminal glutamine (10 mmol l−1). The serotonin-induced change of Vte is
much smaller in the absence of glutamine (5 mV) than in its presence (20 mV). The
glutamine-induced change of Vte in the presence of serotonin (23 mV) is markedly larger
than the glutamine-induced Vte change in the absence of serotonin (12 mV).
13
�Figure 3: Luminal alkalinization in the anterior midgut of larval Aedes aegypti. Left: An
anterior midgut (width approximately 250 µm) in the process of alkalinization after
luminal perfusion stop under control conditions (left column of photographs) in the
presence of mosquito saline in the hemolymph-side bath and NaCl (100 mmol l-1) as
luminal perfusate. Luminal alkalinization is identified by the purple color of m-cresol
purple and is visible already two minutes after perfusion stop. Afterwards the luminal
alkalinization intensifies and spreads towards the posterior region of the anterior midgut.
In the absence of amino acids in the hemolymph-side bathing medium (right column of
photographs) the same tissue shows no luminal alkalinization.
14
�Figure 4: Hypothetical models for absorption of amino acids and dicarboxylic acids (A)
and for the possible contribution of amino acid catabolism to luminal alkalinization. A)
Luminal amino acids (AA) and dicarboxylic acids (DCA) are absorbed across the apical
membrane driven by an inward directed electrochemical gradient for Na+. Basal VATPase generates the cellular negativity and apical Na+/K+-ATPase (Patrick et al., 2006;
Okech et al., 2008a) maintains low intracellular Na+. Intracellular acids are either
catabolized in mitochondria or transported to the hemolymph by unknown transporters.
B) Basolateral amino acid transporters (Okech et al., 2008a) import amino acids into the
cells. Amino acids are catabolized in the mitochondria, producing NH3, HCO3- and H+.
Basal V-ATPases pump protons to the hemolymph, producing an intracellular pH of up
to 8.5 (cf. Onken and Moffett, 2009). At this pH, considerable amounts of ammonia stay
unprotonated and could leave the cells by diffusion across the apical membrane to the
lumen. HCO3- (or at the alkaline intracellular pH even CO32-) are proposed to be secreted
to the lumen by so far unidentified Na+-dependent transporters. Altogether the secreted
fluid would contain (NH4)2CO3 and Na2CO3 at a pH between 10 and 12.
15
��Section II:
The Social Sciences
�Traumatic Incidents: Psychopathology
in Children of First Responders
Jacob Miner (Psychology)1
The focus of this thesis is the psychopathology that arises from exposure to traumatic
events. First responders and emergency personnel, who witness high levels of exposure
to traumatic events, are of particular concern because of the stressful nature of their work.
Research indicates that children of first responders are also at risk of developing mental
disorders. Although little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these transmissions, social support networks and coping strategies appear to play a part. A study
currently under way is investigating psychopathology in children of first responders and
evacuees exposed to the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack. Preliminary
findings show significant variation in mental disorder prevalence rates amongst these
children and that the rates depend on the type of first responder family member (e.g.,
police officer, firefighter, and EMT/paramedic). The importance of this research has
developed over time stemming from established public health initiatives to recognizing
wartime stress reactions. The origins of these initiatives are traced to the present.
I. Literature Review
First responders are the trained professionals who are the initial personnel to
arrive at emergency situations. This group of workers includes police officers,
firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMT), and paramedics. Although the
public relies heavily on their rescue, relief, and recovery services, the psychological
ramifications on the workers themselves from the nature of their work has been
inadequately studied. Furthermore, even less is known about the psychological burdens
that their families bear.
Research on this matter is currently being conducted using the population of first
responders exposed to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and its
aftermath. This ongoing study primarily focuses on the transmission of posttraumatic
stress and other psychopathologies from first responder parents to their children.
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
18
�Beginning with the oldest literature and ending with the most recent, the following
review traces the origins from which the present study derives.
Early Stages of Public Health Services
An appropriate place to begin this investigation is the inception of the American
Public Health Association (APHA). At the Association’s first session on May 1, 1873,
the first president, Stephen Smith, M.D., delivered an address entitled “On the
Limitations and Modifying Conditions of Human Longevity, the Basis of Sanitary
Work.” The founding of this Association formally marks an early step towards
improving public health, and its objectives defined as “the advancement of sanitary
science, and the promotion of organizations and measures for the practical application of
public hygiene” (Smith, 1873). Sanitation as a science, Smith indicates, seeks to bring
individuals closer to their maximum potential longevity by creating immunity from
disease and eliminating death from reasons other than old age. He reflects on the
suffering seen around the world—the sickness, violence, insanity, and death—that
plagues civilizations far and wide, to which mankind has grown accustomed. This is
partly due to an acceptance that these evils are simply man’s punishment for disobeying
God, and it is in the interest of the APHA to promote science that will abandon those
beliefs. After all, Smith says it is beliefs such as those that thwart efforts to understand
man’s capacity for health and long life, and the conditions that modify them.
Bearing in mind the somewhat naïve state of medicine and concept of public
health in the late 19th century, Smith defines the natural courses of human life that are
granted at birth. Every animal is given a limited supply of “life force,” which is largely
drawn upon during the periods of growth and serves to maintain the organism thereafter.
The more complex an organism is, the more force it needs to grow, regenerate tissue, and
maintain itself. This absolute potential longevity is determined by the speed at which the
supply of the life force is depleted, and it varies amongst and within species. As humans,
we show an inherent capacity for longevity because we are complex organisms.
Smith estimates that the absolute potential longevity of humans is 100 years.
Because of our omnivorous eating habits and our increasingly developed brains, we do
not need to expend as much energy as do other animals on searching for food.
Communities cooperate to decrease individual struggle by seeking the “greatest good for
the greatest number of people” and caring for the sick—things that are absent from
animal societies, causing premature death. However true this may be, most people do not
live to see 100 years of life. To illustrate, Smith cites the 1870 census: of 492,263 deaths,
110,445 were infants less than 1 year old, and 203,213 were less than 5 years old. 16,000
19
�reached ages 45-50, 13,000 reached 55-60, 14,000 reached 65-70, 11,000 reached 75-80,
4,500 reached 85-90, and 1,300 reached 95 and above. There is evidently a discrepancy
between the potential and actual longevity if 60% of the people who died did not live past
age 25, and 25% did not live more than 5 years. Sanitary science must aim to reduce this
waste of life.
These deaths are unnecessary, Smith says, and can be avoided more easily than
one may readily admit. Improperly cooked food, inadequate clothing and shelter in cold
weather, and impure air all claim lives needlessly, yet are all things controlled by
humans. Perhaps an even more pertinent observation is that the medical field,
presumably responsible for the care of the sick, spends little time devising preventative
measures to stop sickness before it happens. With the establishment of the APHA, Smith
proposes extensive education as a means by which humans can become more effective at
preventing maladies. Schools should teach physiology, pathology, and preventative
medicine to the same extent as other standard subjects. The medical field, as well as
practically every other profession, should be educated in sanitary science so that public
health is of interest to all. With the cooperation of the state and federal governments,
Smith believes that reforms can be made to improve the prevention of epidemics.
Stress Reactions
The research that has ensued since the address in 1873 is more or less a
reflection of the humanitarian initiatives set forth by Smith and the APHA. As the
primary concern of this paper is the effects of traumatic incidents, most of the earliest
research stems from soldiers’ reactions to wartime events. An example of this is Swank’s
(1949) analysis of combat exhaustion during World War II. The study sought to clarify
contradicting opinions on combat neuroses that arose mostly from the inadequacy of
subjective observations. Combat exhaustion, characterized by fatigue, loss of confidence,
irritability, agitation, and anxiety, is typically observed after prolonged and severe
combat in more willing and stable soldiers. Thus, panic reactions and breakdowns early
in or prior to combat were excluded.
The men in the study were considered to be of better than average stability and
willingness, and were divided into 3 groups. Group 1 was comprised of veterans of the
Normandy Campaign who took part in the initial invasion. Many of them had received
brief treatment for combat exhaustion and were temporarily assigned to companies not
actively involved in combat. All but 150 of the 4,200 men in the group were casualties.
Group 2 consisted of 54 men who entered the Normandy Campaign but were evacuated
with combat exhaustion during combat in the Hürtgen Forest. The 3rd group was
20
�comprised of 289 men who experienced the same plus additional combat as those in
group 2, including the Battle of the Bulge. These men differed from those in group 2 in
that they had been either on non-combat duty or in hospitals/replacement centers for 3-6
months between combat and admission to the hospital where this study was made. Each
soldier was assed for the following: average, low, or high intellect; mild, moderate, or
severe pre-combat neurotic and psychopathic traits; and mild, moderate, or severe battle
stress. Present symptoms were recorded and divided into groups according to emotional
tension and associated symptoms, somatic symptoms (including the hysterical), and
disturbances of grasp and mentation.
Almost all of the men with combat exhaustion complained of emotional
tension—characterized by persistent fatigue, anxiety, inadequacy to all tasks, insecurity,
and fear of crowds. The constant alertness, irritability, and stomach quivers led most of
the men to keep busy to distract themselves from these tensions. Although some resorted
to excessive drinking, few used sex for relief. Difficulty falling asleep, spontaneous
awakening, and nightmares accompanied these problems. Perhaps the most embarrassing
manifestation of the tension involved jumping or “hitting the dirt” at unexpected noises,
most notably when automobiles backfire. Disturbances of grasp and mentation came in
the form of retardation—slow responses to questions, dullness in severe cases of combat
exhaustion, memory defects, preoccupation of thoughts, and apathy. Interestingly,
confusion was not a commonly observed symptom.
Somatic symptoms such as headaches, head tenderness, and pain in the eyes and
back were common. Although soldiers tended to deny these symptoms, observations
revealed otherwise. Hysterical symptoms were the least common, present in 4% of the
subjects. The symptoms included stuttering, aphonia, amnesia, weakness, ataxia,
camptocormia, and depressed muscular tone. These were caused by exposure to
explosions and were almost always accompanied by symptoms of combat exhaustion.
Swank shows that as the length of time spent in combat increases, soldiers are
less capable of controlling emotional reactions that develop. All of the men in group 3
were chronic sufferers of severe combat exhaustion, while personality stability prior to
combat was more of a predictor for anxiety and somatic symptoms in group 1. In
general, the men in group 2 were sicker than those in group 1. Most of them exhibited
mild to moderate retardation, preoccupation, and apathy, and 94% had one or more
somatic symptoms. In an attempt to explain why the symptoms of combat exhaustion
develop in the order that they do, Swank hypothesizes that the subjects become
continuously alert to protect themselves from overwhelmingly threatening situations.
Severe and continuous emotional tension results, and is followed by emotional fatigue or
21
�exhaustion from the constant, rapid dissipation of emotional tension. Exposure to blasts,
causing “blast concussion,” also influences symptoms of combat exhaustion. Expanding
upon previous research, conclusions are drawn that combat exhaustion only develops
after severe or prolonged combat, and that in contrast to WWI, few patients in WWII had
hysterical manifestations.
Related to the study of the development of combat exhaustion is a study on the
improvement of mental illness and the measurement of adjustment (Ellsworth & Clayton,
1959). Because psychiatric patients can either remain hospitalized or leave the hospital
despite symptomology, the extent of psychopathology is not necessarily correlated to the
adequacy of social functioning. Ellsworth and Clayton present data on the relationship
between behavioral adjustment and psychopathology, and how they relate to posthospital adjustment.
Every functional psychotic patient under 60 years of age at Fort Douglas VA
Hospital between August of 1956 and May of 1957 participated in this study. None of
the patients had any major physical illnesses or were hospitalized more than 90 days in
the 6 months preceding this study. Upon admission, each patient was interviewed and
rated on a psychopathology scale. To assess behavioral adjustment, raters used the
MACC Behavioral Adjustment Scale, which measured motility, affect, cooperation, and
communication. Post-hospital adjustment was measured by family, recreational,
community, and occupational/school adjustment, in addition to the management of funds.
Although psychopathology and behavioral adjustment might appear to be
different approaches to evaluating psychiatric patients, Ellsworth and Clayton argue that
they are similar in the respect that they are both based on behavioral observations. It is
for this reason that behavioral adjustment is important in assessing behaviors that
psychopathology scales would overlook, as is the case with psychiatric patients who do
not exhibit symptoms. This study raises doubts as to the usefulness of only
psychopathology as a meaningful criterion of improvement because some patients can
show a decrease in psychopathology but no improvement in social functioning, while
others can show an increase in psychopathology yet be more capable of handling
themselves in social situations. Thus, Ellsworth and Clayton conclude that although both
psychopathology and behavioral adjustment should be taken into consideration, the latter
is more predictive of hospital stay length and level of post-hospital adjustment.
While that study depends on raters’ observations of behavioral adjustment
patients, Weissman and Bothwell (1976) describe a method of assessing adjustment that
relies on patient self-report. Like Ellsworth and Clayton, Weissman and Bothwell
recognize the importance of evaluating adjustment, particularly social adjustment, and its
22
�distinction from symptoms and the abstractness of thoughts. The ineffectiveness of
symptom scales as sole data sources for evidence of treatment has contributed to an
increased interest in social adjustment. The Social Adjustment Scale Self-Report, which
is the instrument described in the article, improves on earlier scales (Weissman &
Bothwell). By the nature of the self-report, training programs are not needed, making
assessment simpler and less expensive to administer. Possibly the most desirable
improvement, however, is the removal of interviewer bias.
This scale is adapted from existing scales and has demonstrated efficacy in
clinical trials with psychiatric populations including patients with depression, alcoholism,
drug dependency, and schizophrenia. The 42 questions on the interview fall into 4 major
categories: the patient’s performance at expected tasks, the amount of friction with
others, finer aspects of interpersonal relations, and inner feelings and satisfactions. These
serve to measure instrumental or expressive role performance in 6 major areas of
functioning: work, social and leisure activities, relationships with extended family, and
marital, parental, and family unit roles.
Upon comparing data from the self-reported to the interview-rated reported
assessment of social adjustment, Weissman and Bothwell find that the self-report method
is accurate. Attention is called, however, to the tendency for the self-reporting patients to
consider themselves more impaired than an interviewer rates them. Additionally, white
interviewers tended to rate black patients as more impaired than white patients, but black
patients did not rate themselves as more impaired than white patients. Although the selfreport method is an improvement in some respects, it is disadvantageous in certain
situations (e.g., data might go missing if a trained assistant is not present to ensure
completion of the assessment). The self-report assessment might also present problems
in certain populations, mainly those with limited reading ability, and delusional or
psychotic patients who tend to underreport impairment. If attention is paid to these
populations, the results suggest that the self-report method can be substituted for the
interview.
Social Support
One hundred and three years after Smith addressed the APHA by calling for
physicians to prevent rather than cure disease, Cobb (1976) reflects on the progress.
“Everyone talks about health,” Cobb says in reference to Smith’s address, “but nobody
does much about it.” Although it was advocated in 1873 at the outset of the APHA,
Cobb asserts that the concept of preventive health had been absent until the recent
implementation of the Health Maintenance Organization. In addressing prevention
23
�issues, the essay focuses on social support and the areas in which it has and has not been
effective. Particularly of interest to Cobb is the interaction of social support with
environmental stress. For this reason, he avoids addressing data on the direct effect of
social support on health.
Beginning in utero, social support is communicated in a variety of ways to
facilitate adaptation to change and coping with crisis. Social support is considered any of
3 categories of information that leads a person to believe he is cared for and loved,
esteemed and valued, and belongs to a network of communication and mutual obligation.
During the young, developing years the primary source is the family, shifting then to
peers at work and in the community, and helping professions in special cases. Later in
life, support comes mostly from family once again. In order to be effective, the
information must be shared by all parties, so that everyone is aware that everyone else
knows. Central to the concept of social support is this information that is conveyed, not
material goods or services that are offered.
Cobb reviews the extent to which social support protects an individual
throughout life transitions and crises by citing studies focusing on various life stages. In
the pregnancy, birth, and early life stage, a study of 170 army wives was conducted.
Having all delivered their babies at a large military hospital, the women were categorized
by the degree of change in their lives and the level of social support they received. The
results show that 91% of the women in both the high life change and low social support
groups had complications during pregnancy. In contrast, women with the same
frequency of life changes but who received a high level of social support did not show a
significant increase in complications. Because the percentage of pregnancy
complications is similar in women with both low and high life changes, a high level of
social support presumably has a protective effect.
Pregnancy “wantedness,” or the degree to which a mother wants her child, also
might be associated with birth complications. In a 60-hospital study, low birth weight
was significantly more common in unwanted babies born to mothers who had at least 12
years of education. A similar Swedish study, however, did not find any difference in
birth weight between babies for whom abortion was requested but not granted and other
babies. In spite of this contrasting finding, education was not used as a control variable.
A reasonable suggestion in light of these studies is not that wantedness information is
transmitted from the mother to the fetus; rather, it is likely that a common reason for
rejecting a baby is inadequate social support. Mother’s support of the child 6-12 months
after delivery also was found to be crucial in the development of sphincter control.
Mothers who worked during that period of time after birth had children with significantly
24
�delayed bladder function at night. Furthermore, an additional study on wantedness
showed that wanted children adapt to and cope with the stresses of growing up better than
children whose parents requested an abortion and were denied. Unwanted children
tended to achieve less education, need more psychiatric treatment and have more
problems with juvenile delinquency.
Cobb cites other studies on the effects of social support in other life events after
childhood. In one study of life stress, men who tried to stop drinking without the support
of an organized program were 20 times more likely to be admitted to a tuberculosis
sanatorium. When bereavement was looked at, single or divorced men whose mothers
died were 9 times more likely to commit suicide than married men. Less familial contact
with relatives also increased the probability of suicide. Stressors that come with aging
and retirement are exacerbated by low social interaction. In a study on persons aged 63
or older, marriage, employment, and substantial social activity were found to protect
against the development of low morale—of the 280-person sample, 85% of those with
low social interaction were depressed, while only 42% of those with high social
interaction were depressed. Similar findings in 2 different army battalions from the same
regiment showed that the battalion with low morale had about twice as many psychiatric
casualties than the battalion with high morale. In these cases, high morale seems to be
associated with high self-esteem and group cohesiveness, which, in turn, provide network
support that maintains morale. When that network of esteem support is disrupted,
problems arise. That was the case in soldiers who lost 75% or more of their comrades in
the Normandy Campaign, as they all developed combat exhaustion.
Cobb concludes that although social support can accelerate the recovery process
and reduce the amount of medication needed, it is not a panacea. The studies presented
in his article show the protective ability that social support has against psychological
maladies when environmental stressors are considered, but he proposes further research
on the mechanism through which it operates. With a greater understanding of the
mechanism and the education of patients on how to give and receive social support,
Smith’s proposal made in 1873 can finally come to fruition.
First Responders
After both World Wars and the Vietnam War served as primary sources for
research on psychological reactions to stressful and traumatic events, the interest in these
reactions started to gravitate toward other situations in which those reactions can be
found. Responses that started off as being identified in wartime situations as shell shock,
combat neuroses, and combat exhaustion, are now recognized as posttraumatic stress
25
�(posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD). While reactions to wartime events are still of
considerable importance, a growing concern for first responders to emergencies has been
the focal point of research in recent years—particularly in conjunction with social support
and the severity of exposure.
Fullerton, McCarroll, Ursano, and Wright (1992), noting that research usually
focuses on victims of disaster, examined the psychological responses of 2 groups of
firefighters after performing rescue operations. Rescue workers are arguably exposed to
more stress in some cases because of the stresses of the event and their role as help
providers. One of the groups was from Sioux City, Iowa (SC group), which responded to
the July 19, 1989 United Airlines plane crash. The plane exploded in midair, resulting in
112 deaths and 59 serious injuries. Some passengers were thrown from the aircraft still
in their seats, while others died in the burning fuselage. The fiery wreckage and
surrounding field burned until the next day, and it was the firefighters’ primary mission
to put out the fire. The other group participating in the study was a special firefighting
unit that assisted other units and performed rescue missions for serious incidents in New
York City (NYC group). Four types of responses to the traumatic events were reported—
identification with the victims, feelings of helplessness and guilt, fear of the unknown,
and physiological reactions—and examples for each case were provided.
By observing both groups sharing their experiences, Fullerton et al. (1992)
notice that all of the responses were present in both of the groups. Some firefighters
identified with the victims because they had children the same age. In the SC disaster,
one firefighter expressed the conflicting roles he felt fighting the fire on the one hand,
and acting as a human rescuer on the other. He had taken a 14-year old boy out of the
burning plane and brought him a safe distance away, but then left him assuring that
someone would take him to safety. Even though he knew the boy was doing well after
visiting him in the hospital, the firefighter still felt guilty because it prompted him to feel
as if he had given up on his own son, who was living with his ex-wife after they divorced.
A NYC firefighter reflected on identifying with dead firefighters at funerals—the reality
of which being that the funeral could have been for him.
The expressed feelings of helplessness and guilt manifested primarily as regret
for having not saved more lives. A malfunctioning water hose caused one firefighter to
feel guilt because he was unable to help at a critical time, though he was later relieved
when he learned that the valve was defective. Some firefighters reflected on their fear of
the unknown by connecting the low visibility in smoky situations to the uncertainty of the
surroundings—SC firefighters could not tell if they were driving over bodies, either alive
or dead, while a NYC firefighter described touching something he thought was a dog but
26
�turned out to be a dead infant. The physiological reactions experienced by the
firefighters could be unique to exposure, but complaints similarly consisted of sleeping
difficulties, fatigue, intrusive images, and persistent smells of burning flesh.
It was observed that these stress reactions were mediated by the availability of
social support, type of leadership, level of training, and use of rituals. Along the same
lines of what Cobb (1976) reported about social support and morale, firefighters indicated
the positive effects of working in pairs. Firefighters compared themselves to family—
sharing responsibilities, participating in activities together, joking around with one
another, and valuing the importance of communication—so that partnership on the job
provided moral support when in difficult situations such as being around dead bodies or
having to make decisions. When one of the SC group leaders expressed his grief by
crying and leaving the room, it permitted others in the group to do the same. Thus, it
appears that the ability of community leaders to express feelings can influence the group
recovery process. Rituals and training also mediated stress by providing firefighters with
organization in their work, and help in staying on task and managing the fear of the
unknown.
Possibly the most valuable suggestions that can be taken from Fullerton et al.
pertain to the importance of social support and prior training in determining mental health
outcome for individuals exposed to traumatic events. Prior training is overlooked as a
response mediator, but when training is inadequate, rescue workers have a more difficult
time recovering. They tend to feel more like victims, out of control, lonely, and
experience more guilt over performance. Rescue work training for disasters, therefore,
should include methods for maintaining communication, interaction, and involvement
with coworkers and other social support networks. Social support provides an outlet in
which rescue workers can share their feelings and gain reassurance from peers and
leaders. By teaching rescue workers to decrease identification and emotional
involvement with victims, psychological trauma might be prevented before incidents
even occur.
In many individuals, PTSD is not the only disorder that results from exposure to
a traumatic event. McFarlane & Papay (1992) look at comorbidity in PTSD in
firefighters who fought an intense bushfire in southeastern Australia. 12.5% of the
sample met the criteria for PTSD and 5% were considered to have a less intense,
borderline PTSD. Of the firefighters with any PTSD, 77% developed another disorder—
major depressive disorder was the most common, experienced by 51%, generalized
anxiety disorder by 39%, panic disorder by 37%, phobic disorder by 33%, obsessive
compulsive disorder by 13%, and 8% experienced a manic episode. When examined 42
27
�months after the exposure, firefighters with either panic disorder or phobic disorder in
addition to PTSD had a significantly greater chance of their PTSD being unresolved.
Thus, McFarlane and Papay determine that the intensity of the PTSD is not solely related
to the nature of the trauma, but also by the coexistence of associated disorders of affect or
arousal.
Emergency services personnel that responded to the 1989 San Francisco Bay
Area earthquake were also used as subjects of investigation in stress responses (Marmar,
Weiss, Metzler, Ronfeldt, & Foreman, 1996). Included in this group are police officers,
firefighters, EMT/paramedics, and California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
road construction and maintenance workers. The two control groups consisted mostly of
the same types of responders, but were either civilians or responders with less exposure
to the disaster. During the earthquake, the double-decker I-880 Nimitz Freeway
collapsed, taking 42 lives. The emergency workers were exposed to extremely harsh
conditions and duties—smelling odors of rotting or burned bodies when required to crawl
into tight spaces, dislodging bodies from concrete and steel, identifying dismembered
body parts, and removing bodies infested with rats and maggots. Besides the sights
witnessed, they worked long shifts in harsh weather conditions with a limited supply of
food and water, and were preoccupied with concerns of their own families and friends as
a result of the earthquake.
As Marmar et al. predict, the responders to the I-880 disaster reported greater
levels of distress and disturbances in functioning than the control groups—reporting
twice as many sick days in the previous year. This validates the conviction that higher
levels of exposure are associated with higher levels of stress responses. Congruent with
emphasis in which Fullerton et al. (1992) place on the importance of training, Marmar et
al. report that Caltrans workers, who had no prior rescue or recovery training,
experienced greater distress and lacked adequate coping strategies. Additionally, any
emergency personnel who felt poorly prepared at the time of the incident were more
likely to report greater levels of distress up to four years after the incident. The
EMT/paramedic group showed the highest distress levels, leading Marmar et al. to
suggest that it was because only firefighters and police officers screen for psychiatric
issues upon recruitment, and firefighters and police officers have more contact with the
public, for which they receive more recognition and are offered more support.
Meanwhile, EMT/paramedics have closer contact with victims and frequently provide
care in situations with life-or-death consequences.
28
�Current Research
Although the aforementioned studies express concern for persons exposed to
traumatic events, there is little said about the effects of trauma that could be transmitted
to individuals with which the traumatized person has close contact (Marmar et al., 1996;
Fullerton et al., 1992; McFarlane & Papay, 1992; Cobb, 1976). Using the 9/11 World
Trade Center (WTC) attack as the activating traumatic event, Hoven et al. (2005)
assessed for child psychopathology in relation to the level of exposure. 8,236 New York
City public school children in grades 4-12 participated in the study, which took place 6
months after the attack. A self-report questionnaire derived from the Diagnostic
Interview Schedule for Children (DISC) assessed for eight mental disorders: PTSD,
major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety, panic disorder,
agoraphobia, conduct disorder, and alcohol abuse/dependency. However, because the
abbreviated version of the DISC was not intended to make formal diagnoses, the
disorders were considered probable. The children were grouped according to exposure
level (severe, moderate, and mild), and the following factors were taken into
consideration: attendance in a ground zero area school, direct exposure, and family
exposure.
More than one-fourth of the children (28.6%) were found to have one or more
probable anxiety or depressive disorders, the likelihood of which increased with
exposure. The most prevalent disorders were agoraphobia (14.8%), separation anxiety
(12.3%), and PTSD (10.6%). Agoraphobia was an anxiety disorder of particular interest
because an estimated 750,000 NYC public school children take public transportation. An
important discovery was the association between family exposure to the attack and
mental disorder—a finding indicating that a child directly exposed to the attack was not
necessarily more likely to develop a mental disorder than a child whose family member
was exposed to the attack. Additionally, and for reasons unknown, children who attended
schools around ground zero had lower rates of mental disorder. It is speculated that this
is because of strong networks of social and mental health support that were implemented
immediately after the attack in response to the worldwide attention the situation received
(Hoven et al., 2004; Hoven et al., 2005). While the associations among exposure level,
mental disorders, and social support have been recognized, their underlying mechanisms
are still not fully understood.
The data from these preliminary findings (Hoven et al.) are further analyzed as
Duarte et al. (2006) reports on posttraumatic stress in children with first responders in
their families. The same sample of NYC school children were grouped according to the
type of their first responder family member, and the results are aligned with expectations
29
�one might have from prior findings concerning the nature of first responder work and
social support (e.g., Marmar et al., 1996; Fullerton et al., 1992; McFarlane & Papay,
1992). Children with EMT family members had the highest rate of PTSD at 18.9%,
while children with firefighter family members had the lowest rate—5.6%. Children with
at least 2 first responder family members had the second highest rate (17%), followed by
children with a police officer family member (10.6%), and children with no first
responder family members (10.1%).
While the children in the EMT group had the highest prevalence rate of PTSD, it
is worth noting that 46.6% of them were not living with both parents, and about one third
of them were in the youngest age group. Another possible explanation for the high rate
could be the inconsistent nature of EMT work, which tends to involve stressful life-ordeath decisions. EMTs themselves are known to be more prone to burnout from
exhaustion, avoidant coping strategies, and have higher rates of PTSD. Firefighters, on
the other hand, are known to have much stronger support networks; and, unlike EMTs,
exposure does not necessarily correlate with PTSD (Hoven, 2006). Duarte et al. also
suggest that the “heroism” associated with firefighters may also factor in to the lower
rates of mental illness, possibly because it contributes to greater public recognition of and
appreciation for the job.
II. Discussion
Participation in Research
The most recent articles (Duarte et al., 2006; Hoven et al., 2005) have supplied
sufficient evidence to validate the current two-site longitudinal study (Hoven, 2006),
which I have been involved in since May 2008. Christina Hoven, Dr.P.H., the principal
investigator of the study, operates under a collaborative effort of Columbia
University/New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYC area sample) and the University of
Tel Aviv (Tel Aviv, Israel area sample). Using these two sites, the study attempts to
understand the impact of parental exposure to violence on their children—specifically
looking at the relationship between perceived parental exposure and child
psychopathology, the types of violence and the degree of exposure, and risk/protective
factors in the development of psychopathology. Among some other aims of the study are
to evaluate the following: the influence of social support, child appraisal of parental
occupation, and awareness of disaster preparedness as protective factors against mental
health problems; the role that personality and socio-demographic factors play in the
association between parental exposure to traumatic incidents and child psychopathology;
and the effects of parental mental health problems, substance use/abuse, and impaired
30
�parenting on child mental health (Hoven, 2006). While 9/11 serves as the single event to
which participants in the NYC sample are exposed, more frequent violent incidents in
Israel provide a comparison to multiple-event exposure. As I have been working on the
study at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), the NYC sample is the
primary topic of discussion.
To be eligible for participation, a family must consist of a child aged 9-15 and at
least one parent who was either a first responder at the WTC or an evacuee. Spouses are
encouraged to participate, but it is not mandatory. Eligible families are identified from
the World Trade Center Health Registry and mailed information about the study and an
invitation to participate. This method of recruitment has been particularly advantageous
in finding participants who are eager to participate without feeling as if they have been
solicited. From my experience, most participants indicate that the reason for their
participation is to contribute to an understanding of disasters and trauma, not for the
payment they receive as compensation.
Interview Procedures
Each family member is “interviewed” by one of three versions of the interview,
depending on the role in the family: parent child informant (PCI), parent non-child
informant (PNCI), or child. All interviews cover a broad range of topics, but PCIs
mainly field questions about themselves and their children, and PNCIs are asked more
about their work experience. Each interview is an extensive, computerized assessment
comprised of many individual interviews and diagnostic modules such as the DISC
(except for the PNCI), which was previously used in the initial assessment of child
psychopathology in NYC schoolchildren (Hoven et al., 2005). To assess for mental
health, the DISC evaluates PTSD, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder,
separation anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, conduct disorder, and alcohol
abuse/dependency in the child, and compares it to the PCI’s observation of the same.
High comorbidity between PTSD and separation anxiety has been recognized, thus,
further investigation of this connection is of interest to the study (Hoven et al., 2004).
Additionally, exposure to violent incidents pertaining to work-related situations,
large-scale events, and individual events are assessed for. Work-related and non-work
related exposures to critical incidents are assessed by the Critical Incident History
Questionnaire, which addresses events that first responders are apt to encounter (e.g.,
those described in Fullerton, et al., 1992; Marmar et al, 1996). Frequency of exposure
and the difficulty of coping for each event are measured. Questions about exposure to
large-scale violent events primarily concern war, terrorism, and the degree of exposure to
31
�9/11 defined by personal physical exposure, direct exposure (having to be evacuated to
safety, witnessing the attack, or being in or near the cloud of dust and smoke), or family
exposure (having a family member who was injured or killed in the attack). Included in
this assessment is media exposure, as Hoven et al. (2005) found that high media exposure
was associated with an increased risk of anxiety and depressive disorders. Information
about risk and protective factors is gathered from five dimensions of parental personality
(neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), general
parenting, social support, and disaster preparedness. Questions probe for marital
problems, discipline techniques used, and the extent to which the parents monitor the
child’s activities.
First Responders
Bearing in mind the research on social support (Cobb, 1976; Marmar et al.,
1996; Fullerton et al., 1992), the interview looks at coping behaviors and jobrelated/social support available to the first responders. EMTs, with perhaps the most
notably emotionally demanding and stressful work environments, are more susceptible to
burnout (physical and emotional exhaustion) and job turnovers—problems that are
exacerbated by neuroticism and avoidant coping strategies, traits that are predictive of
traumatic symptoms. Unlike police officers and firefighters, EMTs tend to have weak
peer social support structures, most likely due to the erratic nature of their work shifts and
independence they experience on the job (Hoven, 2006). Police officers and firefighters,
of course, are not exempt from the stressors that EMTs typically experience, but they do
tend to have social support systems that encourage positive coping strategies. If one were
to look at PTSD prevalence rates in children found in Duarte et al. (2006) while taking
into consideration these social support observations, the rates correspond with first
responder occupations—as 18.9% of children with an EMT family member exhibited
symptoms of PTSD, significantly higher than those with a police officer (10.6%) or
firefighter (5.6%) family member. Also, when considering Cobb’s (1976) indication that
a high degree of life change can be mediated by a high level of social support, the
strength of support that is associated with each first responder occupation can also
explain the traumatic symptoms. However, even in light of all of this information, little
is known about the specific mechanisms underlying the transmission of symptoms from
the parents to the children and what in particular it has to do with social support or coping
strategies.
32
�Reflections on Involvement in Research
I have been interviewing families for the study through the NYSPI, and, more
recently, have been reviewing other taped interviews. The interviews usually take place
at the homes of the families, although occasionally families agree to come into the office.
Generally, traveling to a home takes less than two hours by car, though the locations are
scattered throughout New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. If a driver is not available
for an interview, public transportation can be used. Allowing the families to remain in
the comfort of their own homes is one of the ways that participation is made as easy as
possible, along with the recruitment process and financial incentive. Usually these
factors detract from any negative aspects of the interview—like its length and meticulous
attention to detail—leaving participants satisfied with their experience, and hopefully
willing to participate in the follow-up interview one year later.
My involvement started with rigorous training, a process that was meant to be
strict to ensure consistency among all interviewers. The training serves to prepare
interviewers for the standard data-collecting procedure, but also for unusual cases that
one might encounter in the field. At first, learning about extreme situations I might have
to handle seemed to be a rather distant idea from what I thought would be the norm, but
the first interview I conducted proved otherwise. Even after all of the interviews and
reviews I have conducted to date, the very first one I did was still the most difficult to do.
The problem lay mainly in the length of the interview and the cooperativeness of the
respondent, so when he decided to prolong every answer to every question by offering
extensive stories with extraneous details, the process became drawn-out. With more
interviewing experience, however, I gained skills to help prevent wasting. This involved
finding harmony in a delicate balance between maximizing the efficiency of responding
while still conveying to the interviewee my appreciation and interest in what is said.
Without interviewers to collect the data, there would be nothing to analyze; thus,
collecting the data, and doing so in a consistent, appropriate manner are the most
important elements of the study. This requires that the interviewer act in the interest of
collecting accurate data without interfering with any responses. When asked to clarify a
question for a respondent, careful attention must be paid to avoid influencing a response,
while still providing enough information for an adequate answer. This usually simply
means explaining that it is up to the respondent’s interpretation of the question.
Reviewing interviews, done by listening to the audio recording and checking the data on
the computer, helps to catch mistakes and ensure that all interviews are executed
properly.
Working on this study has been a valuable, eye-opening experience for me. Not
33
�only have I been able to come into contact with persons involved in the 9/11 disaster, a
group which I had little exposure to prior to this study, but the interviews have allowed
them and their children to open up their lives to me. Each interview begins with me
talking to a complete stranger, but ends with me feeling as though I have known the
person for a while. Respondents are usually eager to share their experiences because the
interview puts them at the center of attention—a position that most find conducive to
telling the truth—and I try to help the situation by creating a comfortable, confidential
environment.
Moreover, the different views on war and terrorism that I have encountered have
been quite interesting. Attitudes have ranged greatly, from a naive child unaware of the
meanings of the words “war” and “terrorism,” to a paranoid, retired firefighter who rarely
leaves his house to avoid directly funding terrorism by burning gasoline, and for fear of
an imminent attack. I have seen instances of families that support the hypothesis that
exposure to violence is associated with poor family functioning, as well as families that
do not support this. However, I have only seen a small portion of the sample. Hopefully
as the study progresses, findings will provide insight to the causes of poor family
functioning and mental illness, the effect of exposure level, and how to prevent maladies
that arise after traumatic events.
III. Conclusions
As the literature attests, any traumatic event—war, natural disaster, terrorist
attack—wreaks psychological havoc on its witnesses. Though disasters are detrimental
to the lives of many, to say the least, each incident serves both as a test and a learning
opportunity. Emergency services are appraised for their effectiveness of responding, and
lessons that have or have not been learned from previous disasters are reviewed and
considered to better prepare for future incidents.
Piece by piece, the literature paints a picture of the state of public health over the
years—from goals set at the beginning, to gradually narrowing focal points of study. So
where does the state of public health stand now? While a growing knowledge of social
support can continue to provide insight to circumstances surrounding mental illness,
further research is needed to examine the transmission of illness. The present study is an
example of this, and with violence on the rise worldwide, this kind of research is
imperative for finding ways to reduce psychological damage stemming from traumatic
events, and for improving emergency response procedures, coping strategies, and social
support.
34
�IV. References
1.
Cobb, S. (1976). Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosomatic
Medicine, 38(5), 300-314.
2.
Duarte, C. S., Hoven, C. W., Wu, P., Bin, F., Cotel, S., Mandell, D. J., et al. (2006).
Posttraumatic stress in children with first responders in their families. Journal of
Traumatic Stress, 19(2), 301-306.
3.
Ellsworth, R. B., & Clayton, W. H. (1959). Measurement of improvement in mental
illness. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 23, 15-20.
4.
Fullerton, C. S., McCarroll, J. E., Ursano, R. J., & Wright, K. M. (1992).
Psychological responses of rescue workers: Fire fighters and trauma. American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 63(3), 371-378.
5.
Hoven, C. W. (2002). Testimony to the United States Senate, Field Hearing Before
the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, (Chair, Hillary Rodham
Clinton), Children of September 11: The need for mental health services, June 10,
2002. New York: U.S. Government Printing Office, Senate Hearing No. 107-540,
Document No. 552-070-29-035-4.
6.
Hoven, C. W. (2006). Violence and mental health: Children of first responders.
Grant application to the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Department of
Health and Human Services.
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Hoven, C. W., Duarte, C. S., Lucas, C. P., Wu, P., Mandell, D. J., Goodwin, R. D., et
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Hoven, C. W., Duarte, C. S., Wu, P., Erickson, E. A., Musa, G. J., Mandell, D. J.
(2004). Exposure to trauma and separation anxiety in children after the WTC attack.
Applied Developmental Science, 8(4), 172-183.
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Hoven, C. W., Mandell, D. J., Duarte, C. S., Wu, P., & Giordano, V. (2006). An
epidemiological response to disaster: the post-9/11 psychological needs assessment
of New York City public school students. In Y. Neria, R. Gross, & R. Marshall
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Cambridge University Press.
35
�10. Marmar, C. R., Weiss, D. S., Metzler, T. J., Ronfeldt, H. M., & Foreman, C. (1996).
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Interstate 880 freeway collapse and control traumatic incidents. Journal of Traumatic
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13. Swank, R. L. (1949). Combat exhaustion: A descriptive and statistical analysis of
causes, symptoms, and signs. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 109(6), 475508.
14. Weissman, M. M., & Bothwell, S. (1976). Assessment of social adjustment by
patient self-report. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 1111-1115.
36
�The Link Between Autism and Childhood Vaccines
Stacy R. Stingo (Nursing)1
The number of children diagnosed as autistic is on the rise. Whereas years ago, autism
was an unknown disorder, today it is seemingly a household name. There is conflicting
information present regarding the link between autism and vaccines. Children today
receive many more vaccines than they did twenty years ago. Additionally, it just does
not seem sensible to inject any amount of a killer virus, either live or dead, into such a
small body. Add known neurotoxin mercury and increased dosages into the mix, and
there seems to be the equation for a problem. However, most published research seems
to agree that there is no consistent link between receiving vaccines and developing
autism. This study compared two sets of children born after the mercury was taken out of
the vaccines in 1999; one group diagnosed as autistic, and one not, along with the
vaccination schedule of autistic children against non-autistic children. Results indicated
that all children were vaccinated, and the parents of both sets of children had different
viewpoints as to the cause of autism. The majority agreed on the need to invest more
research into this area, as it is a concern to many parents of both autistic and non-autistic
children.
I. Introduction
Autism falls under an umbrella term of Autism Spectrum Disorders. ASDs, as
they are known, contain five pervasive developmental disorders, including autism,
Asperger’s disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rhett’s disorder, and pervasive
developmental disorders, which are all others (Autism Speaks, 2008). Autism is a
neurological disorder that is characterized by marked deficits in the development of
social interaction and communication, as well as a “bizarre” (Townsend, 2000) and
limited set of interests and activities. It is usually diagnosed at two to three years of age.
Symptoms of autism can range from mild to severe, and are often first noticed
by parents. It is reported that symptoms can be present from birth, or occur suddenly and
spontaneously (Baker, 2008). Autistic children suffer from a lack of responsiveness to
people, and so normal attachment does not occur. Parents often note that their young
child or infant does not want to cuddle, make eye contact, be picked up, or show any
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Lauren O'Hare (Nursing) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
37
�facial emotion. They are unable to form friendships, and echolalia may be present.
Additionally, autistic children exhibit abnormal responses to their environment. They
may overreact to sensory stimuli, but simultaneously be oblivious to a major event in the
same room. Affected children may experience labile mood swings, and repetitive hand
motions, rocking, and rhythmic body movements are often observed (Pillitteri, 2007).
Until the last few years when its incidence of diagnosis has increased drastically,
autism had been very rare. Thermiosal, a mercury-based preservative, was formerly a
component of several childhood vaccines. The neurotoxic effects of mercury has not
been disputed; however, a 1976 study by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
concluded that the amount of the preservative in vaccines was not substantial enough to
have any negative effects upon its recipients (Baker, 2008). Although there has been no
formally stated indication that thermiosal, whose composition is approximately 49%
mercury, causes damage when given in vaccines, the United States government has
recommended its removal from injections as of 1999 (Honey, 2008).
Currently, the government denies a link between vaccines and autism. It cannot
be argued, however, that the number of children diagnosed with this disorder continues to
rise. It is also important to point out that while the FDA has suggested thermiosal’s
elimination, it has yet to be mandated. The purpose of this paper is to study the link
between autism and childhood vaccines after the removal of thermiosal.
II. Research Questions and Hypothesis
Q: Is there a relationship between children diagnosed with autism and receiving
vaccines?
H1: If a child is vaccinated, there is an increased risk of developing autism.
Q: Is there a connection with the number of vaccines given at one time and the
development of autism?
H2: If a child receives more than one vaccine at a given time, the likelihood that they will
develop autism increases.
III. Review of Related Literature
Within the last ten years, numerous studies have been conducted testing links
between childhood vaccines, in particular the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) and
autism. A 1998 study by British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield proposed a
connection between the two by studying a small number of patients who developed
diarrhea and autistic regression after their MMR vaccine. While further studies have not
confirmed identical results, many parents have been declining vaccinations for their
38
�children following publication of this study. A major health scare ensued, despite
epidemiologic evidence, and the decline in number of immunized children has lead to
several incidences of outbreaks (Baker, 2008).
It is a fact that in the 1970’s, one in 100,000 children was diagnosed with
autism; in 2000, this number rose to a staggering one in 150. The number of vaccines has
also increased in that time period from eight in 1980 to twenty two in 2000; today, the
majority of vaccines, thirty of the thirty eight received by age five, are given to a child
before eighteen months of age (Vaccine Awareness of North Florida, 2005). Please see
Appendix A for a chart on the overwhelming similarities between autism and mercury
poisoning.
A major issue in the debate is the contribution of thiomersal, a vaccine
preservative containing mercury. Despite various studies denying a connection between
vaccines and autism, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy
of Pediatrics came to an agreement with vaccine manufacturers in 1999 to remove or
reduce thiomersal in vaccines. However, even with the thiomersal eliminated from
vaccines, the number of children diagnosed with autism continues to rise (Honey, 2008).
Others simply point the blame of the vaccine/autism scare towards the United
States’ government and the FDA publicizing the issue. Richard Epstein seems to believe
that while a very small risk may be present in vaccines, it is minute, and in no way large
enough to compensate for the effects of not receiving vaccines. Epstein writes, “The
FDA’s report reads as if it has again adopted the worst-case scenario in evaluating patient
safety (Epstein, 2005).” Because the FDA removed thermiosal from vaccines despite
inadequate evidence of danger to children directly, the fear of parents in the United States
was unnecessarily encouraged. Epstein also believes that the incidences of American
children not immunized has not increased quite as drastically as they initially did in
Britain because of regulations of public schools demanding their students be vaccinated
before attending classes. Furthermore, the fear of vaccination is no longer as widespread
in the U.K. because their government did not reinforce parents’ concern (Epstein, 2005).
The controversy between the link between autism and vaccines has further been
fueled more recently by the U.S. government’s concession to pay the family of a nineyear old autistic girl for a vaccine-related injury; to many people, this was proof that
vaccines do indeed cause autism. Other groups, however, contend that this case was not
proof of anything, and was simply a special situation. The girl in question had a very rare
mitochondrial disorder underlying the autism, and the CDC believes that this disorder is
not common among children with autism, and concludes that this is an atypical
39
�association. Additionally, the CDC conceded the case without an evidentiary hearing;
they settled without proof that the vaccines had caused the girl’s autism (Honey, 2008).
IV. Methods
Two randomized groups of children born after 1999 have been studied. The age
range of the subjects, therefore, was between two and nine years. The non- autistic
control group was chosen at random from a public elementary school in Staten Island,
New York. The group of children diagnosed with autism was chosen at random from a
school for autistic children in Staten Island, New York.
The parents of each child were given a one-page survey to fill out informally. A
copy of this questionnaire can be found in Appendix B.
The researcher obtained approval from the appropriate authorities, and obtained
a volunteer parent from each school. The parent volunteer passed out the surveys with a
brief explanation of the study. The surveys were returned to the parent volunteer, and
collected and reviewed by the researcher.
V. Limitations
Limitations of this study could be invariable. The amount of time in which to
conduct the study limited the number of participants. Because there is no established
cause of autism, the link could exist anywhere. Recent research surrounding the Hannah
Poling case (Offit, 2008) suspects an underlying mitochondrial disorder as a prelude to
being affected by the vaccine, which leads to an internal validity threat related to history.
Due to a number of constraints, such as lack of access to a DNA testing facility to test
each participant for a mitochondrial disorder, this research paper can not go that in depth.
It would, however, be interesting to study that connection. Other suggestions, such as
weakened autoimmune systems of children when receiving vaccinations, are credible
concerns that merit research; due to the same restraints, those connections could not be
addressed in this study.
Another limitation is the geographic location of the same population. Perhaps
environmental factors, such as increased air contamination in a widely polluted urban
area may affect a child’s reaction to the vaccine, and trigger an autistic response.
VI. Results
The results of the study were diverse. Of those parents of children not
diagnosed with autism, 60% responded that they strongly did not believe vaccines
influenced the onset of autism. The remaining 40% were unsure of the cause, but felt
40
�more research should be put into finding the cause. They also agreed that wider
education regarding this issue was something they deemed crucial as parents, and as
society. However, of the 60% of respondents, 77.7% just “do not know” the cause of
autism and have no impression of it, often cited due to lack of exposure to the disorder.
Conversely, 60% of parents surveyed believed that there was some kind of link
with vaccines and autism. 66.6% of those felt that there was a more important link with
genetic factors and environment and autism. The remaining 40% of respondents felt that
autism was influenced by “various causes” or “no specific factors.”
VII. Discussion
One parent wrote, “I do not believe immunizations cause autism. I have seen a
family of six children all having autism, and two of the children weren’t immunized
because they thought it caused autism. But proved to not be the cause.” Another agreed,
“There hasn’t been any true evidence to back it.” However, of the 60% of respondents,
77.7% just “do not know” the cause of autism and have no impression of it, often cited
due to lack of exposure to the disorder.
The parents of children diagnosed with autism were more in depth with their
responses overall. One parent believed her son was “mercury poisoned by the many
vaccinations he received. I think his immune system could not handle the overload…
some kids are more vulnerable to toxic overloads than others.” 60% of these parents saw
a marked change in their children’s behavior at some point from a normal development to
“fearful and withdrawn” behaviors, “frustration” with having difficulty with expressing
language, and an overall “difference in all areas.” One parent specifically stated the
behavior changes began after an ear infection, and she attributed the onset of autism to
the series of immunizations. Her son was diagnosed with autism after his eighteen month
series.
Celebrity parent and autism spokesperson Jenny McCarthy is a strong advocate
of the needs for increased awareness regarding the rise of autism and its causes. As a
mother who watched her son reach normal developmental milestones, and then suddenly
regress, she speaks often to the public regarding autism. Her son developed seizures in
response to a fever following a routine vaccine. McCarthy argues that there are
numerous contributors to autism; of them, a preventable cause is the high number of
“unsafe” vaccines given to children with weakened immune systems; test children for a
weak immune system before subjecting them to any amount of a virus that is contained in
a vaccine, she argues. McCarthy does not call upon parents to avoid vaccinating
children; like most parents of children with autism, she recognizes the need for such
41
�immunizations. However, it is unfair to subject them to children whose bodies cannot
handle them (Terry, 2008).
It seems unrealistic to ignore the evidence of correlations between vaccinations
and autism. While there is not enough convincing proof to demonstrate the link between
the two, the stories of parents speak for themselves. The medical community is taught
that when working with the pediatric population, the best source of determining
individual changes in the child is the parent. It is a wonder that the medical world is
concurrently ignoring the outcries of parents with children diagnosed with autism as to
the correlation between the disorder and vaccines. Parents see the changes in their
children in days following vaccinations: spiked temperatures, rolling eyes, and staring at
the wall are all signs of seizures and are symptoms claimed by parents that continue to
say their child has not been the same since. The testimony of the Hannah Poling case
speaks for itself. For even one child to have this type of reaction is one more than should.
The saddest part of autism for many families is that autism is a disorder that may be
prevented if the proper people were willing to put more research and thought into this
issue that is affecting a growing population of our future.
As per the research in the medical world, along with the opinions of parents
surveyed, it is probably safe to assume that vaccinations are not the sole cause of autism.
Many parents of children with autism have said that the autism was a gradual onset, or
they do not believe the cause lies in the immunizations. Some evidence points to genetics
or environment; but most of the research results in an unknown cause. This is not an
acceptable conclusion to a disorder that affects so many people. The community of
families affected by autism is passionate about finding a solution to this problem; a
passion that it seems this entire nation should respect and feel as well. “Mother
warriors,” as McCarthy calls them, are the parents that are devoted to finding alternative
treatments to cure autism, take their children to doctor after doctor, enroll their children
in special programs, and do everything in their power to help the people trying to aid
them in looking deeper into the issue (Terry, 2008). It is time that more funding goes
into this issue, and time for medical professionals take the responsibility of finding
treatment and preventative measures off the shoulders of parents and accept that we need
to work together to find a solution to this problem; whether the cause be vaccines,
environment, genetics, or anything else, the time has come to address the issue and find a
viable solution.
42
�VIII. References
1. Autism Speaks, (2008). “What Is Autism? An Overview”, Retrieved June 27, 2008,
from Autism Speaks Web site: http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/index.php.
2.
Baker, J.P. (2008, February, 1). “Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism: One Controversy,
Three Histories”, American Journal of Public Health, 98.
3.
Epstein, R.A. (May/June 2005). “It Did Happen Here: Fear and Loathing on the
Vaccine Trail”, Health Affairs, 24.
4.
Honey, K. (May 2008). “Attention Focuses on Autism”, The Journal of Clinical
Investigation, 118.
5.
Offit , P.A. (May 15, 2008). “Vaccines and Autism Revisited -- the Hannah Poling
Case”, New England Journal of Medicine, 20.
6.
Pillitteri, A. (2007). Maternal & Child Health Nursing: Care of the Childbearing and
Childrearing Family, 5th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
7.
Terry, J. (Director). (2008, September 18). “Mothers Battle Autism”. In E. Rakieten
(Producer), The Oprah Winfrey Show. Chicago: WABC.
8.
Townsend, M.C. (2000). Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing: Concepts of Care, 3rd
edition, Philadephia, PA: F.A. Davis Company.
9.
Vaccine Awareness of North Florida, (2005). “K.N.O.W. Vaccines”, Retrieved
November 12,2008, from The Vaccine Controversy Web site: http://www.know-v.
43
�Appendix A:The Autism -Vaccine Connection: Comparison of Characteristics
AUTISM
MERCURY POISONING
Motor Skills and
Movement
Disorders
Uncoordinated; clumsiness; rocking;
circling; flaps arms; walks on toes;
difficulty with walking, sitting,
crawling; difficulty with swallowing
or chewing
Uncoordinated; clumsiness; rocking;
circling; flaps arms; walks on toes;
difficulty with walking or sitting;
difficulty with swallowing or chewing
Sensory
Disorders
Oversensitive to sound; does not like
to be touched; abnormal sensations in
mouth, arms and legs
Oversensitive to sound; does not like
to be touched; abnormal sensations in
mouth, arms and legs
Speech, Hearing
& Language
Development
Delayed language or failure to
develop speech; problems with
articulation; mild to severe hearing
loss; word use errors
Loss of speech or failure to develop
speech; problems with articulation;
mild to severe hearing loss; word
retrieval problems
Cognitive Ability
Borderline intelligence; mental
retardation (may be reversed); poor
concentration and attention; difficulty
following complex commands;
difficulty with word comprehension;
difficulty with understanding abstract
ideas and symbols
Borderline intelligence; mental
retardation (may be reversed); poor
concentration and attention; difficulty
following complex commands;
difficulty with word comprehension;
difficulty with understanding abstract
ideas and symbols
Physical
Characteristics
and Functional
Disturbances
Weakening muscle strength,
especially upper body; rash,
dermatitis; abnormal sweating; poor
circulation and high heart rate;
diarrhea, constipation, abdominal
discomfort and incontinence;
anorexia; seizures; tendency to have
allergies and asthma; family history
of autoimmune symptoms, especially
rheumatoid arthritis
Weakening muscle strength,
especially upper body; rash,
dermatitis; abnormal sweating; poor
circulation and high heart rate;
diarrhea, constipation, abdominal
discomfort and incontinence;
anorexia; seizures; tendency to have
allergies and asthma; more likely to
have autoimmune symptoms,
especially rheumatoid arthritis
Behavior
Difficulty sleeping; staring and
unprovoked crying; injures self (such
as head banging); social isolation
Difficulty sleeping; staring and
unprovoked crying; injures self (such
as head banging); social isolation
Visual Problems
Poor eye contact; blurred vision
Poor eye contact; blurred vision
(Vaccine Awareness of North Florida, 2005).
44
�Appendix B: Questionnaire
1. Has your child received any of the following vaccines? Please check yes or no, and
indicate the date that they were given. Please be sure to specify the year:
Hep B(hepatitis B)
MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)
DTaP(diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis)
Hib (Haemophilus influenza B)
PCV (pneumococcal)
IPV (inactivated poliovirus)
Rotavirus
Varicella
Hepatitis A
Influenza
2. What is your child’s date of birth?
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
Yes_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
No_____
___/___/_______
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Date_____________
Age? ______________
3. Please describe your child’s current behavior, as it relates socially and academically.
3. Has your child been diagnosed with autism?
Yes_____
No_____ Date of Diagnosis_______
If “no,” please skip to question #5.
If “yes,” please answer the following questions:
4. Had you noticed a marked change in behavior at a specific time, or was your child’s
mannerisms constant? If behavior has changed, please describe how, and when.
5. Were you aware of the ingredients of all of the vaccinations your child received? If
so, did they contain thermiosal? Yes______ No______
Don’t Know______
6. As a parent or primary caretaker, what is your impression, if any, of the causes of
autism?
45
�The Influence of an Intervention with Relationally
Aggressive High School Females
Christina Hererra (Psychology)1
Relational aggression can be defined as behavior that is intended to harm someone by
damaging or manipulating his or her relationships with others. Children who are frequent
targets of relationally aggressive acts exhibit significantly high levels of socialpsychological maladjustment than do non-victimized children. Early detection of
children’s social difficulties is an important factor in preventing and treating childhood
adjustment problems. Interventions on relational aggression are conducted in schools not
only to decrease the students’ use of relational aggression but also to make the students
aware of relational aggression as a form of bullying that many students experience. The
Ophelia Project is an intervention on relational aggression that focuses on the role that
bystanders play in bullying situations. Researchers have demonstrated how peers may
reinforce the aggressive behaviors of bullies through their attention. However, peers may
also shape the behaviors of bullies either by intervening or ignoring the bullying
behaviors.
The high school where I was an intern currently utilizes the Ophelia Project. This
intervention does not entirely eliminate relational aggression in the school. Some
possible reasons for the evidence of relational aggression based on past research and on
observations of the high school may include the inconsistency in the amount of lessons
that are conducted, that the staff and parents often trivialize their stories of victimization
related to relational aggression, that relational aggression is difficult to observe, and that
teachers are not reinforcing the intervention curriculum on a daily basis. However, there
are many situations in which the students engage in positive helping behavior. Even if
there are small changes that help some students then an intervention is something
valuable for a school to utilize.
I. Literature Review
Most of the research conducted in the past on aggression has been gained through
the study of aggressive boys (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997). However, there is a lack of
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
46
�attention to aggressive girls. It might be the case that past research has emphasized
attention on direct physical and verbal aggression, which is more characteristic of boys
(Block, 1983; Crick et al., 1997). In more recent research, a relational form of aggression
has been identified that has shown to be more characteristic of girls (Crick et al., 1997).
There is a need for more knowledge and understanding about the topic of relational
aggression in order to address the issue of future social adjustment of the victims, and the
psychological maladjustment of the instigators. Several prevention projects are effective
in increasing children’s social interaction skills (Aber, Jones, Brown, Chaudry, &
Samples, 1998). Interventions are needed in order to decrease aggression in a classroom.
Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, and Voeten (2005) stated that trying to make a bully behave
differently rarely leads to change in school bullying situations. Peers rarely intervene,
but when they do, bullying tends to stop right away (Frey, Hirschstein, Snell, Van
Schoiack Edstrom, MacKenzie, & Broderick, 2005). If an intervention is set up to
promote bystanders’ social responsibility it may help to reduce school bullying.
Early research on bystander responsibility influenced current research on
relational aggression. Darley and Latane (1968) believed that the more bystanders to an
emergency, the less likely anyone will intervene. Fifty-nine female and 13 male college
students believed that they were to take part in a discussion over an intercom system
where only one person is able to speak at a time about problems associated with college
life. During the discussion, one of the individuals is heard experiencing what appears to
be a seizure. It is impossible for the participant to find out if anyone responded to the
emergency. Darley and Latane (1968) observed whether the perceived number of
bystanders would effect the speed with which the participants report the emergency to the
experimenter.
The number of bystanders that the participants perceived to be present had an
effect on the chance that the bystander would report the emergency. Eighty-five percent
of the participants who thought they were the only ones who knew about the seizure
reported it before 125 seconds. Only thirty-one percent who thought four other
bystanders were present reported the situation. Sixty-two percent of the participants in
the six-person groups reported the emergency. Ninety-five percent of the participants
who responded did so within the first half of the time available. Sex and perceived
medical competence of the other bystander had an insignificant effect on the speed of
response. Personality measures were not insignificantly correlated with the speed of
reporting the emergency.
Darley and Latane (1968) believed that the participants who had not intervened
were still deciding whether or not to respond. Bystanders are often concerned that they
47
�may be overreacting to the situation but can still be worried about the victim. The
participants were not able to tell how the other participants reacted to the seizure.
However, bystanders to relational aggression know how others react to the situation and
may still choose not to intervene. This could be because the bystander may not want to
become the next target of the aggressor and not because they are afraid they may
overreact. The results of this experiment indicated that personality factors were not as
important as the situational factors. If individuals understand that situational forces can
make them less likely to intervene in an emergency, they may better be able to overcome
them.
Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, and Peltonen (1988) were some of the first to research
indirect aggression. Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, and Peltonen (1988) studied the prevalence
of indirect aggression among 11 and 12-year-old boys and girls. Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist,
and Peltonen (1988) asked 89 girls and 78 boys to rate themselves as well as what their
classmates do when angry with another peer, and how frequently they are angry. One
hundred and twenty-eight students rated their peers on the Friendship Questionnaire in
order to determine if the different friendship patterns were connected to the use of
indirect or direct aggression. Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, and Peltonen (1988) interviewed 15
girls and 14 boys in order to evaluate the duration of anger of their peers.
A factor analysis was conducted in order to determine which of the items
discriminate best between the two genders. The three factors are indirect means of
aggression, direct means of aggression, and peaceful means of solving conflicts. The
results indicated that the indirect means and peaceful means were more typical of girls,
whereas direct means were more typical of boys. The size of the friendship groups was
slightly larger for boys than for girls. Boys tended to form loose groups, while the girls
formed tighter groups, which made them more likely to use indirect aggression. The girls
also believed their anger to last longer than did the boys. Positive correlations between
self-ratings and peer ratings were insignificant for indirect means of aggression, whereas
positive correlations between self-ratings and peer ratings for direct aggression were
significant, especially for boys. It is often difficult to measure indirect aggression
because the aggressor is able to disguise the aggression. Lagerspetz et al. (1988)
suggested that the findings were similar to the conclusions of previous studies, that males
are more aggressive than females. However, one cannot conclude that males are more
aggressive, as males and females may exhibit different types of aggression.
In the past, questionnaires on aggression tended to include items on direct
aggression and concluded that males are more aggressive than females. It is easier for
boys to admit to using direct aggression because it agrees with the norms of male
48
�behavior in our society. However, it may be difficult for girls to admit to using any form
of aggression.
Similarly, Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, and Kaukiainen (1992) measured aggressive
behavior in 45 eight-year-old girls and 40 eight-year-old boys. Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz,
and Kaukiainen (1992) asked the children to describe what they, as well as what their
classmates did when angry with another peer and how frequently they are angry. Each
child rated the friendships of the other students in the class. Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, and
Kaukiainen (1992) distributed questionnaires to 64 15-year-old boys and 63 15-year-old
girls measuring aggressive behavior and social relationships of their peers and
themselves.
In the 8-year-old group the boys seemed to display more direct aggression and the
girls seemed to display slight withdrawal and indirect aggression. There were no
differences among friendship patterns between the genders. In the 15-year-old group,
boys scored higher on physical aggression, while the girls scored higher on indirect
aggression and withdrawal. On direct verbal aggression, there was no difference between
the sexes. The girls tended to stay in pairs of friends more than the boys did. Indirect
aggression is not fully developed at the age of 8. However, at age 15 it is more prevalent
among girls. Indirect aggression is dependent on maturation of both verbal and social
skills. Since girls develop verbally quicker than boys, it is possible that they develop
indirect aggressive strategies earlier than boys. This would imply that as boys get older
and become more verbal that they also employ more indirect or relational forms of
aggression, which suggests that adults employ more relational forms of aggression.
Future research should examine whether boys begin to employ indirect means of
aggression as they get older.
Tisak, Lewis, and Janitowski (1997) showed videos to young children depicting
bullying in the presence of bystanders. Participants viewed two videos of a bystander
witnessing either a friend of theirs stealing from a victim or hitting a victim. Tisak,
Lewis, and Janitowski (1997) interviewed participants about what they thought
bystanders would do and what bystanders should do when they witness bullying.
Students responded that what peers would do is different from what peers should do
when witnessing bullying. Participants also said whether or not they would intervene and
tell the bully that they should stop their behavior.
Results indicated that 46 percent of participants thought that the bystander should
intervene when they viewed the video of a bully hitting a victim. However, when they
viewed the video of a bully stealing from a victim, 76 percent of participants stated that
the right thing for the bystander to do would be to intervene. Future research should
49
�include a broader range of aggressive acts to ensure that a particular response to how
bystanders should behave was not due to the type of aggression. Although many children
in the study said that they felt that they should intervene in bullying situations, this does
not mean that these students are likely to intervene when a situation actually arises.
Reports of conduct disorders among elementary school children are one of the
strongest predictors of future maladjustment (White, Moffitt, Earls, Robins, & Silva,
1990). Intervention programs are being used to treat conduct disorder, aggression, and
violence during adolescence. Aber, Jones, Brown, Chandry, and Samples (1998)
assessed if children’s exposure to each of the components of the Resolving Conflict
Creatively Program and the total number of lessons given by trained teachers would slow
the growth in children’s aggressive fantasies, hostile attributional biases, and aggressive
interpersonal negotiation strategies. The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program,
developed by Lantieri and Roderick, showed children that they had many choices for
dealing with conflict and helps them to develop skills to make those choices. Aber et al.
(1998) evaluated 5053 children from grades two through six and 400 teachers at varying
stages of the intervention.
Children whose teachers received a higher level of training and coaching of the
intervention, but taught few lessons, showed a significantly faster growth in hostile
attributional biases and their use of competent negotiation strategies over time. Children
whose teachers received a moderate amount of training and coaching of the intervention,
but taught many lessons, showed a significantly slower growth in hostile attributional
biases. However, there was no significant decrease over time in their use of competent
interpersonal negotiation strategies. Children’s aggressive fantasies did not significantly
increase over time for those children who received high levels of classroom instruction,
whereas children who had received little or no classroom instruction had significant
growth in aggressive fantasies.
Children who received high levels of classroom instruction showed no increase in
risk over the school year. The effect of high levels of classroom instruction decreased for
children in high-risk classrooms and neighborhoods. Children in classrooms where the
norm was that the use of aggression was wrong reported lower levels of hostile
attributional bias, aggressive strategies, aggressive fantasies, and higher levels of
competent strategies. Future research should test whether an intervention would have an
impact on children’s normative beliefs about aggression.
In comparison, O’Connell and Craig (1999) examined 53 segments of videotape
containing a peer group that view bullying on the school playground. Peers from grades
one through six are coded for actively joining or passively reinforcing the bully, and for
50
�actively intervening on behalf of the victim. They wanted to determine what percentage
of the bullying interactions occur while in the presence of other students, the extent to
which peers follow the bully's behavior and actively join the bully to victimize a peer, the
extent to which peers passively watch bullying, and the extent to which peers behave in
ways that support the victims.
Peers spent 54 percent of their time passively watching, 21 percent of their time
actively modeling bullies’ behavior, and 25 percent of their time intervening on behalf of
victims. Older boys were more likely to actively join with the bully, girls were more
likely to intervene on behalf of victims. The observational methodology used to gather
data on relational aggression was limited because it was hard to observe such indirect
bullying but allows for the identification of more direct forms of bullying. Gossip, for
example, can be difficult to hear on the playground and this is precisely what researchers
of relational aggression would want to observe. O’Connell and Craig (1999) required
children to wear microphones in the schoolyard because it is hard to observe such
discrete aggression. This may make the children self-conscious about things they are
saying or doing because they know they are being monitored. The use of videotape also
did not allow the researchers to identify all peers present during bullying episodes.
Similarly, Smith, Madsen, and Moodey (1999) examined what children believed
bullying was, their experience of being bullied, if bullies are the same age, older or
younger, and why children might get bullied less as they get older. In the first
experiment 48 students from two schools were interviewed about their experiences with
bullying. In the second experiment 159 students and adults were interviewed about what
they believed to be the definition of bullying and to give examples of bullying.
Seventy-one percent of the students believed that children get bullied less as they
get older because they may become physically stronger. One reason the children gave in
response to why older children are bullied less was because they get more mature.
Fifteen of the 48 children interviewed reported that they had experienced being bullied.
Eighty-seven percent of the children who experienced being bullied answered that they
would take only one form of action in response to the bullying. Sixty-five percent of the
children replied that their definition of bullying when they were younger is the same as
their definition now or that they didn’t know what bullying was when they were younger.
Smith et al. (1999) asked the children questions that lead the children to give
certain responses that would yield these results. One example of this was how they asked
the students, “We've found that children get bullied less as they get older. Can you think
of any possible reasons for this?” (273 ). This lead the students to think of reasons why
this may happen even if they do not believe it to be true. However, Smith et al. (1999)
51
�did not take into account that the majority of bullying seemed to come from children
within the same class of the same ages.
In addition, Frey, Hirschstein, Snell, Van Schoiack Edstrom, MacKenzie, and
Broderick (2005) used self-report measures to evaluate the effectiveness of an
intervention on bullying as a function of grade, and gender, to determine if those in the
intervention group would be less accepting of bullying, and whether or not the participant
believed that bystanders were responsible to intervene in bullying. Self-reports are a
limited source for obtaining information because it may generate socially desirable
responses from students. The students’ peer interaction skills were assessed using
teacher reports. The use of teacher reports is also a limited way of measuring the effects
of an intervention on relational aggression. It is likely that teachers can fail to observe
such discrete bullying behaviors. Observations attempted to measure the amount of
physical and verbal bullying among the students.
Frey et al. (2005) revealed relative decreases in bullying behavior, and acceptance
of bullying for students who had received the intervention. The participants in the
intervention schools also felt more responsibility to intervene, and reported greater adult
responsiveness than did those in control schools. There is a slight decline in bystander
encouragement of bullying among intervention students. Bullying, bystander
encouragement, and aggression did not vary by grade level or gender. Boys in the
intervention group tended to regard assertive responses as less difficult than boys in the
control group. Students in the intervention group tended to report less victimization, and
displayed decreases in argumentative behavior than did those in the control group.
Salmivalli, Kaukiainen, and Voeten (2005) evaluated the effects of an antibullying intervention and in particular to assess the Finnish intervention program
(Salmivalli, Kaukianen, Voeten, & Sinisammal, 2004). The aim of this intervention was
to have students recognize the discrepancy between their attitudes and their actual
behaviors in bullying situations. They used self-reports and peer-reports to assess the
amount of observed and experienced bullying, attitudes related to bullying, and their role
in bullying situations.
The intervention program had a positive impact on the frequencies of bullies and
victims, observation and experiences of bullying, beliefs about bullying, and participant
role behaviors, but none were statistically significant. The intervention program’s effects
were found more often in the fourth grade than in the fifth grade, and often only in
schools with a high degree of implementation of the intervention. The impact of the
intervention was only significant in the fourth grade, and was only shown in self-reports.
The peer-reported victimization showed no change. Salmivalli et al. (2005) trained
52
�teachers who volunteered to give the intervention. Training teachers is not sufficient if
the teachers lack the motivation to implement the intervention. The researchers did not
check throughout the duration of the intervention to see if the teachers were conducting
the intervention properly.
A small percentage of students are usually involved in the bullying whereas, many
students are bystanders during bullying. Rigby and Johnson (2006) showed videos to
young children depicting bullying in the presence of bystanders and used questionnaires
to examine the students’ intentions as bystanders to intervene on behalf of victims of
bullying and their attitudes towards victims, and expectations of parents, friends, and
teachers. Forty-three percent of the students indicated that they were likely to help the
victim. Having rarely or never bullied others, having previously intervened, positive
attitude towards victims, and believing that parents and friends expected them to act to
support victims were significant predictors of expressed intention to intervene. Rigby
and Johnson (2006) indicated that many children felt that they should intervene in
bullying situations, however, students may not actually intervene when a situation arises.
Many adolescents tend to disregard the views of teachers and often try to resolve
conflicts on their own. This can explain why interventions implemented by the
classroom teacher did not display statistically significant results. Rigby and Johnson
(2006) suggested that teachers were unlikely to influence their students to become active
bystanders while witnessing bullying simply by explaining their expectations to the
students.
In contrast to the earlier findings, one study on the impact of an anti-bullying
program on relational aggression, yielded insignificant results (Smith, Schneider, Smith,
& Ananaiadou, 2004). Smith et al. (2004) suggested that there is a lack of monitoring the
implementation of the program. Salmivalli et al. (2005) discovered that most reduction
in bullying occurred in classrooms with high levels of teacher implementation. Teachers
play a key role in bully prevention, they not only teach the curriculum but also reinforce
the behaviors taught in those lessons on a daily basis.
For example, Hirschstein, Van Schoiack Edstrom, Frey, Snell, and
MacKenzie(2007) examined the impact of the implementation of Steps to Respect
(Committee for Children, 2001) on observations of playground behaviors and students'
beliefs after one year. The goal of the Steps to Respect program (Committee for
Children, 2001) was to reduce school bullying problems by increasing adult awareness
and monitoring, enhancing support for pro-social behavior, and teaching social-emotional
skills to children to support healthy relationships and counter bullying. Two hundred and
ninety-three third through sixth grade students from 36 classrooms were observed on the
53
�playground and completed surveys about their experiences and perceptions related to
bullying. Teachers also rated students' social skills. Hirschstein et al. (2007) observed 36
teachers teaching lessons and examined how the coaching of individuals related to the
observation of students' playground behavior, self-report, and peer social skills.
Lesson adherence was associated with higher teacher-rated peer social skills.
Teacher support for bullying prevention skills related to fewer observations of
playground aggression and less victimization among older students. Teacher coaching
was associated with less encouragement of bullying, lower rates of victimization, and
destructive bystander behavior. Observations of playground behavior did not relate to
self-report variables. Teacher ratings of social skills did not relate to other measures.
This study did not take into account to whom the teachers were directing their coaching.
It is important for future research to report any differences in the amount of coaching for
different groups of students and test if coaching affects bullies, victims, and bystanders
differently. Older students had higher cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills, which
enabled them to generalize skills better than younger students. Future research should
examine if older students execute skills learned through intervention programs more
frequently.
It is important for an intervention to provide clear guidelines for responding to
bullying and to give students the opportunity to practice responses to bullying. If
bystanders intervene on bullying they can become the next target and are embarrassed if
they misjudge the situation and overreact. An intervention can help students think of
other ways in which bystanders can play an active role in putting a stop to bullying in
ways that will help them to not become the targets of relational aggression. This can be
done by encouraging bystanders to simply walk away when witnessing a bullying
situation and not reinforce the bully’s behavior. Many students indicated that the
behavior of bullies is not acceptable. Students also indicated that the bystanders should
show support for victims of bullying. However, past research has shown that most
students do not intervene in bullying situations. Students should be made aware of the
difference between their attitudes and their behavior in order for a change in bullying to
take place. A crucial issue in order for interventions to be effective is for students to take
what they learn and apply it to situations they face.
II. Discussion
One all girls’ high school uses the intervention CASS: Creating a Safe School,
which is a part of the Ophelia Project. The Ophelia Project helps girls to recognize and
address relationally aggressive behaviors. This program not only teaches positive
54
�behaviors but educators, parents, and other students also model these behaviors. The
entire school including faculty, administrators, parents, and students make an agreement
to work together to change the social culture in the school.
Sophomore, junior, and senior girls are trained as mentors in order to teach middle
school girls about relational aggression. Older students, usually by senior girls, teach
freshman girls the program curriculum in order to become more familiar on the topic to
be able to become mentors for the next few years in high school. This intervention not
only helps the girls learn about how their attitudes and beliefs about aggression can be
hurtful, but also reminds the mentors that they should be modeling positive behavior for
the girls that they are teaching. CASS: Creating a Safe School empowers the older girls
as mentors as well as the younger girls.
This is currently the ninth year of the intervention in the high school. Before the
school year began for the high school girls the faculty who facilitate the program
gathered to review what they had learned in previous years. I was given the opportunity
to attend the facilitator training as well as the mentor training given by the president and
CEO of the Ophelia Project, Mary Baird. The director of training, Katie Allison, and the
director of school programs and program development, Christina Linkie, assisted Mary
for the two days of training. The high school pays a substantial amount to the Ophelia
Project in order for them to train facilitators and mentors. The school also bought
manuals for every facilitator and mentor. The mentor manuals include scripts for the
lessons, instructional strategies, and learning activities. The facilitator manuals include
ways to help mentors strengthen their communication skills, ways to help mentors build
trusting relationships with the students, and help mentors to create effective lessons.
The first day the facilitators learned the “Five Critical Steps” which included:
recognizing the behavior, naming the behavior, establishing positive norms, creating a
pro-social learning environment, and finally creating a safe school environment. On the
second day, the older high school mentors were trained to deliver the intervention to
middle school students. The mentors undergo major positive changes as well as the
positive changes of the middle school students. These changes include broadening the
students' ideas about what constitutes aggression so that they are better able to name the
behavior, change their own beliefs and behaviors, develop leadership skills, and become
more aware of relational aggression.
During the facilitator training, the facilitators were able to share stories about
problems they face when meeting with mentors. Many said that it is hard to find a time
in which all the students as well as the facilitator were able to meet to discuss the next
lesson. Others said that often times one of the mentors in the group is very shy and it is
55
�hard for them to open up in order to teach the younger students. The facilitators who
faced similar problems were able to offer solutions. One facilitator said that she meets
with her group of mentors once a week over lunch, that way all the students in the group,
as well as the facilitators, are available to meet. The president of the Ophelia Project,
Mary Baird, said that it is important for the facilitators to recruit girls to act as mentors
that they believe will be able to teach the intervention properly as well as act as good role
models for the younger students.
On the second day, during the mentor training, the high school girls were able to
practice some of the activities that they would be using in the classroom to teach the
younger girls about relational aggression. They were able to share personal stories with
the other girls about times when they were bullies or victims of relational aggression.
Through this activity they were able to learn that by sharing personal stories, the younger
students can learn to be more open to talking about the topic.
I had the opportunity to facilitate a small group to help them develop a role-play
that they could use to give the younger students some examples of relational aggression.
I asked the girls to think about some things that they may have seen happen in their
school that they could use for a skit. One girl said, “Sometimes girls in a small group
will gossip about another girl and when she walks by they all stare at her and laugh.
Even though she might not know what was said, she knows that they were talking about
her.” I asked the other girls if they agreed that this is something they had seen and if they
wanted to use this situation as their skit, and the girls agreed.
I asked the group to think about what some possible solutions to the situation.
“You can tell the bully that’s not nice. She’s a really nice girl,” one girl answered. I
replied that it would be great if that really happens but I asked them if that is really what
happens in these situations. The girls said that it was not what really happens because
then that person would become the next “outcast” by the bully. I had the girls think of
some more realistic solutions and they agreed that removing yourself from the gossip and
being friendly to the victim to help them to not feel alone would be something helpful
that would be easier for a bystander to do.
Unfortunately, I was not able to become a facilitator for a group of high school
mentors throughout the semester because I was not available at the times that the mentors
would conduct the lessons. However, each week I observed group sessions with the high
school girls. There are different counselors for each grade. Students in the high school
are required to meet with their guidance counselor once a week in group sessions. This
allows the students to become more comfortable talking to the counselor and the student
will be more likely to go to the counselor privately when important issues arise.
56
�The counselors all have different topics that they discuss with the students. The
freshman counselor discusses issues that the girls may have with adjusting to high school
as well as dealing with relational aggression. The sophomore counselor examines issues
with self-esteem. The junior counselor deals with the stressors and anxiety of the heavy
course load in this year. The senior counselor advises students in preparation for college.
The counselors allowed me to offer any input I thought would be helpful for the girls.
The counselors would often asked me to answer the girls’ questions. Since I am closer in
age to the girls, the counselors felt that they would be better able to relate to me and
therefore, would appreciate any information I gave them.
Although I was unable to observe the intervention within the school, I was able to
watch the girls interact within the group sessions on topics that relate to relational
aggression. One session with a group of freshman girls had to do with raising the selfesteem of the girls. This session also helped the girls look at positive aspects within their
classmates in addition to themselves. The counselor began by letting the students know
that she had noticed that many of the girls had been saying negative things about
themselves. First, the counselor discussed with the students how it might be especially
difficult for girls in high school to feel good about themselves.
The counselor explained that they were going to perform an activity that would
help them to raise their self-esteem and remind them of their strengths and positive things
about themselves. The counselor gave the students brown paper bags, crayons, and paper
where they were to write 12 positive things that they liked about themselves. The girls
responded to hearing this activity with groans and the counselor quickly informed the
girls that she understood that this is something that may be difficult for them to write
about. One girl replied, “If you asked me to write 12 things about myself that I don’t
like, it would be much easier.” The girls in the group agreed and the counselor let them
know that this was the exact reason they were engaging in this exercise.
The students were also asked to write one positive thing about the person to their
right and one positive thing about the person to their left and to put it inside of their paper
bags. On the bag they were to write “Brag Bag” in which they would put all of their
positive statements. The counselor told them they could decorate the bags to make them
more personal and that whenever they were feeling upset they could look in the bag and
realize there were many good things about them. While the girls were working on
coming up with positive things many of the girls were having trouble. The counselor told
the girls positive things that she noticed about them and told them to think of
compliments they received from others.
In another session with a group of freshman girls the counselor asked the girls to
57
�define what they thought relational aggression means. One girl responded, “It’s what
girls do to each other like eye rolling and gossip.” Another girl answered, “Boys fight
things out and girls fight other ways.” The counselor asked the girls, “Why do girls use
relational aggression?” Some of the responses included that it is because girls can be
bored, jealous of other girls, or that girls relational aggress in order to attain power and
control. The counselor told them that sometimes relational aggression could escalate to
the point that victims of relational aggression can become depressed or afraid to go to
school.
The counselor asked the girls about how they thought technology played a role in
this kind of bullying. “People are strong behind a computer,” one girl replied. The girls
agreed that technology only makes bullying worse and that many people say things that
they normally would not say in person. One girl gave an example of how someone could
leave a comment on another girl’s webpage about someone else, knowing that they will
be able to see it. The group discussed how anything that they say over the computer can
be altered and sent very easily to many people. They talked about how this is a big issue
because any kind of pictures that are put onto a website can be shown to anyone.
The counselor asked the girls if they thought that relational aggression was an
issue within the school. The girls began to talk about how they felt that the sophomore
girls were rude to them. Some girls said that they were pushed in the hallways and that
the sophomore girls gave them mean looks. The counselor asked the girls if they could
think of anything that could be done to prevent the bullying. One girl gave the response,
“You can think before you act about how the victim would feel if you did something.”
The counselor asked the students what they could do if they are the bystanders to a
bullying situation. The girls gave the socially desirable answer that you can “stand up to
the bully for the victim.” The counselor said, “Sometimes it is hard to stand up to the
bully because then you can become the target of the aggression.” The girls could not
think of anything else they could do in response to a bullying situation. One example the
counselor offered was to empathize with the victim and to let them know how you feel
and that you did not agree with what happened to them.
All of the girls were raising their hands to share stories with the group about a
time when they were bullied or stories of others who were bullied. The counselor told
the students, “It is often easier to recall stories from when you were the victim and forget
stories when you were the bully.” One girl told a story about a friend of hers who is
jealous of the friendship that she has with another girl and so her friend makes up rumors
about her. The girls also expressed that when they go to a parent or teacher for help that
these issues are often seen as something that is unimportant and that they should not
58
�worry about.
The sophomore counselor is also a facilitator for the student mentors. During
lunch one day, the counselor allowed me to observe a meeting she was having with a
group of peer mediators. This was a small group composed of mainly sophomore and
junior girls however, during the peer mediations only one or two girls can conduct a
mediation between two disputants at a time. The role of a peer mediator is to learn how
to properly address problems in a dispute between peers so that they are able to conduct
mediations from a neutral standpoint. It is the role of the counselor to prepare the peer
mediator for the mediation and then find two disputants with a problem they would like
to resolve and assign a time for them to meet with a peer mediator. The counselor gave
the students a hand out in order to prepare them for peer mediations.
The counselor asked the students what they thought would be the best way to
arrange a room for a peer mediation to take place. The students suggested that they
should arrive at the room earlier and arrange the room properly before the disputants
arrive. One girl answered, “They should face each other, but not be to close together.”
The counselor then asked, “Where should the mediator be?” “In between the disputants
but further away, like a triangle, and if there are two peer mediators then more like a
trapezoid.” The girls giggle and the counselor agreed that this would be the best solution,
but she also noted that they should also consider who should sit closest to the exit. The
girls all agreed that the mediators should be near the exit in case something should
happen where they need assistance they would be closer to where they can go to the
counselor for help.
The students and the counselor then began to read the handout, which was about
the first steps in peer mediation. The girls paired up in order to practice what they would
say in their introductory speeches as mediators. One girl acted as the mediator and the
other as the disputants and then they had to switch the roles. In the speech they were
supposed to welcome the disputants, introduce themselves, define in their own words
mediation, and explain the rules for mediation. The rules included that the mediator will
remain neutral, that the mediation must remain confidential, the disputants must take
turns listening and talking, and they must cooperate to solve the problem. The disputants
then have to agree to the rules. The students were having some trouble rehearsing what
they were going to say. The counselor let them know that the point of the exercise was
that they would realize that it can be difficult to make these introductions, so they would
had to write down what they want to say and practice it before they mediate.
In another meeting with the peer mediators, the counselor discussed anger and
how it is important that the disputants and the mediator remain calm during a peer
59
�mediation. In order to help the students better empathize with the disputants the
counselor asked the students to think about a time where they were angry and what
emotions they were feeling. Later, they talked about things that they do in order to calm
themselves down when they are angry. One girl talked about how sometimes nothing can
calm her down and it takes time before she is ready to talk about a fight. The counselor
agreed that sometimes it may be too early to discuss what happened. One girl said,
“When I’m angry the last thing I want to hear is ‘calm down’ because the other person
does not know what I am going through.” The counselor discussed how it is important to
reflect on what you would like to hear and not like to hear when angry because it can help
during mediations.
The students also said that it is important when mediating to not say to the
disputants, “I know how you feel” because it could make them more angry or feel that
you are trivializing their anger. The counselor told the girls that it is important to process
the disputants’ anger by being assertive. The mediators must remain neutral but still
guide the mediation towards a resolution or a compromise. One girl added, “It is
important to remind the disputants that they have agreed to come to resolve the issue and
that being angry will help them to solve the problem.” Listening to the disputants and
letting them know that you are listening by reframing what they have said is also an
important part of mediation. They looked at some practice statements and practice
reframing.
III. Conclusion
The Ophelia Project gives the students more knowledge on relational aggression,
which allows them to be more aware of what they are observing in the school, and ways
in which they could address relationally aggressive behaviors. This intervention not only
teaches the students to empathize with the victims of relational aggression but also how
important the role of the bystander is in bullying situations. Darley and Latane (1968),
O’Connell and Craig (1999), Rigby and Johnson (2006), and Tisak et al., (1997)
indicated that there are bystanders in bullying situations that have the responsibility to
choose whether or not to intervene on behalf of the victim. The girls often told stories of
being victimized in which there are many bystanders to the situations but they fail to
intervene. One example involved bullying on the computer in which a negative comment
left on someone’s webpage can be seen by many others and yet nothing was done in this
particular situation to help the victim. It is difficult at times for students to apply what
has been taught in the interventions to the actual situations in which they face. The
intervention should allow the students to give examples of situations in which they
60
�should intervene in addition to offering the students examples in which they should
intervene. I believe that the intervention should allow the students to play a more active
role in making changes in their school.
The girls in the high school where I was an intern still believed that relational
aggression was a problem in their school even though, they have had the intervention, the
Ophelia Project, in their school. When the high school allowed this program into their
school all the parents, administrators, and teachers had to agree to be aware of these kinds
of behaviors and the effect that it could have on the girls. One reason that the girls may
have indicated being victims of relational aggression is that they told stories of how their
teachers and parents often trivialize their stories of victimization related to relational
aggression. It is often hard for teachers and parents to observe this kind of aggression
because it involves such discrete behaviors. Bullies can disguise their use of relational
aggression and bystanders may not be sure if they should take action because the
behavior can be interpreted in different ways. Hirschstein et al. (2007) studied the impact
of teacher implementation of an intervention. Another reason this intervention may not
be working to its full potential is because the teachers are more concerned with preparing
the girls for state tests and college rather than on reinforcing their positive behaviors
associated with relational aggression. The amount of lessons can also influence the
impact that the intervention has on relational aggression. The high school students
presented the intervention lessons a few times a month and often they were unable to
meet during these times.
Although there were signs of relational aggression in the high school after
receiving the intervention, there may have been more incidents of relational aggression
before the Ophelia Project began at the school. The school officials must have seen a
difference in behavior because they still have the program in their school. They may be
experiencing some difficulties with the program because they needed to have another
training in the beginning of the year. However, I was able to notice the day of the mentor
training that the girls are very knowledgeable about strategies they can employ to resolve
bullying situations. Relational aggression is a problem that many schools face. Research
from the literature on bullying shows that involvement in aggression is associated with
poor outcomes for those who bully as well as for those who are victims of bullying or
bystanders to bullying (Frey et at., 2005). In response to this the counselors often
discussed and created lessons that helped boost the self-esteem of the girls.
61
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group as a whole: The Finnish anti-bullying intervention. In P. K. Smith, D. Pepler &
K. Rigby (Eds.), School bullying: How effective can interventions be? Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
15. Smith, P. K., Madsen, K. C., & Moody, J. C. (1999). What causes the age decline in
reports of being bullied at school? Towards a developmental analysis of risks of
being bullied. Educational Research, 41, 267-285.
16. Smith, J., Schneider, B., Smith, P., & Ananiadou, K. (2004). The effectiveness of
whole-school antibullying programs: A synthesis of evaluation research. School
Psychology Review, 33, 547-560.
17. Tisak, M., Lewis, T., & Janitowski, A. (1997).Expectations and prescriptions for
responding to peer aggression: The adolescent offenders' perspective. Aggressive
Behavior, 23, 149-160.
18. White, J., Moffitt, T., Earls, F., Robins, L., & Silva, P. (1990). How early can we
tell?: Predictors of childhood conduct disorder and adolescent delinquency.
Criminology, 28, 507-533.
63
��Section III: Critical Essays
�Homosexuality and Gender Dissidence: Acting Out
in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, Vienna and Berlin
Shane Courtney (Theater Performance and Speech)1
Undoubtedly, the fin-de-siècle in Europe was a period of great change, not only
in society but also in regards to the arts and the lives of artists who lived during this time.
Societies of the fin-de-siècle, particularly those in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, experienced
a radical shift in the direction of modernization, which was naturally met with much
resistance and rebellion. Those who chose to resist expressed their disapproval in
numerous ways – some displayed it through artwork, some through the indulgence of
their personal vices, and still others chose to act out against society in both subtle and
overt ways. Oftentimes, this desire to act out against the changes manifested itself in
sexual forms. One powerful effect of this was the rise of homosexuality’s presence in
society. It is no secret that homosexuality was indeed historically present before this
period; however, with this emergence came an overtly feminine behavior of gay men and
masculine behavior in lesbian women, which directly challenged what society judged as
appropriate behavior in regards to one’s gender. This distancing from one’s gender was
known as gender dissidence. The fin-de-siècle became a time in which homosexual
behavior actually began to manifest itself in society as a tangible force; because of this, it
not only reaped negativity from society but gave rise to themes of gender dissidence in
art and society. Although homosexuality and other “gender-bending” perversities were
viewed as symbols of indulgence and decadence to most of society, they became popular
themes present in the arts as well as in the lives of the artists and intellectual figures of
the period. In fact, fin-de-siècle writers and artists such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele,
and Thomas Mann often incorporated themes dealing with homosexuality and gender
dissidence in their works. Others still, such as writers Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine,
Charles Baudelaire, and Colette, not only expressed these themes in their works but also
exhibited homosexual behavior in their personal lives.
The clear divide that materialized between heterosexuals and homosexuals of
the fin-de-siècle can be attributed to many factors. Along industrialism and modernism
came equally powerful social forces such as feminism, radical politics, the rise of popular
1
Written under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the teamtaught Honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-theCentury Paris, Vienna and Berlin.
66
�journalism and moral purity, all of which have been referred to as “anarchy” by many
critics (Cocks 526). Because of this, the zeitgeist of the fin-de-siècle was chaotic; people
not only struggled to find their own personal niches but they were inspired by influences
from innumerable different movements occurring within the same time period. From
these influences emerged a new wave of sexuality in society, leading to scandals, the
birth of sexology, and the emergence of gender modernity that deepened the gap between
heterosexuals and homosexuals (Cocks 527). Additionally, the society of the time began
to set strict limits to any sort of iconoclastic statements, especially those in relation to
sexuality, and for this reason, homosexuals and other emerging groups began to act out
(Berlanstein 340). Homosexuals and heterosexuals thus became two separate entities,
with their own characteristics and qualities. The greatest distinction between the two
social groups was that homosexuals often behaved in a manner that directly opposed
society’s expectations, which most often extended to their speech, their mannerism, and
their dress. Male homosexuals adopted effeminate approaches to everyday life while
female homosexuals took on masculine ones. Though it was never certain whether gays
and lesbians felt inherently feminine or masculine, such behaviors were taken to extremes
in order to exact opposition against the changes in society. This practice, known as
“sexual dissidence”, directly challenged society’s view on appropriate behavior by
portraying the exact opposite of the way a healthy heterosexual was expected to behave
(Cocks 531). Cross-dressing also became a popular means of self-expression among
homosexuals and dandies alike; evolving out of the theater, cross-dressing soon became a
method of social and political commentary (Berlanstein 341). With the aid of such
behaviors, homosexuality and sexual dissidence became two embryonic forces in fin-desiècle Europe, which, undoubtedly, sparked a plethora of reactions.
As with anything that deviated from the accepted social norms at the time,
society had its own varying reactions to this new “sexual revolution”. To a large portion
of society, homosexuality was the fuel for many social anxieties: “Historians have
pointed to a number of developments to help explain these heightened anxieties,
including the military defeat of 1870, the fear of depopulation, demands that civil and
political rights be extended to women, and the increasing independence of women…”
(Kselman 590).
Acting as a prominent inspiration to homosexuals, feminism appeared to be the
cause of much controversy during the period. Radical feminist changes included the
feminization of male avant-garde texts, the increasingly vocal nature of feminist
demands, and the emergence of new roles for women, including female dandies, the
“New Woman”, and the femme fatale (Felski 1094). These shifts challenged many prior
masculine ideals and because much of homosexual culture was inspired by effeminacy,
67
�homosexuals consequentially felt the brunt of society’s resistance. One seemingly
perpetual obstacle that hindered the advancement of homosexuals lied within the Catholic
Church. In fact, any type of personal sexual knowledge was secularized during the time
and the Church remained very watchful in regards to the changes of the sexual revolution
(Kselman 590). In addition to the disapproval of the Church, popular opinion as well as
the opinions of professionals discredited the emergence of alternate sexuality. In fact,
even Sigmund Freud, when dealing with Little Hans, a young subject who had exhibited
homosexual behavior, referred to homosexuality as a stage that needed to be overcome
(Geller 366). Public opinion remained similar; homosexuality was directly associated
with “degeneration”, both in the social world and among the scientific community. The
scientific world believed that homosexuality was the degeneration of the central nervous
system while society regarded homosexuality as symptomatic of the degeneration of the
era, of the same caliber as alcoholism, decadence, and genetic anomalies (Sengoopta
449). However, while most physicians at the time settled for this view on homosexuality,
a select few physicians such as Magnus Hirschfeld of Berlin and Eugen Steinach of
Vienna collaborated to find ways in which to emancipate homosexual culture through
scientific research. Through their collective studies, these physicians claimed in 1897 that
homosexuality was “neither a disease nor a vice but the consequence of a simple
developmental error. No legal or moral guilt could attach to so involuntary a condition”
(Sengoopta 448). Therefore, while many factors of society were working against the
advancement of homosexual culture, others were working alongside it. Homosexual
culture soon began to manifest itself in many aspects of society, despite the resistance it
often encountered.
The one aspect of European fin-de-siècle society in which homosexuality had
certainly found its niche was in the arts. Art, like the emergence of homosexuality in
society, had very much become a form rebellion against the changes of the era. As
society became more concerned with industrialism and moral preservation, the presence
of naturalism and overt sexuality in art became the counterattack. With this in common,
homosexuality and other examples of gender dissidence became very welcomed themes
in fin-de-siècle art and literature.
In particular, Viennese artist Egon Schiele was quite fond of displaying
homosexuality and gender dissidence in his works. Many of Schiele’s watercolor
paintings, such as Friendship (1913) and Conversion (1912) portrayed scenes of intimacy
between two women. Although the word “friendship” implies a platonic intimacy
between the two subjects, it is difficult for one to view the two women – nude and tightly
embracing, with the more dominant woman’s chin resting on her counterpart’s shoulder –
and believe them to be embracing out of friendship. Conversion, too, depicts two women
68
�intimately touching. In this painting, the women are joined together like the pieces of a
puzzle, complimenting one another’s curves and contours. While many of Schiele’s
depictions of homosexuality were indeed tame, works like Women Embracing (1913) and
Two Friends of Tenderness (1913) are explicit and raw. Both paintings portray two
women in the middle of sexual acts – kissing, touching, embracing with intertwined
limbs.
In addition to his depictions of homosexuality, Schiele bestowed upon many of
his subjects gender-ambiguous qualities, such as androgyny. Schiele sketched many
figures that included anatomical features of both genders, making it very difficult for one
to determine the sex of his subjects. Even in many of Schiele’s self-portraits and portraits
of his mistress, Wally Neuzil, there are elements of androgyny. Particularly in Wally in
Red Blouse with Raised Knee (1913) and Self Portrait (1912), one can perceive these
elements. From the waist above, Wally is given a very subjective appearance – one can
detect her masculine facial structure and mistake her for a man. In Self Portrait, Schiele
feminizes his own facial features, giving himself higher cheekbones, fuller lips, and thin,
raised eyebrows to mimic those of a woman.
Gustav Klimt, another Viennese artist of the period, showcased homosexuality
and gender dissidence as well, although his works were a rendering of intimacy rather
than of rawness. Water Serpents (1907), one of Klimt’s most widely-recognized
paintings, is the depiction of several nude women lying together in a mass, with their hair
becoming meshed together. Additionaly, the word “serpents” in the title also alludes to
the Old Testament story of the smake of Eden, whose seductive nature brings up the
gender dissident idea of the unity of the sexes, an idea plainly seen in Klimt’s most
famous work, The Kiss (1907-1908). The two figures embracing in this painting are fused
into one and covered, making it impossible for the viewer to distinguish the man’s body
from the woman’s. Additionaly, the nature of this work is intimate and sexual. Klimt,
like Schiele, also had several works portraying unambiguous depictions of female
homosexuality. Klimt’s appropriately-titled Girl-Friends (1916) is just one example. The
work depicts two women – one nude – embracing one another lovingly in a prominently
red background, a color that commonly alludes to passion. The title, in addition to the
artist’s rendering, directly associate the work with homosexuality.
Literature, too, was greatly affected by the heightened sexuality of the fin-desiècle, and homosexuality found its place in many novels, poems and plays of the period.
German novelist Thomas Mann and French poet Charles Baudelaire are two writers who
explored the heightened attention given to homosexuality during the fin-de-siècle. The
entire plot of Mann’s novella Death in Venice surrounds the duality of passion, in which
Aschenbach’s infatuation with a young boy, Tadzio, becomes a double-edged sword; this
69
�homosexual attraction, in addition to the beauty of the art he finds in Venice, restores the
element of Aschenbach’s life that he had been lacking, but also becomes his obsession
and downfall. Baudelaire, too, writes of the downfall of homosexual passion in his poem
“Lesbos”. “Lesbos” describes the Greek island, a location of forbidden sexuality and the
birthplace of Sappho. Sappho was an ancient Greek lyric poet whose writings symbolize
the peak of eroticism and unconventional love (Balakian 275). Baudelaire describes
Lesbos as a place in which “the kisses are like cascades” and where “Venus might rightly
be jealous of Sappho”. Throughout this lengthy poem, Baudelaire defends homosexual
desire; he describes Sappho as “lovelier than Venus”, refers to her downfall as
“martyrdom”, and describes the religious forces opposing her as “rite and established
cult”. Another one of Baudelaire’s poems “Femmes Damnées”, describes a forbidden
passion between two female subjects, Delphine and Hippolyta. In this poem, Baudelaire
makes an overt commentary on society’s treatment of homosexual love. After a moment
of passion, Hippolyta wonders, “Is there something strange in what we have done?” and
later suggests that they “let [their] drawn curtains separate [them] from the world…
damned, wandering, far from living people”. These lines directly relate this moment of
lesbian passion to the women’s fear of society’s reaction. This can be seen as a bold
statement by Baudelaire in support of the emerging homosexual culture at the time.
As homosexuality was granted a more prominent role in the cultural life of the
fin-de-siècle, it also found itself well-represented in the lives of many artists of the era.
For example, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice is not only a portrayal of repressed
homosexual desire, but contains elements that are autobiographical in nature. Biographers
have claimed that the character of Gustav Aschenbach is the literary manifestation of
Thomas Mann: discipline, desire and fervent artistic pursuit are mutual characteristics
between Mann and Aschenbach (Kaufmann 15). Mann’s own struggle with
homosexuality was instilled in the character of Aschenbach, something that scholars had
not realized until Mann’s personal diaries were found and early works such as “Little
Herr Friedemann”, a camouflaged story of Mann’s own homosexual desires, were
analyzed (Mundt 5). Scholars also believe that Mann was inspired by his first
homosexual love, a classmate by the name of Armin Martens, in his writing of Tonio
Kroger, one of his earliest novels that follows a young man from childhood to adulthood
(Mundt 5).
Although Mann never publicly acted on his homosexual desires, many artists of
the period did, maintaining homosexual relationships and actively participating in
homosexual affairs. Parisian poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud as well as the
novelist Colette are some examples of artists who were open about their homosexual
activity. Verlaine and Rimbaud engaged in an openly homosexual relationship; Rimbaud
70
�even left his home in Paris to pursue his relationship with Verlaine (Guimon 89). This
relationship had a profound effect on the works of both artists: Rimbaud and Verlaine
often sketched one another, wrote poems about one another, and generally drew
inspiration from eachother (Buisine and Dobie 102). For example, in the poem“It Weeps
in my Heart”, Verlaine pays homage to Rimbaud by inserting the words “it rains gently
on the town”, a direct quote from one of Rimbaud’s works. There is evidence, too, that
the relationship negatively affected both poets.
In [Rimbaud’s] self-idealization, he had played down the image of Verlaine, but
when he found himself without him, he began to realize it was Verlaine who
possessed the fine qualities he had attributed to himself, and this both humiliated
and depressed him. He then began to write A Season in Hell…. One section
“Deliria” is extremely significant in relation to Rimbaud’s psychological state,
where he sets out the divergences between the mad virgin and the infernal
husband – the first critics imagined that the former represented Verlaine and the
latter represented Rimbaud (Guimon 89).
Regardless of whether the influences both writers had on one another were positive or
negative, they were indeed a powerful force which fueled their creativity.
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was another influential figure during the fin-de-siècle
who lived openly as a lesbian and also incorporated homosexual elements in her works.
One of Colette’s most famous texts, The Pure and the Impure, deals largely with the
shortcomings of lesbianism and sexual satisfaction, as the main character, Charlotte, finds
frustration in the realization that she is not sexually satisfied by her man (Dranch and
Colette 177). The story links lesbianism to Colette’s own life in the character of
Charlotte, who is very much like Mann’s Aschenbach – a manifestation of the author in
her own work. Colette and Charlotte share many similar characteristics and situations:
both are former music-hall performers, both have been involved in scenarios which had
them weigh sexual indulgence over self-control, both have androgynous names (Charlotte
being the feminine form of Charles and Colette being her father’s surname), and both are
vastly concerned with their personal sexual satisfaction (Dranch and Colette 178). Other
aspects of Colette’s life are translated onto her literary characters as well. Colette felt
oppressed by the masculine figures in her life; for example, Colette’s husband routinely
locked her up in her room for hours and ordered her to write books that he would publish
under his own name (Cohen 795). This patriarchal oppression is apparent in Colette’s
Gigi, in which the characters Madame Alvarez and Alicia try to refine Gigi and prepare
her for proper composure in the presence of a man (Cohen 796).
Colette, along with other figures of the time such as French poet Charles
Baudelaire and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, are often credited as practicing
71
�another type of gender-ambiguous art popular during the fin-de-siècle: dandyism.
Dandyism was very much a product of the emerging homosexual culture in which men
and women would dress, act, or speak in a fashion similar to what society would expect
from the opposite gender. For instance, upon meeting Baudelaire, Nietzsche commented
mainly on the poet’s behavior, alluding to decadence and effeminacy, even though many
of Nietzsche’s colleagues had noticed homosexual undercurrents of his own appearance
(Waite 25). These “undercurrents” found in dandyism resulted from the rising overtly
effeminate nature of homosexuals and the masculine nature of lesbians. This became an
inspiration to dandies in that these mannerisms became symbols of rebellion in society.
Dandyism served two main purposes; on one hand, it became a form of political rebellion
in which the behavior of dandies was a direct reaction to the dominance of modernist,
industrialist, and capitalist changes occurring in Europe (Glick 131). On the other hand, it
focused on artistic and aesthetic beauty, style, and artifice, and became a retreat from the
society and politics of the fin-de-siècle into commodity and artistic self-expression (Glick
130). Dandyism, instead, became a way to ruffle society’s feathers by evoking the
gender-ambiguous quality of homosexuality that society disapproved of the most. In fact,
both Baudelaire and Nietzsche identified as heterosexuals and carried on heterosexual
relationships, and Colette identified herself as bisexual. As heterosexuals began to
become inspired by the homosexual community, the first bonds of unification between
the two cultures had been formed. It can be argued, then, that dandyism was the stitch
that began to repair the divide between homosexuals and heterosexuals. This, too, could
also suggest that because dandyism focused much on style and commodity, this ideal
remains intact in the modern-day gay male, who is stereotypically materialistic, feminine,
and obsessed with the “gym body”, or external beautification (Glick 130). The fact that
the fin-de siècle dandy still remains a pertinent influence in modern-day homosexual
culture speaks volumes of the influence of the sexual revolution at the turn of the century.
The emerging homosexual culture of fin-de-siècle Europe was a greatly
influential force in both society and the world of art and literature. This “sexual
revolution”, during which society saw the rise of homosexuality and other sexually
dissident behaviors, sparked controversy, distaste, and hostility from many different
culture groups but also stimulated the interest of many others. The medical field as well
as the art world benefited greatly from homosexual culture, with new findings and studies
being conducted in medicine as well as new depictions and ideas being worked into art,
for the purpose of both aestheticism and political rebellion. Homosexuality and gender
dissidence found their place in many different types of art; this included the sketches of
Egon Schiele, the paintings of Gustav Klimt, the poems of Baudelaire, and the novels of
Colette and Mann. Homosexual culture also became a catalyst for other types of social
72
�change. It perpetuated the rise of dandyism, which became a powerful force both in
society and in relation to modern-day times. Overall, homosexuality and other genderbending “perversities” were strong influential elements in the artistic communities of
Paris, Vienna, and Berlin during the fin-de-siècle.
Works Cited
Balakian, Anna. “Those Stigmatized Poems of Baudelaire”, The French Review 31
(1958): 273-77.
Berlanstein, Lenard R. “Breeches and Breaches: Cross-Dress Theater and the Culture of
Gender Ambiguity in Modern France”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 38
(1996): 338-69.
Buisine, Alain, and Madeleine Dobie. “Crossed Drawings (Rimbaud, Verlaine and Some
Others) ”, Yale French Studies 84 (1994): 95-117.
Cocks, H. G. “Naughty Narrative Nineties: Sex, Scandal, and Representation in the Fin
de Siècle”, Rev. of Disorder in the Court: Trials and Sexual Conflict at the Turn
of the Century, by Erber, Nancy, and George Robb; Victorian Sexual Dissidence
by Richard Dellamora; Names and Stories: Emilia Dilke and Victorian Culture by
Kali Israel. U of Chicago P, Oct. 2002: 526-36.
Cohen, Susan D. “An Onomastic Double Bind: Colette's Gigi and the Politics of
Naming”, PMLA 100 (1985): 793-809.
Dranch, Sherry A., and Colette. “Reading Through the Veiled Text: Colette's The Pure
and the Impure”, Contemporary Literature 24 (1983): 176-89.
Felski, Rita. “The Counterdiscourse of the Feminine”, PMLA 106 (1991): 1094-1105.
Geller, Jay. “The Godfather of Psychoanalysis: Circumcision, Antisemitism,
Homosexuality, and Freud's Fighting Jew”, Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 67 (1999): 355-85.
Glick, Elisa. “The Dialectics of Dandyism”, Cultural Critique 48 (2001): 129-63.
Guimon, Jose. Art and Madness. Aurora: Davies Group, 2006.
73
�Kaufmann, Fritz. “The World as Will and Representation: Thomas Mann's Philosophical
Novels”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (1943): 1-36.
Kselman, Thomas. “The Perraud Affair: Clergy, Church, and Sexual Politics in Fin-de
Siècle France”, The Journal of Modern History 70 (1998): 588-618.
Mundt, Hannelore. Understanding Thomas Mann. Columbia: U of South Carolina P,
2004.
Sengoopta, Chandak. “Glandular Politics: Experimental Biology, Clinical Medicine, and
Homosexual Emancipation in Fin-de-Siècle Central Europe”, Isis 89 (1998): 445-73.
Waite, Geoff. “Nietzsche's Baudelaire, or the Sublime Proleptic Spin of His PoliticoEconomic Thought”, Representations 50 (1995): 14-52.
Egon Schiele, Friendship, 1913
Egon Schiele, Women Embracing, 1913
74
�Egon Schiele, Conversion, 1912
Egon Schiele, Two Friends of Tenderness, 1913
75
�Egon Schiele, Wally Neuzil in Red Blouse with Raised Knees, 1913
Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait, 1912
76
�Gustav Klimt, Water Serpents, 1907
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907
77
�Gustav Klimt, Girl-Friends, 1916
78
�Vesalius and Renaissance Anatomy
Amanda Gland (History)1
Renaissance Italy, 1300-1600
“The Creation of the Tangible Human Body”
The Renaissance in Italy was a fascinating time, full of discoveries and new
information about the world. During the Renaissance, the idea of humanism developed.
This was essentially the study of the human removed from god. In other words, although
they believed that God created the human, they chose to focus on how humans used what
God had given them. This idea became a school curriculum leading to the modern day
liberal arts. It arose the reading of the classic authors from Greece and Rome. The
emphasis on the human body led to many new forms of art and transformed the way
people thought about themselves. In painting, subjects became more lifelike, both in
body and in the space that they occupied. In architecture, the classical style made a
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith (History) for the honors course History
362: Renaissance Italy.
79
�comeback, but the way it was done distinguished it from the ancients. In medicine, old
ideas of the human body were revived, and then changed to go along with the more
modern discoveries made by Renaissance anatomists. In 1543, Andreas Vesalius
published De humani corporis fabrica (or On the Composition of the Human Body)2,
which is considered the first modern medical text. With the advent of a renewed interest
in the classics, and the humanist interest in the human person, the dissections of Vesalius
furthered the understanding of the human body, and therefore of the human itself.
The human body was one of the greatest mysteries in the world, and people had
been working on it since the ancient times. However, much of this work was done by
observation, and much of the same information was still being used hundreds of years
later. One of the most important of the early figures was Hippocrates, who lived from
460 BC to 377 BC3. Working in the time of Pericles, he is considered the father of
modern medicine due to the founding of the Hippocratic School of Medicine. This was
an intellectual school that helped in the formation of medicine as its own profession.
Before Hippocrates, medicine was considered linked with theology and philosophy.
Today, very little is known about what Hippocrates actually thought or wrote, but more
information could have been available in the Renaissance4. Galen, who lived in Rome
(129-200 AD), built upon the idea of medicine as a separate profession. He “emphasized
the importance of direct observation, experimentation and dissection in improving
anatomical and medical knowledge,” which was something that a lot of the medical
schools began to follow in the Renaissance. 5 While serving as physician to Rome’s most
famous rulers, Galen performed dissections on animals and made many observations on
how certain parts of the body worked. However, Galen never performed any dissections
on humans, and instead allowed observations of animals to make up the majority of his
work.6 With the revival of the classics in the Renaissance, Galen’s teachings became
very important, especially to Vesalius. However, Vesalius went beyond this ancient
authority to prove some of Galen’s work to be incorrect.
2
Margaret L. King, The Renaissance in Europe, 1st ed. (McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages, 2003), 338.
3
“Hippocrates,” University of Adelaide Library,
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hippocrates (accessed November 9, 2008).
4
Ibid.
5
Hugh Cahill,“Greek Medicine from Galen to Aetius,” King’s College London,
http://www.kcl.ac.uk (accessed November 9, 2008).
6
Glenn Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,”
Representations, no. 17 (Winter 1987): 13.
80
�Another humanist writing about dissections was the artist Leonardo da Vinci
(1452 –1519). Leonardo was very interested in the world around him, and he was one of
the great minds of the Italian Renaissance. Not only did he invent many things, he used
both his talent for art and his curiosity of the world to examine the human body. He also
performed dissections on the human body, and he drew what he saw. Leonardo
recommended that all medical students perform at least 16 dissections before they were
given a degree7. The idea of performing dissections was used in medical school, but the
student themselves did not perform these. They were instead lectured on what they were
seeing while an assistant performed the procedure. Leonardo da Vinci can be considered
a huge influence on Vesalius, along with Galen, whose teachings he followed. The
dissections were attempts to discover more about the human body. These dissections
were also very similar to the autopsies that were being performed in order to determine
causes of death. These autopsies were being performed all over Italy, starting as early as
the 1300’s,8 such as the case of Chiara of Montefalco. These procedures were done by
comparing an “ideal” body to the one examined and then noting the differences9. This
was an imperfect science at best, since chances are that neither of the bodies was in
perfect shape. However, with the advent of more information on the inner working of the
body, these procedures became more significant. Also, as they became popular, people
began to request them simply to discover what was wrong with them. This was done, in
theory, so that future generations could protect themselves from harmful illnesses10.
Andreas Vesalius was born in Brussels on December 31, 1514, to a father that
was the personal apothecary to Charles V.11 However, this position meant that his father
was never around due to travelling with the king. He also had a younger brother named
Franciscus12. Despite this, Vesalius took to school, studying first in the local schools, and
then travelled to Louvian in 1529. While at the Castle school, he took classes in Greek,
7
Nancy G. Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,”
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 57 (1994): 10.
8
Katharine Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in
Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 5.
9
Ibid, 6.
10
Ibid, 9.
11
Andreas Vesalius, The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius (Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press,
1969) xvii.
12
Charles Donald O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1964) 29.
81
�Latin, philosophy, and rhetoric13. He also attended lessons outside of school in Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew14 in order to improve in these areas, and these eventually became
important aspects to his later schooling. All of these were things that the true
Renaissance student was expected to have knowledge of, and was also part of the
humanist theory of the Renaissance. Vesalius left this school in August of 1533 in order
to attend medical school in Paris.15 Here he studied under Jacobus Sylvius and Johannes
Guinterius, both of whom were Galenists in doctrine and advocated his methods in their
classrooms16. They believed that the human body should be taught through actual
observations and experimentations that contributed to the learning experiences. He later
ended up thanking both of these people in subsequent publications, especially Sylvius,
who introduced him to dissection17. His time in Paris was short lived, however, due to
the outbreak of war in 1536 where France attacked Milan, which caused Vesalius to
return to Louvian. 18 It was on this trip that he performed a dissection on a young girl in
Brussels, which is formally considered his first19. On his return to the school, he was
given permission by the school’s administration to perform anatomical demonstrations,
which appears to have attracted spectators from all over the school, not just from the
medical program20. Despite his special permission to perform these dissections without a
medical degree, he left for the University of Padua, one of the foremost universities
during the Renaissance.
The University of Padua was founded in 1220. When Vesalius arrived in 1537,
he was asked to join the faculty after passing his examinations with the college21. He
completed them on December 5th, and took over as the chair of surgery and anatomy the
very next day at age 2322. One of the ideas that Vesalius changed about teaching
anatomy was that he actually performed the dissections himself,23 which went back to his
13
Ibid, 31.
14
Ibid, 33.
Ibid, 34.
16
Vesalius, The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius, xvii.
17
O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564, 50.
18
Ibid, 62.
19
Ibid, 63.
20
Ibid, 69.
21
Ibid, 75.
22
Ibid, 77.
23
Ibid, 80.
15
82
�Galenist teachings. It used to be a surgeon or a barber that did this while the doctor
lectured, but Vesalius always talked about how this situation did not teach him the best
while he was in school. It was here that Vesalius first made an impact on the study of
anatomy, in much the same way that Leonardo da Vinci made his mark. The difference
lay in the fact that Vesalius was drawing for other men in the medical profession to learn
and it was considered “the first pictorial exposition of the Galenic physiological
system24.” It was also during the time while he was working on these drawings that he
changed from being a strict Galenist, mostly due to the fact that his own research was
proving Galen to be wrong on several accounts25. Here was the beginning of what was to
become his greatest masterpiece, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the
Fabric of the Human Body).
His book was published when he was only 28 years old, which was a total of
about five years of work26. In the end, the entirety of the book was divided into five
different sections; the bones and cartilages, the ligaments and the muscles, the veins and
arteries, the nerves, and the organisms of nutrition and generation (also known as the
organs). The publication of this book also marked the beginning of anatomy as a modern
descriptive science, as well as the “representation of the Renaissance in science27.” In the
writing of this book, Vesalius took for granted that Galen would have been read as well,
either in accompaniment to it or before28. This was important because as already
mentioned, Vesalius believed himself to be a Galenist, and yet his findings were proving
many of Galen’s ideas wrong. He would even entitle special sections within the Fabric
with names such as “Refutation of Galen29,” where he proves that Galen was wrong and
that he had observed something new. He would often disagree with Galen, especially
about how certain parts joined together and what they were made out of30. Throughout
the book, Vesalius began to follow a method that involved direct observation in
anatomical dissections31.
24
Ibid, 84.
Ibid, 87.
26
Vesalius, The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius, xviii.
27
Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” 1.
28
Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” 6.
29
Andreas Vesalius, On the fabric of the human body. a translation of De humani
corporis fabrica libri septem Book I, The bones and cartilages, Norman anatomy series,
no. 1 (San Francisco: Norman Pub., 1998), 265.
30
Ibid, 39.
31
King, The Renaissance in Europe, 338.
25
83
�Book 1 is entitled The Bones and Cartilages. In this book, Vesalius decided to
start at the top of the body and work his way down. Significantly, each bone was given a
drawing (called a plate) of what it looked like. These images were of utmost importance
because one of the main purposes of the book was to be a “practical manual of
dissection” to students and other doctors so they could dissect a body themselves. This
was done by providing step-by-step instructions32. Many people now believe that not
only were the images included as part of the teaching function, but they were also a
contribution to Renaissance art by Vesalius33. Many of the bodies were drawn in a very
artistic way, with backgrounds and poses. Many people believe that Vesalius wanted
these to function as art, as well as teaching aids. Not only did the book serve as an
instruction manual, but it was also a dictionary of professional terms and a detailed
narrative about human body which could be used by anyone who wished to read it. 34
One of the most gruesome examples of the book as instructive text is in chapter 39 of
Book One, which begins with a discussion on how to boil the body35. This was done
strictly in the case of studying the bones because all of the other parts were unimportant
at that particular time. This was then followed by instructions on how to perform the
dissection the exact same way that Vesalius would have done. The same is true of
chapter 6 in Book Two, which has instructions on how to perform a dissection of the
muscles and skin36. This chapter also contains an interesting illustration of all the tools
required to perform dissections, followed by a description of what they are all used for37.
It is also of interest that Vesalius chose to label all of the figures in his book in Greek
letters, rather than in Italian. This goes back to the Renaissance revival of the classics
and Vesalius’ position as a Galenist. Greek was the language that all of the early scholars
would have written in, and by labeling in this way, he was putting himself at the same
level of those that came before him.
32
Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” 8.
Ibid, 5.
34
Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” 5.
35
Vesalius, On the fabric of the human body. a translation of De humani corporis fabrica
libri septem Book I, The bones and cartilages, 371-372. This book also has helpful charts
that show the name that Vesalius used and then the modern day name for the same part.
An example can be found on pg 235.
36
Andreas Vesalius, William Frank. Richardson, and John Burd. Carman, On the fabric
of the human body. Book II, The ligaments and muscles, Norman anatomy series, no. 2
(San Francisco: Norman Pub., 1999), 146-147.
37
Ibid, 148, 150-153.
33
84
�When Vesalius performed his dissections, he had an ideal candidate in mind for
the type of body that he wanted. Originally, he wanted perfect bodies, but since perfect
specimens of bodies were almost impossible to come by, he changed his mind and
required that the bodies simply be “free from disease and monstrous things38.”
Interestingly enough, the condition of the body was of great concern to him, but he rarely
made comparisons between the two sexes. It would have been expected that the two
sexes would have been compared in relative mass, size, and proportions in terms of the
bones or muscles, but this was simply not the case in the Fabric. 39 However, it should be
noted that he did notice the difference between the male and female reproductive system
and the shape of the hip bones40. One of the things that he does choose to pay attention to
is the difference in bones due to age. He noticed that not only are they a different size,
but children had smooth, separated, cartilaginous bones41 and adults did not. Another
difference that he noticed among people was a difference in skull size42. This also went
against the Galenist view that all human skulls should be the same size and shape43. He
went so far as to dissect the skull bones themselves to delve deeper into why they were
different44. It should also be noted that despite the apparent lack of concern for the
differences between males and females, book one does show an interest in the different
characteristics of the body at different stages in life45.
Vesalius not only uses the book to teach other students how to perform
dissections, but also analyzes why the body is the way it is. An example of this can be
found in book one, when he discusses the fingers. The section is labeled Five is the Right
Number of Fingers and it states that “if there were fewer, many actions would be less
perfectly performed; and there is no purpose for which we need more.46” Not only was
he writing down what he actually saw, but he is also making guesses as to why the body
38
Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” 12-13.
Ibid, 18.
40
Vesalius, On the fabric of the human body. a translation of De humani corporis fabrica
libri septem Book I, The bones and cartilages, chapter 29.
41
Ibid, 63.
42
Ibid, 45.
43
Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” 25.
44
Vesalius, On the fabric of the human body. a translation of De humani corporis fabrica
libri septem Book I, The bones and cartilages, 118.
45
Siraisi, “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De humani corporis fabrica,” 15.
46
Vesalius, On the fabric of the human body. a translation of De humani corporis fabrica
libri septem Book I, The bones and cartilages, 293.
39
85
�looked the way it did. This was certainly a step in the direction of the scientific
revolution, which followed the Renaissance. He worked within the Humanist framework,
which was a curiosity about the body that God made and how it worked. Another
interesting teaching technique that Vesalius chose to use was to make drawings of the
body as he dissected it. These plates open Book Two, and they show the front and the
back of the body as muscles are slowly removed, and they are done in table form to label
all of the different muscles47. This is done to show the muscles that lie underneath the
first layer. Another interesting section is the one entitled the Substance of the Skin, in
which he discusses what actually makes skin48. Since Galen performed dissections on
dogs and other animals, Vesalius also includes certain sections where he does compare
the human body to that of an ape or a dog49. This happened because as mentioned before,
Vesalius thought himself a Galenist in theory, at least in the beginning of his career. This
was in a sense comparing his work to that of Galen.
Beyond their role as instructive texts to future and current doctors, the
publication helped to promote the usage of dissection throughout the community. It
slowly became more socially accepted. An example of this is the permanent anatomy
theatres that were built in Padua in the 1590’s. These were done in the spirit of the
Renaissance and demonstrate Vesalius’s impact on the community. It was here during
the winter months that dissections were performed for public audiences, and these were
strictly for show50. The dissections that were used for public showcases were not used as
teaching opportunities for students. When the dissections were done in private, students
could dispute with their professors more, but also learn more techniques and not have to
worry about an audience51. It was also these theatres that helped to solidify the difference
between anatomy and surgery in the Renaissance52. It was not long before dissection was
considered a major part of a medical education53, and it became essential to getting a
47
Vesalius, Richardson, and Carman, On the fabric of the human body. Book II, The
ligaments and muscles, 4, 12, 20, 27, 35, 42, 49. Pages listed are some examples of the
plates mentioned.
48
Ibid, 140.
Ibid, 227.
50
Cynthia Klestinec, “Civility, Comportment, and the Anatomy Theater: Girolamo
Fabrici and His Medical Students in Renaissance Padua,” Renaissance Quarterly 60, no.
2 (2007): 4.
51
Ibid, 6.
52
Ibid, 4.
53
Ibid, 16.
49
86
�degree. Before Vesalius, it was shocking how little medical professionals actually knew
about the human body54.
The writings of Vesalius also made their way through the medical community in
other areas as well. His dissections of the body and the instructive texts which he printed
led to other sorts of study. When Isabella Della Volpe died in 1545, she was pregnant
with her first child. Her husband was a local physician, and most likely would have been
familiar with the caesarean section, which was performed on her body. This was done to
determine whether the child was still alive, and could therefore claim an inheritance55. In
this case, the father of the child would lose the inheritance of a large sum if the child was
not alive. It was also the case that the child, if alive, needed to be baptized in order to
save it from eternal damnation56. In order to perform this operation, the fetus had to be
allowed to get air, so the mother’s mouth was propped open. The incision was then made
and the child was removed with four witnesses, all of whom testified later that the child
was alive when it was removed57. Although the child was determined to be alive and the
father could receive his inheritance, without the work that Vesalius had done on the
human body, this sort of procedure would have never gained the prominence that it did in
the later years of the Renaissance. This example is an important use of medical
knowledge in a court case.
Dissection was also used for religious purposes as well. In the case of Chiara of
Montefalco, an autopsy was performed on her body to determine whether she qualified
for sainthood or not58. This was a very serious task was performed by the church in order
to decide if a person deserved these honors. All of the persons present for this particular
autopsy said that she had a cross in her heart and that automatically qualified her for a
position as a saint59. Despite the fact that many of the dissections or autopsies performed
did have a specific purpose, many of the bodies that these procedures were performed on
did not give permission. One of the awful consequences of Vesalius’ work was grave
robbing. Due to the quest for bodies to dissect, a law was written in 1550 in Venice that
54
Harcourt, “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture,” 8.
55
Katharine Park, “The Death of Isabella della Volpe: Four Eyewitness Accounts of a
Postmortem Caesarean Section in 1545,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 1
(2008): 170.
56
Ibid, 172-173.
57
Ibid, 175.
58
Park, “The Criminal and the Saintly Body,” 1.
59
Ibid, 2.
87
�made stealing a body from a grave a crime60. Vesalius was actually someone who started
this by stealing bodies from graveyards in order to use them for dissections. In fact,
Vesalius made some revisions to his 1555 edition that left out a lot of the passages that
mentioned where the bodies came from61. There is also evidence that in the case of
execution, people such as Vesalius, who wanted the body for dissection purposes, would
often perform the execution themselves with the permission of the judge62. Although this
did remove the stealing aspect of it, it meant that the prisoner might not be receiving a
fair trial, or the sentenced punishment was not being carried out.
Overall, Vesalius was an important influence not only on the doctors of the
Renaissance, but on modern day ones as well. He is given the most credit in the field of
anatomy, which he helped to define as its own separate field. Many doctors today still
refer to the Fabric, as well as his drawings. Not only were his findings important to the
field of medicine, but to others as well. Some examples include law and religion, where
dissections of bodies were used to prove certain points or make things true. Many ideas
also came from his work, such as the anatomy theatres in medical schools located around
Italy in the later part of the Renaissance. Overall, Vesalius was one of the people that
helped to bring about the scientific revolution, and he made some of the most important
contributions to early medicine.
Bibliography
Cahill, Hugh. “Greek Medicine from Galen to Aetius”, King’s College London,
http://www.kcl.ac.uk (accessed November 9, 2008).
Harcourt, Glenn. “Andreas Vesalius and the Anatomy of Antique Sculpture”,
Representations, No. 17 (Winter 1987).
“Hippocrates,” University of Adelaide Library,
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hippocrates (accessed November 9, 2008).
King, Margaret L. The Renaissance in Europe. 1st ed. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social
Sciences/Languages, 2003.
60
Ibid, 18.
61
Ibid, 18.
Ibid, 20.
62
88
�Klestinec, Cynthia. “Civility, Comportment, and the Anatomy Theater: Girolamo Fabrici
and His Medical Students in Renaissance Padua”, Renaissance Quarterly 60, No. 2
(2007).
Lind, L.R. The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius. Cambridge, Mass: M.I.T. Press, 1969.
O'Malley, Charles Donald. Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1964.
Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in
Renaissance Italy”, Renaissance Quarterly 47, No. 1 (Spring 1994).
---. “The Death of Isabella della Volpe: Four Eyewitness Accounts of a Postmortem
Caesarean Section in 1545”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, No. 1 (2008).
Siraisi, Nancy G. “Vesalius and Human Diversity in De Humani Corporis Fabrica”,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 57 (1994).
Vesalius, Andreas. On the Fabric of the Human Body. a Translation of De Humani
Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem Book I, The bones and cartilages. Norman Anatomy
Series, No. 1. San Francisco: Norman Pub., 1998.
Vesalius, Andreas, William Frank. Richardson, and John Burd. Carman. On the Fabric of
the Human Body. Book II, The Ligaments and Muscles. Norman Anatomy Series, No. 2.
San Francisco: Norman Pub., 1999.
89
�The Women of Heart of Darkness
Jenna Pocius (English)1
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been both lauded and criticized since
its publication. Though it is a short novella, the extremely dense content paints a vivid
picture of the harsh realities of imperialism, for corruption and greed are manifest within
the colonizers and spill out into atrocities. While a great amount of attention should be
paid to the post-colonial elements of Conrad’s tale, focusing a critical eye on the
portrayal of women illuminates the often overlooked patriarchal elements of the text.
Throughout the story, protagonist Marlow discounts the women as either stereotypical or
indescribable and not worthy of description. Thus, by trying to discredit and diminish the
women’s power, it becomes evident that Marlow is truly afraid of the power the women
hold, for he does not understand it and does not want his masculine world to be
threatened. Overall, the women of Heart of Darkness have powerful influence within the
text, and Marlow’s demeaning representation of and response to these women stems from
his fear and anxiety of feminine power and therefore represents a patriarchal desire to
constrain women by either assimilating them or dismissing them all together.
From an initial reading of Heart of Darkness, the supposed inferiority of the
female characters is obvious. As Gabrielle McIntire reminds the reader in her essay,
“The Women Do Not Travel: Gender, Difference, and Incommensurability in Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness,” “Not a single woman has a name, women scarcely speak, and when
they do they are misunderstood, deliberately misled, or represented as profoundly lacking
a comprehensive understanding of the events in which they participate” (265). Despite
their portrayal as ignorant and unimportant, it becomes apparent that the women of the
text are powerful, for it is their influence that commences and furthers the males’ African
journeys, especially Marlow’s. As literary critic Rita Bode explains, “powerful women
seem to control his [Marlow’s] destiny at every turn. They seduce and propel him into
the heart of darkness; they receive and encompass him once he is there” (23). Clearly,
there is a conflict between the women’s actual power and Marlow’s debasing
interpretation of the women.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Erica Johnson (English) for the honors course
EN311: Modern English & Irish Literature.
90
�Marlow’s aunt is the woman who enables his journey. Marlow’s childhood
fascination with travel continues into his adulthood, and when he realizes there is a
Swedish trading company with which he could travel, he begins to seek out a means to
join. Success in this endeavor comes through the help of his aunt. As McIntire explains,
“his aunt is, quite significantly, partly responsible for originating his story” (265). While
“the men said, ‘My dear fellow,’ and did nothing” (Conrad 8) to help Marlow in his
quest, his aunt is more than willing to help, for she has connections with, “the wife of a
very high personage in the Administration and also a man who has lots of influence” (8).
These connections ultimately get Marlow the job; Marlow explains that, “I got my
appointment-of course; and I got it very quick” (9). Without his aunt, Marlow would
perhaps never have obtained his job on the river steamer with the trading company.
Not only does his aunt’s influence propel him into the heart of darkness, but it
also establishes a powerful reputation for him before he has even arrived in Africa.
When Marlow meets the bricklayer of the Company’s Central Station and discusses the
mysterious character of Kurtz, the corrupt chief of the Company’s Inner Station in the
Congo, the bricklayer expresses his anxiety over Kurtz’s power and Marlow’s potential
power, stating, “The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh,
don’t say no. I’ve my own eyes to trust” (25). At this point, Marlow realizes that his,
“dear aunt’s influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that
young man” (25). Therefore, through her powerful connections, Marlow’s aunt enables
him to acquire his desired occupation, and her praise creates a reputation that grants him
privilege and power within his new surroundings.
Despite her obvious influence on the course of Marlow’s life, Marlow
nonetheless denies, and seeks to suppress, her power. Before he even admits that his aunt
got him the job after his attempts to receive help from men fail, Marlow qualifies his
admittance with a statement that he reveals his embarrassment and anxiety over asking a
woman for help. In an unconvincing attempt to take the situation in jest, he confesses to
his audience, “Then-would you believe it-I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the
women to work-to get a job! Heavens!” (8). Though his audience has remained silent
throughout his storytelling, allowing Marlow to freely speak his mind, Marlow
nevertheless feels the need to explain and make light of his decision to ask his aunt for
help. Thus, it becomes obvious that this statement is an outpouring of anxiety and
discomfort over putting a woman in a position of power. As McIntire explains, “Here he
must not only repeat the personal pronoun, ‘I,’ but he feels compelled to name himself to
the others in order to stress his own astonishment, to perform his alienation from
ostensibly unusual behavior” (265). His self-declaration, “I, Charlie Marlow,” when set
91
�in opposition to the women, clearly represents an assumption of male superiority, and his
incredulity over the possibility of a woman being capable of the same accomplishments
of a man is, for him, frightening.
Furthermore, Marlow uses his aunt as an example of feminine ignorance. After
his aunt expresses her belief in a missionary vision of his journey to Africa, Marlow
mockingly comments,
It’s queer how out of touch with truth the women are! They live in a world
of their own and there had never been anything like it and never can be. It
is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to
pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been
living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and
knock the whole thing over (13).
Though his aunt may indeed be naïve to the true, corrupt nature of the colonialist effort in
Africa, her ignorance is a direct product of the patriarchal suppression imposed on
women by men to ensure that the women stay within a “world of their own” that the men
can easily dominate. As Peter Hyland explains in his essay, “The Little Women in Heart
of Darkness,” “this idea that women cannot survive outside ‘civilization’ is a selfprotective male view that allows men to evade a genuine appraisal of feminine need” (5).
Because Marlow uses feminine power to attain his desired occupation, his confidence in
his masculine power wavers. Thus, to reestablish his power, he dismisses all women as
ignorant beings who are unable to survive without men in order to make his aunt’s ability
to get him a job seem unimportant. Moreover, he robs his aunt of an identity, using her
as a general representation of feminine ignorance; by doing so, Marlow is able to remedy
the obvious anxiety and fear he experiences as a result of the profound impact his aunt
has upon his life by dismissing this impact entirely. Indeed, Marlow seems to be “living
contentedly” with his decision to categorize his aunt as an ignorant woman rather than
accepting her ability to wield more power than men.
Although Marlow is easily able to dismiss his aunt’s power, he is unable to
make sense of the power of the two knitting women in the Company’s office
headquarters, and therefore describes them in an otherworldly manner that evokes fear.
When Marlow travels to the Company headquarters to sign his contract, two female
secretaries are the first people Marlow comes upon, and they are the ones to send Marlow
on his journey. Interwoven in Marlow’s interpretation of these women is a sense of
unknowable power. They are significantly described as “knitting black wool feverishly”
(10), which is reminiscent of the fates of Greek myth who weave and unweave destinies
regardless of individual wishes (McIntire 271). Indeed, these women are perceived as
92
�being privy to the true, dismal fate of the young men who sign with the Company.
Marlow describes his observations of the older knitting woman, stating, “Two youths
with foolish cherry countenances were being piloted over and she threw at them the same
quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and me too”
(11). Unlike with his aunt, Marlow cannot deny that these women are privilege to truth
and the power of knowledge.
His recognition of the women’s wisdom and knowledge weighs heavily on his
mind. Though he never exchanges words with them, the effect of their interaction
lingers. Marlow admits that, “Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the
door of Darkness, knitting black wool as a warm pall, one introducing, introducing
continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with
unconcerned eyes” (11). Marlow links these women to images of death and fate, and he
is incapable of dismissing these images as he dismissed his aunt. Even as Marlow
approaches his discovery of the infamous Kurtz, the old knitting woman comes to his
mind: “The old knitting woman with the cat intruded herself upon my memory as a most
improper person to be sitting at the other end of such an affair” (64). Just as with his
aunt, the impact of his encounter with the knitting women is manifest when he reaches
Africa, revealing a feminine influence that both initiates and permeates Marlow’s story.
Essentially, the power these women possess is their connection with truth and
knowledge. As evident through his opinions about his aunt, Marlow equates women with
ignorance and men with truth. Thus, the two knitting women are on the same plane as
the men. As McIntire explains, the women’s, “‘fateful’ knowledge momentarily links
them with the community of men” (273). Marlow’s description of the women in
response to his recognition of their knowledge reveals his fear of the possibility of
women of being within an assumed male sphere of truth.
To remove them from his male sphere of truth, Marlow interprets these women
not only as puzzling but as otherworldly, for they are essentially depicted as witches.
Bode reminds the reader that, “They [the knitting women] wear black; they are
mysterious and inscrutable; the fat one looks like a witch complete with a wart and cat,
the usual familiar of witches” (24). Bode goes further to point out that, in sailor folklore,
“witches have power over the natural elements on which sailors are so dependent” (24).
The women’s witch-like portrayal, then, seems to correlate with the power they hold over
the male characters as a result of their knowledge. Furthermore, just as witches cannot be
trusted, neither does Marlow trust these women. Far from bringing him comfort, he is
fearful of the knitting women and does not know what to expect from them; they give
him and “eerie feeling” (11) and are linked to sinister images of darkness and death. By
93
�describing the women in an otherworldly and witch-like manner, it becomes clear that,
“In their unpredictability, they cannot be trusted, and hence, are feared” (Bode 24).
Marlow is unable to contemplate the implications of the fact that not all women are
ignorant to the truth of the world and can, in fact, be aware of truths that men are not.
Therefore, he interprets them as symbolic and supernatural, distancing them from their
femininity in order to keep his world of masculine power and knowledge unthreatened.
In addition to the knitting women, the African woman, assumed to be Kurtz’s
mistress, is another powerful feminine enigma that Marlow renders otherworldly in order
to soothe his anxieties. Certainly, “she seems to be a collaborator with the knitting
women, fulfilling their ominous warnings that there is no return” (Bode 25). Marlow is
immediately struck by, and fearful of, her, for when she appears he explains that, “She
was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and
stately in her deliberate progress” (60). Marlow’s interpretation of her as ominous stems
from the obvious power she holds among the natives. When she comes face to face with
Marlow and his fellow travelers on the steamer, Marlow describes that, “Suddenly she
opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head as though in an
uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out
on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer in a shadowy embrace”
(61). With the shadows as referring to the other Congo natives, it becomes clear that this
is not the patriarchal society that Marlow is used to because the natives obey female
command. Bode explains that, not only is her power as mysterious to Marlow as the
Congo itself, but she “also exercises control over it [the jungle]. She possesses the ability
to change the face of the landscape itself” (25). In other words, she has the power to
dictate the actions of the natives and overtake the African landscape.
In fact, even her colonizer, Kurtz, seems to be at the mercy of her power. When
Marlow and the others finally arrive to take Kurtz away, it is the African woman who
leads the attempt to ensure Kurtz remains. According to Bode, “She is the leader of her
people, standing fearless when others run in fear, initiating their cries and shouts” (25).
When Marlow asks Kurtz if he understands their “breathless utterance” (67), he describes
that,
He [Kurtz] kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a
mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer, but I saw
a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on his colorless lips that a
moment after twitched convulsively. ‘Do I not?’ he said slowly, gasping,
as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power (67).
94
�Analogously to the two knitting women, the supernatural is evoked. Though some may
claim that Kurtz’s “longing eyes” express a yearning not to be separated from his position
in the Inner Station, it is perhaps more likely that his longing to stay is intertwined with
his longing for the African woman, for her powerful position is intriguing and
consuming. As Bode argues, “Kurtz’s longing to remain a part of the mysterious jungle
life seems inextricably linked to his longing for her” (25). Indeed, Marlow’s explanation
of Kurtz’s “gasping, as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power,”
reveals his awareness of Kurtz’s longing for the African woman. Because he utilizes the
same explanation of supernatural power when describing the two knitting women, his use
of it when explaining Kurtz’s reaction represents an attempt to eliminate female power by
interpreting it as otherworldly.
Because the African woman has such profound influence, even affecting Kurtz,
Marlow must employ various tactics to diminish her frightening power in addition to
rendering her otherworldly. For example, any recognition of her femininity is a
stereotypical connection in order to ease the fear that she awakens. Hyland explains that,
“What Marlow attempts to do is neutralize this (to him) terrifying vision [of the African
woman] into something closer to his stereotype of a submissive, patient, suffering
woman” (8). Indeed, Marlow finds comfort in describing her as a woman afflicted by the
loss of her male love, powerless to prevent Kurtz from being taken away. Though
Marlow is initially taken aback by her “magnificent” and “ominous” appearance, he
quickly changes his tune, explaining that, “Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild
sorrow and dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve”
(61). By quickly explaining her as “tragic” and filled with “sorrow and dumb pain,”
Marlow assimilates her into his mental construct of a typical, powerless woman in order
to contain his fear and anxiety.
Even though the African woman is the only native to who does not run away
from, or seem afraid of, the whistle that Marlow blows to scare away the natives as Kurtz
is being taken away, Marlow disregards her strength by clinging to the tragic vision of
her that he has created. He explains that, “Only the barbarous and superb woman did not
so much as flinch and stretched tragically her bare arms after us” (67). Marlow
recognizes her ability to be unaffected by the whistle as merely a product of her “tragic”
dedication to Kurtz; in Marlow’s mind, she derives strength only through the power of
her love for a man, not from a greater inner strength. Overall, Marlow’s repetitious
description of this obviously powerful and strong woman as “tragic” is yet another
attempt to control his anxiety.
95
�An additional method that Marlow uses to placate his fear is to deny the African
woman full humanity by interpreting her through physical, sexual terms. Marlow goes
into great detail describing the appearance of the African woman, detailing her
appearance from head to toe. He describes how, “She carried her head high, her hair was
done in the shape of a helmet, she had brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to
the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek…” (60). These physical characteristics
are the only tools available to define the African woman, for, as Jeremy Hawthorn
explains in his essay, “The Women of Heart of Darkness,” “the reader is never allowed to
witness her [the African woman’s] speech or her thoughts” (411). Such a depiction
parallels that of the two knitting women, for they too are denied speech. The distinction,
however, is that while the description of the two knitting women intertwines physicality
and ominous wisdom, the description of the African woman is the physical bound with
the sexual. As Marlow explains, she is covered in, “innumerable necklaces of glass
beads on her neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her…She
must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her” (60). Essentially, the
woman’s body has become a shrine for worship. Though such a display could be the
natives’ expression of paying homage to her superiority, the reader, only offered
Marlow’s lens through which to view the woman, can only view her physically. Overall,
Marlow’s attention to her physical appearance and movements is an attempt to force the
reader to view her as a solely physical, sexual object.
The idea that the African woman is denied her humanity becomes even more
apparent when she is compared to Kurtz’s Intended. The African woman seems to be full
of life, for Marlow explains that, “the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the
fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking
at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul” (60). Such a description presents
her as the physical embodiment of the fruitfulness of nature and life. If the image of the
African woman mirrors an image fertile life, the image of the Intended mirrors that of
death. When Marlow finally meets the Intended upon his return to Britain, he describes
how, “She came forward all in black with a pale head, floating towards me in the
dusk…This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo
from which the dark eyes looked out at me” (73-74). Her “ashy halo” and paleness
coupled with “dark eyes” evokes angelic and deathlike images. Thus, from their physical
descriptions alone, the two females are set in opposition to one another. As Hawthorn
explains, “where the Intended has the odour of death about her, she [the African woman]
is the personification of life; where the Intended is a thing of black and white, she is
ablaze with color; where the Intended is refined to the point of etiolation, she is ‘savage
96
�and superb’” (408). Clearly, the African woman and the Intended are portrayed in stark
opposition.
Indeed, while Marlow is enraptured solely by the physical appearance of the
African woman, he focuses only on the devoted and chaste nature of the Intended. This
creates the distinct binary in Marlow’s narrative of a woman as physical and sexual
versus a woman as strictly moral. Hawthorn illuminates this opposition as a function of
patriarchal suppression, explaining that, “in juxtaposing the two women the narrative of
Heart of Darkness draws attention to the process whereby women are dehumanized by
being divided into spirit and body and are denied the full humanity that requires
possession of both” (409). By perceiving one as wholly physical and one as wholly
spiritual, Marlow robs them of their humanity in order to ease his anxiety, restraining the
power he perceives in them by rendering them inferior.
The Intended’s power, especially, is overwhelming for Marlow. For example,
while Marlow only mentions in passing that, “her [the Intended’s] engagement with
Kurtz had been disapproved by her people. He wasn’t rich enough or something…it was
his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there” (75), the implications of
this statement are staggering. It would seem that, in fact, it was not the desire for money
itself that led Kurtz to take a job in the ivory trade but rather it was the ultimate goal of
gaining money to be considered worthy of the Intended. By expressing such a revealing
fact about the true nature of Kurtz’s decision to work in Africa without paying any heed
to its obvious implications, Marlow clearly tries to repress the stifling notion that Kurtz’s
actions were ultimately the result of female influence. Overall, just as Marlow gains
access to the Company through the influence of his aunt, the Intended is the driving force
behind Kurtz’s venture into the Congo.
Another key aspect of the Intended’s power is that she, unlike the African
woman, is granted speech, enhancing the idea of a division between the physical and the
mental. Just as Marlow is overwhelmed by the physical appearance of the African
woman, he is also overwhelmed by the Intended’s words. Her ability to speak leaves him
completely speechless, for he only responds through imitation. When Marlow visits her
at the end of the novella and they discuss Kurtz, Marlow’s ability to speak breaks down,
and the Intended controls the conversation. When she claims that, “of his [Kurtz’] noble
heart nothing remains-nothing but a memory,” Marlow replies “hastily,” “We shall
always remember him” (75), but when the Intended exclaims, “No! It is impossible that
all this should be lost…something must remain. His words at least have not died,”
Marlow responds, “His words will remain” (76). Clearly, Marlow is extremely eager to
agree and is only able to mimic her words. When the Intended speaks of the moral
97
�example Kurtz set, Marlow instantly responds, “True, his example too. Yes, his example,
I forgot that” (76). Though Marlow knows the true, corrupt nature of Kurtz, he is
befuddled and powerless to express himself. More than the Intended’s ability to get
Marlow to say what she wants, Bode explains that their conversation, “suggests a deeper
activity- the submission of his will to hers. Marlow seems to lose the ability to initiate
his own thoughts, to create his own words. He becomes a mere mimic” (28). Essentially,
the Intended has the power to rob Marlow of his words.
Marlow’s bewilderment stems from the breakdown of his stereotypical view of
women. Before he meets the Intended, Marlow sees a picture of her and thinks, “she had
a beautiful expression…She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without
suspicion, without a thought for herself” (72). Yet Marlow’s idea of what a meeting with
the Intended would be like is contradicted in reality; rather than the Intended
submissively listening to Marlow vent, Marlow is the one silenced and incapable of
expression or independent thought. Hyland explains that Marlow’s initial impression of
the Intended is a “reductive image that coheres with his masculine view of women that
prevents him from apprehending her as an individual” (7). Thus, when she asserts the
power of her individuality through her words, Marlow’s comforting concept of her as a
passive, mechanical being is destroyed, resulting in anxiety and fear.
To cope with this anxiety, Marlow stifles her power through a denial of truth.
When the Intended asks to know Kurtz’s last words, rather than telling her that his last
utterance was “The horror! The horror!” (69), he deceitfully claims, “The last word he
pronounced was-your name” (76). Though this lie may initially seem to be a kind
gesture, enabling the Intended to retain an untainted memory of the man she loved, it is
truly a selfish tactic to keep her in an ignorant world of her own, restoring Marlow’s
power by withholding knowledge. According to Hyland, “His lie is, in the end, an act of
self-protection. It has no effect on the woman, because it leaves her exactly as she was
before his interview with her: selfless, patient, suffering, idealistic” (10). Though the
Intended clearly demonstrates her capacity for autonomy through her domination of
conversation, Marlow denies her the ability to receive and accept truth, leaving her as
idealistic as Marlow first perceives her to be.
Marlow clings to this idealistic vision of the Intended, and women in general,
for when he first speaks of the Intended to his fellow travelers, he tempers his mentioning
her, abruptly stating, “Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it-completely. They- the
women I mean- are out of it- should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that
beautiful world of their own lest ours gets worse” (48). In language echoing his
interpretation of women expressed earlier when thinking about his aunt, Marlow
98
�outwardly admits that not only are women in a world of their own, but men must work to
keep them constrained within that world. Essentially, Marlow believes “that women’s
inability to see reality is a deficiency that should not be remedied…the precarious
balance of the man’s world depends on the women’s remaining in that [ignorant] state”
(Hyland 7). Therefore, Marlow’s lie to the Intended is one of the many examples of
attempted suppression that he utilizes in response to the women in order to remove any
threat against male power.
While Marlow clings to the patriarchal belief of women as submissive and
passive, the women of Heart of Darkness consistently shatter his conviction. His aunt’s
ability to get him a job, the two knitting women’s knowledge, the African woman’s social
superiority and the Intended’s influence contradicts Marlow’s theory of women as
ignorant and therefore powerless. The idea of women as powerful challenges the notion
of ultimate male superiority, resulting in Marlow’s fear and anxiety. Thus, Marlow is a
vehicle through which patriarchal values are imposed on women due to the fear of a loss
of power. By rendering the women as otherworldly, and therefore non-human,
dehumanizing them through a division of mind and body, and denying them truth,
Marlow attempts to contain the women in “a world of their own.” However, the
women’s profound influence on Marlow makes it clear that any inferior qualities are not
derived from their true nature but are rather forced on them by Marlow’s perceptions.
Overall, the ways in which Marlow interprets the women serve as prime examples of a
larger, patriarchal fear feminine power and attempts to stifle that power.
Works Cited
Bode, Rita. “They...Should Be Out of It: The Women of Heart of Darkness”, Conradiana
26 (1994): 20-34.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: A Norton Critical Edition (4). Ed. Paul B.
Armstrong.New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 3-76.
Hawthorn, Jeremy. “The Women of Heart of Darkness”, Heart of Darkness: a Norton
Critical Edition (4). Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
405-415.
Hyland, Peter. “The Little Women in Heart of Darkness”, Conradiana 20 (1988): 3-11.
McIntire, Gabrielle. —“The Women Do Not Travel: Gender, Difference, and
Incommensurability in Conrad's Heart of Darkness”, Modern Fiction Studies 48 (2002):
258-283.
99
�The Role of Quotidian Women
in the French Revolution: 1789-1795
(English Summary)
Nicole Mahoney (French and History)1
As ideas of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution stirred European
social and political thought in the late 18th century, the French monarchy almost set itself
up for insurgency. Outrageous national debt, disastrous harvests, devastating famine,
combined with extravagant spending and the lavish lifestyle of the royal family enraged
French citizens. Amidst such political, social, and economic upheaval, talk of the natural
rights of men, the equality of all citizens, and a just government propelled the French
towards rebellion. However, within this discussion, one must ask to whom these rights
and liberties apply. When the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen claimed
that man and citizen are born with natural rights that government must uphold, where did
quotidian women fit into this argument? Furthermore, where did these everyday women
find themselves in the larger French Revolution as well as in the larger sociopolitical
debates of the late 18th century?
More than previously, women established themselves at the heart of the political
core of France during the revolution. Some scholars, notably Dominique Godineau,
argue that an entirely separate, unequal, and disconnected women’s revolution occurred
against the backdrop of the purely masculine French Revolution. However, as the
following selection of critical events and the stories of five revolutionary women
demonstrates, they were very much a crucial element of the revolutionary movement. On
October 5, 1789, more than 7,000 common, working and middle class Parisian women
marched more than twelve miles in the rain to Versailles. They demanded the king and
his family return to Paris for negotiations, which they did the very same day- a political
victory for both men and women. In response to the Déclaration des droits de l’homme
et du citoyen, women, led by Olympe de Gouges, published Déclaration des droits de la
femme et de la citoyenne, a feminine version of the document. The formation of
bourgeois political and social women’s clubs furthered women’s revolutionary thinking,
political participation and respect amongst the revolutionary movement. Individual
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Natalie Edwards (Modern Languages) for FR352: Cities
in the Francophone World (an Expanding Your Horizons course that included a January
trip to Paris).
100
�women like Olympe de Gouges, Madame Roland, and Charlotte Corday were guillotined
for their political activities and were later celebrated as great martyrs of the revolution.
A brief, yet comprehensive look into the revolutionary lives of prominent
quotidian women proves they were as much a part of the revolution as men. These
women marched next to the men, protested next to the men, fought next to the men and
died next to the men. Applying pressure to the king, the government, the men, and the
philosophy of the revolution, they proved themselves to be true revolutionaries. At a
time when nobody knew or understood their place in society, women defined themselves.
101
�Le Rôle des Femmes Quotidiennes
pendant la Révolution française : 1789-1795
Nicole Mahoney (French and History)1
Pendant l’histoire, les hommes ont souvent remis en question les libertés et les
égalités, ou les inégalités, entre eux. Si un gouvernement ne protègent pas la liberté ou
ne garantissent pas l’égalité, les citoyens ont la responsabilité de reformer le
gouvernement. Cela est le fondement de la Déclaration d’Indépendance des Etats-Unis
d’Amérique. Les idées de la liberté, de l’égalité, de la justice et l’inspiration de lutter
pour ces droits des Américains a apparu également en France. Ce document a encouragé
les révolutionnaires français à remettre en question leur gouvernement. Au milieu d’une
période de bouleversement politique, économique, et social, ces idées progressistes ont
créé un sentiment de rébellion. Les citoyens ont défié le gouvernement qui privait ses
peuples des droits indéniables et incontestables, selon la Déclaration d’Indépendance des
Etats-Unis. Mélangées avec l’agitation sociale et politique en France, ces idées, parmi
d’autres, ont conduit les Français à la rébellion. Fondés sur les théories des lumières, les
principes parlent des droits des hommes, mais on doit demander qui sont ces hommes.
Quand on discute des droits de l’homme comme un citoyen, on ne peut pas ignorer le rôle
des femmes.
Pour comprendre l’influence des femmes dans la révolution française, on doit
connaître la révolution elle-même. Tandis qu’on peut suivre les causes de la révolution
depuis sept siècles, les événements de 1787 en 1789 et le trouble de la France pendant
cette période prévoient clairement une révolution.2 Après la mort de Louis XV en 1774,
Louis XVI est devenu roi, mais son père lui avait laissé la France en désordre. Tout
d’abord, Louis XVI était confronté à plusieurs problèmes économiques. La France avait
des dettes nationales énormes à cause des guerres en Europe et aux Etats-Unis, des
mauvaises récoltes, la famine, et la façon dont la monarchie a gaspillé l’argent. De plus,
la bourgeoisie était indignée par les privilèges de la monarchie, de la noblesse, et du
clergé. Le roi a essayé d’imposer des impôts mais la noblesse a refusé de les payer. Il et
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Natalie Edwards (Modern Languages) for FR352: Cities
in the Francophone World (an Expanding Your Horizons course that included a January
trip to Paris).
2
Philip Dawson, ed. The French Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1967), 5.
102
�ses conseillers n’ont pas suffisamment adressé ces problèmes. Par conséquent, Louis XVI
a convoqué les Etats généraux car il ne savait pas quoi faire pour réparer l’économie.
Unifiés pour la première fois depuis 1614, les Etats généraux se sont retrouvés
en mai 1789. À la réunion, la bourgeoisie a demandé qu’elles aient plus de représentants
parce que le tiers état représentait la plupart de la population. Puis, le 20 juin 1789, le
tiers état a prêté le serment du Jeu de paume et a déclaré qu’il ne se séparera pas sans une
constitution française. Ils s’appelaient l’Assemblée constituante, avec l’aide de quelquesuns de la noblesse et du clergé.3 Ça, cela est le début de la révolution française du
peuple.
Ensuite, une série d’événements sociaux et politiques a suivi qui a attaqué
l’Ancien Régime. La nouvelle assemblée, qui s’appelait la Constituante, a remplacé les
Etats généraux et elle a essayé de créer une constitution pour la France et de gouverner
avec le roi. Le 14 juillet, la Bastille, un symbole de la tyrannie de la monarchie, est
tombée dans les mains des révolutionnaires. Les peuples ont demandé « liberté, égalité,
et fraternité » de leur gouvernement. Puis, le 4 août, l’Assemblée nationale constituante a
aboli le système féodal et ensuite, le 26 août, elle a publié la Déclaration des droits de
l’homme et du citoyen. Ce document a infusé la population avec les idées de la
révolution : la démocratie, la justice, et l’égalité. 4 Le 5 octobre, autant que deux milles
femmes ont fait une marche de protestation à Versailles parce qu’elles étaient
mécontentes avec le gouvernement, plus spécifiquement, avec le roi.5
Puis, il existait une modification du pouvoir en France. En 1791, sous une
nouvelle constitution de la Constituante qui a créé une monarchie constitutionnelle, Louis
XVI a essayé d’échapper de la France. « La fuite de Varennes » a marqué la fin de la
monarchie constitutionnelle. Ainsi, la Constituante à été renommée la Convention
nationale, a enlevé le pouvoir du roi, a aboli la monarchie et a déclaré la Ier République.
La Ier République a provoqué une période de patriotisme et de nationalisme avec un
nouveau drapeau, le système métrique, un nouveau calendrier, et un hymne national.
Mais, la Convention était divisée en deux factions : les Girondins modérés et les
Montagnards rebelles. Certains des Montagnards, comme Robespierre et Danton, ont fait
entrer la Grande Terreur (1793-1794) qui a attaqué ceux qui étaient contre le régime. Ils
3
Ross Steele, Susan St. Onge, and Ronald St. Onge, La civilisation française en
evolution I: Institutions et culture avant la Ve République (United States : Heinle, 1996),
124.
4
Steele, La révolution française, 130-131.
5
Olwen H. Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 6, 12.
103
�ont déclaré que tout le monde qui était un ennemi de l’état devait mourir. Il est estimé
que plus de 40,000 personnes étaient exécutés pendant la Grande Terreur, y compris
Louis XVI en janvier 1793 et Marie Antoinette en octobre 1793.6
Entre 1795 et 1799, une nouvelle constitution a créé le Directoire. Ce
gouvernement avait deux corps législatifs, pour la première fois pendant l’histoire de
France. Il existait un groupe de 500 représentatifs, le Conseil des Cinq-cents, et un
groupe de 250 sénateurs, le Conseil des Anciens qui avaient le pouvoir législatif. Cinq
directeurs, qui étaient choisis par les représentants, avaient le pouvoir exécutif. Napoléon
Bonaparte, qui était le général populaire de l’armée, a organisé le coup d’état du 18
Brumaire (le 9 novembre 1799) quand il a installé le Consulat et par conséquent, a mis
fin à la révolution. Ce gouvernement, qui a duré de 1799 à 1804, a permis à Napoléon de
prendre le pouvoir exécutif.7 Il a poussé Napoléon à devenir l’empereur du Premier
Empire en 1804.8
Dans ce contexte de la révolution française, les femmes quotidiennes jouaient un
rôle critique. Elles ont maintenu les rôles importants et décisifs dans le mouvement en
plus de leurs rôles à la maison.9 La participation des femmes était indispensable au
succès de la révolution. Elles ont fait pression sur le gouvernement pour régler
l’économie, préserver la nouvelle république, et maintenir l’ordre.10 De la marche de
protestation à Versailles à la Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne à
l’organisation des femmes dans les clubs et avec l’aide des chefs féministes, les femmes
sont devenues les citoyennes actives, politiquement et économiquement.11 Les femmes
devaient lutter contre le gouvernement avec les hommes pour une nouvelle société basée
sur les droits de « liberté, égalité, et fraternité. » Cependant, au même temps elles
devaient lutter contre les hommes pour leurs droits elles-mêmes.12 Néanmoins, les
femmes ont produit un effet indéniable sur le mouvement révolutionnaire. Olympe de
Gouges, Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, et Théroigne de Méricourt ressortaient
6
Steele, La revolution française, 131-132.
Steele, La revolution française, 132-133.
8
Steele, La revolution française, 139.
9
William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 420.
10
Sarah Melzer and Leslie Rabine, ed. Rebel Daughters: Women and the French
Revolution. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 5.
11
Darlene G. Levy, Harriet B. Applewhite, and Mary D. Johnson. Women in
Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979), 3-4, 12.
12
Melzer, Rebel Daughters, 5.
7
104
�comme les chefs des femmes.13 Malgré l’exclusion des femmes dans les yeux des
hommes, elles étaient participantes actives et cruciales à la révolution française.
En octobre 1789, les tensions entre le peuple et le gouvernement avaient atteint
un niveau maximum à Paris. Le 5 octobre, des femmes parisiennes se sont rassemblées à
l’Hôtel de ville pour demander du pain du roi et l’Assemblée nationale.14 Ces femmes
sont le menu peuple- les femmes des pécheurs, des commerçantes, des femmes au foyer,
des femmes ordinaires- qui se sont montrées à la hauteur de la situation.15 Protestant
contre le prix augmenté du pain, plus de 7,000 marcheuses ont fait une marche de douze
miles à Versailles dans la pluie. Les femmes étaient armées de manches à balai, des
fourches, des épées, et des revolvers. Toutes les femmes, et quelques hommes, sont
restés à Versailles. Le matin d’après, des milliers de peuples sont entrés par effraction
dans le château de la famille royale. Ils ont demandé que le roi et sa famille retournent à
Paris et s’assurent que le peuple aient de la nourriture. Le même jour, Louis XIV est
revenu à Paris, guidé par le boulanger et sa femme.16 La rentrée était un
accomplissement extraordinaire pour le mouvement révolutionnaire et pour les femmes.17
Les femmes ont reçu tout l’honneur pour la marche de protestation à Versailles.
Il n’existe pas de question que les femmes ont mérité le suces de l’événement. Pour les
hommes et les femmes politiques, la rentrée était une grande victoire politique sur le roi.
Pour les femmes révolutionnaires, c’était une déclaration de leur influence, de leur
aptitude, et de leur pouvoir comme un groupe.18 Ces femmes ont fracassé l’autorité
traditionnelle du roi et elles ont démontré le pouvoir souverain du peuple avec une force
armée. Cet événement a marqué un moment critique dans l’identification des
révolutionnaires françaises.19
Répondant à la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, publiée en
1789, les femmes, plus spécifiquement Olympe de Gouges, ont publié la Déclaration des
droits de la femme et de la citoyenne en septembre 1791. La Déclaration de de Gouges,
13
Doyle, Oxford History, 420.
Levy, Women in Revolutionary Paris, 15.
15
Darlene G. Levy, and Harriet B. Applewhite, “Women and Militant Citizenship in
Revolutionary Paris,” in Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795, ed. Sara E. Melzer
and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 83.
16
Jack R. Censer and Lynn Hunt. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity: Exploring the
French Revolution. (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2001), 57-59.
17
Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship, 12.
18
Hufton, Women and the Limits of Citizenship, 12, 18.
19
Levy and Applewhite, “Women and Militant Citizenship,” 85.
14
105
�un document féministe rare, a attaqué la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen
parce qu’elle a ignoré complètement les droits des femmes. Cette discussion était une
dénégation forte et courageuse contre le gouvernement.20 Le document a copié le style de
la première déclaration, mais elle avait ajouté les femmes et les droits des citoyennes à
tous les articles. Elle a proclamé que l’égalité naturelle ne pouvait pas être réalisée parce
que les hommes ont ignoré l’égalité de sexe et de race. De Gouges a insisté sur les droits
naturels, indéniables et égaux des femmes. Elle a écrit, « Toutes les citoyennes et tous
les citoyens étant égaux à ses yeux doivent être également admis à toutes les dignités,
places et emplois publics selon leurs capacités et sans aucune distinction que celle de
leurs vertus et de leurs talents. »21 Elle a proposé une assemblée nationale seulement
pour les femmes de la nation. Aussi, elle a suggéré l’éducation nationale, le
rétablissement des morales, la protection des enfants naturels, la liberté de la parole et de
l’assemblé et la division égale de la richesse avec les divorces.22 Puis, elle a attaqué
l’institution de mariage comme l’inégalité institutionnalisée. Avec le mariage, les
hommes peuvent tyranniser les femmes éternellement. De Gouges a recommandé de
remplacer le mariage pour un contrat social pour le rendre une union volontaire.23
Bien que la Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne soit un
argument fort contre les inégalités et le manque de reconnaissance des femmes, elle
n’était pas un grand succès. En termes du succès politique, le document n’a pas gagné les
droits des femmes. Les idées de mariage, des femmes, et de la nature des droits étaient
ignorées par le gouvernement et ceux qui tenaient le pouvoir. Ils pensaient que ces
recommandations étaient choquantes et monstrueuses plutôt que sérieuses et
intelligentes.24 Plus de cent cinquante ans après la publication de la Déclaration des
droits de la femme et de la citoyenne les femmes ont reçu les droits égaux aux hommes
sous la IVe République (1946).25 Malgré le manque de succès pendant la révolution
française, la Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne a inspiré les défis
20
Levy, Women in Revolutionary Paris, 64-65.
Steele, La civilisation française, 220
22
Joan B. Landes. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution.
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), 125-126.
23
Joan W. Scott, “A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer: Olympe de Gouges
Claims Rights for Women,” in Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795, ed. Sara E.
Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 110-111.
24
Scott, “Olympe de Gouges,” 115.
25
Steele, La civilisation français, 218.
21
106
�féministes durant la XIXe et la XXe siècles.26 Par exemple, en 1848 un groupe de
féministes ont organisé une convention à New York pour déclarer ses droits et elles ont
copié la Déclaration d’Indépendance des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, mais elles ont ajouté
« les femmes » à tous les articles, exactement comme de Gouge.
Plus que n’importe quoi d’autre, les femmes ont voulu être les citoyens
féminins: citoyennes. Elles vivaient dans une société où elles n’avaient pas les droits des
citoyens. Elles étaient des citoyennes sans citoyenneté. Pour ces féministes, la meilleure
façon de faire un changement était la collaboration les unes avec les autres. 27 Depuis
l’été 1791, elles ont assisté aux assemblées, le corps législatif national, et des sociétés
radicales avec les hommes.28 En plus de leur participation aux clubs des hommes comme
les Jacobins et les Cordeliers, les femmes se sont organisées ensemble dans les clubs
seulement pour les femmes.29 La plupart des femmes est venue de la bourgeoisie et la
majorité des clubs n’avait que soixante membres. Entre 1789-1793, en réponse aux clubs
des hommes, il existait environ trente clubs des femmes, la majorité desquels était dans le
sud-ouest de la France.30 Les clubs féminins sont basés sur les problèmes politiques
généraux comme la nourriture, l’activité révolutionnaire, et le travail de la charité.31
Pourtant, l’influence de ces clubs est limitée à cause de l’assistance basse et l’incapacité
des femmes de parler à la majorité des femmes dans les termes qu’elles peuvent
comprendre. Par exemples, elles parlaient de la pauvreté et du manque de nourriture
mais dans un sens philanthropique pour les femmes qui avaient les moyens d’acheter le
pain pour elles-mêmes.32
Tandis qu’on ne peut pas considérer tous les clubs comme très influents, il
existait des exceptions. Le club des citoyennes républicaines révolutionnaires, fondé en
mai 1793, était le club le plus actif et le plus radical composé totalement de femmes.33
Elles se sont engagées à la destruction da la faction des Girondins et à une grande réserve
du pain.34Après seulement les toutes premières semaines, le club est devenu très
26
Scott, “Olypme de Gouges,” 115.
Dominique Godineau, The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution, trans.
Katherine Streip (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), 101.
28
Landes, Women and the Public Sphere, 117.
29
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 59.
30
Godineau, The Women of Paris, 101-103.
31
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 59.
32
Hufton, Limits of Citizenship, 24.
33
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 72; Hufton, Limits of Citizenship,
25.
27
107
�respectable et il a publié une pétition avec le club des Cordeliers qui a demandé que le
gouvernement punit les ennemis de la République.35 Ce club a posé un vrai menace pour
les dirigeants Jacobins parce qu’elles pouvaient faire des liaisons entre les femmes de la
classe ouvrière et les femmes de la bourgeoisie.36 Ainsi, le 30 octobre 1793, dans la
Convention Nationale, Jean-Baptiste Amar a proposé une proposition officielle qui a
interdit les femmes de joindre ensemble dans les clubs politiques et populaires. Il a
maintenu que les femmes ne sont pas capables de comprendre des concepts sérieux et
compliqués dans la révolution.37
Dans ce mouvement révolutionnaire, quelques femmes ressortissent comme les
chefs féministes et les inspirations aux autres. Au début, Olympe de Gouges était une
femme qui luttait fort pour les droits égaux pour les citoyennes. Plus célébrée pour la
Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne, elle représente les voix des
femmes pendant la révolution. De Gouges était la fille d’un boucher et elle a instruit ellemême. Quand elle avait seize ans, elle s’est mariée avec un homme qui était plus âgé
qu’elle. Elle a eu un fils et bientôt, son mari est mort.38 Avant la révolution, de Gouges a
écrit des pièces de théâtre, plusieurs desquelles étaient publiées et jouées.39 Plus que
l’écriture, elle aimait parler et elle a souvent dicté ses textes. Quand la révolution est
arrivée, elle a utilisé ses talents comme une citoyenne active pour défendre beaucoup de
causes. Elle était en faveur de la liberté pour les esclaves, la création d’un théâtre
national pour les dramaturges féminins, les rues propres, les hôpitaux de la maternité, le
divorce, et la recognition des droits des enfants illégitimes et les mères qui ne sont pas
mariées. De Gouges a tellement assisté aux assemblées politiques qu’elle a souvent loué
l’hébergement près de leurs sièges. Ses proclamations ont couvert les murs de Paris, une
de laquelle était « Le Cri du Sage : par une femme. » En lançant un appel aux femmes,
elle a constaté que l’égalité, pas des privilèges spéciaux, était la seule façon dont les
femmes peuvent avoir la liberté.40 En juillet 1793, de Gouges a été arrêtée et
emprisonnée parce qu’elle a publié un document qui a critiqué la Terreur.41 Puis, quand
elle est montée à la guillotine le 3 novembre 1793, un officiel parisien l’a dénoncée pour
34
Hufton, Limits of Citizenship, 29.
Levy, Women in Revolutionary Paris, 150.
36
Hufton, Limits of Citizenship, 26.
37
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 82-83.
38
Scott, “Olympe de Gouges,” 107.
39
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 59.
40
Scott, “Olympe de Gouges,” 108-109.
41
Levy, Women in Revolutionary Paris, 254.
35
108
�être un « femme-homme, » un mélange d’un homme et une femme qui refuse de
pratiquer ses rôles féminins.42
Sur l’échafaud à côté de de Gouges était Madame Roland, un autre chef parmi
les femmes révolutionnaires.43 Marie-Jeanne Philpon est née à Paris en 1754, la fille
d’un graveur.44 Mme Roland n’a reçu qu’un peu d’éducation formelle, mais elle a
beaucoup lu et elle est restée bien informée. En 1780, quand elle avait vingt-sept ans, elle
s’est mariée avec Jean-Maire Roland qui était inspecteur à Lyon et qui était vingt ans plus
âgé qu’elle. Les deux étaient très ambitieux ensemble tellement que Mme Roland a écrit
des articles pour un journal sous le nom de son mari.45 Avant la révolution, Mme Roland
est restée à La Platière, près de Lyon, pour étudier, lire et écrire seule. Puis, quand la
révolution est arrivée, M. Roland était nommé au ministre de l’intérieur et elle est allée à
Paris en 1791, très informée, très passionnée et elle était prête à jouer un très grand rôle.46
Immédiatement déçue par le manque de coopération entre les forces libérales, Mme
Roland a eu beaucoup de salons chez elle, dans quelques chambres à l’Hôtel Britannique
près du Pont-Neuf.47 Les Girondins, y compris les chefs du mouvement révolutionnaire
comme Brissot, Pétion, Buzot, Condorcet, et Barbaroux, se sont retrouvés là quatre fois
par semaine.48 Par conséquence, le douze juin, 1793, la police a convoqué Mme Roland
pour être interrogés. Pendant l’interrogation, elle n’a jamais révélé les identités de ses
amis et elle n’a rien dit que la vérité. Enfin, les allégations contre Mme Roland sont la
conspiration et la culpabilité par association avec les Girondins.49 Après son procès, le
juge l’a condamnée à mort par la guillotine le même jour, le 8 novembre 1793.50
Pendant que Mme Roland et Olympe de Gouges utilisaient leurs voix et leurs
stylos pour montrer leur soutien à la révolution, Charlotte Corday a utilisé le couteau.
Elle est née le 27 juillet, 1768 à Mesnil-Imbert, mais quand elle avait dix ans, son père l’a
42
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 90.
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 90.
44
Gita May, Madame Roland and the Age of Revolution (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1970), v, 3.
45
Christopher Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution (New York: Quill, 1980), 139140.
46
Henri Béraud, Twelve Portraits of the French Revolution, trans. Madeleine Boyd
(Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1968), 219.
47
May, Madame Roland, 178, 187; Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 219.
48
Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 219-220.
49
May, Madame Roland, 269-270.
50
May, Madame Roland, 284.
43
109
�envoyée au couvent Abbaye-aux-Dames à Caen. Là, elle a lu les livres des philosophes
comme Voltaire et Rousseau qui parlent de la liberté et l’égalité.51 En 1790 avec la
révolution, les couvents étaient supprimés et alors, Charlotte est revenue à Mesnil-Imbert
avec son père où elle a suivi la révolution de près, spécialement à Paris.52 Après la chute
des Girondins à Paris, plusieurs membres se sont échappés à Caen. Charlotte a entendu
parler de Jean-Paul Marat, un journaliste radical qui avait publié L’Ami du peuple, qui a
attaqué tout le monde y compris l’Assemblée, les Feuillants, la famille royale, les
Ministres, et il a recommandé la mort de deux cent mille personnes.53 Après avoir
entendu ça, elle a décidé de tuer Marat.54 Ensuite, Charlotte est partie de sa maison le 9
juillet, 1793 et elle est arrivée à Paris le 11 juillet. Le 13 juillet, avec un couteau sous sa
robe, elle est allée à la maison de Marat, 18 Rue d’Ecole de Médicine. Quand elle est
entrée, Marat était dans la baignoire mais il a accepté sa visiteuse. Au milieu d’une
conversation, Charlotte l’a poignardé dans le cœur et dans quelques minutes, il est mort.55
Sans essayant d’échapper ou d’éviter la situation, Charlotte était emprisonnée et peu
après, elle était sur l’échafaud sous la guillotine.56 Elle a considéré le meurtre son devoir
patriotique aux Français et il les a sauvés de la terreur que Marat avait recommandé.57 La
mort de Charlotte Corday a représenté la glorification de la mort en général et le danger
des Girondins.58 Aussi, à cause de son meurtre, Marat était célébré comme un grand
martyr de la révolution.59
Les grandes histoires de la révolution française souvent oublient d’inclure
les femmes. Elles parlent de la chute de la Bastille, de la Déclaration des droits de
l’homme et du citoyen, et de Robespierre mais pas de la marche des femmes à Versailles,
de la Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne, ou de Charlotte Corday.
Cependant, on peut voir que le mouvement révolutionnaire des femmes avait un impact
décisif sur le plus grand mouvement révolutionnaire. Elles ont fait pression sur le
51
Marie Cher, Charlotte Corday and Certain Men of the Revolutionary Torment (New
York: AMS Press, Inc, 1970), 4-5; Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 222.
52
Cher, Charlotte Corday, 5.
53
Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution, 212, 140.
54
Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution, 212.
55
Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 224-226.
56
Hibbert, The Days of the French Revolution, 213; Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 225-226.
57
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 97; Levy, Women in Revolutionary
Paris, 172.
58
Béraud, Twelve Portraits, 229; Levy, Women in Revolutionary Paris, 172.
59
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, 97.
110
�gouvernement, le roi, les hommes, et la philosophie de la révolution. Les femmes ont
protesté à côté des hommes, les femmes ont lutté à côté des hommes, et les femmes sont
mortes à côté des hommes. Elles étaient une partie de la révolution et elles ont démontré
tout aussi que les hommes. Les femmes de la révolution ont fait elles-mêmes les
citoyennes entendues, respectables et puissantes. Dans une période où personne ne savait
leur place dans la société, elles se sont définies.
Œuvres Consultées
Béraud, Henri. Twelve Portraits of the French Revolution. Translated by Madeleine
Boyd. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, Inc., 1968.
Censer, Jack R. and Lynn Hunt. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity: Exploring the French
Revolution. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press,
2001.
Cher, Marie. Charlotte Corday and Certain Men of the Revolutionary Torment. New
York: AMS Press, Inc, 1970.
Dawson, Philip. The French Revolution. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1967.
Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989.
Godineau, Dominique. The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution. Translated by
Katherine Streip. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
Hibbert, Christopher. The Days of the French Revolution. New York: Quill, 1980.
Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Landes, Joan B. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
111
�Levy, Darlene G, and Harriet B. Applewhite. “Women and Militant Citizenship in
Revolutionary Paris”, In Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795, edited by Sara E.
Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine, 70-101. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Levy, Darlene G., Harriet B. Applewhite, and Mary D. Johnson. Women in
Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
May, Gita. Madame Roland and the Age of Revolution. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1970.
Melzer, Sarah, and Leslie Rabine, ed. Rebel Daughters: Women and the French
Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Scott, Joan W. “A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer: Olympe de Gouges
Claims Rights for Women”, In Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795, edited by
Sara E. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine, 102-120. New York: Oxford University Press,
1992.
Steele, Ross, Susan St. Onge, and Ronald St. Onge. La civilisation française en évolution
I: Institutions et culture avant la Ve République. United States: Heinle, 1996.
112
�Malcolm X: The Man and the Myth
Justina Licata (History)1
A Race War is a war in which children are destroyed, in which
children are mutilated, in which children face the same destructive
wrath that grownups face. A Race War is the worse war that you can
conceive. And this war that is coming upon the head of the white man
is something he is bringing down upon himself. The entire country is
on the verge of erupting into violence and bloodshed simply because
twenty million ex-slaves are demanding freedom, justice and equality
here in America from their former slave master.2
I have found nothing but love, friendship, hospitality and true
brotherhood where ever I have gone among Muslims, because Islam is
the religion of true brotherhood, a religion in which Allah has made all
who accept Him look upon all of our fellow humans as brothers and
sisters.3
Malcolm X was the prophet of black rage primarily because of his
great love for black people. His love was neither abstract nor
ephemeral. Rather, it was a concrete connection with a degraded and
devalued people in need of psychic conversion.—Cornel West4
1
Written under the direction of Drs. Chinnaiah Jangam (History) and Rita Reynolds
(History) in partial fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements (abbreviated version
of the original thesis).
2
“Race War in America.” The Best of Speeches: Malcolm X. MP3 Download. 7 August
2007.
3
Malcolm X, a private journal entry (Notebook #6), Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture. New York Public Library 515 Malcolm X Boulevard New York, NY
10037-1801.
4
West, Cornel. Race Matters. New York: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House,
Inc., 1993, p. 136.
113
�Malcolm X was unique among Civil Rights activists working to change
America. His philosophy underwent an unprecedented transformation from his early
career within the Nation of Islam to his religious pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest city
Islam. During Malcolm’s years under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he used what
has been called “black rage,” as in the first quote above, to motivate African-Americans
to fight for social and economic equality. The second quote demonstrates the beginning
of his second religious conversion when he implemented the Muslim religion into his
everyday life in a global framework. As Cornel West argues in the final quote, taken
from Race Matters, Malcolm X’s teachings are often misunderstood. Malcolm X has
been marked as the violent leader of the United States’ Civil Rights Movement during the
late 1950s and 1960s in direct opposition to the non-violence preached by Martin Luther
King Jr. Unlike King, Malcolm X expressed anger to mobilize African-American
followers, which caused the majority of white Americans to fear him and his words.
Thus, Malcolm X became a target for hostile propaganda during his life and even after
his assassination on February 21, 1965. He became a symbol for the Black Power
Movement after his death due to his belief that individuals should fight for proper rights
“by any means necessary.” This ownership over his legacy may have reinforced the onedimensional image of Malcolm X.5
This paper will revisit Malcolm X’s adult life, notably the events that led him to
become the iconic representative of the extremist force within the Civil Rights
Movement. In his youth, he supported himself as a hustler in Harlem. His first transition
came while in jail when he gained an education and discovered the teaching of the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad. A second shift came in the last 50 weeks of his life
following his self-removal from the Nation of Islam and the start of his own personal
campaigns. This paper will also scrutinize the many misconceptions that have tainted
Malcolm X’s legacy, such as being falsely accused of attempting to incite violence. It
will challenge these misconceptions by investigating specific events that shaped his
philosophies and correcting the inaccurate portrayal of his private and public life.
After being arrested at the age of twenty-one, Malcolm was sentenced to ten
years in jail and he served seven of these years.6 Initially Malcolm was confrontational
when dealing with the jail guards and other prisoners. When he would provoke
disagreements, the jail guards typically placed him into solitary confinement. Malcolm
5
Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995, p. xxi.
6
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine
Books, 1964, p.155-156.
114
�said, “I preferred the solitary that this behavior brought me. I would pace for hours like a
caged leopard, viciously cursing aloud to myself. And my favorite targets were the Bible
and God…Eventually, the men in the cellblock had a name for me: ‘Satan.’ Because of
my antireligious attitude.”7 This outrageous behavior did not last an extended amount of
time because Malcolm met an inspirational inmate named Bimbi. Bimbi was an “old
time burglar.”8 Malcolm was impressed with Bimbi for several reasons but mostly
because he could command respect with simply his words. Bimbi took a liking to
Malcolm and expressed great hope in him and his intelligence. He encouraged Malcolm
to utilize his time in jail to become educated.9 Malcolm’s friendship with Bimbi aided
him in the religious conversion he was moving toward. In 1948, two years into his
sentence, Malcolm received a letter from his brother Philbert. Within this letter, Philbert
informed Malcolm that “he had discovered the ‘natural religion for the black man,’” and
it was called the “Nation of Islam.”10 Malcolm’s siblings had all converted to this
controversial religion, and they hoped that Malcolm would also begin to worship Allah
under the guidance of the Honorable Elijah Muhhamad.
At first, Malcolm was very skeptical of the religion and the idea of joining it, but
he became intrigued after he received a specific letter from his brother, Reginald. In this
letter Reginald writes, “Malcolm, don’t eat any more pork, and don’t smoke any more
cigarettes. I’ll show you how to get out of prison.”11 After receiving this letter Malcolm
finished the last pack of cigarettes, he would never smoke again, and decided to refuse to
eat any pork.12 This early dedication was based completely in his intrigue and desire to
get out of prison, but the devotion would grow into a life long commitment to the Muslim
religion and the worshiping of Allah. Malcolm X wrote, “Later I would learn…that,
unconsciously, my first pre-Islamic submission had been manifested. I had experienced,
for the first time, the Muslim teaching, ‘If you will take one step toward Allah-Allah will
take two steps toward you.’”13 Soon after his first movement toward conversion, Ella,
Malcolm’s step-sister had arranged Malcolm to be transferred to Norfolk, Massachusetts,
Prison Colony. This facility was meant for rehabilitation and was geared to produce well
7
Ibid., 156.
Ibid., 156.
9
Ibid., 157.
10
Ibid., 158.
11
Ibid., 158.
8
12
13
Ibid., 159.
Ibid., 159
115
�rounded and educated citizens.14 At this prison, Malcolm spent much of his time in their
excellent library. He remarks that while in Norfolk he, for the first time, read with a
purpose rather than without direction.15
As he continued to learn about the teaching of the Nation of Islam and he was
introduced to the lead figure within the religion, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who
claimed to be Allah’s messenger. Elijah Muhammad preached that the “white man was
the devil, and the devil’s time was up, foreshadowing the downfall of their dominance
within society.”16 Initially, Malcolm was confused by these philosophies. Throughout
his adolescent years he had been taught that the “white man” was more significant to
society, and he had participated in activities which he hoped would give him status within
their culture, such as conking his hair and dating a white woman. On one specific
occasion, Malcolm’s brother, Reginald, asked him if any one white individual had every
truly assisted. This question triggered Malcolm examination of his past and his relations
with white individuals,
After Reginald left, I thought. I thought. Thought.
I couldn’t make of it head, or tail, or middle.
The white people I had known marched before my mind’s eye. From the
start of my life. The state white people always in our house after the
other whites I didn’t know had killed my father…the white people who
kept calling my mother ‘crazy’ to her face and before me and my brothers
and sisters, until she finally was taken off by white people to the
Kalamazoo asylum…the white judge and other who had split up the
children…the Swerlins, the other whites around Mason…white
youngsters I was in school there with, and the teacher-the one who told
me in the eighth grade to ‘be a carpenter’ because thinking of being a
lawyer was foolish for a Negro…
My head swam with the parading faces of white people. The ones in
Boston, in the white –only dances at the Roseland Ballroom where I
shined their shoes…at the Parker House where I took their dirty plates
back to the kitchen…the railroad crewmen and passengers…Sophia…
The whites in New York City-the cops, the white criminals I’d dealt
with…the whites who piled into the Negro speakeasies for a taste of
14
Ibid., 160.
Ibid., 161.
16
Ibid, 162.
15
116
�Negro soul…the white woman who wanted Negro men…the men I’d
steered to the black ‘specialty sex’ they wanted…
The fence back in Boston, and his ex-con representative…Boston
cops…Sophia’s husband’s friend. And her husband, whom I’d never
seen, but knew so much about…Sophia’s sister…the Jew jeweler who’s
helped trap me…the social workers…the Middlesex Country Court
people…the judge who gave me ten years…the prisoners I’d known, the
guards and the officials…17
Malcolm later called this stream of conscience “some of the first serious thought I had
ever had in my life.”18 For the first time in Malcolm X’s life he believed he had found
the reason as to why he had become a failure. He believed without any doubt, that the
common denominator connecting of all his troubles was clearly the “white man.” This
central idea would shape much of his career; it would also be directly related to the one
dimensional image most people associate with Malcolm.
After Malcolm was released from prison, he moved up quickly within the
rankings of the Nation of Islam. His popularity amongst Black Americans especially in
Harlem also began to increase rapidly. Malcolm preached hatred toward what he referred
to as the blue-eyed devils. He voiced to the hundreds of African Americans attending his
rallies, the problems within their society and how the white man could in some way be
blamed for each of these issues. Malcolm X’s speeches were unlike any other leaders
from this period. He did not speak with tranquility, but instead surged his speeches with
intense emotions; often screaming the words at his audience. Malcolm X’s powerful and
aggressive speaking style caused his followers to be energized and to feel empowered as
well as frighten the rest of American society.
Malcolm quickly became famous for his outrageous speeches dedicated to
blaming the American white race for society’s wrongs against African Americans. This
style of speaking would later be referred to as Black Rage; and many individuals would
claim that Malcolm was one of the founders of the technique, which was later utilized by
Black Power groups like the Black Panthers. Here is an excerpt from a Malcolm X
speech he completed when he was a reverend for the Nation.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that as it was the evil sin
of slavery that caused the downfall and destruction of ancient Egypt
17
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine
Books, 1964, p. 162-163.
18
Ibid., 164.
117
�and Babylon, and of ancient Greece…It is only a matter of time before
White America too will be utterly destroyed by her own sins, and all
traces of her former glory will be removed from the planet
forever…Just as ancient nations paid for their sins against humanity,
White America must now pay for her sins against twenty-two million
‘Negros.’…But before God set up his new world, the Muslim world, or
world of Islam, which will be established on the principle of truth,
peace, and brotherhood, God himself must first destroy this evil
Western world, the white world…a wicked world, ruled by a race of
devils that preaches falsehood, practice slavery, and thrives on
indecency and immorality…The time is past when the white world can
exercise unilateral authority and control over the dark world. The
independence and power of the dark world is on the increase; the dark
world is rising in wealth, power, prestige, and influence. It is the rise
of the dark world that is causing the fall of the white world.19
This speech which is entitled “God’s Judgment of White America” was given by
Malcolm in 1963 shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy. This passage
captured reoccurring themes from many of Malcolm’s speeches at this time. He began
by recognizing his teacher and savior, “the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.” This
emphasized that his speeches are not his words only, but rather the words of a being
higher than himself. Malcolm showed honor to the man he had immortalized through his
mind. He then went on to speak about the history of the black race and the many crimes
against them; he usually emphasized slavery as being the utmost exploitation of his race.
Malcolm ended by looking into the dark future, often times claiming that the end of the
white race was coming soon. When Malcolm conducted these speeches in front of a few
hundred people in Harlem, he did not simply read these lines into a microphone.
Malcolm captivated crowds, confidently stating his beliefs. His speaking skills were not
that of an ex-convict that never even entered high school, they exemplified his self
education and his pure intelligence. Malcolm had transformed himself into a well spoken
19
Howard-Pitney, David. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights
Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2004, p. 113-115.
118
�individual who seemed to be born to ignite excitement within others. Michael Eric
Dyson once remarked, “Malcolm blessed our rage by releasing it.”20
While Malcolm was empowering his fellow African Americans he caused fear
amongst the white race. This fear was mostly extended by the media’s coverage of
Malcolm X’s speeches as well as the governmental perception of him. The general
public was being exposed to a one-sided portrayal of Malcolm through quotes such as
“There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution…Revolution is bloody, revolution is
hostile, revolution…overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way.”21 At the time
Malcolm was fully aware of the reputation he had earned amongst the white American
public. Unlike King he did not attempt to gain their respect or approval even if it would
aid his cause. Why would Malcolm refuse to go against his pride to acquire the white
man’s endorsement? Many influential people have contemplated this question. In fact
Dr. Cornel West, a professor of African American studies at Harvard University,
dedicated an entire chapter of his celebrated book, Race Matters, to Malcolm. He
intended to create a better understanding of this complicated man. Dr. West explained
that Malcolm used harsh words within his speeches to create self-respect within the Black
race in America. Cornel West eloquently states,
Malcolm X was the prophet of black rage primarily because of his great
love for black people. His love was neither abstract nor ephemeral.
Rather, it was a concrete connection with a degraded and devalued
people in need of psychic conversion. This is why Malcolm X’s
articulation of black rage was not directed first and foremost at white
America. Rather, Malcolm believed that if black people felt the love
that motivated that rage, the love would produce a psychic conversion
of black people; they would affirm themselves as human beings, no
longer view their bodies, minds, and souls through white lenses, and
believing themselves capable of taking control of their own destinies.22
This quote shows that Malcolm understood that in order for the black race to earn equal
rights under the law, they had to first feel as if they deserved these rights. They had to
20
Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995, p. xv.
21
Howard-Pitney, David. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights
Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2004, p. 73.
22
West, Cornel. Race Matters,, p. 136.
119
�increase their self-respect and their respect for their fellow African Americans. Malcolm
loved his people, and he called his angry words “love teaching.” Malcolm told his
people, “You know they call this hate teaching. This is not hate teaching, this is love
teaching. If I didn’t love you I would not tell you what I am telling you…This is love
talk…We recognize you as our brother.”23 Before Malcolm X went to jail he too lacked
this self love. After he was “saved” by the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad he reflected upon the time in which he was a hustler in Harlem with shame
and continued to blame the white race for crimes occurring within American city’s
ghettos. He believed that white Americans were causing the initial transgressions within
black communities. Malcolm explained,
Many of our people [black Americans] turn to crime: stealing,
gambling, prostitution, organized crime. Crime that is organized here
in Harlem by the white man…He is the one who controls it. He is the
master criminal. He is the arch enemy. He gets you drunk then locks
you up for being drunk…He sells you a deck of cards and then locks
you up when he catches you using them. You are dealing with nothing
but a blue-eyed devil walking around here on this earth who will lead to
nowhere but hell as long as you follow him. [Long pause] I hope I
don’t frighten anyone. [Long pause] When many of us turn to crime,
and I had plenty of experience of it right out here in Harlem. I know
what it is all about…we allow ourselves to be used by the white
overlords downtown. To bring their dope back up here in Harlem and
push it among our poor, innocent, unsuspecting young people.
Why we let the white man use us to make drug addicts out of
children…We let the white man use us to bring their poison up here in
Harlem and stick it into the veins of our people. You take it down town
and give it to some white people and see how long you walk the streets
as a free man. No, the only time he lets you get away with it is when
you are giving it to your own kind, when you are poisoning your own
kind…I know what I am talking about. I used to be used by that blue
eyed white man for the same thing….He knows that I know it…
23
“Crime by Blacks.” The Best of Speeches: Malcolm X. MP3 Download. 7 August
2007.
120
�He breaks your wings and then calls you a cripple…You are dealing
with nothing but a walking talking blue eyed devil and the day you
realize it you won’t look to him for any solution to your problems.24
This speech emphasizes the self-respect Malcolm hoped to build within his community
through the use of black rage. He first admits that within ghettos throughout the nation,
an excess number of crimes were occurring. He continues by explaining that these
crimes are caused by white Americans because they supply the African Americans with
drugs, alcohol, etc. Malcolm encouraged Blacks to remove themselves from this vicious
cycle and improve their lives. He promoted complete segregation from the white society
to end these circumstances and to recover the black community.
Mainstream Americans saw Malcolm’s angry speeches as a threat to their way of
life, rather than his method of persuading African Americans to take control and
eventually advance their lives. This use of black rage also forced the Black middle class
within America to honor Malcolm X secretly. Although these individuals often believed
and agreed with Malcolm’s ideology, they were required to publicly oppose his
philosophies in order to keep their social status within society.25 Their middle class’s
white peers were then able to openly disagree with Malcolm’s message without
opposition. It was less problematic to criticize Malcolm than agree with him, and his
sentiment has continued into modern society.
In 1964, Malcolm X split from Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of
Islam, a significant and difficult decision. Following this split, Malcolm felt the need to
take a pilgrimage to Mecca. He visited his very reliable sister Ella in Boston who,
without any hesitation, simply asked him how much money he would need.26 During this
pilgrimage, Malcolm underwent his second intellectual and spiritual transformation. At
the beginning of his journey, Malcolm admits to being nervous.27 Within his
autobiography, he also mentions that he was not supposed to be able to get on a plane
from Cairo to Mecca due to the great number of people who were making the same
journey. But because Malcolm was an American Muslim some “strings were pulled”
allowing him onto the plane. He makes note of this kindness and expresses his
24
“Crime in Harlem.” The Best of Speeches: Malcolm X. MP3 Download. 7 August
2007.
25
West, Cornel. Race Matters, p.138.
26
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. p. 324.
27
Ibid., 329.
121
�gratitude.28 The other pilgrims were mesmerized by Malcolm because it was so rare to
meet an American Muslim. Even the captain of his plane made time to meet Malcolm in
person.29 When he exited the plane, Malcolm noticed that the pilgrims were of many
different races, and despite this they all treated one another with respect.30
Throughout Malcolm’s pilgrimage he encountered Muslims of all colors and he
consistently seemed to be shocked by the warmth shown towards him. He later reflects,
“Each of them embraced me as though I were a long-lost child. I had never seen these
men before in my life, and they treated me so good! I am going to tell you that I had
never been so honored in my life, nor had I ever received such true hospitality.”31 During
Malcolm’s journey, he kept a journal writing his own personal feeling and experiences.
These journal entries show the great conversion Malcolm was experiencing as well as
articulate the immense change in his ideology. At the very top of a specific entry
Malcolm states, “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” He then continues
with,
I am proud and thankful to Allah for blessing me to be a
Muslim. Ever since I first heard about Islam and accepted it as my
religion Allah has blessed me in many ways, and with friends in all
works of life. But this gathering of brothers here at the Shuban al
Muslims tonight, in my honor, is indeed one of the greatest blessings of
all.
Since becoming a Muslim I have traveled much throughout
the world, to many lands and places, but I have never entered a Muslim
country and felt like I was a stranger, nor that the people of the land
were strangers.
I have found nothing but love, friendship, hospitality and true
brotherhood where ever I have gone among Muslims, because Islam is
the religion of true brotherhood, a religion in which Allah has made all
who accept Him look upon all of our fellow humans as brothers and
sisters.
One of the greatest blessings a man can have is a true friend, a
true brother. Islam, Allah makes all of us true friends and brothers to
each other. As Muslims, we want for our brothers the same things we
28
Ibid., 330.
Ibid., 330-331.
30
Ibid., 331.
31
Ibid., 339.
29
122
�want for ourselves. The well-being of our brother becomes our wellbeing…his happiness is our happiness, his security is our security, also
his pain and sorrow, his problems becomes our problems.
Because Islam has us feel and want for other brothers all over
the world, the same that we feel and want for ourselves, Islam is the
only force capable of being about the spirit of unselfish concern for our
brothers and sisters all over the world, and thereby creating the much
needed world brotherhood.
In my humble opinion, President Gomal Nasser reflects an
excellent example of the type of unselfish fighting-spirit needed by true
Muslims in this modern world today. His concept of Islam does not
keep him a militant leader in the struggle against oppression… He had
dedicated all of his time and energy to restore freedom and human
dignity, not only to the people of the United Arab Republic, but also to
oppressed Arabs, Africans, Muslims, as well as non-Muslims
everywhere on this earth.
His concept of Islam forces him to fight for the liberation of
all oppressed people whether they are Muslims or otherwise, because
Islam teaches us that all of humanity comes from Allah, and all of
humanity has the God-given right to freedom, justice, equality – life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.32
This journal entry emphasizes Malcolm’s long contemplation of the Islamic teachings.
He is especially drawn to the idea of equality and brotherhood. As Malcolm stated
Muslim’s are all concerned for their brothers and their brothers’ lives equally to their
own. He found that this ideology was a way of life for Muslims of the east. Individuals
like President Nasser, the Arab Nationalist who Malcolm mentioned within this passage,
work tirelessly to, not only live by these principles, but also to aid others throughout the
world to fight for political and social equality.
It is very interesting to see that Malcolm concludes this passage with a direct
quote from the American Declaration of Independence, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.” Here Malcolm is foreshadowing his second conversion which began during
32
Malcolm X, a private journal entry (Notebook #6), Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture. New York Public Library 515 Malcolm X Boulevard New York, NY
10037-1801.
123
�this spiritual journey. Prior to this, Malcolm had no trust in the American government or
the American way of life, but with his use of this infamous phrase, he is recognizing that
the utopia, the American Founding Father’s hoped to build a base for, includes equality
amongst all people. It also infers that he believes the American society may have the
ability to achieve this state some time in the future through its own spiritual conversion.
This pilgrimage had a tremendous effect upon Malcolm X, especially following his
recent split from the Nation of Islam and his unstable relationship with his mentor, Elijah
Muhammad. He considers the Muslim world to be colorblind which allows their society
to progress without any concern for race.33
Near the end of this journey to Mecca, Malcolm composes a letter to his wife,
Betty Shabazz, his sister, Ella, and a few others explaining the great impact the
pilgrimage had upon his life and philosophy.34 He begins by once again stressing the
colorblind society that existed in this Holy Land; stating that the pilgrims he shared this
experience with were of all colors and yet they were able to live together in peace and
with mutual respect. Malcolm admitted this shocked him because of his past experiences
in America.35 He continues by expressing his hope that Americans, no matter their race,
can learn and understand the Islamic religion. Malcolm believes that this would erase
their prejudiced state of mind.36 He writes,
During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten
from the same plate, drank from the same glass, and slept in the same
bed (or on the same rug) – while praying to the same God – with fellow
Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the
blondest of blond, and whose skin was whitest of white. And in the
word and the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims, I felt the
same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria,
Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) – because
their belief in one God had removed the ‘white’ from their minds, the
‘white’ from their behavior, and the ‘white’ from their attitude.37
This statement is a true testament to Malcolm’s second conversion. A man who once
commonly referred to the white race as “blue-eyed devils” now looked at them as
33
Haley, Alex and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X., 345.
Ibid., 346.
35
Ibid., 346-347.
36
Ibid., 347.
37
Ibid., 347.
34
124
�individuals and as equals. These eleven days changed him in ways he could not envision
for himself. Malcolm finished the letter by examining the completion of his pilgrimage
and how his transformation has supplied him with new knowledge that will aid him in his
fight for racial equality in America. “Each hour I am here in the Holy Land enables me
to have great spiritual insights into the happenings in American between the black and the
white.”38
Unlike his past speeches and lectures, he professes optimism for the future
generations. “But as racism leads America up to the suicide path, I do believe, from
experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the
colleges and universities will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn
to the spiritual path of truth – the only way left in America to ward off the disaster that
racism inevitably must lead to.”39 This declaration may be directly related to a situation
that occurred several years prior, while Malcolm was a member of the Nation of Islam.
Following a speech he gave at a New England college, a young white student tracked him
down in a Harlem restaurant. She confronted Malcolm, proclaiming that not all white
Americans were bad people and she pleaded with him to allow her to help him in his
quest for equality, asking Malcolm plainly, “What can I do?” Malcolm replied with an
unhesitant “Nothing.”40 When he later reflected upon this incident Malcolm stated that
he had never encountered another human being more affected by his words than this
young woman.41 Thanks to his pilgrimage, Malcolm was now able to see how this action
was unnecessary and that not all white individuals were “devils.”
When Malcolm returned to the United States on May 21, 1964, two days after he
turned thirty-nine, Malcolm began his work as a new leader within the Civil Rights
Movement.42 Malcolm continued to work diligently leading the Muslim Mosque Inc.
and the OAAU. He always understood the danger in speaking out, but he also felt that it
was his duty. He explains this feeling in the final passage of his autobiography, “I have
cherished my ‘demagogue’ role. I know that societies often have killed the people who
have helped change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having
exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant
in the body of America – then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have
38
Ibid., 348.
Ibid., 348.
40
Ibid., 292.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 367.
39
125
�been mine.”43 Despite Malcolm’s optimism for the future, the Nation of Islam under the
lead of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad would not allow it. In fact, he continued to
speak out against Malcolm X and his new organizations, and the conflict between them
continued to develop and even became dangerous. At approximately 2:45 am on
February 15, 1965, Malcolm’s personal home in East Elmhurst, Queens was attacked
with a firebomb while he, his wife, and four daughters were in the home. Although there
was not enough hard evidence to prove it, many people believed this attack was
committed by the Nation of Islam.44 This violent act caused great damage to the
Shabazz’s home as well as produced fear because the attack was not only against
Malcolm but his entire family. The Nation of Islam viewed Malcolm to be a traitor and
there is only one proper punishment for a traitor, death.45
On February 21, 1965 the OAAU had planned a public forum featuring the
speaker Reverend Milton Galamison who was very involved in the desegregation
movement within New York City. This forum was set to take place at the Audubon
Ballroom which is located at West 166 St and Broadway in what then was referred to as
Harlem but now is considered to be Washington Heights.46 Unlike other OAAU
sponsored events, on this particular day the NYPD did not assign police officers to the
building.47 About 300 to 400 individuals attended this seminar which was planned to
begin at 2pm, but not until around 3:10pm did the speaker, Rev. Galaminson’s secretary
phone James Shabazz, one of the OAAU’s personnel who planned that afternoon’s event,
to inform him that the reverend would not be able to appear that day. The organization’s
leaders made the decision to run the program despite this news. At this point, Malcolm
took the stage at the Audubon Ballroom to “enthusiastic applause.”48 His wife and
daughters were sitting in the audience that day, which is unusual because Betty,
Malcolm’s wife, did not attend many functions. After Malcolm greeted the audience,
there was a disturbance in the audience. A man stood up and yelled, “Take your hands
43
Ibid, 389.
Handler, M. S. “Malcolm X Flees Firebomb Attack.” New York Times, 15 February
1965.
45
Aalmuhammed, Jefri and Jack Baxter. Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm
X. DVD, Urban Swami: 1994.
46
Marable, Manning. “The Assassination of Malcolm X.” Harlem Digital Archive:
Harlem’s Heritage. Columbia University. 16 July 2008, track 12.
47
Ibid..
48
Marable, Manning. “The Assassination of Malcolm X.” Harlem Digital Archive:
Harlem’s Heritage. Columbia University. 16 July 2008, track 12.
44
126
�out of my pocket.”49 This causes the security staffers positioned throughout the ballroom
to move toward the men causing the interruption. Malcolm said into the microphone,
“Hold it, hold it, don’t get excited. Let’s cool it brothers.”50 At this point two or three
men sitting in the front row began to move toward the podium. A man with the shotgun
is assumed to have fired the first shot approximately fifteen feet from Malcolm. This
shot hit Malcolm X in the center of his chest and entered his heart. It caused him to fall
backward hitting the stage. This is when the other gunmen rushed his body and shot him
several additional times with .45 and .38 caliber handguns.51 Days later the medical
examiner released a statement which explained that there were thirteen separate wounds
counted, some in his chest and heart as well his thighs and legs. Also the tip of his
middle finger on his left hand was blown off. After Malcolm was shot, chaos ensued,
and all but one of the gunmen escaped. The crowds caught Thomas Hagan, a 22 year old
African American, before he was able to flee the auditorium.52 He was shot in the left leg
by Ruben Francis the only OAAU security personnel armed that afternoon. The NYPD,
who were passing by the Audubon Ballroom inadvertently, arrested Hagan after an angry
crowd shuffled him out of the auditorium.53 Some witnesses of the shooting rushed to
Columbia University’s Hospital, just a few blocks from the Audubon Ballroom, to return
with a stretcher. After placing Malcolm’s blood drenched body onto the stretcher they
wheeled him back to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Malcolm X was just
thirty nine years old…
Malcolm X’s, or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s, life and work was cut short and
his followers felt his loss as a defeat for a better future. At his funeral the famous actor
Ossie Davis was asked to give Malcolm X’s eulogy. Mr. Davis formulated a message
that represents Malcolm X and what he believed with truthful eloquence.
“Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this storm, controversial
young captain? We will smile. They will say he is of hate, a fanatic, a
racist, and we will answer: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did
you ever touch him or have him talk you? Did you ever really listen to
49
Ibid.
Ibid.
51
Ibid.
52
Kihss, Peter. “Malcolm X Shot to Death at Rally Here.” New York Times, 22 February
1965.
53
Marable, Manning. “The Assassination of Malcolm X.” Harlem Digital Archive:
Harlem’s Heritage. Columbia University. 16 July 2008, track 12.
50
127
�him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated
with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would
know him. Malcolm was our manhood. This was his meaning to our
people. And in honoring him we honor the best in ourselves. And we
will know if then for what he was and is, a prince, our own black
shining prince. Who did not hesitate to die because he loved us so.”54
These words and this “image framed Malcolm from that moment to this day.”55 As Ossie
Davis noted, with better education related to Malcolm X and his philosophy, his legacy
would be treated with great honor and respect. Malcolm was able to transform
throughout his life always progressing in a positive manner. He endangered his own
well-being to fight for what he believed to be right. Yet he was feared and considered to
be a “fanatic” and a “radical,” but with a closer look it is understood that in reality he was
simply a man who recognized the nightmare and also lived for a dream.
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Sulzberger, C. L. “Foreign Affairs: Neither Partition nor Black Zion”, New York Times,
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Turner, Wallace. “Militancy urged on U. S. Negroes”, New York Times, November 26,
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132
�Religion and Aestheticism in Joyce's
Portrait: Truth in Beauty
Jeanna Ritto (Arts Administration)1
Stephen Dedalus, the main character of James Joyce’s autobiographical A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is a boy just trying to make sense of the world and
how he fits into it. In the first chapters of the book, where Stephen is still a child, he
believes that the only way he can achieve understanding is through God, because that is
what he was always taught. As the story progresses, Stephen’s worship of God and belief
in the Catholic Church fades, but he finds a new phenomenon to worship: beauty. In his
later years, he attempts to achieve understanding through his art, rather than organized
religion. The transition from his belief in a divine power to his belief in beauty and
aestheticism is fascinating process. By the end of the novel, after many trials and
tribulations, Stephen Dedalus succeeds in creating a kind of religion of beauty, but it is
revealed to be an elaborate, albeit eloquent and lovely, escape from reality. The question
is whether or not he will be able to reconcile life and art in the new religion of beauty that
he has created.
Stephen’s actions throughout most of the novel are governed by the strict laws
of the Catholic Church. It is not until the end of Part IV (the book contains five parts) that
he has an epiphany which causes him to reject the commandments of the institution. As a
child in a strict Irish Catholic home and a Catholic school, he has no choice but to
observe Catholicism. He does not question the idea that God will lead him to
understanding and knowledge. But when he attempts to imagine God’s supreme power, it
makes “him feel his head very big” (Joyce 13). He considers the universe and its vastness
and comes to the conclusion that “It was very big to think about everything and
everywhere. Only God could do that” (Joyce 13). But while he recognizes the supremacy,
he goes on to say, that even imagining such immensity makes his head spin. He
acknowledges the existence and influence of God, but even as a child he begins to realize
that he cannot understand it.
He also is shown the controversy and politics involved with organized religion
at a young age. When he returns home from school for the Christmas holidays, his father
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Erica Johnson (English) for the honors course
EN311: Modern English & Irish Literature.
133
�and the characters Dante and Mr. Casey engage in an explosive argument over Christmas
dinner over the death of a well known Irish politician, Charles Parnell. Mr. Casey and
Mr. Dedalus mourn the death of the great leader, while Dante scorns him as a heretic and
adulterer. The height of the argument scene is both frightening and awe-inspiring. It also
shows the enormous importance placed on religion in Ireland at the time and the
enormous political controversy that surrounded and began to overpower it:
“- God and religion before everything! Dante cried. God and religion
before the world!
Mr. Casey raised his clenched fist and brought it down on the table
with a crash.
- Very well, then, he shouted hoarsely, if it comes to that, no God for
Ireland!” (Joyce 38)
The passion and intensity in this passage exemplifies the massive magnitude of
the hold of Catholicism over Ireland. Dante, a strict Irish Catholic, can barely listen to
such blasphemy for fear of sinning, while Mr. Casey and Mr. Dedalus, nationalists before
devout Christians, feel that there must be a separation of church and state. Stephen does
not quite understand the exact subject that is being discussed, nor can he grasp the issue
at hand. He does, however, understand the fervor with which the topic is being discussed.
At the end of the argument, he is both terrified and amazed by the effect that the
argument has on his elders: “Stephen, raising his terrorstricken face, saw that his father’s
eyes were full of tears” (Joyce 39).
So, considering the incredible influence that Catholicism had over Stephen
Dedalus’s life, how does he fall into a world of vice and sin? For as he grows older and
his family moves to the city of Dublin, he begins to explore and perform actions that
would certainly be frowned upon by the Church. Masturbation, sex, and desire will begin
to consume him. What is the driving force behind the adolescent Stephen’s unholy
expeditions? The shift is due to the combination of his quest for beauty and his family’s
fall from economic prosperity, argues James Naremore in his essay entitled
“Consciousness and Society in Joyce’s Portrait.” Naremore states that Stephen “longs for
a beauty which ‘has not yet come into the world,’ but his longing has a clear basis in the
gentlemanly prosperity of his childhood” (Naremore 118). But Stephen himself cannot
clearly identify this desire, although he would very much like to satisfy it: “he burned to
appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien.
He cared little that he was in mortal sin…” (Joyce 105). He tries to satisfy the longing
134
�through lust and sex, and his encounter with a young Dublin prostitute is the turning point
from his quest for understanding through sin and his return to religion.
After his rebellious teenage endeavors, Stephen truly repents his moral crimes.
He is overcome with a sense of guilt, brought on by the strict laws of Catholicism which
he has so blatantly broken. His sins seem to build on top of one another and increase.
They become a chain from which he cannot seem to escape:
“From the evil seed of lust all other deadly sins had sprung forth: pride
in himself and contempt of others, covetousness in using money for the purchase
of unlawful pleasure, envy of those whose vices he could not reach to and
calumnious murmuring against the pious, gluttonous enjoyment of food, the dull
glowering anger amid which he brooded upon his longing, the swamp of
spiritual and bodily sloth in which his whole being had sunk” (Joyce 113).
His first sin had a snowball effect. Lust was followed by the rest of the seven
deadly sins, at least in his own mind, and he cannot be at rest until he atones for his
mistakes through confession and penance. This is just a further example of the influence
that Catholicism has on him; he cannot be pure and whole until he is purged of all that the
Catholic Church deems unholy. This is impressed on him both by his own conscience and
by the Church itself; following his sinful acts, he attends several sermons about the fires
of hell and tortures that await him should he continue on his “evil” path.
Joyce’s hell-fire sermons could be considered a fusion of religion and beauty
simply in the style in which they are written, and indeed, it is possible that the passion
and eloquence of the sermons lead Stephen to find the beauty in his faith. Joyce seems to
have drawn on an actual sermon with the title Hell Opened by Father Giovanni Pietro
Pinamonti, according to an article by Elizabeth F. Boyd entitled “Joyce’s Hell-Fire
Sermons.” She states that the passage in the novel “constitutes an effective attack by
Joyce, all the more so because he denies himself any ostentatious caricature, sneering, or
facetiousness, maintaining instead a dignified solemnity, which is in keeping with
Stephen’s honest experience, and above all using an actual Jesuit document” (Boyd 571).
The serious and solemn nature in which the piece is written increases its effect on the
reader, and the fact that it is drawn from a real religious document lends it that much
more power and impact.
A particularly beautiful part of the hell-fire sermons which bears a striking
resemblance to Hell Opened discusses the question of light in hell. The Joyce version, the
sermon that Stephen hears, is as follows:
135
�“For, remember, the fire of hell gives forth no light. As, at the
command of God, the fire of the Babylonian furnace lost its heat but not it’s
light so, at the command of God, the fire of hell, while retaining the intensity of
its heat, burns eternally in darkness. It is a neverending storm of darkness, dark
flames and dark smoke of burning brimstone…” (Joyce 129).
The Pinamonti text has phrases which are nearly identical to this passage;
“…there will be fire but deprived of light…;” “...what was wrought in the Babylonian
furnace…;” “But in hell the fire will lose its light but not its heat” (Boyd 564). Joyce’s
imagery and repetition, however, lend a certain amount of passion and terrifying beauty
that the original sermon could not quite achieve. For example, the repetition of the word
“dark” in Joyce’s sermon gives the idea of darkness in hell perfect “clarity and emphasis”
(Boyd 565). As a result of this dramatic and zealous sermon, Stephen is left in awe and
utter fear. It is this sermon that makes him fear the punishment of hell so deeply that he
fervently embarks on his path of reconciliation.
Once Stephen confesses his many sins to a priest, he is overcome with a feeling
of peace and tranquility. He believed that “His soul was made fair and holy once more,
holy and happy” (Joyce 157). Now that the guilt of sin is gone from him, he begins to see
such beauty in his life. He appreciates little things that he seems to have never noticed
before, and this is described with detailed and fervent imagery:
“Till that moment he had not known how beautiful and peaceful life
could be. The green square of paper pinned round the lamp cast down a tender
shade. On the dresser was a plate of sausages and white puddings and on the
shelf there were eggs… How simple and beautiful was life after all! And life lay
all before him” (Joyce 158).
Although Stephen may now recognize that one of his passions and desires is
beauty, it is not quite yet time for his complete turn to his religion of beauty that comes in
later in the novel. After his encounter with the prostitute, religion and beauty begin to
coincide; in his penance for his deeds, he finds beauty in his faith. He must seek
understanding through “the only means left open to him – childhood fantasy, religion,
and aestheticism” (Naremore 118). He begins to feel that there is beauty in the church
itself, and that religious beauty has the ability to save the soul from Hell: “For a while
Stephen believes the Church will spare him the torments of hell, leading him upward to a
prosperous, aetheticized heaven” (Naremore 120). With his return to a strict Catholic
school, he throws himself wholeheartedly into the rituals and procedures of the religion in
136
�order to atone. He believes after a few months of intense reconciliation that he is a new
man. “I have amended my life, have I not? he asked himself” (Joyce 166).
Indeed, the changes in his demeanor and the enthusiasm with which he throws
himself into his religious endeavors catch the eyes of the priests at the institution, and it is
suggested to Stephen that he consider joining the priesthood. He confesses that he has
imagined himself as a priest and has entertained the idea before it was suggested to him.
To have the idea recommended to him by one already of the order is a great honor to
Stephen, and he feels great pride. The priest warns him that he must be absolutely sure
that he has a calling before he agrees to begin the necessary rituals to become a priest,
and he leaves the chapel with the priest and slowly walks around, imagining himself as a
reverend, hearing confession, wondering which room of the Jesuit house he would
occupy, thinking about how he would feel on his first day as an ordained priest.
However, at the same time that these images are passing through Stephen’s
mind, he begins to feel resistance to the idea that he has given such great thought to. In
thinking of the strict order and pomp of that life, he wonders if that is his purpose and if it
is what he truly desires, for as the priest says, “Once a priest always a priest” (Joyce 173).
The thought that the priesthood would be wrong for him occurs to him quite suddenly:
“Some instinct, waking at these memories, stronger than education or piety, quickened
within him at every near approach to that life, an instinct subtle and hostile, and armed
him against acquiescence” (Joyce 174). Although he has considered priesthood in his
mind, once the idea is voiced, he begins to understand that his purpose in life is not a
religious one, even considering the influence that Catholicism has had on his life. The
longer he dwells on the thought, the more resistant he is to the idea, until finally, he
rejects it outright: “His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders… He was
destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others
himself wandering among the snares of the word” (Joyce 175).
Stephen is coming ever closer to his complete transition from organized religion
to his religion of beauty. He now begins to explore his interest in the power of words and
the beauty of literature. He contemplates the rhythm and colors of words and the beauty
of language:
“Words. Was it their colours? … No, it was not their colours: it was the
poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall
of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that… he
drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the
prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the
137
�contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a
lucid supple periodic prose?” (Joyce 181).
Finding the beauty in such a simple concept as language further pushes Stephen
on his path to self-discovery. He begins to use language and writing as an escape: “He
thinks of himself as an artist-aristocrat, using imagination to free himself from the
twentieth century Dublin” (Naremore 121). From the moment he loses his fear of eternal
punishment and his childlike innocence and blind pursual of salvation, he wants nothing
more than to discover and create beauty, and he feels that the city of Dublin impedes this
quest.
Finally, Stephen reaches that moment where the transition is complete, and he
worships beauty above all other deities. It begins, simply, with the sound of his name.
Somehow, when he hears someone calling his name: “now, as never before, his strange
name seemed to him a prophecy… This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross
voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the
pale service of the altar” (Joyce 183-184). He connects his name to the mythical Icarus,
son of Daedalus, who flew too near the sun and melted his wax wings that were so
carefully crafted by his father. He hears in this name his calling to his true purpose: to
craft out of words something unique and striking. If he errs or falls, as is inevitable, he
will learn from his mistakes and carry on with his art. He draws inspiration not only from
the successes, but the failures of Icarus as well. Stephen Dedalus breaks away from the
church as a new man, ready to fulfill his desires and satisfy his passions: “He would
create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name
he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable” (Joyce
184).
Soon after this he experiences an epiphany which brings his faith in his new
religion of beauty full circle. He sees a girl standing alone in the water, calmly and
peacefully. Her skirts are gathered around her legs and her hair trails down her back
elegantly. She makes eye contact with Stephen for a prolonged amount of time, and when
she finally breaks her gaze, he is overcome with an experience of utter and complete
bliss: “Heavenly God! cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of profane joy” (Joyce 186).
She is beautiful, and she inspires Stephen as no one ever has. She almost becomes his
muse, in that the image of her as Stephen will always remember her will inspire him to
create and preserve beauty:
“Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken
the holy silence of his ecstasy… To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate
138
�life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and
beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an
instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory” (Joyce 186).
Apart from stirring his passion to create, the appearance of the girl somehow
reconciles some of the evils of sin. He realizes that trial and error is an acceptable way to
learn and grow, that to fall is to discover. But he still fears, in an almost subconscious
way, that which the Catholic Church sees as sinful. In order to create the art that he
envisions, Stephen must learn to put aside his resistance to emotional attachment and
sexuality that has stayed with him even with his departure from the Church. He still feels
some aversion to sexuality and sexual desire, believing that truly beautiful images are
pure and sexless. Still, the appearance of the girl and his epiphany marks the final turning
point between religion and aestheticism for Stephen.
Stephen feels that up to this point, the church had been stifling him, holding him
back from fulfilling his true desires. However, his ideals of beauty and his new “religion”
still bear some striking resemblances to those of Christianity. According to The
Conscience of James Joyce by Darcy O’Brien, “Joyce reminds the reader of the
passionless, mystical nature of Stephen’s ideal of beauty by interweaving religious
imagery with the bird imagery” (O’Brien 7). He then goes on to describe some eerie
similarities between the girl herself and the Christian female idol, the Virgin Mary; the
primary colors mentioned in the description of the girl are “ivory flesh, blue skirts, ‘fair’
yellow hair…” (O’Brien 7). These are the colors commonly associated with the Virgin
Mary. In addition, Stephen’s only verbal reaction to his encounter with the girl is
“Heavenly God!” an exclamation which immediately precedes the reference to the girl as
an angel. He is still apart from the Church, but certain aspects of it have followed him
and made their way into his new ideals and ambitions: “Even after Stephen has left the
Church, even after he has determined that the Church is too restrictive for him to remain
within it, he continues in precisely the same way to attempt to erect barriers against the
sordid and ineluctable tides of life” (O’Brien 25).
Still, beauty takes precedence over faith for Stephen, because by the end of the
novel, that is his faith. Stephen’s idea of beauty is that it is a divine being in itself: “To
him the word beauty connotes all of the otherworldliness, indeed all of the escapism of
his youthful quest for an unsubstantial image” (O’Brien 14). Not only is beauty the deity
which Stephen worships, it is the force that drives him and gives him strength. Passionate
and concentrated, “Stephen’s devotion to beauty frees him from weakness and timidity,
aids him in his flight from the Church, and is therefore essential to his development as an
139
�artist” (O’Brien 21). His quest gives him confidence and allows him to pursue a talent
that would have been smothered under the scrutinizing gaze of the Catholic Church.
More than anything else, Stephen’s religion of beauty is his attempt to escape
sexual desire and impurity. He attempts to separate his mind from his body. His creator
Joyce, however, “understands, as Stephen does not, that art cannot be disassociated from
the human passions that inspire it” (Naremore 126). Joyce also realizes, as Stephen
cannot, that “the priesthood of art, the pure aestheticism which Stephen embraces after he
has forsaken the church, functions as yet another means of rejecting the body” (Naremore
126). Although he has progressed significantly from the start of the novel, Stephen is still
childlike in his aversion to sexuality and denial of physical desire, even as he rejects the
church and accepts sin to an extent. Stephen “hopes to escape into the free, pure air of art;
but until he recognizes that no life is completely isolate, until he learns to accept and
properly criticize his actual experience, he cannot be a poet or even a mature individual”
(Naremore 127).
The separation of art from life is both the most important and most flawed
aspect of Stephen’s aesthetic theory. There is much that he still must learn, and he still
must let go of some ideals that have stayed with him even after his deviation from the
Catholic Church:
“Though a rebel from the Church, Stephen is really following with
religious fervor a tendency marked in him since childhood… He constructs an
aesthetic theory which would exclude from art the loathsome aspects of
existence. If his art is to comprehend life, Stephen must confront the motley
nature of reality…” (O’Brien 32).
In other words, to produce art that is a reflection of life as Stephen hopes to do,
he must learn to face some of the unpleasant aspects of true life that he would rather
avoid. Beauty should encompass the “aesthetic whole” (O’Brien 33), combining that
which truly is beautiful and some of that which is perhaps objectionable. But Stephen
apparently feels differently: “Clearly [he] means by beauty both an absence of moral
content and the showing forth of a loveliness as ethereal as that of the Virgin” (O’Brien
33).
Stephen’s efforts to separate art and reality are futile: he cannot create true
beauty without the life experience to back it up. His attempts become nothing more than
an elaborate lie:
“The position of one who tries to protect his ideals from contamination
by unpleasant reality is always precarious: reality eventually persuades the
140
�idealist either to modify his ideals of lie to himself. Thus Stephen Dedalus,
indulging in something close to self-deception, discourses upon aesthetics to the
boorish Lynch, turns erotic dreams into religious hymns, and finally tries to
elude the sordid tides of life by escaping from Ireland altogether” (O’Brien 40).
In the final chapter of Portrait, the “elaborate defense mechanism” (Naremore
121) really takes shape. His attempt to escape, as discussed above, is not only an escape
from Ireland physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. But, as it is stated time and
time again, if he is to be a true artist, Stephen must learn to accept that which he would
rather change. His work cannot be complete if it does not take all aspects of life into
account. Indeed, even as he verbalizes a desire to keep the two separate, he cannot help
combining life and his art. He combines the Catholic ideals with which he was raised
with the ideals of beauty he now possesses: “A break from the authority of the Church
did not mean a purging of characteristic Catholic habits of mind” (O’Brien 39). He
resists, resists, resists; but always he returns to his roots and creates art that is a reflection
of life.
Again, Joyce is wiser than his protagonist; he knows that there must be balance
and harmony. He is aware of his transition between Catholicism and aestheticism, and the
impact which both had on his life and his work: “he was quite conscious of the kinship
between his abandoned formal religion and his succeeding spirituality… he was able to
say to his wife, ‘You have been to my young manhood what the idea of the Blessed
Virgin was to my boyhood” (O’Brien 40). The reader gets a sense that Joyce is observing
his protagonist with a smirk, having already lived Stephen’s life and learned the lessons
which Stephen has yet to experience. He “leaves Stephen at the end of the Portrait on the
brink of disillusion, a disillusion foreshadowed by Stephen’s own self-doubts and by
Joyce’s subtle criticisms of his protagonist” (O’Brien 32). One can assume that Stephen
will learn in time, as Joyce did, that beauty encompasses more than that which is pure and
flawless.
The last few pages of Part V of Portrait are the only ones where it is possible to
imagine that Stephen may be beginning to accept some form of reality. Quite different
from the rest of the third-person novel, these last few pages are written in the form of
journal entries. It is jolted, fragmented, following a stream of consciousness in bits of
sentences that, while incomplete, somehow make perfect sense. They seem to be
Stephen’s musings about his day to day observations and activities, and have quite a
different effect than the rest of the novel. Whereas the previous chapters are consistent
and flowing (except for the childlike beginning of the novel), the diary entries are almost
141
�a test of his literary ability, a place for him to write possible bits of poems or stories:
“Faintly, under the heavy night, through the silence of the city which has turned from
dreams to dreamless sleep as a weary lover whom no caresses move, the sound of hoofs
upon the road” (Joyce 274). The following entry is his wondering whether “she” will like
what he has written, if it will impress “her.” He is writing with a purpose now, perfecting
his skill, becoming a true artist. More importantly, he is writing about things he has seen,
things that are real.
The journal entries also mention his departure from the Church through the
means of a conversation with his mother. In discussing the Virgin Mary with his mother,
he comments that the story of the Trinity is more in line with Catholic beliefs than the
story of the Holy Family – that is, the family that includes Mary. His mother responds
kindly, blaming this theory on his “queer mind” (Joyce 271) and an overdose of reading.
She then tells him that he “would come back to faith because [he] had a restless mind.
This means to leave church by the backdoor of sin and reenter through the skylight of
repentance” (Joyce 271). But Stephen, rejecting the Church as he has, cannot and will not
repent. Perhaps he is refusing to repent due to stubborn rebellion; however, it seems more
likely at this point in the text that Stephen is finally starting to reconcile art and reality,
and to repent and return to the Church would mean a rejection of his new “priesthood of
art.” After coming so far in his journey, Stephen is finally on the path to achieving his
ultimate goal: to become a true artist.
So, has Stephen, by the end of the novel, managed to bring together his life and
his art fully and truly create a new order? It would appear that if he has not completely
accepted it yet, he almost certainly will, and is already on the path towards that
achievement. The reader can assume that Stephen will become an artist in the true sense
of the word, and that his art will imitate life. Indeed, the success of James Joyce, the
inspiration for Stephen’s character, could be quite a hint. And if nothing else, the second
to last line of the novel almost definitely confirms Stephen’s religion of beauty as a
legitimate source of inspiration for an artist: “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the
millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the
uncreated conscience of my race” (Joyce 276).
142
�Works Cited
Boyd, Elizabeth F. “James Joyce’s Hell-Fire Sermons”, Modern Language Notes, Vol.
75, No. 7 (Nov. 1960), pp. 561 – 571.
Connolly, Thomas E. Joyce’s Portrait: Criticisms and Critiques. University of Buffalo:
New York, 1962.
Hutchins, Patricia. James Joyce’s World. Methuen & Co., Ltd.: London 1957.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Penguin Books Ltd: New York,
1916.
Naremore, James. “Conscience and Society in A Portrait of the Artist”, Benstock,
Bernard and Thomas F. Staley. Approaches to Joyce’s Portrait: Ten Essays. University of
Pittsburg Press, 1976.
O’Brien, Darcy. The Conscience of James Joyce. Princeton University Press: New
Jersey, 1968.
143
�
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 2 The Anterior Midgut of Larval Yellow Fever Mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti): Effects of Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage and Strong Luminal Alkalinization / Sejmir Izeirovski, Dr. Stacia B. Moffett, Dr. David F. Moffett and Dr. Horst Onken -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 18 Traumatic Incidents: Psychopathology in Children of First Responders / Jacob Miner -- 37 The Link between Autism and Childhood Vaccines / Stacy R. Stingo -- 46 The Influence of an Intervention with Relationally Aggressive High School Females / Christina Herrera -- Section III: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 66 Homosexuality and Gender Dissidence: Acting Out in Fin-de-Siècle Paris, Vienna and Berlin / Shane Courtney -- 79 Vesalius and Renaissance Anatomy / Amanda Gland -- 90 The Women of Heart of Darkness / Jenna Pocius -- 100 The Role of Quotidian Women in the French Revolution: 1789-1795 (English Summary) / Nicole Mahoney -- 102 The Role of Quotidian Women in the French Revolution: 1789-1795 / Nicole Mahoney -- 113 Malcolm X: The Man and the Myth / Justina Licata -- 133 Religion and Aestheticism in Joyce's Portrait: Truth in Beauty / Jeanna Ritto
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Fall 2009
Volume VIII, Number 1
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural
Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are
limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
This issue contains a special section for articles motivated by courses that bring about an
awareness of global concerns, explore the diverse peoples of American society and
enhance the students' ability to examine the influence of different cultures, ethnicities,
etc. These “I” and “D” courses are an essential component of the College's general
education core and its mission.
The interested reader will find much on the pages that follow. The first section contains
the abstracts of papers and posters presented at the Eastern Colleges Science Conference
hosted by Wagner College on April 25th, 2009. Dr. Donald Stearns, President of the
ECSC and a member of this journal's Editorial Board, along with Prof. Linda Raths and
Ms. Stephanie Rollizo, organized the event which was attended by faculty and students
from twenty peer institutions. Moving on are scientific theses addressing the use of
electrical fields to inhibit bacterial growth, the therapeutic community that emerges
following a disaster and behavior therapy for anxiety disorders. The interested reader will
then come upon a reprint of Jenna Pocius' critical analysis of Joseph Conrad's Heart of
Darkness and her new paper on Orhan Pamuk’s Snow. Also, be sure not to miss Shayne
Zaslow's article on homosexuality and transgender and, last but not least, the special
section entitled “Intercultural Understanding”.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Patricia Tooker, Nursing
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
Dr. Erica Johnson1, English
1
Sabbatical replacement for Dr. Peter Sharpe
��Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference1
Abstracts
2 Linear and Non-Linear Oscillation of a Pendulum
Jacqueline Scanlon
2 The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba as a Result of
Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation
Ryan Patricia Rogers and Dr. Ammini S. Moorthy
2
The Effects of Oscillating Electrical Fields on Escherichia coli and
Staphylococcus aureus
Yuliya Seldina and Joseph Scala
3 The 3N+1 Problem
Crystal Kilkenny
3 More Than Just Mean Girls: Intervention on Bystanders to Relational
Aggression
Christina Herrera
4 Effects of Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage and Strong Luminal
Alkalinization
Sejmir Izeirovski, Dr. Stacia B. Moffett, Dr. David F. Moffett and Dr. Horst Onken
5
Bohr Theory Studies
Peter Acerios
5
Morphological Characterization of Neurovasculature and Whole
Blood of the Adult Zebra Fish (Danio rerio)
Marlene Streisinger, Lauren Levy, Zulmarie Franco, Prof. Linda Raths,
Christopher Corbo and Dr. Zoltan Fulop
6 Preparation of Thin Sections of Drosophila Ovaries for Examination
by Transmission Electron Microscopy
Tanya Modica, Georgia Dellas, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Heather A. Cook
1
Papers and posters presented at the 63rd Eastern Colleges Science Conference held in Staten
Island, NY on April 25, 2009.
�6
Sticky Situations: From Failing Prophecies to Peanut Butter and Jellies
Dana Trottier
7 Use of Squashed Retina and Optic Tectum to Study Regenerative
Capacities of the Visual System in Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Michael Gutkin, Anna Lysenko, Christopher Corbo, Prof. Linda Raths and
Dr. Zoltan Fulop
7 Evaporation Studies
Melanie Cambria and Rachel Chille
8 Effectiveness of Selenium Supplementation in Combating Cytotoxicity
of Arsenic due to Ingestion of Arsenic from Groundwater in
Bangladesh
Erida Behri, Meaghan Robbins and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin
8 The Role of Runx2 Y433a in Osteoblast Differentiation
Thomas Beesley, Dr. Gary Stein and Dr. Yang Lou
9 Gender Differences Created by Urinary Creatinine Adjustments Made
to Heavy Metal Measurements
Christopher Cappelli, Mary Gamble, X. Liu, Pamela Factor-Litvak, Vesna
Slavkovic and Dr. Joseph Graziano
10 Electrical Suppression of Bacterial Growth & Reproduction
Joseph Scala and Yuliya Seldina
10 The Effects of Different Ethanol Concentrations on the Activity Level
of Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Lauren Levy and Dr. Brian Palestis
Section II: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Papers
12 The Effect of Oscillating Electrical Fields on the Growth of
Escherichia coli
Yuliya Seldina, Joseph Scala, Dr. Gregory Falabella, Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt and
Dr. Roy Mosher
�Section III: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
34 Communities in Disaster: A Model for Social Support Outcomes,
Deterioration, and Social Role Resiliency
Gretchen Jacobs
63 The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment
of Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Anjuli Chitkara
Section IV: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
82 The Women of Heart of Darkness
Jenna Pocius
92 The Problems With Passing: When Categories Don’t Fit
Shayne Zaslow
111 The Function of Narration in Orhan Pamuk’s Snow
Jenna Pocius
Section V: Intercultural Understanding
118 Laura Cereta and Humanist Theory on Female Education in 15th
and16th Century Italy
Nicole Mahoney
128 Colonization and Injustice in Horacio Quiroga’s Juan Darién
Stephanie Berrios
135 Dreams of ‘Home’ in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Marina McFarland
147 Machiavelli’s Nature
James Messina
155 Weight of Womanhood: The Condition of Women in African
Literature
Sarah Nehm
��Section I: Eastern Colleges
Science Conference
�Linear and Non-Linear Oscillation of a Pendulum
Jacqueline Scanlon (Physics) 1
A study of linear and non-linear oscillations of the simple pendulum will be presented.
Precise statistical measurements of the acceleration due to gravity will also be presented
using linear data.
The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba
as a Result of Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation
Ryan Patricia Rogers (Biology) and Dr. Ammini S. Moorthy (Biological Sciences)
The Vicia faba, a species of bean, is a popular subject for cytogenetic studies. Its diploid
chromosome number is equal to twelve and the chromosomes are fairly large, making
them more easily identified. Research conducted with Vicia faba has provided the
scientific community with an abundance of information regarding mutations. These occur
as a result of mutagens that cause breaks in the chromosomes. The aim of this study was
to determine the chromosomal aberrations caused by Ultraviolet A and Ultraviolet B rays
on the chromosomes in the Vicia faba bean plant. This was achieved through statistical
analysis. For the purposes of this experiment, the root tip was viewed at the highest
magnification under an oil immersion lens (1000X). This allowed for proper
identification of the kinds of aberrations caused by UV light. To study these effects,
several groups of root tips were treated in different conditions. Three groups were treated
with colchicine to remove the spindle fibers, while three were left alone so the phases of
mitosis can be observed.
The Effects of Oscillating Electrical Fields on
Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus
Yuliya Seldina (Microbiology) and Joseph Scala (Microbiology)2
The discovery of disease-causing microorganisms and the formulation of the Germ
Theory of Disease prompted research aimed at inhibiting the growth and reproduction of
1
2
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Gregory Falabella (Physics),
Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology) and Dr. Roy Mosher (Microbiology)
2
�pathogens. At first a variety of methods were investigated. The discovery and success of
antibiotics in curing bacterial infections and increasing human life expectancy, however,
biased efforts towards chemical treatments. Viruses and degenerative conditions such as
cancer and AIDS have not responded well to this approach and continue to claim many
lives. Furthermore, the number of antibiotic-resistant strains is rapidly increasing as is the
price/number of medications consumed by the average person. With the cost of health
care soaring, one wonders if maybe a more efficacious (albeit less profitable) or
complimentary means of tackling the problem has been overlooked. This study was
conducted to investigate the effects oscillating electrical fields have on Escherichia coli
and Staphylococcus aureus. The question posed is, can the frequency of the field be tuned
to induce a resonant effect specific only to the organism itself? Tests conducted using a
sinusoidal waveform at frequencies ranging from 10-300,000 Hz were conducted and
yielded encouraging results in the 3±0.5 kHz range. Further studies are being conducted
to better understand the actual effect of the electrical fields on the bacteria.
The 3N+1 Problem3
Crystal Kilkenny (Mathematics)4
This presentation presents preliminary work done on the 3N+1 Problem (also known as
the Hailstone or Syracuse Problem). Typical number spectrums and path statistics will be
presented.
More Than Just Mean Girls: Intervention
on Bystanders to Relational Aggression5
Christina Herrera (Psychology)6
This quasi-experiment was conducted as a preliminary study in order to develop a
quantitative measure of student's responses to relational aggression. Bystanders to
relationally aggressive acts often have a limited number of solutions to employ when
faced with bullying. This study examines the ability of fourth grade students to identify
solutions to acts of relational aggression from the role of the bystander. The SARA
3
Recipient of Excellence Award for Platform Presentation in Mathematics and Physics
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
5
Recipient of Excellence Award for Platform Presentation in Psychology
6
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology)
4
3
�(Students Against Relational Aggression) program was developed in order to reduce
relational aggression in the classroom. SARA is a 10-week relational aggression
intervention program in which participants learn to identify and resist relational
aggression. The participants in this study included 41 students, both male and female,
from two fourth grade classrooms. The classrooms were randomly assigned to either
receive the intervention or to the control group (which received the intervention
following the posttest for the current study). Participants completed two qualitative
scenario questionnaires before and after the intervention. The results fail to reject the null
hypothesis; students who took part in the intervention did not have a significant positive
change in self-reported responses to relational aggression compared to the control group.
This research explores how students respond to relational aggression and the effects of
the SARA intervention.
Effects of Nutrients on the Transepithelial
Voltage and Strong Luminal Alkalinization7
Sejmir Izeirovski (Biology), Dr. Stacia B. Moffett8 (Biological Sciences),
Dr. David F. Moffett8 (Biological Sciences) and Dr. Horst Onken (Biological Sciences)
Isolated anterior midguts of larval Aedes aegypti were bathed in mosquito saline
containing serotonin (0.2 umol l-1) perfused with NaCl (100 mmol l-1). The lumen
negative transepithelial voltage (Vte) was measured and luminal alkalinization was
determined through the color change of luminal m-cresol purple from yellow to purple
after luminal perfusion stops. Addition of 10 mmol l-1 amino acids (arginine, glutamine
histidine or proline) or dicarboxylic acids (malate or succinate) to the luminal perfusate
resulted in more negative Vte values, whereas addition of glucose had no effect. In the
presence of TRIS chloride as luminal perfusate, addition of nutrients did not change Vte.
These results are consistent with Na+-dependent absorption of amino acids and
dicarboxylic acids. Effects of serotonin withdrawal indicated nutrient absorption is
stimulated by this hormone. Strong luminal alkalinization was observed with mosquito
saline containing serotonin on the hemolymph-side and 100 mmol l-1 NaCl in the lumen,
indicating alkalinization does not depend on luminal nutrients. Omission of glucose or
dicarboxylic acids from the hemolymph-side solution had no effect on luminal
alkalinization, whereas omission of amino acids significantly decelerated it. Re-addition
7
8
Recipient of Excellence Award for Full-length Manuscript in Physiology
Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4236
4
�of amino acids restored alkalinization, suggesting the involvement of amino acid
metabolism in luminal alkalinization.
Bohr Theory Studies
Peter Acerios (Physics)9
In the early twentieth century, Niels Bohr proposed a semi-classical model of the
hydrogen atom. This study tests the model's ability to measure neutron mass, presents
details of the model, and also considers other applications of Bohr Theory. The problem
of multi-electron atoms is being investigated.
Morphological Characterization of Neurovasculature
and Whole Blood of the Adult Zebra Fish (Danio rerio)
Marlene Streisinger (Nursing), Lauren Levy (Biology), Zulmarie Franco(Microbiology),
Prof. Linda Raths (Biological Sciences), Christopher Corbo10 (Biological Sciences) and
Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences)
Blood vessels of the adult zebra fish brain (tectum opticum) were studied using both light
and electron microscopy. We have found two atypical novelties pertaining both to the
blood vessel structures and blood cell behavior such as: (1) Cellular islets within the
capillary lumen at junctional positions are believed to function as gatekeepers. We refer
to these structures as "junctional sphincters." What is unusual here is the internal location
of these sphincter-like elements suggesting that these cells must be myo-epithelial by
nature and could belong to the reticulo-endothelial cell family, similar to hepatic Kupfer
cells. (2) The presence of solitary red blood cells (RBC's) within the brain parenchyma
located between neurons and/or glial cells. Here, what is unusual is the existence of
RBC's among healthy parenchymal cells of the brain, since extra-vascular RBC's are
known to be toxic, such as in cases of internal hemorrhage, for example. In order to
further characterize the nature of these zebra fish blood cells, whole blood was further
examined on smears using different classical stains and scanning electron microscopy.
9
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
Center For Developmental Neuroscience, CUNY Staten Island
10
5
�Preparation of Thin Sections of Drosophila Ovaries for
Examination by Transmission Electron Microscopy
Tanya Modica (Biology), Georgia Dellas (Biology), Christopher Corbo10
(Biological Sciences) and Dr. Heather A. Cook (Biological Sciences)
The goal of this study was to identify a fixation and embedding procedure for the analysis
of Drosophila oocyte development by transmission electron microscopy. Drosophila
oocytes develop within tubular ovarioles within the ovary. One to two germ line stem
cells reside at the tip of each ovariole. Oogenesis is initiated when a stem cell divides to
produce a daughter stem cell and a cystoblast cell. The cystoblast further divides to
produce a cyst of cells, one of which develops into an oocyte. The remaining cells
support oocyte development. Genetic and immunocytological studies indicate that
mutations in the small repeat-associated siRNA (rasiRNA) pathway genes may affect
stem cell maintenance in the female germ line. Future studies will use electron
microscopy to analyze stem cell maintenance and oocyte development in rasiRNA
pathway mutants, armitage (armi), aubergine (aub) and spindle-E (spnE).
Sticky Situations: From Failing Prophecies
to Peanut Butter and Jellies11
Dana Trottier (Psychology)12
The present paper examines individuals' ability to justify their dissonant behavior without
the presence of a sufficient external justification. Thirty participants completed the task
of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with only their fingers and selling the
unsanitary sandwich to a confederate for two dollars without acknowledging the
condition under which the sandwich was made. Some participants were told that the
money they collected was for cancer research (sufficient external justification) and other
participants were told the money they collected was for a selfish professor (insufficient
external justification). The results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that
participants rated the quality of their sandwich higher when they had little external
justification (the selfish professor condition) than when they had greater external
justification (the cancer research condition). The study suggests that individuals who
11
12
Recipient of Excellence Award for Full-length Manuscript in Psychology
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology)
6
�experience dissonance will justify their actions internally in order to alleviate the
experience of dissonance.
Use of Squashed Retina and Optic Tectum
to Study Regenerative Capacities of the
Visual System in Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Michael Gutkin (Biology), Anna Lysenko (Biology), Christopher Corbo13 (Biological
Sciences), Prof. Linda Raths (Biological Sciences) and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological
Sciences)
To study the regenerative capacity of adult zebrafish retinal tissue, the eyes of adult
animals were exposed to 5 and 50 mW green laser beams for one- and two-minute time
periods. The optic tectum and the eyes of anesthetized animals were removed at two
minutes, two hours, and six hours after exposure. The retinae were separated and
processed for semi-thin (1 micron) sectioning or squashed between two glass microscopic
slides. Tissues were fixed and stained with toludene blue. Here we report our findings
pertaining only to the control animals and the two-minute survival time of tissue exposed
to the 50 mW green laser. Squashed preparations are advantageous, because on one slide,
all the cellular components of the retina are exposed in a single focal plane. Our study
thus far has revealed a surprisingly large number of mast cells present between the retinal
cells throughout the whole squash preparation. Since mast cells are known for
orchestrating regeneration, we predict the later survival time will show enlarged numbers
of activated mast cells which may be accompanied with the regeneration of some retinal
cells.
Evaporation Studies
Melanie Cambria (Chemistry) and Rachel Chille (Chemistry)14
We present a study of evaporation cooling using an electronic balance. Preliminary work
was also done which may allow an estimate of fluid surface work functions and other
microscopic parameters.
13
14
Center For Developmental Neuroscience, CUNY Staten Island
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
7
�Effectiveness of Selenium Supplementation in
Combating Cytotoxicity of Arsenic due to Ingestion
of Arsenic from Groundwater in Bangladesh
Erida Behri (Chemistry), Meaghan Robbins (Chemistry) and Dr. Mohammad
Alauddin (Chemistry)
A recent study reports that administration of selenium in mammals promote biliary
excretion of arsenic. There are evidences from studies in mammals for the in vivo
formation and biliary excretion of seleno-bis-(S-glutathionyl)arsinium ion. Glutathione
(GSH) plays an important role in the biomethylation of arsenic and biliary excretion of
arsenic. The selenoprotein Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx) has been described as the
body's frontline anti-oxidation system. It is believed to be at least partly responsible for
the widely reported anti-cancer properties of selenium. The purpose of the current study
was to investigate the extent of enhancement in GSH, GPx level in patient serum due to
selenium supplementation. Increase of glutathione (GSH) due to selenium
supplementation increases the probability of formation of GSH-As-Se complex and
elimination of arsenic from the body. In this study we have measured GSH, GPx activity
in serum from arsenicosis patients before and after oral administration of supplements.
The paper will focus on serum GSH level and GPx activity in a select group of
arsenicosis victims in our clinical study cohort. The GSH level and GPx activity
significantly increased in arsenicosis patients due to selenium supplementation. Future
studies in this regard will include monitoring other selenoproteins in patient serum or
whole blood due to selenium supplementation.
The Role of Runx2 Y433a in Osteoblast Differentiation
Thomas Beesley (Chemistry), Dr. Gary Stein15 (Cell Biology)
and Dr. Yang Lou15(Cell Biology)
Osteoblast differentiation needs to occur in order for a mineralized skeleton to form.
Runx2 is a transcription factor which is crucial for osteoblastic differentiation and
skeleton formation. Runx2 interacts with WW-domain proteins which are essential for
normal skeletal development and bone metabolism. In this experiment we used Runx2
point mutants to observe the effects of a mutation at the Y433 site. This mutation
contributes to Runx2’s interaction with the WWdomain proteins, and it also effects
15
University Of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts 01655
8
�osteoblast differentiation. Overall, the induced mutations lowered the amount of
osteoblast differentiation in the samples with an absence of BMP2. In the presence of
BMP2, osteoblast differentiation was elevated compared to the previous. Generally, the
fold induction by BMP2 in these samples was nearly equivalent in both our Y433A and
wildtype cells. From this it can be established that the Y433A mutation did indeed affect
overall osteoblast differentiation in the absence of Bone Morphogenic Proteins. Also, it is
conclusive that the Y433A mutants are able to respond to BMP2 signaling as are the wild
type mutants.
Gender Differences Created by Urinary Creatinine
Adjustments Made to Heavy Metal Measurements16,17
Christopher Cappelli (Biology), Mary Gamble18 (Environmental Health Sciences),
X. Liu18 (Biostatistics), Pamela Factor-Litvak18 (Epidemiology), Vesna Slavkovic18
(Environmental Health Sciences) and Dr. Joseph Graziano18 (Environmental Health Sciences)
In large studies, spot urine collection is used to measure environmental exposure to heavy
metals. While 24-h urine analysis is more accurate, it is not the preferable method,
because it is more time consuming, labor intensive and costly. Creatinine levels in urine
are used to normalize heavy metal measurements, because creatinine is excreted in urine
at a constant rate per day. This study analyzes differences in heavy metal concentrations
between males and females after adjustment for creatinine. Significant differences in
creatinine-adjusted heavy metal levels were found to exist between the sexes. Moreover,
age may also have an effect on heavy metal levels when adjusted for creatinine regardless
of gender, because creatinine levels vary with age. As males develop more muscle mass
during adolescence than females, gender has a large impact on the final adjusted heavy
metal measurements. This finding is important for hospitals and other health-care
facilities where the heavy metal data for men and women are grouped together yielding a
single range of normal values, which is used to assay an individual's health and exposure
to heavy metals. According to our findings, different normal ranges of metals adjusted for
creatinine should be used when examining adult men and women.
16
Recipient of Excellence Award for Poster Presentation in Health Sciences
Recipient of Excellence Award for Full-length Manuscript in Health Sciences
18
Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-6902
17
9
�Electrical Suppression of Bacterial Growth & Reproduction
Joseph Scala (Microbiology)and Yuliya Seldina (Microbiology)19
Should pharmacological methods be used exclusively to treat illness? Should they always
be the first approach? Are there other means of inhibiting the growth and reproduction of
disease causing organisms? This research was conducted to investigate the effects that
both static and fluctuating electric fields have on two types of bacteria. Encouraging
results were obtained and have shifted our emphasis towards sinusoidal modulation at
frequencies of approximately 3000Hz.
The Effects of Different Ethanol Concentrations on
the Activity Level of Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Lauren Levy (Biology) and Dr. Brian Palestis (Biological Sciences)
Hormesis is defined as a phenomenon whereby harmful substances such as ethanol
appear to be beneficial or stimulatory in extremely low concentrations. Previous research
has shown stimulatory effects of low doses of ethanol on the behavior of zebra fish
(Danio rerio). This study compared the effects of different ethanol concentrations on the
activity levels of adult zebra fish. The fish were individually exposed to the following
five ethanol concentrations for one hour prior to the experiment: 0% (control), 0.125%,
0.25%, 0.5% and 1.0% EtOH. During the 3-min experimental period, each fish was
videotaped while moving in a fingerbowl, under which was placed a grid comprised of 3
cm x 3 cm squares. Activity level was measured by counting the number of grid lines
crossed by each fish during the first minute and also during the entire 3-min experimental
period. The results were analyzed and used to test the hormesis model.
19
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Gregory Falabella (Physics),
Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology) and Dr. Roy Mosher (Microbiology)
10
�Section II:
The Natural Sciences
�The Effect of Oscillating Electrical Fields
on the Growth of Escherichia coli1,2
Yuliya Seldina (Microbiology), Joseph Scala (Microbiology),
Dr. Gregory Falabella (Physics), Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
and Dr. Roy Mosher (Microbiology)
According to the Germ Theory of disease, microorganisms are the cause of many
illnesses. Throughout the history of scientific advances, researchers have been studying
these microorganisms and finding different methods of inhibiting them. Different aspects
of physics, such as magnetic and electrical fields, have also been studied as possible
sources of inhibition for microbial growth. This study was performed in order to answer
the following question: Can Escherichia coli be influenced by time-varying electrical
fields and if so how do they respond? The E. coli was grown in BHI broth and placed in
an apparatus which subjected it to oscillating electrical fields of specific frequency for 48
hours. The samples were then examined for changes in growth, cell division, shape and
structure. Of the wide range of frequencies investigated, those around 3 kHz yielded the
most unique results. However, the higher frequencies were the ones that showed a
decrease in the quantity of growth of bacteria. Further studies are being conducted to
better understand the actual effect of the electrical fields on the E. coli.
I. Introduction
Louis Pasteur is considered one of the founding fathers of microbiology, due to
his many contributions to this science in the 1800s. His work with silkworm parasites and
air-borne germs led him to propose the germ theory of disease (VanDemark, 1987).
Robert Koch, a German scientist, proposed 4 postulates that would prove whether or not
an infectious organism is the cause of disease. According to Koch: the agent must be
present in all cases of the disease and absent in healthy individuals; it must have the
ability to be isolated from the diseased animal and grown in a pure culture; the disease
can be reproduced by inoculating the pure culture into a healthy individual; and the agent
of the disease has the ability to be re-isolated from the infected individual (Boyd, 1984).
Even though the theory was first under a lot of speculation, just like any other new
discovery, it is now the basis for modern medicine and clinical microbiology.
1
Research performed in partial fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
This research was done in collaboration with Joseph Scala and his study of the effects of
oscillating electrical fields on the growth of Staphylococcus aureus.
2
12
�Different Methods of Microbial Inhibition
Since the times of Pasteur and Koch, incredible advances have been made in
microbiology. By better understanding microbes and how they exist, various methods of
inhibiting their growth have been studied. The most popular and known method of
microbial inhibition is the use of antibiotics. Various antibiotics inhibit bacteria in
different ways. Penicillin, for example, works by inhibiting the enzyme involved in the
formation of the cross-linkage of bacterial cell walls (Mirelman and Bracha, 1974). Other
antibiotics target other areas of a bacterial cell. Some are broad-spectrum and some are
specific to certain bacteria.
Since there is a big problem with antibiotic resistance, other anti-microbial
agents have been researched and created. These include oils, such as those of black
peppers and germanium (Dorman and Deans, 1999), organic acids, such as lactic acid
from bacteria (Aguire and Collins, 1993), etc. Different antimicrobial pesticides are also
used to destroy microorganisms. Antimicrobial pesticides are substances such as
sanitizers, disinfectants, and sterilants. Bleach, which contains sodium hypochlorite, is an
example of an antimicrobial pesticide and it is one of the most popular ones. It kills a
wide range of bacteria, fungi, and viruses and is commonly used in laboratories to clean
up spills and other accidents. It works by breaking down proteins in microorganisms
(Rutala and Weber, 1997).
Alternatives to these chemical approaches are also common. Bacteriophage
therapy, for example, is used as a therapeutic method to treat pathogenic bacterial
infections. It was developed in the former Soviet Union over 90 years ago, and is still an
active area of study today. Bacteriophages are bacterial viruses that attack bacterial cells
and disrupt their metabolism, causing the bacterium to lyse, or break open.
Bacteriophages can be made to target specific pathogens thereby decreasing the chances
of causing harm to the individual. Phage therapy has been used to treat illnesses such as
laryngitis, conjunctivitis, and urinary tract infections among many others (Sulakvelidze et
al. 2001). UV light has also been identified as a means of deterring microbial growth. It is
often times used as a water disinfectant and is a potential substitute for chlorine.
Furthermore, irradiation by UV light prevents the spoilage of meat by hindering the
proliferation of E.coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella, etc (Djenane et al.
2001).
Previous Research Performed with Electrical Fields
Interest in the influence of electrical and magnetic fields on microorganisms
began in the 1900s but it lost scientific appeal after the discovery and isolation of
13
�penicillin prompted researchers to focus more on pharmacological approaches. In the
1960s, however, interest in electromagnetic fields resurfaced as scientists began to notice
similarities in mitotic division and electric dipoles (Rosenberg, 1965). They also found
that some bacteria seemed to be able to orient themselves along the Earth’s magnetic
field lines (Blakemore, 1975).
Over the past forty years scientists have made various discoveries including
directional growth in response to electrical fields (Rajnicek, 1994) and the lethal effects
of pulsed fields on Gram-positive bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria and yeast cells
(Hulsheger, 1982). In so far as the latter is concerned, further study has pointed towards
an irreversible formation of pores in the cell membrane as the mechanism for lysing
(Schoenbach, 2000). Hence, pulsed electric fields are applied as a method of microbial
growth inhibition in biofouling prevention, debacterialization of liquids, and in medicine.
PEF research was done with E. coli and it was observed that, when subjected to
60 pulses at 41kV/cm, there were changes in the cytoplasm and the cell surface appeared
rough. The E. coli cells’ outer membranes were partially destroyed which allowed
leaking of cell cytoplasm. Another study by Mittel et al. included Listeria innocua,
Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Sacchromyces cerevisiae as well as E. coli and confirms
the aforementioned findings (Aronsson, 2001).
Although little has been done with regard to oscillating frequencies, Grospietsch
conducted a study on the effect of modulated and unmodulated 150 Hz electromagnetic
fields on the growth of E. coli. He observed that modulation frequency was not
responsible for the growth effects (Grospietsch, 1994). Jacobs et al. examined Bacillus
coli and Staphylococcus auerus enclosed in glass containers and subjected to high
frequency electric fields of various intensities (Jacobs, 1950). They found no evidence of
any mortality due to exposure.
The present research endeavor differs from past studies in that it investigated the
use of electric fields modulated over a wide range of frequencies (10-160 Hz) as opposed
to a specific subset. It was also unique in that it then conducted additional trials focusing
on the region of greatest interest.
Escherichia coli
Escherichia coli are a large and diverse group of gram negative rod-shaped
bacteria commonly found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Most strains of E.
coli are harmless, but there are some that cause UTI’s, respiratory illness, pneumonia,
diarrhea, etc. (CDC). Probably the most known pathogenic strain of this bacterium is the
enterohemorrhagic virotype (EHEC): E. coli O157:H7, producing the shiga toxin.
14
�Anyone can get infected with this strain, but the elderly and very young children are more
susceptible to developing severe illness and hemolytic uremic syndrome (CDC, 2008).
The other virotypes of E. coli are enterotoxigenic (ETEC), enteropathogenic (EPEC), and
enteroinvasive (EIEC). The ETEC occurs mostly among travelers, who consume food
contaminated with the microorganism. The infection causes a disease known as
Traveler’s diarrhea which involves watery diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea and
malaise. The EPEC most often affects infants, especially those that are bottle fed and
ingest contaminated formula. The infection causes infantile diarrhea with symptoms of
either a watery or bloody diarrhea. EIEC strains are responsible for causing bacillary
dysentery-like symptoms, usually acquired through the ingestion of any foods
contaminated with feces of an ill individual. The symptoms include a mild form of
dysentery with blood and mucus in the stool. The microorganism is very invasive but the
disease is self-limiting and usually results in no complications. (CDC)
Oscillating Electrical Fields
Electrical charges exert forces on one another. The effect that a particular
configuration has on a region of space is known as a field and often represented
pictorially by imaginary field lines (see figure 1). The direction of these lines and their
spacing indicate the force that a charged particle at a given location would experience.
The field can also act to polarize or separate charges within a neutral object sometimes
prompting further response.
+
Figure 1: The electric field associated with a positive point charge
Unfortunately, fields being vector quantities often needlessly complicate the solution of
practical everyday problems. That is why a scalar representation called electric potential
or voltage is commonly used. The difference in voltage between two points indicates the
15
�field strength while the path of maximal change provides the direction. If two regions at
different potentials are connected by a conducting material (e.g. the terminal of a battery
joined by a wire) a current or flow of charge results. Even in the absence of a closed
circuit potential differences give rise to electric fields resulting in forces that act to
produce or tend to produce motion.
One means of creating a spatially uniform field is to connect two large, closely
spaced parallel plates to a power source. The source charges the plates and creates a
specific electrical potential. The field strength is directly proportional to the applied
voltage and inversely proportional to the spacing. For example if a 12V battery is used
and the plates are placed 10cm apart the resulting field (see figure 2) will have a strength
of 120V/m (which is equal to 120N/C) at all locations (neglecting end and edge effects).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - V1 =0 (ground)
d=10cm
++++++++++++
V2 =12 volts
Figure 2: Two closely spaced parallel plates
Electrical power is often supplied such that the polarity of the field reverses over a
specific time interval. The number of complete cycles per second is known as the
frequency and measured in Hertz, Hz. Such changes can vary smoothly as sinusoidal
(generation and transmission in the United States utilizes sinusoidal modulation at 60Hz)
or suddenly with square waves or pulses.
The advantage of A/C electricity is that the voltage can be efficiently adjusted
using a device known as a transformer and transported over large distances with a
minimal current flow and therefore acceptable resistive losses.
In this experiment, oscillating electrical fields were applied to Escherichia coli
to observe if there is any effect on the bacterial growth.
II. Objectives
The research study was performed to answer the following question: Can E. coli
be influenced by oscillating electrical fields and if so how do they respond? Do the
reactions occur in a broad or narrow set of parameters? The project was constructed in
order to increase the level of understanding dealing with the interaction between
16
�electrical fields and bacteria. Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health issue and
scientists are trying to create new methods of defense against pathogenic
microorganisms. If the research project is successful, results can be modified and
perfected and used as a new source of microbial inhibition.
The research was performed parallel to that of Joseph Scala, who studied the
effects of oscillating electrical fields on Staphylococcus aureus.
III. Materials and Methods
Bacteria Used
ATCC 35218
Phylum: Proteobacteria. Class: Gamma Proteobacteria. Order: Enterobacteriales.
Family: Enterobacteriaceae. Genus: Escherichia. Species: coli
E. coli is a gram negative rod-shaped bacterium. It is a facultative anaerobe and
non-sporulating. It uses mixed-acid fermentation in anaerobic conditions, producing
lactate, ethanol, succinate, acetate and carbon dioxide. It undergoes optimal growth at 37°C.
Creation of a Modulated Electric Field
The set up used to create the oscillating electric field is shown below in figure 3.
It consisted of two large (8cmx8cmx0.4cm), closely spaced (4.5 cm apart) aluminum
parallel plates in an open 37°C incubator (Figure 4). The necessary potential difference
required to power the apparatus was delivered by alligator clip cords from the source, a
Goldstar FG-2002C frequency generator (Figure 5).
Figure 3. Overview of the apparatus
17
�Figure 4: The parallel plate assembly housing
the test tubes in a uniform electric field
Figure 5: The function generator which produced the time-varying electric field.
At low frequencies (10-20,000Hz) both a transformer (Figure 6) and an amplifier (Figure
7) were employed to augment the voltage . A resistor was inserted between the two to
protect the amplifier (Figure 8). At higher frequencies 20,000-160,000 Hz, only an
amplifier was necessary. A digital voltmeter was used to check the field strength at the
beginning of each trial, maintaining it at 2-3 kV/m for each case (figure 9).
18
�Figure 6: The transformer stepping-up the voltage at low frequencies
Figure 7: The amplifier used to boost the signal
Figure 8: Resistor inserted to protect the amplifier
19
�Figure 9: A digital voltmeter to measure the
potential difference between the plates
The testing performed without modulation utilized a high voltage D/C power supply to
produce an intense electric field of 67kV/m (Figure 10). The parallel plate assembly and
incubator previously described were again used.
Figure 10: High voltage power supply used in the steady field trials
Preparation of Culture Media
E. coli was grown in tubes of BHI broth. BHI broth was prepared using Becton,
Dickinson and Company media powder. 37 grams of the powder were suspended in 1
liter of distilled water and mixed thoroughly. The solution was heated with frequent
agitation and boiled for 1 minute to completely dissolve the powder. The solution was
then autoclaved at 121°C for 15 minutes. Once taken out of the autoclave, the solution
was separated into sterile test tubes, with 6 ml of broth in each.
For each frequency, a control was kept in a closed 37°C incubator and the
20
�experimental was put into the apparatus, in an open 37°C incubator. Each run lasted for a
duration of 48 hours. After 48 hours, both the control and the experimental were plated
on HE agar to make sure no contamination occurred and to see how the bacteria were
affected. The Hektoen Enteric Agar was made using the Carolina Biological Supply
Company media powder. 75 grams of medium were mixed with a liter of distilled water
until it was evenly dispersed. The mixture was heated with repeated stirring and boiled
for 1 minute to completely dissolve the powder. It was not autoclaved. The pour plates
were prepared after the medium cooled to 45-50.0°C. A gram stain was performed and a
microscopic examination was completed using an Olympus CX41RF microscope. Slide
pictures were taken using a Moticam 2000, 2.0 MPixel camera and viewed using Motic
Images Plus 2.0 program.
Experimental Strategy
The experiment was performed using both steady and time varying (sinusoidal)
electric fields (10Hz to 160 kHz). At first a broad range of frequencies was investigated.
This initial data was processed and used to determine areas of particular interest and
narrow in on them. To this end the 3,000 Hz range, the 20-80 kHz range and the steady
field were then further scrutinized. Viable count dilutions were performed to get the
amount of colony-forming units (CFU) per milliliter. Dilutions were made in 9 mL BHI
broth tubes with 1 mL of both the experimental and the control samples being added to
two 10-1 labeled tubes and then diluting the tubes up to 10-15 serial dilutions. They were
then plated on HE agar to observe the amount of growth.
Electron Microscopy
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was done in order to view the surface of
the bacteria. A Topcon Scanning Electron Microscope ABT-32 was used. The sample
preparation procedure was carried out using eppendorf tubes. A pellet was created at the
bottom of the tube via centrifugation with a Minispin F45-12-11 centrifuge at a speed of
13.4 rpm for a minute each time, using 1ml of E. coli sample. Centrifugation was
performed two times, with the supernatant discarded after each time. The samples were
fixed using 1.6 ml of gluteraldehyde with 8.4 ml of distilled water, for an hour. The
samples were then washed with a pure 0.1M Phosphate Buffer solution twice, decanting
and centrifuging in between steps. The buffer was prepared fresh by making a 0.2M stock
of both monobasic and dibasic sodium phosphate. Using a pH meter, monobasic sodium
phosphate was added to dibasic slowly to adjust the pH to approximately 7 to 7.3, then
diluted to 0.1M for a working solution. The buffer solution was poured into a sterile
21
�storage vessel for usage. A secondary fixation was performed using osmium tetroxide
(750 ml of buffer with 250 ml of OsO4) for one hour. Another buffer wash was
performed twice. The samples were then dehydrated by passing them through an
ascending alcohol series: 30% EtOH for 10 min, 70% EtOH for 10 min, 95% EtOH for
10 min, 100% EtOH for 10 min, another 100% EtOH for 10 min, 100% propylene oxide
for 10 min, another 100% propylene oxide for 20 min. The eppendorf tube was covered
with parafilm with little holes made in it, and left in a hood to allow the propylene oxide
to evaporate slowly. When the sample was ready, it was mounted on an aluminum sample
chuck and a coat of gold was sputtered on. The coating was performed using the Hummer
VI Sputtering system.
IV. Results
Results Over a Broad Range
`
Figure 11: E. coli control
The image above (figure 11) depicts the experimental control and shows a cluster of red
rods in high quantity. The table on the following pages represents the results obtained
during the testing of the broad frequency ranges. As seen in the table, the 250 Hz sample
showed gram negatively stained rods which were too numerous to count. The 500 Hz
sample yielded TNTC bacteria as well, but the rods were stained more gram positively.
The same was seen for the 1,000 Hz sample. The 2,500 Hz sample showed E. coli in
chains and enlarged rods, but still TNTC and stained purple. The 5,000 Hz sample
showed larger than usual rods of the bacterium, stained purple and TNTC. The 10,000 Hz
showed a smaller quantity of the bacteria, with the rods staining more gram positive still.
The 20-80 kHz range showed a scarcity of E. coli with paler staining of the rods. The 160
kHz sample showed TNTC bacteria, stained more gram positively.
22
�Table 1. Summary of Oscillating Field Results
Frequency (Hz)
Description of what
is seen
250
Gram negatively stained
rods. Too numerous to
count, but only a few
seen in the slide.
500
Gram positively stained
rods, too numerous to
count.
1,000
Gram positive rods. Too
numerous to count.
2,500
Enlarged rods in chains,
stained more gram
positively. Too numerous
to count.
23
Image Under a Light
Microscope
�Frequency (Hz)
Description of what
is seen
5,000
Longer than usual rods,
stained more gram
positive. Too numerous
to count
10,000
Fewer rods were seen.
Stained more gram
positive.
20,000
The rods were scarce.
Only one seen in the
image.
40,000
Smaller rods, stained
gram negative and paler.
24
Image Under a Light
Microscope
�Frequency (Hz)
Description of what
is seen
80,000
Barely any bacteria
showed up on the slide.
Those that did stained
paler.
160,000
Gram positively stained
rods. Too numerous to
count.
Image Under a Light
Microscope
Focus around 3,000 Hz
Further research was performed around 3,000 Hz. Viable count dilutions were
made for samples at 3,000 Hz. Both the experimental and the control plates showed
TNTC growth, but the experimental plates were observed to have less growth than the
control. Scanning Electron Microscopy was performed for this frequency as well. The
image can be seen below in Figure 12. When examining the sample under the SEM, no
conclusive results could be made. A smear needs to be made and viewed under the SEM,
in order to reduce the clumping and try and get better results.
Steady Fields
Three trials were performed with a steady field having no spatial or temporal variations.
All trials had the same conditions maintained. Once the gram staining was performed the
results were recorded in the following table. As seen in the table 2, trials 1, 2 and 3 all
showed smaller rods than usual. Trial 1 stained more gram positive, while the other two
stained gram negative.
25
�Figure 12: SEM picture of the E. coli experimental sample at 3 kHz
Table 2: Summary of Steady Field Results
Frequency (Hz)
Description of what
is seen
D.C.
(Trial 1)
Stained gram positive,
smaller rods than usual.
D.C.
(Trial 2)
Stained gram negative,
smaller rods but too
numerous to count.
D.C.
(Trial 3)
Small gram negative rods.
26
Image Under a Light
Microscope
�V. Discussion
The experiment was performed to study the effect of oscillating electric fields on
the growth of Escherichia coli. The bacteria were grown in BHI broth, as it is a very
enriched and non-selective media, and at 37°C, because that is the normal temperature of
a human body. The oscillating electric field was generated between two closely spaced
aluminum plates, also kept in a 37°C open incubator. Each experiment ran for 48 hours at
varying frequencies.
In science it has been shown that all atoms above 0K move around to a certain
extent. Temperature is a measure of their average kinetic energy. Each cell in an
individual as well as each disease causing pathogen vibrates at a certain frequency. Even
small amounts of energy delivered at this natural frequency will result in a large
amplitude response. This is known in physics as resonance. For example, a child on a
swing knows that to go higher he or she must pump their legs with a certain timing. If
they do so with the natural frequency of the swing they will move faster and reach a
greater height.
Theoretically if one could determine the natural frequency of a bacterium,
energy in the form of an electrical field, magnetic field or electromagnetic radiation could
be delivered directly to the pathogen without harming the host. Although this sounds
straightforward in actuality it is much more complex. Resonant responses are extremely
localized making it difficult to ascertain the natural frequency of the organism. Other
variables such as the intensity of the field/beam, form of modulation (.i.e. pulse, square
wave, sinusoidal) and the chemical composition of the medium/host further obscure the
problem.
This experiment utilized both direct and alternating electrical fields. A steady
field was used as an initial test to see how the apparatus is working. A 6000V input
provided a constant field strength of 130 kV/m. This initial case was also conducted
because previous experiments have confirmed that steady fields have had an effect on
microorganisms. It was observed that small electric fields inhibited reproduction but not
the growth of bacteria. Therefore, we used a higher electric field to try and affect the
growth.
The modulated input was of a sinusoidal form and stepped-up at low frequencies
by a transformer. Note that when the voltage is stepped up, the current decreases but the
power stays the same. A field strength of approximately 3 kV/m was employed to match
that used in previous pulsed field experiments. It was also chosen because it would not
destroy eukaryotic cells.
27
�Results over a Broad Range
Sinusoidally varying electric fields with frequencies that ranged from 100 Hz to
160,000KHz were employed in this study. After the samples were kept in the
experimental apparatus for 48 hours, they were taken out. The control and the
experimental were both gram stained and viewed under a light microscope, in order to
see any possible changes that have occurred. The samples were also plated on HE agar to
avoid contamination. On HE agar, E. coli forms orange colonies (Figure 13) because it is
a lactose fermenter.
Figure 13: E. coli on HE agar (from http://moodle.wagner.edu/
mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=true&id=31125)
As seen in the results section, E. coli is a gram negative rod shaped bacterium.
Some of the slides that were observed showed gram positive staining in the bacteria. This
cannot be attributed the effects of the electrical fields because some of the control slides
also stained gram positive. That means that there was some sort of error in the staining
technique. This could include error with the timing, too much of the chemicals added or
not enough alcohol added to decolorize the crystal violet.
E. coli are usually observed in clusters, as seen in the control slide. At 2,500
Hz, the bacteria formed long chains of enlarged rods. That is not a usual occurrence for
these bacteria. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that maybe the electric field
is affecting the genetic material of the cell which is involved in division. Further tests
need to be done to analyze this. At 5,000 Hz, the E. coli appear to be longer, which would
also be supported by the previously made theory. The 20-80 kHz samples showed a
decrease in the quantity of bacteria present. Larger frequencies have shorter wavelengths.
This may somehow be responsible for the observed results. Further studies need to be
performed to understand why this occurred.
28
�Focus on the 3,000 Hz Range
As seen in Table 1, at 2,500 Hz and 5,000 Hz unique results were obtained.
Also, it was observed that at 3,000 Hz there was a decrease in the quantity of bacteria.
This prompted further testing around 3 kHz. Viable count dilutions were done in order to
make sure that only living cells were being taken into a count. The dilutions did not yield
an actual cell count because there was too much growth on all of the plates. However, it
was observed that the experimental samples had a lot less growth than the control. SEM
was therefore performed on the 3 kHz samples. However, the results were inconclusive.
The E. coli were clustered too much and no valuable information could be gathered from
this procedure. A smear of the sample will be made and viewed under the SEM in the
near future, with hopes that some valuable results will be obtained.
Steady Field
As stated before, an unvarying field was used as an initial test to see if the
apparatus worked. The high power was used to ensure that some effects would be seen.
This procedure would not be used in the field of medicine because it would also harm the
eukaryotic cells. As indicated in table 2, the gram stains showed much smaller rods than
normally observed. The strong electric field is affecting the growth of the E. coli.
However, the mechanism behind this needs to be further studied.
VI: Conclusions
This experiment was done in order to observe if oscillating electric fields have
any effect on the growth of E. coli. As described above, the 3,000 Hz range and 20-160
kHz did affect the bacteria. However, the experiment did not yield any supported
evidence involving the mechanisms behind these phenomena. Further study needs to be
made to understand what the reasons for the observed changes are. In the future, this
method of microbial inhibition could be a very useful weapon in the fight against
antibiotic resistant bacteria.
VII: Acknowledgements
The authors are most grateful to Christopher Corbo and Zulmarie Franco without whom
the electron microscopy could not have been accomplished.
29
�VIII. References
1. Aguirre, M., Collins. (1993). Lactic acid bacteria and human clinical infection.
Journal of Applied Bacteriology 75: 95-107.
2. Arronson K., Lindgren M., Johansson B.R., and Ronner, Ulf. (2001). Inactivation of
microorganisms using pulsed electric fields: The influence of process parameters on
Escherichia coli, Listeria Innocua, Leuconostoc Mesenteroides and Saccharomyces
cerevisiae. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies 2: 41-54.
3.
Blakmore, Richard. (1975). Magnetotactic bacteria. Science 190: 377-379.
4.
Corbo, Christopher. (2009). Electron microscopy procedure.
.http://www.wagner.edu/departments/biological_sciences/electron_microscopy_center
5.
Djenane D., Sanchez-Escalante, A., Beltran,J. A., Roncales, P. (2001). Extension of
the retail display life of fresh beef packaging in modified atmosphere by varying
lighting conditions. Journal of Food Science 66: 181-186.
6.
Dorman, H.J. D., Deans. (2000). Antimicrobial agents from plants: antibacterial
activity of plant volatile oils. Journal of Applied Microbiology 88: 308-16.
7.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2008). Escherichia coli. Division
of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases. 10 Feb. 2009
http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/stec_gj.html
8.
Grospietsch, T., O. Schulz, R. Hölzel, I. Lamprecht, and K. D. Kramer. (1995).
Stimulating effects of modulated 150 MHz electromagnetic fields on the growth of
Escherichia coli in a cavity resonator. Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics 37: 1723.
9.
Hülsheger H., Potel J. and Niemann E.G. (1981). Killing of bacteria with electric
pulses of high field strength. Radiat. Environ. Biophys 20: 53-65.
10. Jacobs S.E., Thornley M.J., Maurice P. (1950). The survival of bacteria in highfrequency electric fields. Journal of Applied Microbiology.
11. Mirelman, David, Bracha. (1974). Effect of Penicillin on the In Vivo Formation of
the D-Alanyl-L-Alanine Peptide Cross-Linkage in Cell Walls of Micrococcus luteus.
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 5: 663-66.
30
�12. Nester, Eugene W. (2001) Microbiology: A Human Perpective. Boston: McGraw
Hill Higher Education.
13. Rajnicek A.M., McCaig C.D. and Gow N.A. (1994). Electric fields induce curved
growth of Enterobacter cloacae, Escherichia coli and Bacillis subtilis cells:
Implications for mechnanisms of galvanotropism and bacterial growth. Journal of
Bacteriology 176: 702-713.
14. Rosenberg B., Camp L.V. and Krigas T. (1965). Inhibition of cell division in
Escherichia coli by electrolysis products from a platinum electrode. Nature 205: 698699.
15. Rutala, William A., Weber D.J. (1997). Uses of inorganic hupochlorite (bleach) in
health-care facilities. Clinical Microbiology Reviews 10: 597-606.
16. Schoenbach, K. H. et al. (1997). The effect of pulsed electric fields on biological
cells: experiments and applications. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 25: 28492.
17. Shoeb, Hussein A. (1985). Peroxidase-Mediated Oxidation of Isoniazid.
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 27: 1985-403.
18. Sulakvelidze, Alexander et al. (2001). Bacteriophage therapy. Antimicrobial Agents
and Chemotherapy 45: 649-59.
19. VanDemark, Paul J. The Microbes. 1st ed. Benjamin-Cummings Company, 1987.
31
��Section III:
The Social Sciences
�Communities in Disaster: A Model for Social Support
Outcomes, Deterioration, and Social Role Resiliency
Gretchen Jacobs (Psychology)1
This study reviews literature on disaster, highlighting classic theories in disaster research
(Fritz, 1969; Barton, 1977; Bolin, 1989) and other pertinent studies related to community
changes after disaster events. Particularly of interest is the phenomenon of the therapeutic
community that emerges in the wake of catastrophes. The therapeutic community is one
that provides social support, engages in prosocial behavior and enables social role
flexibility. Differences in disasters’ effects on gender, age and ethnicity are considered.
Evidence for social role flexibility in the context of the therapeutic community is cited,
based on the results of other studies in the field. It is hypothesized that the necessity to
return to daily activities (paid employment, education, etc.) that accompanies the
recovery process aids in the deterioration of the therapeutic community. A model is
constructed for social support and post-disaster community outcomes based on Bolin’s
(1989) predictions of post-disaster outcome based on types of disaster. Four cases of
disaster are discussed and analyzed, including the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, the terrorist
attacks on the Twin Towers, Hurricane Katrina and the nuclear reactor disaster of
Chernobyl. The case analyses aim to determine whether a therapeutic community
emerged in the affected area, based on post-disaster reports of altruism and social change.
Two cases exhibit signs of therapeutic communities, while the remaining two cases
display signs of non-therapeutic communities. Observations about the deterioration of
social support are made. An effort is made to understand why the therapeutic community
emerged in some circumstances of disaster and not others. Methodological and ethical
considerations for researching disaster are presented. Applications of research findings
and suggestions for future research in the field of psychosocial effects of disaster are
given.
I. Introduction
Theoretical Framework
Disasters have the power to affect not just individuals, but communities as a
whole. On the individual level, the traumatic experience of disaster is often marked by
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology). This thesis
led to completion of the Honors Program requirements as well as departmental honors in
psychology.
34
�either agitation (increased activity level) or depression (decreased activity level) (Fritz &
Marks, 1954). Depression, posttraumatic stress, and anxiety are common symptoms
suffered by disaster victims (DeClercq, 1995). Other negative consequences that can be
experienced by victims following devastating situations are difficulties in focusing and
feeling happiness (Bonnano, 2008). Although negative reactions to disasters are more
common, some individuals are resilient in the face of disasters, demonstrating quick
adaptation to new circumstances brought about by losses and an ability to promptly
return to normal functioning (Bonnano, 2008). Likewise, communities may collectively
react to disasters either adversely or adaptively (Kaniasty & Norris, 2004; Cuthbertson &
Nigg, 1987; Bolin, 1989; Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). Adaptive communities will become
therapeutic, while others will become corrosive.
In the wake of shared traumatic experiences, such as natural disasters or terrorist
attacks, communities have the power to enter into a stage called “post-disaster utopia”
(Barton, 1970; Bolin, 1989). Disaster literature also refers to the post-disaster utopia as
the therapeutic community (Fritz, 1954; Bolin, 1989) and the altruistic community
(Barton, 1970). Quarantelli and Dynes (1977) describe increased community functioning
in spite of adversity as amplified rebound. In the same vein, other theoretical papers
discuss community resilience (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, and Pfefferbaum,
2008) and social support mobilization (Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). Staub and Vollhardt
(2008) describe altruism born of suffering and posttraumatic growth, which are indicators
of positive behaviors and emotion after stressful events. Posttraumatic growth is not
dependent upon the severity of the experience itself, but on an individual’s appraisal of
the situation as bearing meaning. While the terminologies are vast, each points to one
common phenomenon: a coming together, rather than a falling apart, of community
members in response to devastation. To avoid confusion about terminologies, the
phenomenon hereafter will be referred to as the therapeutic community. The term
therapeutic community refers to the restorative state that develops in some communities
after facing adverse circumstances.
The therapeutic community is marked by widespread altruism and helping
behavior (Barton, 1970). Internal solidarity and unity are major qualities of the
therapeutic community. Furthermore, dissipation of previous community tensions and
temporary disappearance of racial, ethnic and social barriers are characteristic of a
therapeutic community (Bolin, 1989). This state of disaster is far removed from the
common idea that, by default, communities enter into panic and chaos when faced with
disastrous circumstances. Many studies of community responses to disaster provide
anecdotal and qualitative evidence to demonstrate that therapeutic communities are a
35
�possible outcome after catastrophes (e.g. Ibanez, Khatchikian, Buck, Weisshaar, AbushKirsh, Lavizzo, Norris, 2003; Always, Belgrave, & Smith, 1998).
However, not all communities are resilient. Under certain circumstances,
communities may respond inadequately to the challenges presented by disasters.
Circumstances play an enormous role in determining what type of post-disaster
community will emerge. Bolin (1989) proposes an organization of predicted community
responses to disaster based on types of disasters and circumstances that generally
accompany each type. Based on this premise, a model for outcomes of disasters has been
designed (see Figure 1). To understand this model, some clarifications on classification of
disasters should first be discussed.
Just what is a disaster? —It is a simple question, with a not-so-direct answer. Are
natural disasters like tornadoes and droughts the only kinds of disaster? Or can man-made
horrors such as holocausts, bombings and wars be considered disaster events too? To
overcome this problem in codification, researchers have come up with broad definitions
to describe disasters. Barton (1970) defines a disaster simply as “collective stress
situations” that occurs when “members of a social system fail to receive expected
conditions of life from the system.” Quarantelli (1977) suggests that disasters are events
that overwhelm human systems. Bolin (1989) describes disasters as events that disrupt
social systems. He categorizes these events into three major categories: natural disasters,
technological disasters and acts of war or terrorism.
Natural disasters are events occurring naturally in the environment that wreak
destructive power, outside of human control. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, blizzards,
and volcanic eruptions are prime examples. With such a vast array of natural disasters, a
further organization of disasters can be achieved based on their duration, intensity and
scope of impact. Most natural disasters have quick onset, although, droughts serve as an
exception. Natural disasters are unique from the other types of disaster in that they can be
viewed as “Acts of God,” (Bolin, 1989). In other words, they happen in nature without
human influence. Typically, an environmental cue will serve as a warning for the
impending natural disaster (Bolin, 1989). For instance, measures of barometric pressure
or the paths of warm fronts and cold fronts may be sufficient cues to warn of an
oncoming disaster. Also, natural disasters have a potential for recurrence that poses a
threat to community recovery. Natural disasters are distinct from other types of
catastrophe because many have a distinct “low point” (Bolin, 1989). A low point is a
point in the disaster experience where the community shifts its focus from the impending
threat of the disaster to an assessment of the damage. The low point is important to
resilience and recovery because it alerts community members that the worst is over and
36
�triggers the onset of the transition to a recovery and reconstruction phase. While natural
disasters are distinct from technological disasters, the lines may be blurred because
natural disasters can strain human systems and generate technological disasters, such as
the collapse of a dam after a hurricane.
Technological disasters are distinct from natural disasters because they can be
attributed to human error or failure. Therefore, technological disasters differ from natural
disasters in that they are controllable events. Like naturally occurring catastrophes,
technological disasters have serious damaging consequences that can lead to loss of life,
injury and property damage. However, some damaging effects of technological disasters
are not so obvious, such as toxic waste leaks or radiation poisoning. Also, technological
disasters often have no clear low point, especially if the consequences are not clearly
identifiable. The absence of a low point can prevent the transition to a recovery phase.
Furthermore, since there is an element of human error in causing this type of catastrophe,
communities often enter into a stage of searching for a guilty party. Blame seeking such
as this distracts from the recovery process. As a result, Bolin (1989) predicts that
technological disasters will result in a breakdown of the community, rather than a
strengthening. The breakdown of the post-disaster community has been referred to as the
“nontherapeutic community” (Cuthbertson & Nigg, 1987), the “antagonistic community”
(Kaniasty & Norris, 2004) and the “corrosive community” (Picou, Marshall, & Gill,
2004). A corrosive community does not just fail to improve following disasters, but
actually worsens due to the stresses and strains on social systems. According to
Cuthbertson and Nigg (1987), this emergent post-disaster community differs from the
therapeutic community in that it engages in conflictive adaptation, instead of consensual
adaptation. Common symptoms of the non-therapeutic community are emotional climates
of frustration, resentment, anxiety and bitterness. Victims living in non-therapeutic
communities often express feelings of helplessness and loss of control. Helping behaviors
are frequently resisted and lines of communication are hindered (Cuthbertson & Nigg,
1987). The community as a whole engages in a corrosive process whereby social divides
are deepened and recovery is delayed. As a result, there is a greater risk of mental illness
associated with non-therapeutic communities than with therapeutic post-disaster
communities (Kessler, Galea, Jones, & Parker, 2006; Kessler, Galea, Gruber, Sampson,
Ursano, & Wessely, 2008). Social schisms can result between conflicting subgroups of a
population due to the strain on social systems in a non-therapeutic community (Bolin,
1989).
Acts of warfare and terrorism are often grouped together with technological
disasters, because they share the quality of controllability. However, acts of warfare and
37
�terrorism have the unique qualification of intent. Acts of warfare consist of attacks and
bombings planned by military forces. Examples of terrorism include suicide bombings,
car bombings, hijacking of commercial vehicles and airplanes and other attempts of mass
violence planned by terrorist organizations. Similar to other types of disaster, terrorism
and warfare result in injuries, fatalities and destruction. Typically, there is no warning
phase with warfare. Nevertheless, there is a potential for recurrence, which can produce
fear and panic in communities that are faced with these attacks. There may or may not be
a low point, depending on whether or not a threat of future attack exists. If the potential
for recurrence is low, communities may transition from anticipating the impact to coping
with the aftermath and enter into a recovery phase. Finding the culprit is a factor in the
aftermath of warfare and terrorism, as it is a factor in communities facing technological
disasters, but the responsible party may be easily apparent, depending on the
circumstances. However, unlike technological disasters, the process of finding blame for
victims of warfare and terrorist attacks can create an ingroup and actually be unifying for
community members (Quarantelli & Dynes, 1977; Peek, 2003).
Factors contributing to development of therapeutic communities
As a coping strategy, victims often externalize losses and rely on social support
systems. Social support systems are hierarchical with the family (e.g. spouses, parents)
serving as the first means of support, followed by friends, the larger community and
outside support (Norris & Kaniasty, 1996). Solomon, Bravo, Rubio-Stipec, and Canino
(1993) suggest that the dependence on personal relationships rather than professional as
an initial means of support may be due to the informal nature of these relationships.
Informal networks are inexpensive, easily accessible, and more attentive in early stages
of crisis. If received or perceived aid offered by the family system is inadequate,
individuals will extend their reach outside of their primary network to outlying networks
for support (Norris & Kaniasty, 1996; Bolin, 1989). Increased exposure to individuals
outside of central support systems (family and friends) will create environmental
conditions where acceptance of unfamiliar others is necessary to obtain support.
Following natural disasters, victims have a tendency to become actively engaged in the
process of helping others (Bolin, 1989; Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). This process of
engagement is also known as social embeddedness (Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). As a
result, community members gain a sense of collective determination to reach a common
goal. Community members that share concerns and values feel a “sense of community,”
which is important in effective social support networks (Norris, et. al., 2007). Social
support also serves as a way for victims to determine group norms (Norris, et. al., 2007).
38
�Social Support Outcome and Emergent Community Model
Given this information about the three types of disasters, predictions may be made
about the social support outcomes that will emerge after disaster. Figure 1 is a model
designed for predicting disaster outcomes, based on Bolin’s descriptions of disaster
outcomes. The three types of disaster (natural, technological, and acts of warfare) share
the capacity to effectively create a disruption in daily activities. Natural disaster events,
due to their uncontrollable nature, will be perceived as “Acts of God” and should not
result in blame seeking. Communities will call upon their social support systems as a
means for coping with losses. People will help and be helped by a wider range of people
because primary social systems will be overwhelmed and other means of support will be
necessary. This helps to produce social role flexibility along with other factors such as
sharing common traumatic experiences, a sense of community and empathic
understanding of others. These communities will reach a pivotal point where efforts are
redirected towards recovery and rehabilitation. The ultimate result of the recovery phase
is a return to normal activities, such as employment and education. Evidence indicates
that social role changes that form in the therapeutic community are not permanent
(Kaniasty & Norris, 2001; Alway, Belgrave, & Smith, 1998). Therefore, it is
hypothesized that the return of community members to daily activities will result in the
deterioration of the social support systems and social role flexibility that were present in
the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Social roles will ultimately return to pre-disaster
norms. However, it should be noted that natural disasters also have the ability to prompt
technological failures and secondary disasters, which can change the social support
outcome path to that of the technological path. Technological disasters and acts of
warfare are consequences of human action and will be followed by a period of blame
seeking. For victims of technological disasters, this will result in the exacerbation of
social divides, creating a corrosive community. In the end, this will delay the recovery
process. However, the identification of a culprit behind an act of warfare or terrorism
could also potentially serve to unite the community against a common threat. Community
solidarity formed against the guilty party may change the social support outcome path
from social divide to social support.
Faults of Therapeutic Communities
Kaniasty and Norris (2001) discuss the impact of received and perceived support
on survivor resilience to disaster. How is it that one subgroup of a disaster-stricken
population can receive more support than another subgroup and still be less resilient?
Kaniasty and Norris say that it is perceived support that mediates resilience, rather than
39
�received support (Norris & Kaniasty, 1996). In other words, while actual receipt of
support is undeniably vital, it is the perception that support is available that is
indispensable to the process to recovery.
While therapeutic communities are certainly beneficial to the majority, they are
not all-inclusive. Many times particular groups are excluded from the strengthened
community (Peel, 2003; Kaniasty & Norris, 2006). In acts of warfare and terrorism,
typically, an ingroup is created that carries the benefits of the therapeutic community
(Peel, 2003). However, the creation of the ingroup inherently means that there will also
be an outgroup. As a result, some community members will not be accepted and not share
the benefits of the therapeutic community.
Also, it is not the case that social changes that occur in post-disaster circumstances
will eventually lead to an evolved community (Alway, Belgrave & Smith, 1998; Kaniasty
& Norris, 2001). Changes in social roles may seem vast, but ultimately they are shortlived. Alway, et. al. suggest that family systems and employment are two factors that
facilitate the resilience of communities to pre-disaster conditions.
Due to the rule of relative needs, the amount of support given to all members of a
community is not equal (Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). The rule of relative needs describes
the difference in social support based on varying needs. The inconsistency of social
support provided may cause feelings of resentment and pit community members against
each other.
Beyond that, some individuals have a relative advantage in receiving aid, while
others face a pattern of neglect (Kaniasty & Norris, 2001). An individual with a relative
advantage has a larger support network, and as such, receives more support. On the
opposite end of the social support spectrum, extensive research has concluded that people
of lower socioeconomic status (SES), the elderly, and minorities may be vulnerable to a
pattern of neglect in social support mobilization (Kaniasty & Norris, 2001; Bolin &
Klenow, 1982; Adams, O’Brien, & Nelson, 2006).
Social Role Flexibility as a Symptom of the Therapeutic Community
The emergence of an altruistic community is often accompanied by changes in
social roles. In the effort to rebuild, communities must rely upon any help that is
available because social resources that are normally accessible are overwhelmed. Since
the therapeutic community is characterized by helping behavior, solidarity, and the
smoothing over of tensions (Bolin, 1989), its emergence lays the groundwork for a
reconfiguration of social roles. The shared experience of loss and distress aids in
overcoming previously held social divides. Furthermore, disasters suspend normal
40
�activities of day-to-day living, such as working and traveling. Daily activities that
normally serve to bolster social roles are effectively disrupted (Alway, Belgrave, &
Smith, 1998). These factors leave communities in a state that is vulnerable to social
change. By interrupting and suspending normal routines and activities, disasters have the
power to disturb existing social organization. When arrested, daily activities that
reinforce social roles leave social organization in a more adaptable state. Also, the
extreme stress created by the devastation may allow people to act outside of their typical
social role expectations (Alway, Belgrave, & Smith, 1989).
Disaster and Gender Roles
In general, women are more likely to be negatively affected after disasters. This is
demonstrated by their increased chance of developing posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD). Women may be at as much as double the risk for showing symptoms of PTSD
after catastrophic events (Green, Lindy, Grace, Gleser, Leonard, Korol, et al., 1990;
North, Nixon, Shariat, Mallonee, McMillen, Spitznagel, & Smith, 1999). However, the
extent to which gender plays a role on the experience of disaster is dependent upon
culture (Norris, Perilla, Ibanez, & Murphy, 2001; Always, Belgrave, & Smith, 1998).
When gendered responses to disaster of men and women from Mexico, a culture with
traditional gender expectations, were compared to responses of men and women from the
United States, a culture with relatively fewer gender expectations, the results showed that
Mexican women experienced greater distress than Mexican men and their American
comparison groups. Furthermore, Mexican and American reactions to disaster were
dissimilar and created different effects of gender on post-disaster outcomes. This supports
the notion that culture influences the role of gender on disaster reaction. As another
example, a study on tsunami survivors in India found that women who were widowed felt
a distinct pressure to remarry as a means of income and survival (Becker, 2007). In
Indian society, expectations of gender are extensive and unyielding, even under adverse
circumstances, meaning that women will be expected to rely on men for income, rather
than becoming independent providers for themselves. In this example, it is evident that
Indian culture can influence the gendered experience of disaster.
Moreover, gender roles may become flexible in the impact phase of disaster. A
study conducted by Alway, Belgrave, and Smith (1998) studied gender role modifications
in the wake of Hurricane Andrew that hit Miami in 1992. Forty-five participants (25
women and 20 men) were interviewed after the storm about their responses and behavior
during the storm. The study reported that during the most urgent phases of crisis, gender
roles were compromised to adjust to stressful circumstances. Before the storm, women
41
�described engaging in female-typical storm preparation activities, such as grocery
shopping and childcare, while men took on more physical tasks, such as boarding up
windows and yard work. Women took on the role of nurturers, while men took on the
role of providers. Once the storm touched down in Miami, normal gender role
expectations became less rigid. Men and women alike exhibited fear through verbal
expressions of concern and crying. During the height of the storm, gender roles were
diminished because the individuals were more concerned with survival than fulfilling
expectations of gender. However, despite these changes, overall gender roles were
resilient following the storm. After the impact of Hurricane Andrew, clean-up efforts
were initiated. These efforts proved to largely subscribe to the community’s gender
expectations that existed prior to the storm. Men were put in charge of strenuous outdoor
work. Women reported cleaning inside the home as their contribution to the clean-up
efforts. Also, men reported exercising their role as the patriarch of the family by dictating
decisions about whether the family would move or stay. “Even when our everyday
worlds are disrupted and role behavior suspended, however momentarily, institutional
arrangements will pull us back into normal behaviors,” conclude Alway, et. al. (1998).
The family system and the economy (e.g. paid employment) have been identified as the
two most active agents in resilient gender roles (Alway, et. al., 1998). Returning to
normal activities necessitates relying on a social structure for guidance. Communities will
default to previously held gender role expectations as a means to return to normal
functioning.
Disaster and Age
Despite what commonplace stereotypes might suggest, there is little evidence to
suggest that the elderly are at more of a risk in the aftermath of disaster than middle-aged
adults. Bolin & Klenow (1982) found that there was not a significant difference between
the elderly and non-elderly for adequacy of received aid. Other studies corroborate these
findings, concluding that elderly were less adversely affected by catastrophes than
younger adults (Phifer, 1990; Ruskin & Talbott, 1996). However, research on the
experience of disaster of the elderly acknowledges the unique challenges faced by this
group, such as unemployment and limited mobility (Phifer, 1990; Bolin & Klenow,
1982). They also may have greater financial difficulties because they tend to be retired
and have poor insurance coverage (Phifer, 1990).
Moreover, some research actually indicates that middle-aged adults fare the
poorest in response to disaster, rather than the common sense judgment that the elderly
would be most adversely affected (Norris & Murrell, 1987; Thompson, Norris &
42
�Hanacek, 1993). Explanations for this difference suggest that with age comes experience
and maturity that make the elderly better equipped to handle the stresses of disaster
(Norris & Murrell, 1987). Meanwhile, others suggest that more responsibility is
associated with the middle-aged years of the human lifespan, including providing an
income, childrearing and managing family systems, which can become burdensome when
trying to cope with the consequences of disaster (Thompson, Norris & Hanacek, 1993).
Many members of the middle-aged group have the stress of caring for both their children
and their aged parents. Therefore, stresses on the elderly and the youth are reflected on
the middle-aged group. For example, suspension of education, which seems like a
consequence of disaster that would primarily affect youth, also has the power to affect
parents because they must deal with the additional stresses of finding daycare services for
their children (Becker, 2007). Despite the stresses that can be created by parenting in the
aftermath of disaster, the loss of children can have even greater adverse effects on
parents. Guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress are common emotions
experienced by parents who have lost children in disasters (Becker, 2007).
Children are especially vulnerable to disaster. Rosati (2006) assessed the key issues faced
by children in disaster situations. His assessment identified relocation, education, and
employment as some of the most pressing issues affecting youth in disaster-stricken
areas. Disasters have an unmatched ability to produce orphans. Orphans may then be
displaced, removing children from the way of life to which they have become
accustomed. This may produce anxiety and stress. Also, suspended education is a major
concern for children, because disasters can destroy school buildings and take the lives of
teachers, which puts a hold on children’s studies. Without a complete education, youth
find it hard to secure employment in a competitive job market.
Disaster and Ethnicity
Research on the role of ethnicity and disaster shows that minority groups are at a
greater risk of experiencing a pattern of neglect in the post-disaster community, receiving
less support than members of the major ethnic group (Norris & Elrod, 2006). Ethnicity is
also related to other risk factors in disasters, including socioeconomic status, severity of
exposure, and sense of control. A study of the role of ethnicity on victims of Hurricane
Andrew showed that African-Americans and Spanish-preferring Latinos experienced
more adverse consequences of disaster than White Americans (Perilla, Norris, & Lavizzo,
2002). Differences in ethnic experience of disaster were partially accounted for by a
differential of exposure and vulnerability. Differential of exposure describes the trend for
minority groups to be more greatly impacted by the destruction and devastation caused
43
�by the disaster. In other words, minorities experience a higher severity of exposure. A
higher severity of exposure attributed to higher rates of PTSD following the disaster.
Differential of vulnerability refers to familial and acculturative susceptibilities to
experiencing stress after disaster. Congruently, a comparison of black and white elderly
victims of disaster showed a difference in recovery rates between races. Thirty-seven
percent of black elderly victims recovered fully, compared with 53% of white elderly
victims.
II. Analyses
To determine if the social support outcome model accurately represents real life
disaster outcomes, four disaster situations will be analyzed. Figure 2 shows a twofactorial design used to select disasters for analysis: international vs. local disasters and
natural vs. man-made disasters. The four catastrophic events selected were the Southeast
Asian Tsunami of 2004, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th,
2001, Hurricane Katrina, and the nuclear reactor meltdown in Chernobyl.
Case Study 1: Tsunami hits Southeast Asia
On December 26, 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean with an epicenter just
off the coast of Indonesia registered a 9.0 on the Richter scale (Hawkins & Rao, 2008).
This earthquake triggered a tsunami, the likes of which the world had not encountered
since 1964. The tidal wave left a path of indiscriminate destruction in its wake. The
tsunami affected coastlines of several Asian countries including India, Indonesia and
Thailand. In Thailand alone, six provinces were devastated by this unforeseen natural
disaster (Thailand Country Report, 2006). The waves left more than 8,000 people
declared dead or missing and about 1,500 children lost one or more parents. Schools,
resorts, homes, and businesses were irreparably damaged. The country’s livelihoods of
fishing, agriculture and tourism suffered sizeable losses.
In this case, no warning was present for the natural disaster. This gave the Thai
people no time to evacuate or prepare for the impact of the tsunami. Bolin (1989)
acknowledges that while many natural disasters are marked by an early phase of warning,
earthquakes and related disasters (i.e. tsunamis) are exceptions. Current prediction
methods for earthquakes are only accurate in calculating the chances of earthquakes
occurring in a certain period of years. Therefore, a threat or risk of the tsunami was
unknown prior to the event.
The social support and post-disaster community outcome model would predict the
emergence of a therapeutic community in the wake of the tsunami. As a natural disaster,
44
�it would be seen as an Act of God. Following the disaster, altruism and social role
changes would be expected as signs of social support.
Several pieces of evidence coincide with this prediction. A study conducted in
Thailand after the tsunami identified anger and alienation in the affected Thai youth
(Rosati, 2006). The study cites that a social worker for the Indonesian Red Crescent made
an observation that, “Young people are angry, but they are not angry about the tsunami.
They see that as an act of God and of nature. They are angry about the lack of systems to
help them get a good education and get jobs.” This supports the notion that the natural
disaster would be viewed as an act of God and hints that a low point has been reached,
because the focus of youth concern is not on assessing losses, but rather expressing a
need to move forward with recovery by obtaining education and employment. Another
study that supports the model’s prediction is a recovery and rehabilitation program
review conducted by World Vision (2007). World Vision is a relief organization that
implemented a disaster intervention program that lasted two to three years after the
impact of the tsunami. It provided community-based disaster management programs to
promote child well being, livelihood recovery, health, water and sanitation, and shelter
and resource management. The community-based disaster intervention programs utilized
the manpower and skills of the affected community members to rebuild and recover. This
method of intervention increases social support among community members and
promotes altruistic behavior. Subsequently, comprehensive results of several quantitative
surveys of 1,565 randomly selected households, 40 focus groups, 465 community
members, and staff provided evidence for social role flexibility. The results showed that
women were working outside the home for the first time and sometimes working multiple
jobs. Also, women occupied leadership roles in many livelihood groups. Consequently,
women expressed greater confidence in speaking and taking action. Furthermore, three
out of five Thai provinces that participated in the program reported more positive
relationships between men and women since the tsunami. Renewed appreciations for one
another and a higher value of life after surviving the tsunami were common explanations
for the positive gender role changes. While children faced extreme adversities because of
the tsunami, the World Vision study concluded that parental attitudes toward children had
shown a significant improvement from the baseline. Also, staff observations included
perceptions that child well being had improved. Overall, staff reported community unity
and cooperation, as well as, the return of community vitality and self-sufficiency. These
findings point to social support mobilization in the face of disaster.
The model would also predict that the social changes brought about by the postdisaster community would ultimately be resilient, returning to baseline levels. In other
45
�words, positive relationships between women and men and parental attitudes towards
children would be expected to return to pre-disaster levels. Without collecting new
survey results, it is hard to say whether this is the current trend or not. However, some
newspaper articles report not just a return to pre-disaster conditions for women, but a
worsening. They suggest that within just six months of the tsunami’s impact, women
faced increased violence and rape in displacement camps (Deen, 2005; Tsunami after 100
days, 2005).
Based on the World Vision report findings, it appears that a therapeutic
community emerged in the wake of the tsunami, as the model predicts. However, later
newspaper reports suggest that either the therapeutic community had deteriorated within
a period of six months, which would coincide with the model’s predictions, or that
perhaps a therapeutic community had never truly emerged, contradicting the World
Vision findings.
To determine a clear outcome for this case, it would have been preferable to obtain
data from an objective source, rather than media stories or agency evaluations. As a
result, efforts to determine social role resilience following the return to daily routine are
inconclusive.
Case Study 2: 9/11: Terrorist Attack on the Twin Towers
The terrorist attacks that hit New York City on September 11, 2001 sent
Americans into a state of shock and disbelief. Two hijacked commercial airliners
careened into buildings of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. A short
while later, another airliner would hit the Pentagon and another would fall short of its
probable target, the White House, and crash instead into a field in Shanksville,
Pennsylvania. For the purposes of this analysis, the focus will just remain on the attack of
the Twin Towers in New York City and the consequential community outcome. Many
lives were lost that day and for days to come, as firefighters and police officers searched
through the debris for signs of life. According to the 9/11 Commission Report (2004),
about 2,150 people who were working in the World Trade Center on September 11th
were killed, not including fatalities of fireman or police, passengers on the aircrafts,
civilian volunteers and World Trade Center security personnel. In terms of physical
damage, the severity of the disaster was extreme. Two major skyscrapers had collapsed
onto the streets of Manhattan, killing thousands in the office buildings and on the streets
below. The scope of impact was restricted; immediate damage remained in Manhattan.
However, the consequences of the attack were felt nationwide since about 20% of
Americans reported knowing someone hurt or injured in the attack (The 9/11
46
�Commission Report, 2004). The cost of the cleanup was estimated at about $600 million
(September 11th by numbers, 2002).
In this situation, there had been no known threat to the American public of an
impending terrorist attack. The lack of a warning cue prevented the initiation of
evacuation procedures until after the impact of the first airliner into one of the Twin
Towers. The rushed efforts to evacuate the skyscraper and surrounding buildings created
a panic on the streets of New York.
In this case, the social support and post-disaster community model would predict
that the disaster would be perceived as a man-made event. While there was an uncertainty
about who had launched the attack, the urgency of the situation at hand delayed the
blame-seeking process. After a brief period of time, the major perpetrator became clear:
the terrorist organization, al-Qaeda. However, placing blame on al-Qaeda did not create a
social schism. The community became unified against the terrorists and came together to
help in relief efforts.
Because of the circumstances of this terrorist attack, the social support and postdisaster community outcome model would predict that the community would engage in
blame seeking, but would be united because of it. There was a potential for recurrence,
since it was not clear whether or not the al-Qaeda would strike again. However, quick
mobilization of military forces with the goal of uprooting the al-Qaeda organization in
the Middle East put some of the worries about future attacks to rest.
There are various signs that a therapeutic community emerged after the impact of
this terrorist attack (Kaniasty, 2006). Altruistic behavior displayed after the disaster
includes volunteerism of New Yorkers and monetary and resource donations to victims
and their families. For example, the Peace Corps, a civil service program, saw a 40%
increase in applications after the attack on the Twin Towers (September 11th by numbers,
2002). Also, an estimated $1.4 billion was donated to charities after the attack, with about
$500 million designated for families of deceased NYPD and FDNY agents (September
11th by numbers, 2002).
In this example, New Yorkers felt a distinct low point and joined together to aid in
recovery and rehabilitation efforts. Optimism about recovery processes may explain why
signs of psychological distress after terrorist attacks are time-limited and not usually
indicative of long-term psychopathology (Pfefferbaum, Pfefferbaum, Christiansen,
Schorr, Vincent, Nixon & North, 2006; Kaniasty, 2006).
However, some studies of the therapeutic communities reveal that the emergent
therapeutic community was not all-inclusive. Milam, Ritt-Olson, Tan, Unger, and
Nezami (2005) conducted a study on post-traumatic growth (PTG), positive emotional
47
�and behavioral outcomes of disaster in multi-ethnic groups in post-9/11 samples of
adolescents. Measures of PTG included appreciation of life, prioritizing of life, increased
spirituality, stronger relationships and self-reliance. While one-third of adolescents
reported post-traumatic growth, results showed greater PTG levels in white and Hispanic
groups than in Iranian adolescents. This reflects the exclusion of Middle Easterners from
the post-traumatic ingroup created in the wake of the terrorist attacks. This is likely due
to the fact that the terrorists who orchestrated the attack were from the Middle East. Peek
(2003) found similar results. Interviews with New York City students following the
terrorist attacks revealed exclusion of Muslims from the therapeutic community. Some
Muslim students reported feeling directly blamed for the events, while others felt unable
to participate in helping behaviors or even discussions of the event. Many felt they were
not allowed by others to properly grieve. Anti-Muslim hate crimes and acts of
discriminations rose significantly after the events of 9/11. This prevented Muslims from
benefiting from social support systems in the wake of this traumatic experience. These
studies of the Muslim and Middle Eastern experience of 9/11 demonstrate a major fault
of therapeutic communities: the exclusion that results from the formation of an ingroup.
The model also predicts the deterioration of the therapeutic community. While the
community had initially exhibited solidarity against the aggressors, plans to deploy troops
in Afghanistan caused some political and social divide across America. Immediately after
the September 11th attacks, polls showed that President Bush’s approval rating had
reached an all-time high of 90%. By 2004, this rating had dropped to 53%. Likewise, the
approval rating for Bush’s handling of the subsequent war on terror decreased steadily
over his presidential terms and dissatisfaction of Americans with the way things were
going had reached 62% in 2004. This dissatisfaction with President Bush, the war on
terror and the overall state of affairs indicate the breakdown of the solidarity that had
initially emerged in the post-disaster community.
Case Study 3: Hurricane Katrina
In September 2005, Louisiana was struck with a hurricane that would devastate
New Orleans physically, financially and socially. Hurricane Katrina would come to be
one of the most expensive disasters in American history (Weems, Watts, Marsee, Taylor,
Costa, Cannon, Carrion, Pina, 2007). After the impact of the hurricane, there was mass
flooding in several neighborhoods and widespread destruction of houses. To make things
worse, disorganized disaster evacuation efforts led to a total lapse of social control in
New Orleans. Chaos escalated to near riot levels. Violence, rape and looting were
rampant in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (Page & Puente, 2005).
48
�In this case, a warning of the impending disaster was available. Weather stations
were able to see the developing storm as it formed and neared the coast. People were
urged to evacuate, although a clear evacuation plan was not in place. Many people stayed
behind to protect their homes and belongings. In fact, the fact that a warning of disaster
impact was present made it much more contemptible when measures were not taken by
federal agencies, such as FEMA, to adequately prepare the city for impact.
The ineptitude of the government response made the recovery process slow and
difficult, exacerbating the effects of the hurricane. Hurricane Katrina effectively revealed
how unprepared the American people were to handle a disaster of this magnitude.
The social support outcome model initially predicts that a therapeutic community
would emerge following this natural disaster. However, this is an interesting case,
because evidence suggests otherwise. Reports suggest that due to the circumstances of
the event, there was a period of blame seeking, where residents of New Orleans wanted
an explanation from government agencies and officials for their role in the apparent
failure to adequately prepare the city for impact and organize effective post-impact
interventions. One possible reason why a therapeutic community did not form following
this natural disaster is that the levees that had been built to protect New Orleans from
rising water levels failed in the face of the hurricane (Handwerk, 2005). Much of the
flooding was attributed to the failed levees. This enabled residents to assign blame for at
least some of the losses they incurred. As a result, this disaster event would follow an
alternative route on the social support outcome model because the natural disaster
revealed a technological failure.
As expected for the outcome of a technological failure, several studies indicate a
social divide that formed after the impact. Racial tensions peaked in the aftermath of
Katrina (Dach-Gruschow, 2006; Hong, 2006; Adams, O’Brien, & Nelson, 2006).
Perceptions of the disaster event differed for Blacks and Whites. A poll conducted by
USA Today found that 60% of Black Americans and just 12% of European Americans
believed that racism was behind the government’s slow response to Katrina (Page &
Puente, 2005). The poll found differences in assignment of blame between races as well.
Thirty-seven percent of Blacks felt that President Bush deserved the majority of the
blame, while only 15% of Whites agreed. On the other hand, 27% of Whites felt that
New Orleans residents deserved most of the culpability. This contrasts with 11% of
Blacks that felt the same way.
Although there were racial tensions and blame-seeking behavior after the storm,
volunteerism and helping behavior were still present. The news media covered many
stories of heroism and altruism following the devastation of the hurricane. One story
49
�interviews volunteers as having said, “We’re healing ourselves by helping others,”
(Rioux, 2007). Rodríguez, Trainor and Quarantelli (2006) identify many ways in which
people of New Orleans engaged in prosocial behavior. For example, some hotel chains
were used as temporary residence for displaced victims. Local community members
formed search parties to look for victims in working-class neighborhoods. Numerous
church and volunteer groups donated time, manpower, money, and support to the
recovery efforts. Ultimately, the authors argue that deviant behaviors highlighted in news
stories were not as rampant as portrayed by the media and that illegal acts of “looting”
became a norm in this stressful situation indicating that this behavior should not be
considered anti-social.
However, while there is evidence of prosocial behavior in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, it is worth asking how such behavior could benefit a displaced community.
Much of the prosocial exhibited in New Orleans after the devastation of the hurricane
was actually the efforts of outsiders to the community. Volunteers from Habitat for
Humanity were sent into New Orleans, while community members affected by the
disaster were forced out. For this reason, the social support of the community could not
be bolstered as the members of the community were physically separated from one
another and often times refused reentry.
Despite this argument, literature and news reports overwhelmingly indicate that a
therapeutic community did not emerge (Adams, O’Brien, & Nelson, 2006; DachGruschow & Hong, 2006). Rather, the surfacing of racial tensions indicates a social
schism, which is symptomatic of a corrosive community.
Case Study 4: Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Disaster
In April 1986, a nuclear reactor exploded at the Nuclear Power Complex in
Chernobyl, Ukraine. A massive fire resulted, which took 10 days to extinguish. In the
mean time, large amounts of radioactive chemicals were emitted from the power plant
into the atmosphere. The radioactivity was carried far and wide, from Kiev to Belarus.
Radioactivity in this area is more than ten times higher than unaffected areas and will
remain that way for an estimated 300 years to come (Abbott, Wallace, & Beck, 2007).
This technological disaster had no warning present before the impact. It was a
technological malfunction, which could not have been predicted. As a result, the
Ukrainian people in the surrounding areas had no chance to evacuate and escape the
harmful radioactive fallout. They were left to suffer the consequences of this man-made
disaster.
Based on the circumstances of this disaster, the social support outcome model
50
�would predict that the event would be perceived as a man-made disaster and would
initiate a blame-seeking phase that slows recovery. The emergent post-disaster
community would be expected to be corrosive resulting in a deepening of social divides.
Studies on the Chernobyl community after the incident report widespread feelings of
uncertainty (Abbott, Wallace, & Beck, 2006). The uncertainty stems from the unknown
consequences of this unprecedented disaster. It is unclear what the effects of exposure to
such high levels of radioactivity will be on the affected population. There has been an
increase in reports of poor health, although signs of sickness have not been attributable to
radiation exposure. Rather, studies suggest community members perceive themselves as
ill and expect a future decline in health, which may be related to the anxiety caused by
the uncertainty about the consequences of this disaster (Abbott, Wallace, & Beck, 2006;
Havenaar,, De Wilde, Van den Bout, Drottz-Sjoberg, Van den Brinke, 2003). This
community has undergone a process of “victimization,” whereby community members
feel helpless under adverse circumstances and lack trust for each other and for authorities.
The emotional atmosphere of Chernobyl is marked by instability, distrust, and fear. This
is indicative of a non-therapeutic atmosphere.
In this case, the technological disaster path of the social support and post-disaster
community outcome model accurately describes the corrosive experience of the
Chernobyl community.
III. Discussion
Case Study Analyses
The model was effective in predicting social support outcomes of four cases of
disaster events. One of the natural disaster events, the Southeast Asian tsunami, showed
signs of an emergent therapeutic community based on findings of a World Vision
evaluation of intervention programs. While the model initially predicts that the postdisaster community of Hurricane Katrina would also be therapeutic, racial divides and
deviant antagonistic behavior following the storm contradict this prediction. However,
still in sync with the model, a closer look at the circumstances surrounding Hurricane
Katrina reveal a technological failure of the levees built to protect the city. Consequently,
the post-disaster community in New Orleans more closely followed the technological
disaster path for social support outcomes by engaging in blame seeking and revealing
racial divides. The nuclear reactor incident of Chernobyl, one of the technological
disasters that was examined in this paper, exhibited signs of a corrosive community,
engaging in antagonistic behavior. The model predicted this outcome because the
explosion and subsequent radioactive pollution was perceived as a man-made disaster
51
�with no low point and a potential threat of recurrence. Finally, while the terrorist attacks
of September 11th had the power to result in a corrosive community, altruistic behavior
and an outpouring of social support for victims and their families denote signs of a
therapeutic community instead. The model initially predicts that after engaging in blame
seeking, the community would experience social schisms. However, the blame seeking
that resulted in this catastrophe was unifying for Americans and consequently, a
therapeutic community emerged. This is an alternative prediction of the model.
The model also predicts a deterioration of social support after the return to daily
activities. Results are inconclusive as to whether the therapeutic communities that appear
to have emerged after the tsunami and after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 deteriorated.
Newspaper articles about tensions, disagreements and abuses in the post-disaster
communities suggest deteriorations of social support, but provide little explanation for a
cause. Furthermore, it is difficult to make any conclusions without objective measures of
social support.
While the analyses superficially support the efficacy of the prediction model, the
results are extremely limited. Analyses were conducted using conclusions of disaster
studies and print media stories of post-disaster behavior. Quantitative or original
qualitative data would have better demonstrated the model’s efficacy.
Methodological Considerations
Researching survivors has a lot to offer the field of psychology in understanding
how disasters can influence social processes (Knack, Chen, Williams, & JensenCampbell, 2006). Researchers can look at the effects of disaster on individuals or entire
communities (Norris, & Elrod, 2006). The results of disaster research may highlight more
effective coping strategies. In addition, this area of research is even more valuable for its
practical applications. Studying the impact of catastrophes on communities is a valuable
area of research, precisely because findings may lead to changes in public policy and
disaster management strategies.
This study used observational rather than experimental methods. Case study analyses
attempted to identify real world support for the social support and post-disaster community
outcome model. However, this study was not quantitative and did not collect original data.
Like many studies in the field of disaster research, qualitative analyses were the most practical
method for beginning to understand the therapeutic community phenomenon. It would have
been preferable to collect data and test correlational predications, but that task was not
practical for this study. The nature of disaster events makes them particularly challenging to
study using correlational or true experimental methods.
52
�While it is clear how valuable the results of disaster research are, there are some
inherent problems with collecting data in the wake of such an occurrence. For instance,
most disasters are unexpected and unpredictable. The location and span of destruction is
something that can only be estimated. This creates problems in research. To truly study
the immediate effects of disaster, the study should begin directly following the impact.
However, approval by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) and planning of a
methodological design delays this process. For this reason, researchers interested in
studying disaster should preplan their methods, taking into careful consideration a
practical way to collect information from a displaced and emotionally fragile population.
Also, researchers may want to contact an IRB as soon as possible to expedite the
approval process (Knack, et. al., 2006).
There are many practical problems when it comes to recruiting participants.
Researchers must find a way to recruit subjects for their studies when most survivors
have prioritized accounting for their losses and are in need of basic survival resources
(Knack, et. al., 2006). Dislocation of large percentages of a population creates a problem
for methodology and analysis. It makes it extremely difficult to recruit subjects using
telephones, e-mail, or standard mail. A study conducted by Kessler, Galea, Gruber,
Sampson, Ursano and Wessely provides a good example of some of the sampling
challenges. The researchers attempted to obtain subjects for a study of psychological
health and suicidality in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by phone surveys (2008). They
reported an oversampling of residents. This was in part due to the forwarding of phone
calls of displaced residents from their original address to their new addresses.
Furthermore, the researchers had obtained contact numbers from the American Red
Cross, which had included cell phone numbers. Clearly, keeping track of who has already
been sampled can be difficult. Some methodological problems can be bypassed by
advertising for opportunities to participate in research or recruiting survivors in shelters
(Knack, et. al., 2008). Yet, maintaining a representative sample is still problematic when
shelters are constantly losing and gaining people. It is also difficult to maintain contacts
with participants when they leave the shelters because shelters often set up privacy
limitations and refuse to share contact information (Knack, et. al., 2006). In the study
cited earlier of Hurricane Katrina victims, Kessler, et. al. (2008) report that some of the
phone numbers provided by the American Red Cross were for hotel rooms where
displaced families were living temporarily. While some of these participants left a
forwarding address, others did not, making it complicated to track down participants.
Another issue facing researchers is contention with caregivers at medical centers and
shelters who see the research as unnecessary and potentially emotionally disturbing to
53
�survivors (Knack, et. al., 2006). This means that researchers must carefully consider the
benefits that research will have not only on the field of psychology but for the
participants themselves and convey this to the participants and caregivers alike. Simply
citing that the results of the study will add to the knowledge of psychology or disaster
response will not suffice in convincing people that it is worth their while. Another issue
that should be addressed when it comes to problems in methodology is barriers in both
language and education (Knack, et. al., 2006). If studying an international disaster, an
accurate translation of instruments and instructions is necessary to obtain valid results.
Also, due to the wide variety of socioeconomic statuses and education of disaster
survivors, instruments may need to be adjusted to ensure an understanding by all
participants. If the instruments being used are in computerized format, researchers must
be sure that participants are familiar with using a computer and give ample instructions
on using the computer (Knack, et. al., 2006).
Beyond the logistical and practical problems of conducting research in areas
affected by disaster, there are many ethical issues to consider as well. First, researchers
must think about what payment survivors will receive in return for their participation. Is
it ethical to offer resources as a form of payment in the wake of disaster? Perhaps not,
given that people may participate in desperation for necessary resources. Using resources
as payment could be seen as coercive since people may feel pressured to participate as a
means to survive (Knack, et. al., 2006). Secondly, researchers must be sure that the
benefits of the research outweigh the risks of participation faced by the subjects.
Psychological research of disaster survivors may necessitate that the participants rehash
painful memories and experience. Measures should be taken to determine the immediate
and long-term effects of such introspection on recent distressing events (Knack, et. al.,
2006). Lastly, researchers must take into account that the psychological state of the
participants may compromise their judgment and decision-making abilities. Researchers
should be relatively sure that participants are not agreeing to participate only as a reaction
to extreme stress (Knack, et. al., 2006).
There are also complications that arise in understanding the collected data.
Subjects whose participation has been solicited from shelters may have bonded with
others or developed a reliance on fellow community members and caregivers. The
strengthening of these social ties may influence the resulting analysis of data (Knack, et.
al. 2006). Researchers must also realize that their results are somewhat limited in that
disaster cannot be replicated. Similar situations may arise that can be studied in an
analogous fashion, but many factors prevent disaster research from being replicated. For
instance, a new disaster may differ from the originally studied disaster in geographical
54
�location, culture, amount of destruction and loss, role of government, and many other
variables. Similarly, generalizing results obtained from one disaster to others becomes
challenging (Knack, et. al., 2006). After all, how much can results of one study be
generalized to the results to other disasters of varying magnitudes of impact and
consequence, population sizes, and proximity of the area affected? Also, analysis of data
can be difficult because there is often no pre-disaster data studying the psychological
condition of residents in that particular area due to the unpredictable nature of disaster
(Norris, & Elrod, 2006). This leaves studies without a baseline to which data may be
compared. As a result, investigators may attempt to collect baseline data retrospectively.
Researchers must tread lightly when it comes to planning, recruiting, and analyzing data
when studying effects of disaster.
Potential Impact of Research
Psychosocial research in the field of disasters has numerous applications. Research
is necessary to help afford a more efficient support system after disasters. The efficacy of
social work interventions should be bolstered by empirical support. Research in
disastrous events may shed light on strategies for recovery that do and do not work for
different ethnicities, genders, and age groups. Previous studies have come to the
conclusion that the goal of disaster interventions should not be just to restore
communities to their previous state, but to transform them into more resilient groups that
value equality, justice and cohesion (Hawkins & Rao, 2008).
Future Directions of Research
Future research should focus on examining social changes that result from
emergent therapeutic communities. Many studies hint at social role flexibility during
disaster but fail to thoroughly examine the changes. Studying this in the field may present
problems because social changes may not seem like top priority events when survival is
at stake. However, studying how social changes are formed in the face of traumatic
events would benefit the psychological understanding of disaster reactions.
A trend of cross-cultural comparison is budding in disaster research. A further
look at how different cultures react to disaster may reveal cultural vulnerabilities to
traumatic stress. Differences in social roles between cultures provide vast possibilities for
research. A continuation of multi-ethnic studies on disaster responses will provide a
broad base of knowledge for disasters’ effects on social roles.
The results of research on traumatic events have the potential to influence public
policy and intervention programs. First, future research should aim to propose ways of
55
�equally distributing support to disaster victims. This will prevent therapeutic
communities that exclude some community members through patterns of neglect.
Secondly, disaster research should focus on identifying ways to prevent the deterioration
of social support following disasters, as loss of social support is not a desirable outcome.
Finally, future research should aim to find ways to counteract the maladaptive tendencies
of corrosive communities, so that dwelling on losses can be avoided and a quick
transition to recovery and rehabilitation may be made.
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Figure 1. Social support and post-disaster community outcomes based on type of disaster.
61
�International
American
Hurricane Katrina,
Tsunami,
Natural
Thailand
2006
New Orleans,
Louisiana
2005
Terrorist Attack on
Man-Made
Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident,
the World Trade
Ukraine
Center,
1986
New York City, NY
2001
Figure 2. Two-factor design for disaster analysis.
62
�The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
in the Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Anjuli Chitkara (Psychology)1
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) has been listed as a specific anxiety disorder in the
Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) since its third edition when it was differentiated
from Panic Disorder. GAD is defined by disproportionate, chronic and uncontrollable
pathological worrying about everyday activities or events. It is only diagnosed as a
disorder when it causes enough distress to interfere in the individual’s daily life.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a treatment method developed by Aaron Beck is
one of the leading treatment methods for GAD. It is considered successful because it
treats both the cognitive and behavioral symptoms of disorders. In the treatment of GAD
the cognitive components address the irrational and automatic negative thoughts that
underlie the persistent and overwhelming sense of worry.
The purpose of this paper is to review the use of CBT in the treatment of GAD. I will
present the history of the treatment of GAD and explore the effectiveness by comparing
various studies spanning over the past twenty years. Throughout this paper, I will
compare and contrast number established techniques of CBT as it was applied in my field
placement.
I. Literature Review
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently one of the leading treatment
methods for GAD, but it was not always this way (Covin, et al., 2008). Prior to CBT;
pharmacotherapy, anxiety management and behavioral therapy were all leading treatment
methods for GAD (Barlow, et al., 1984; Lindsay, Gamsu, McLaughlin, Hood & Espie,
1987; Durham & Turvey, 1987; Butler, Fennell, Robson & Gelder, 1991). All of these
methods have been tested and shown to develop improvements in anxiety patients
however; CBT has continuously demonstrated the greatest improvements in patients
(Barlow, et al., 1984; Durham & Turvey, 1987; Power, Jerrom, Simpson, Mitchell &
Swanson, 1989; Chambless & Gillis, 1993; Covin, et al., 2008).
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
63
�In its third edition the DSM separated anxiety into generalized anxiety disorder
(GAD) and Panic Disorder (Barlow, et al., 1984; Covin, et al., 2008). To verify if this
partition was warranted Barlow, et al. (1984) conducted a study to identify the
differences between the disorders and determine what treatment method was effective for
each. They conducted a study with twenty patients who suffered from GAD or Panic
Disorder. Subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment group, or the wait-list group,
which served as the control. The treatment methods included relaxation training, EMG
biofeedback, and CBT. In each group half of the participants had GAD while the other
suffered from Panic Disorder. Measures for the study included the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Psychosomatic Symptom Checklist (Barlow,
et al., 1984). These measures along with therapist feedback, and participant’s selfreported daily log of symptoms were used to compare the improvements of the control
group with the treatment group as well as the differences of individuals suffering from
Panic Disorder and GAD. Based on the results yielded from the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory-trait scale, Psychosomatic Symptom Checklist and clinicians ratings,
participants who received treatment improved significantly more than those in the waitlist control group (p<.01). In the treatment groups, participants’ daily record showed a
29% decrease in anxiety symptoms. Compared to the participants in the control group,
whose daily records showed anxiety increased 4%. Three and six month follow-ups were
conducted. The results indicated the participants in the treatment group maintained
improvements (Barlow, et al., 1984).
This study was designed to determine if there are differences between GAD and
Panic Disorder however, the overall results illustrate little variation rates of improvement
(Barlow et al., 1984). Both showed significant improvements but the researchers did not
set up the experiment in a manner that allowed them to specifically determine which
aspects of treatment were more effective for each disorder. In their discussion they
postulated based on the definitions of the anxiety disorders, however they did not provide
conclusive proof (Barlow, et al., 1984). If conducted correctly at the time, this study had
the potential to be incredibly influential by supporting or opposing the DSM-III’s
decision to separate the two disorders. Today we are capable of identifying the
differences between the two but at the time this could have impacted the direction of
future research.
In order to create an effective treatment method for GAD, researchers first
wanted to identify the crucial facets of therapy. To accomplish this Durham and Turvey
(1987) conducted a study comparing Cognitive Therapy and Behavior Therapy. These
treatments were compared to allow the authors to identify the influential aspects of each
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�therapy. They randomly assigned forty-one participants to one of two therapists who
evaluated them then randomly assigned them to cognitive therapy or behavior therapy. In
this study Cognitive Therapy was based on guidelines outlined by Beck, Emery, &
Greenburg (1985) which concentrates on cognitive and behavioral treatment methods
while Behavior Therapy’s singular focus was behavioral techniques such as distraction,
graded exposure and relaxation. Both conditions were given 16 hours of individual
sessions with a therapist and were asked, at the start and end of treatment, to complete the
Zung Anxiety Status Inventory, the Modified Somatic Perception Questionnaire, Beck
Depression Inventory, Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire and Dysfunctional Attitude
Scale (Durham & Turvey, 1987). Six months later the final follow-up was conducted. In
addition to the scales, participants were required to keep a daily journal detailing the
degree of anxiety they felt three times a day.
Results of this study demonstrated that both treatment groups showed
improvements pre- to post-treatment, although the rates were not always statistically
significant. Overall post-treatment results indicated 25% of the participants reported no
change in anxiety from the entrance of treatment, while 21% felt that they had
moderately improved and 54% reported they had significantly or completely improved,
this percentage decreased to 45% at the six-month follow-up (Durham & Turvey, 1987).
When comparing post-treatment results there was only one statistically significant
difference between the groups. Cognitive Therapy participants showed a significant
improvement on the scores of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, which rates dysfunctional
thoughts (Durham & Turvey, 1987). These results could indicate the cognitive techniques
taught in Cognitive Therapy are effective at restructuring cognitive distortions, such as
dysfunctional attitudes. At the six-month follow-up there were a greater number of
significant differences between the two. These differences implied the Cognitive Therapy
group maintained higher rates of improvement. Overall the results comparing the two
groups suggest that Cognitive Therapy and Behavioral Therapy are both effective at
treating GAD short-term. However, Cognitive Therapy is more effective at maintaining
long-term results. This led the authors to conclude improvements from Cognitive
Therapy are easier to maintain due to the strategies and techniques taught in therapy
(Durham & Turvey, 1987).
The findings of Durham and Turvey (1987) coincide with previous results which
indicate continuity (Barlow et al, 1984). However, the present study did not include a
control group. The inclusion of a control group in the study could have helped
standardize the results thus allowing the authors to compare the groups more accurately.
The results illustrated a relatively low improvement rate for both types of therapy, if
65
�compared to a control group the data may have yielded more significant differences.
Overall the study effectively demonstrated that Cognitive Therapy is more efficient than
Behavior Therapy providing a framework for future research on the long-term results of
Cognitive Therapy.
During this period in psychology’s history pharmacotherapy was an extremely
popular treatment method for anxiety due to the effectiveness found by Enna (1982) and
Martin (1983) (as cited by Power, et al., 1989, p. 1). Pharmacotherapy, also known as
drug therapy, is defined as the use of medication to treat disorders. It can be used as the
solitary method of treatment or in combination with other forms of psychotherapy. In the
treatment of anxiety one of the common drugs used was benzodiazepine. In the 1980’s
researchers began to recognize the negative side-effects of medication such as
habituation, and dependence (Lindsay, et al., 1987; Powers, et al., 1989). Due to a
growing concern of side effects of long-term use of medication alternative treatment
methods were tested in efficiency for the treatment of GAD. Lindsay, et al. (1987)
conducted a study comparing CBT, anxiety management, benzodiazepine, and a control
group to establish which was more effective at treating GAD (1987). CBT was based on
Beck’s manual for depression treatment modified for anxiety taking the basic coping
strategies for cognitive distortions and placing an emphasis on homework (Lindsay, et al.,
1987). In this study Anxiety Management focused on the behavioral symptoms of
anxiety, teaching individuals relaxation techniques such as muscle relaxation and
meditation. In addition to the muscle relaxation technique participants were asked to keep
a log detailing their feelings after the technique to reinforce mental awareness. The
participants in the benzodiazepine group received their medication and were asked to
keep a daily log of their symptoms. The final group was the wait-list group which served
as the control.
Forty participants were evaluated and diagnosed by an impartial therapist then
randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups. It was known that prior to the
study at some point all forty of the participants had taken benzodiazepine to relieve their
anxiety. To help the researchers compare the progress of each treatment group
participants were required to complete the Zung self-rating anxiety scale, the Modified
Autonomic Perception Questionnaire and the Cognitive Anxiety Questionnaire as well as
keeping a daily log of their feelings of anxiety and cognitions (Lindsay, et al., 1987). The
results of the study implied that all participants except those in the control group
improved somewhat. When compared to the control group the benzodiazepine group did
not show significantly improvements. However, CBT and Anxiety Management
treatment both showed statistically significant improvement (p<.05) from the control
66
�group (Lindsay et al., 1987). When rates of improvement were looked at from pre- to
post-treatment individually participants involved in CBT improved a statistical
significant amount in all areas of study with p<.01 on the Zung scale, Modified
Autonomic Perception Questionnaire, and Cognitive Anxiety Questionnaire. Anxiety
Management also showed statistically significant improvement however, the results
indicated p<.05 in the impacted areas, signifying a higher probability the results were
chance than CBT. The study concluded that CBT and Anxiety Management are both
effective treatment methods for GAD, but CBT is more effective (Lindsay et al., 1987).
This study was important to the history of CBT in the treatment of GAD because
it was one of the earlier articles that illustrated the superiority of CBT over drug therapy.
It provided a strong basis for future research on drug therapy and its inefficiency for
long-term use and is continuously replicated, in the attempt to establish the most effective
method of treatment for GAD. Recently there has been another rise in popularity of
pharmacotherapy. This article helped establish the shift from dependence on
pharmacotherapy to alternative forms such as CBT and if revisited could potentially help
re-establish that shift.
In 1988 the study of anxiety had been progressing however, researchers of the
time began to notice that the scales, inventories and questionnaires used to identify
anxiety were strongly correlated with depression scales (Beck, Epstein, Brown & Steer,
1988). For some time researchers did not seem alarmed by this correlation, possibly due
to depression being a common secondary disorder in anxiety patients, indicating a natural
correlation between the two. It was not until researchers began to realize their results
were possibly compromised by some of the tests lack of inter-rater reliability and validity
that action was taken to rectify the situation. Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer (1988) spent
six years creating the Beck Anxiety Inventory, a scale based on the Anxiety Checklist,
which assess the severity of symptoms, the Physicians’ Desk Reference Checklist, which
contains a measure of physical and somatic symptoms, and the Situational Anxiety
Checklist, which measures both the severity of symptoms and the cognitive symptoms of
anxiety in general or in particular situations.
The goal of the Beck Anxiety Inventory was to discriminate Panic Disorder and
GAD from major depression, and dysthymic disorder (Beck, et al., 1988). Over the
course of the study one thousand and eighty-six participants completed the Beck
Depression Inventory, Hopelessness Scale, and Cognition Checklist. Based on the results
thirty-seven questions were narrowed down to twenty-one that demonstrated the ability to
discriminate between the types of anxiety and depression. One hundred and sixty
participants were given the final Beck Anxiety Inventory after one week of treatment
67
�where they were evaluated by an intake therapist. The correlation between the intake
results and the inventory results was r=.75 (Beck, et al., 1988). Overall this inventory was
found to be an accurate and reliable measure of anxiety.
The creation of this inventory has been very beneficial to the progression of
understanding and the testing of this anxiety disorders. Prior to the Beck Anxiety
Inventory, the results of anxiety and depression screening were correlated very positively.
Researchers were unsure as to the reason. Beck, et al. (1988) cites that often reliability
and validity tests were not completed until the completion of the study which may have
influenced the level of results. This inventory also helped shape the development of CBT
and GAD because of the respectability and level commitment that Beck gives to his
work; he spent six years ensuring that this scale was a valid and reliable measure of
anxiety. The Beck Anxiety Inventory demonstrates the importance of reliable results for
the treatment of GAD which indicates anxiety disorders and reliable treatment methods
for them were gaining recognition in the field of psychology.
Pharmacotherapy continued to be a frequently used treatment method of GAD
due to its potential quick improvement period, despite previous studies findings of
ineffectiveness as a long-term solution (Lindsay, et al., 1987). CBT was still being tested
and developed during the late 1980’s due to its sporadic results. These inconsistencies
were attributed to the poor methodology of studies and a lack of reliable scales (Barlow,
et al., 1984; Durham & Turvey, 1987; Beck, et al., 1988). Power, Jerrom, Simpson,
Mitchell, & Swanson (1989) conducted a study, influenced by the results found by
Lindsay, et al. (1987) and designed to compare the effectiveness of CBT, diazepam, and a
placebo pill in the treatment of GAD at a primary care facility.
The study included thirty-one participants that were randomly assigned to CBT,
diazepam, or the placebo group (Powers, et al., 1989). The diazepam and placebo group
were given either 5mg of diazepam or a placebo pill three times a day for six weeks, then
regardless of group they were given a placebo pill for two weeks. CBT was based on
Beck, Emery & Greenburg’s (1985) manual for anxiety treatment; during the two week
placebo period for the diazepam and control group the CBT participants did not receive
treatment to maintain standardization. To compare groups all participants were evaluated
by an independent general practitioner who rate the severity of their symptoms from one
to seven (one being not severe at all and seven being extremely severe). Participants, at
intake then again at the termination of treatment, were also required to complete the
Kellner and Sheffield rating scale of distress and the Hamilton anxiety scale (Powers, et
al., 1989). A twelve-month follow-up was completed and results were based on whether
or not patients sought treatment after the study.
68
�The results indicated that all groups improved over time based on the Kellner
and Sheffield and Hamilton scales, however the CBT group had the most significant
improvements on the Kellner and Sheffield scale when compared to the other treatment
groups. The results of the Hamilton anxiety scale also indicated that all treatment groups
made significant progress however only CBT significantly differed from the results of the
placebo group (p<.05) (Powers, et al., 1989). The follow-up results of this study were
based on whether the patients sought out further treatment after the study; three out of ten
CBT patients sought treatment contrasted with the seven out of ten from the diazepam
group.
This study was conducted due to the erratic results of prior studies and to
compare pharmacotherapy and CBT in the hopes of yielding accurate results (Powers, et
al., 1989). Despite the efforts put forth by researchers these results cannot be generalized
for various reasons. One being the population of this study contained twenty-seven
females and only four males. Although women are typically diagnosed with GAD the
demographics are too skewed to be generalized to the population (Lindsay, et al., 1987;
Chambless & Gillis, 1993). This study also wanted to focus on the long-term effect of the
treatment groups however, their follow-up did not include any clinical assessments and
were based solely on whether participants sought further treatment. This is a subjective
way at determining long-term improvements as individuals could be seeking treatment
for reasons unrelated to anxiety. Overall this study did not use reliable methodology for
their follow-up however, its preliminary findings accurately support that CBT is a more
effective method of treatment than pharmacotherapy over a short-term period which is
something that has not been significantly proved prior to this.
Even though many studies have been conducted on the topic of CBT as an
effective treatment method for GAD researchers are not satisfied with the results and feel
that they are too unreliable to indicate with complete confidence that CBT is the most
effective long-term method of treatment for GAD. Previous findings have been unable to
identify the specific aspects of treatment which yield the most successful results for
treating GAD. Butler, Fennell, Robson, & Gelder (1991) compared Behavioral Therapy,
focusing solely on the behavioral components of treatment and CBT placing emphasis on
both the cognitive and behavioral aspects of therapy in an attempt to determine which
techniques are most effective. The cognitive techniques in this study focus on breaking
the cycle of cognitive distortions, automatic negative thoughts, poor self-esteem and
irrational thoughts.
The study contained fifty-seven participants who were randomly assigned to one
of three groups: CBT, Behavioral Therapy or the control group (Butler, et al, 1991).
69
�Patients had between 4 to 13 one hour individual sessions and were asked to complete the
Hamilton Anxiety Scale, the Leeds Scale for anxiety, the State-Trait Anxiety InventoryTrait scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory in order to gauge
anxiety symptoms. To evaluate cognition they were given the Dysfunctional Attitude
Scale, the Cognition Checklist, Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and the Subjective
Probabilities Questionnaire (Butler, et al., 1991). The results displayed that CBT and
Behavioral Therapy both significantly differed from the control group. CBT significantly
differed from the control group in all of the anxiety measures, two of the four depression
measures and five of the six cognition measures. These findings indicate that CBT
participants showed more dramatic improvements than Behavioral Therapy participants.
Overall CBT participants were able to maintain improvement rates due to CBT’s focus
on correcting cognitive distortions (Butler, et al., 1991).
Overall this study yielded similar results to previous studies (Barlow, et al.,
1984; Durham & Turvey, 1987). The consistency of these results may indicate that
researchers need to pay greater attention to aspects such as demographics, tests used, and
standardizing groups. For example in this study the ratio of the population of men to
women was an 8:57 which could have skewed the results dramatically as well as the
inconsistency of therapy sessions in the study (Butler, et al., 1991). In the method section
Butler, et al. (1991) indicates that participants could attend between four to thirteen
sessions, the variation of the number of sessions could also have greatly impacted the
results of this study. The results of this continue to indicate that although there are
relatively consistent results supporting CBT as an effective method of treatment for GAD
the research being conducted is not always reliable which is causing the inconsistency of
support.
In the early nineties Chambless and Gillis (1993) conducted a meta-analysis on
CBT and reviewed seven studies that contained CBT being compared to a control group,
either wait-list or placebo pill. Their results suggested that CBT was significantly more
effective than the control groups. The meta-analysis also implied that CBT had successful
long-term results, particularly in a study conducted by Borkovec & Costello (1992)
which despite having a large population size provided evidence that individual who
received CBT had a low relapse rate (as cited by Chambless & Gillis, 1993). The authors
also concluded that overall CBT was more effective than other treatments such as nondirective therapy and Behavioral Therapy regardless of conflicting results that are often
based on reliability and demographics (Chambless & Gillis, 1993).
CBT is often considered successful due to the positive long-term results
researchers have found (CITE). In a study conducted by Durham, Chambers, MacDonald,
70
�Power and Major (2003) the researchers wanted to obtain accurate long-term results of
the effectiveness of CBT on GAD patients so they conducted a follow-up on participants
from two different studies ranging from 8-14 years ago (at the time of study). Typically,
follow-up results are obtained 6 to 12 months after the initial experiment; these
researchers sought out true long-term results to determine the effectiveness of CBT. In
order to obtain accurate results participants, once re-contacted, were evaluated by a single
research psychologist who was blind to their initial experiment condition. The researcher
assessed their progress based on interviews, patient-rated scales, as well as medical
history. When viewing the differences between pre-treatment and long-term follow-up
results in Study 1 and Study 2 both studies displayed overall significant improvements in
patient-rated scales the CBT groups compared to the non-CBT groups (Durham et al.,
2003). Although there was not a significant difference between the long-term follow-up
results of recovery rates in Study 2, Study 1 showed a slight difference in the CBT group
(40%) versus the non-CBT group (30%). One of the significant results found in Study 1
and Study 2 was CBT participants reported lower levels of symptom severity than nonCBT participants. This is significant because one of the aspects of CBT that makes it
effective is the teaching methods used to treat symptom severity. Patients are taught how
to re-adjust their perception of symptoms in order to decrease their anxiety (Beck, 1985).
Despite the overall lack of statistically significant results favoring CBT the researchers
found enough differences between the two treatment groups that they felt confident “both
CBT and the complexity and severity of presenting problems appear to influence the logterm outcome of GAD” (Durham et al., 2003, p. 508).
Although the progression of the study of CBT and its effect on GAD has been
studied for over twenty years today researchers are still dissatisfied with the results.
Covin, Ouimet, Seeds and Dozois (2008) felt that research has been too generalized and
there is a lack of focus on the specific aspects of CBT that are most effective. One of the
major components of GAD is pathological worrying. Worrying becomes pathological
when it begins to have a negative impact on the individual’s life and level of functioning
(Beck, Epstein, & Greenburg, 1985; Covin, et al., 2008). Covin, et al. (2008) felt in order
to accurately evaluate if CBT was an effective method of treatment for GAD a metaanalysis should be conducted focusing on this aspect of pathology. The meta-analysis
included studies that defined CBT by using both cognitive and behavioral aspects in
treatment, only contained GAD patients, and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire, which
measures pathological worrying. The results indicated that the mean effectiveness of
CBT was much higher than the control. When the researchers separated age into young
adults and older adult’s the mean results of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire implied
71
�that CBT is more effective for young adults (M=-1.69) compared to older adults (M=0.82). This indicated that age could be a possible moderating variable in CBT’s
effectiveness in treating pathological worry. Follow-up results indicated that clients
maintained improvements during treatment regardless of age group. Overall the Penn
State Worry Questionnaire mean of GAD prior to treatment in studies was M=63.59 and
post-treatment was M=48.95 (Covin, et al., 2008). The mean significantly decreased
signifying an improvement in participants. This was maintained by both age groups at
follow-up which supports the belief that CBT effectively treats pathological worry longterm.
Overall it was concluded that CBT is an effective method of treatment for
pathological worry. The study indicates CBT is more effective in young adults, although
older adults improved a statistically significant amount when compared to control groups
(Covin, et al., 2008). Older adults may display less impressive results because they may
have suffered from this disorder for a longer period of time and may find it more difficult
to break habits established over time in a set amount of treatment sessions. This metaanalysis yielded accurate results and was conducted in a reliable manner as it addresses
recent studies and also focuses on a certain aspect of GAD to ensure that CBT is effective
in that area of pathology. This meta-analysis could be improved if it included more than
ten studies. If it had a larger sample size results could be considered more reliable,
however it is understandable based on the requirements for the study.
This final study indicates that although it took some time, the field of
psychology began to grow and understand the aspects of study that needed to be focused
and improved upon to generate accurate results to support CBT as an effective method of
treatment for GAD. Throughout the early 1980’s to the mid-1990’s researchers did not
seem to be concerned with the reliability of their work and appeared to be biased in favor
CBT, assuming that it would be effective. Many studies conducted during this time
period criticized studies prior to them for inaccurate results (Power, et al., 1989; Butler, et
al., 1991). A common trend in the development of determining if CBT is an effective
method of treatment for GAD is recognizing poor methodology. However, instead of
altering the pattern researchers continue only to acknowledge the limitations of their
work without changing. Several other methods of treatment have shown to be effective in
the treatment of GAD. However; despite some inaccurate results overall CBT
consistently demonstrates the most significant improvements in individuals who suffer
from GAD.
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�II. Discussion
Based on the history provided, CBT is shown to be an effective method of
treatment that maintains long-term improvements after treatment is terminated (Durham
& Turvey, 1987; Lindsay, et al., 1987; Butler, et al., 1991; Chambless & Gillis, 1993;
Covin, et al., 2008). Although there are other forms of treatment that have been shown as
effective CBT generally maintains, the greatest rates of improvements. One of the
possible reasons that CBT is so effective is that it addresses both the cognitive and
behavioral aspects of GAD. Individuals who suffer from GAD can experience panic
attacks and other physical symptoms. However, the underlying factor in all anxiety is
pathological worrying (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985; Covin, et al., 2008). CBT
utilizes basic techniques that help clients overcome their anxiety. Since CBT is based on
an educational model clients are encouraged to complete homework assignments to
reinforce independence and responsibility for emotions.
I completed my field placement at a non-profit counseling center, Freedom from
Fear, which specializes in using CBT to treat anxiety and depressive disorders. My
placement entailed writing articles for the monthly newsletter, working at the reception
desk, sitting in on therapy with one of the therapists, blogging on the Freedom from Fear
message board, and other assorted tasks as needed. At the beginning of the placement, we
were encouraged to frequently sit in on therapy. Thus, I was able to experience firsthand
a therapy session for the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, my initial excitement
soon turned to dissatisfaction as time went on.
Freedom from Fear prides itself on practicing CBT. However, I was not able to
see the therapist effectively practice the methods of CBT and rarely saw him teach
techniques associated with treatment. CBT is based on ten basic principles that are
outlined in the book Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective by Beck,
Emery and Greenberg (1985). These principles outline the structure of therapy and the
manner it should be carried out. These principles are: Cognitive Therapy is based on the
cognitive model of emotional disorders, Cognitive Therapy is brief and time-limited, a
sound therapeutic relationship is a necessary condition for effective Cognitive Therapy,
therapy is a collaborative effort between therapist and patient, Cognitive Therapy uses
primarily the Socratic method, Cognitive Therapy is structured and directive, Cognitive
Therapy is problem-oriented, Cognitive Therapy is based on an educational model, the
theory and techniques of Cognitive Therapy rely on the inductive method and homework
is a central feature of Cognitive Therapy (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985).
Throughout my experience at Freedom from Fear, I did not see many of these
principles in use. Often, I witnessed them contradicted in the therapeutic setting. I would
73
�like to focus on the four principles, which left the greatest impression on me: Cognitive
Therapy is brief and time-limited, a sound therapeutic relationship is necessary for
Cognitive Therapy to be effective, Cognitive Therapy is problem-oriented, and
homework is a central feature of Cognitive Therapy (Beck, Emery, & Greenburg, 1985).
CBT is typically brief and time-limited, lasting between five and twenty sessions
(Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). Sessions can continue for longer than twenty sessions
depending on the severity of the problem. However, the basic goal of CBT is to teach
clients techniques they feel confident applying to their lives in order to discourage
dependence on therapists and medications (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). To
accomplish this therapists are encouraged to set goals with clients in the initial sessions,
this conveys to clients to take advantage of sessions and get to the heart of the problems
instead of dragging out issues. This method was not practiced at Freedom from Fear.
Instead I observed majority of the therapists clients were new or had been seeing him for
some time. At the end we noticed an influx of new patients. The clients of the therapist I
observed ranged from two to four years of treatment.
One of the therapist’s long-term clients is Danielle2, a nineteen-year-old girl
diagnosed with GAD. She has been seeing a therapist for a little over three years.
Throughout her session she seemed dependent on the therapist to supply answers for her,
eventually confessing she did not want to respond to his questions because she did not
want to give a “dumb” answer. Another problem I noticed with Danielle was her
dependence on her medication, which she continuously mentioned throughout the
session. When the therapist asked how she had dealt with a recent attack, she responded
“It was okay. I took a Xanax and it made me better.” Later in the session she brought up
her medication again referring to it as her “security blanket.” Her reliance on medication
concerned me due to the studies on pharmacotherapy which suggest the most common
side effect of medication is dependence (Lindsay et al., 1987; Powers et al., 1989). It
would be assumed because she is receiving CBT as well that she should be improving.
However the therapists lack of structure in treatment and his tendency to reinforce her
dependence on him the therapist may unintentionally be hindering her potential to
improve. To rectify this, the therapist should place an emphasis on Danielle decrease her
dependence on her medication and teach her techniques that will help her take
responsibility for her progress. If sessions were structured from the beginning of therapy
together the client and therapist could have set goals for her, such as reducing her dosage
over time, which could have motivated her and allowed her to feel more in control of her
treatment.
2
Client’s name has been changed to preserve privacy.
74
�Thomas3 was another client, which I was able to see the negative ramifications
of elongated treatment. Thomas is a thirty-one-year-old who has being seeing the
therapist for two and a half years for GAD. He has been separated from his wife since he
began treatment but they are currently in a relationship and are trying to work on their
relationship. Majority of his sessions revolve around discussing their problems and
progress. I assumed Thomas had made great strides in treatment prior to the sessions I
was able to sit in on because initially he did not exhibit or express many symptoms of
anxiety, such as pathological worrying. As the sessions progress I got the impression like
Danielle, Thomas had created a dependence on the therapist, looking to him to supply
answers for him. When the therapist would ask him open-ended questions he would often
shrug and remain silent until the therapist prompted him again occasionally turning to me
in order to ask my opinion. Another issue that came up throughout the sessions was
although Thomas expressed the need to speak to his wife about their problems however,
he did not vocalize following through between sessions. It appeared he opted to continue
to discuss their problems in sessions where he felt safe. Based on the guidelines for CBT
if he and the therapist had set a goal at the start of therapy and set a number of sessions he
might feel more inclined to act on the suggestions brought up in therapy and speak to his
wife as opposed to avoiding the issues in their marriage.
Another important principle of CBT is a sound therapeutic relationship is
necessary for improvement. In my observations and experience with the therapist, both
inside and outside of his office, I did not see people responding positively to his attitude.
His surliness could explain why clients have trouble relating to him. It is crucial for
clients, especially those who suffer from anxiety, to have a good working relationship
with their therapists. This is due to the fact that GAD patients are often frightened and
overwhelmed by their problems. A therapeutic environment, which a client views as safe
provides a basis for an open and honest relationship with the therapist (Beck, Emery &
Greenberg, 1985). If a client does not feel comfortable enough to candidly share with
their therapist they will not be able to make progress.
When Danielle first came in she seemed uncomfortable and after the therapist
asked how she was feeling she took several minutes to admit to having a panic attack on
her way to the city the past weekend. She reluctantly recounted the story: she was with
her friends on the train when she began to worry about getting lost or stuck on the train.
The therapist prompted her to tell him what had triggered the attack and Danielle
bashfully described several “what if” statements that plagued her such as “What if I miss
my stop?” and “What if we get stuck?” Throughout the entire session she seemed
3
Client’s name has been changed to preserve privacy.
75
�reluctant to share with him. This could be a result of her responding to the therapist’s
inappropriate behavior. Throughout the session he cursed, placed his feet on the desk and
ate his lunch without asking if she was comfortable, all of which seemed to visibly upset
her. Feeling comfortable with the therapist is crucial to the client-therapist relationship
and can greatly influence the clients progress (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). When a
client does not trust or respect their therapist they are unlikely to be open and honest with
them, disabling you from getting the appropriate help that is necessary for improvement
(Beck, Emery & Greenburg, 1985). This was seen in Danielle’s session, she did not
volunteer information about her experience which caused the therapist to spend majority
of the time trying to get her to share, slowing her progress.
Another principle of CBT is it is problem-oriented. This indicates in CBT the
therapist and client work together to identify the problem then come up with strategies to
treat and overcome it. The problem solving technique is a four step process in CBT. The
first step is for the patient and therapist to identify or conceptualize the problem, next is
to pick a strategy that directs the therapist and client to a technique that will help the
patient cope, and finally, together assess the successfulness of the method (Beck, Emery
& Greenberg, 1985). Nevertheless, this technique is a basic feature of treatment. I saw the
therapist use this process of problem-solving in therapy with Danielle, one time.
Throughout the session, she recounted her panic attack, Danielle expressed
several examples of cognitive distortions and pathological worrying, both of which are
key components of GAD (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985; Covin et al., 2008). She
spoke in absolute terms expressing cognitions such as “I will pass out, “I never go
anywhere alone,” and “I always panic.” She continued to speak using these irrational
terms until the therapist pressed her to provide proof of these absolutes and she was
unable to. He specifically challenged her statement “I always panic” by concentrating on
the fact that prior to this she had not had a panic attack in over a year. The therapist
pointed out feeling does not equal fact, and just because she feels she always panics does
not mean she actually does. He stressed she needed to stop thinking in absolute terms
because it was only enabling her anxiety. She needed to consciously challenge her
irrational thoughts with proof.
During this session, he gave her two coping strategies to deal with her anxiety.
First he taught her substitution, which is a technique where you think about something
other than your anxiety (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). An example for Danielle
would be that she was going to the city to see the Tyra Banks Show, when she was
beginning to feel anxious she could focus on the show rather than her panic. The second
technique he taught her was distraction (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). This revolves
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�around distracting herself before she becomes anxious. The therapist suggested the next
time she took the train, she should listen to her iPod or read a book. In this session, he did
work with Danielle teaching her some CBT techniques. Unfortunately, I was not able to
sit in with her again to see if she made any progress.
The therapist taught Thomas one technique to help understand his anxiety in the
last of the three sessions. It is my opinion that he could have benefited from strategies
earlier in treatment. There are many strategies that could have helped Thomas improve,
two of which are simplifying, and “to do the unexpected” (Beck, Emery & Greenberg,
1985). Simplifying is breaking problems down to their most basic elements. In Thomas’s
case, it was not until the third sessions that the therapist had Thomas list the reasons he
originally began therapy and rate the degree they impacted him at the time. Next, the
therapist had him rate the degree they were affecting his life now. This made Thomas
aware he had not made as much progress as he previously believed. Completing a simple
task like this; writing out problems and assigning numbers to them is an easy way to see
inner feelings. This technique seemed to have a large impact on him and he needed to
take an initiative to change his behavior if he did not want to lose his wife and become
overwhelmed by his anxiety again.
Based on topics in session, I believe Thomas would benefit from the “do the
unexpected” technique. This is a straight-forward approach that encourages rigid clients
to be more flexible (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). Based on my opinion Thomas’
sessions, his marriage could have benefitted from trying something new and breaking
their patterns. Throughout the sessions Thomas implied both he and his wife were not
willing to compromise based on their fear of change. Even when the therapist pointed out
to couples need to grow together. Thomas and his wife were separated, which had been a
change. Yet, Thomas continued to express fear of change. The “do the unexpected”
technique would have encouraged him to do something that would take both he and his
wife out of their comfort zone, which might have been more appealing to them because
neither would have an advantage in the new situation.
CBT differs from other therapies because it addresses the behavioral and
cognitive aspects of GAD. Based on results of studies comparing CBT and Behavioral
Therapy, the implementation of these strategies in treatment is one of the reasons that
CBT is more effective long-term (Durham & Turvey, 1987; Butler, et al., 1991; Covin, et
al., 2008). Durham and Turvey found along with maintaining improvement rates over a
long-term period, CBT participants improved dramatically on the Dysfunctional Attitude
Scale which was designed to measure dysfunctional cognitions (1987). The authors
concluded CBT participants improved in this area of pathology due to the strategies
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�taught during their treatment sessions as opposed to Behavioral Therapy participants who
did not receive techniques to overcome irrational cognitions (Durham & Turvey, 1987).
The final principle I will discuss is that homework is a central feature of
Cognitive Therapy. This appears to be one of the most important principles as it
reinforces the behaviors learned in therapy. Homework assignments are agreed upon by
the therapist and client. These homework assignments are activities that both believe will
assist the client in their progress outside of therapy sessions (Beck, Emery & Greenberg,
1985). After the task is completed the two will discuss the results. Mainly, how the
assignment made the client feel and determine if it was useful to the therapeutic process.
In Danielle’s case, I hope the techniques the therapist taught her helped. Yet, I
am pessimistic about her progress as she has been seeing the therapist for over three years
and is still dependent on him and her medication. I feel had she been assigned homework
activities, she may have viewed as frightening; she would have been forced to break her
negative habits. She may have benefitted from an assignment such as taking the train one
stop by herself allowing her to realize she is capable of overcoming her fears. Breaking
larger goals into small homework assignments is an efficient way to build confidence,
work toward ending dependence and putting the responsibility of improvements in the
client’s hands.
Similarly, Thomas’s homework was not emphasized. I was surprised in the
second session, when the therapist did not ask Thomas if he had tried any of the
suggestions brought up in the previous session. I felt even though they were not official
homework assignments the therapist would ask if Thomas had tried anything new with
his wife in general. CBT places an emphasis on these homework assignments, which help
clients recognize they are capable of achieving tasks or goals that may frighten them
(Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985). After spending the previous session discussing the
rigidity of the relationship, the encouragement for Thomas to alter his behavior was not
reinforced. Instead, the focus was placed on Thomas’s wife and what she was doing
wrong in the relationship. While, I listened to the session and reflected on the previous
one, I felt that too much emphasis was placed on Thomas’s wife’s issues as opposed to
what Thomas could contribute. Both appear incredibly rigid in their thinking, and I found
it discouraging. Thomas was not encouraged to take responsibility for his actions and
engage in new activities with his wife to help them break their habits. I feel if Thomas
was provided with reinforcement from assignments he would be more inclined to change
his behavior.
Although overall, I did see some CBT strategies in the therapeutic environment
it is my belief that crucial principles such as a safe therapeutic relationship compromised
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�any substantial progress clients could made. Furthermore it is my belief that these
techniques would not yield long-term results due to a lack of reinforcement.
Nevertheless, I was able to gain a much clearer understanding of the dynamics of the
therapeutic alliance as well as learn the components that go into being an efficient
therapist. In addition, while the treating therapist made errors, I observed his methods and
mistakes. His shortcomings allowed me to acquire a better understanding of how I would
act as a therapist.
III. Conclusion
GAD is an anxiety disorder characterized by pathological worrying. It is
expressed by negative cognitions such as irrational and automatic negative thoughts
(Barlow, et al., 1984; Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985; Covin, et al., 2008). CBT has
been shown to be an effective method of treatment for GAD. This is because, CBT,
unlike other therapeutic methods, places an emphasis on the cognitive facets of the
disorder as well as the behavioral components. Improvements made by CBT participants
are maintained due to the methods taught, based on an educational learning model (Beck,
Emery & Greenberg, 1985). This implies that techniques are judged on efficiency. Thus
CBT techniques are specifically intended for long-term support. Cognitive distortions
such as pathological worrying are not viewed as unconscious triggers for deeper
emotions, instead as the reaction to maladaptive coping mechanism (Beck, Emery &
Greenberg, 1985). To rectify these distorted thoughts CBT teaches clients new ways of
thinking that promote rational thinking and help challenge illogical concepts.
This type of therapy is effective with GAD for multiple reasons. As seen in the
studies provided, CBT is effective at treating pathological worry in GAD patients
demonstrating both long and short-term results (Barlow, et al., 1984; Durham & Turvey,
1987; Covin, et al., 2008). Other studies support that GAD participants make more
significant improvements with CBT than other therapeutic methods due to the treatment
strategies such as homework which reinforce participants’ ability to maintain long-term
results (Beck, Emery & Greenberg, 1985; Lindsay, et al., 1987; Chambless & Gillis,
1993; Covin, et al., 2008).
In my placement, I was able to see some of the techniques of CBT applied in the
therapeutic environment. However, it seemed that the therapist was not able to utilize
enough of the basic principles of CBT to create a positive learning environment for his
clients. This immobilized encouragement for clients to improve. Regardless, the
experience taught me the qualities I would like to have as a therapist as well as making
me confident in my diagnostic and theoretical abilities. It has taught me the importance of
79
�being conscious of the image put forth by the therapist. The experience also fostered
practical knowledge of the theoretical orientation, which I intend to practice. My
placement has allowed me to see the inefficiency of CBT, especially when the basic
principles are not followed. Ineffectively utilized CBT techniques are parallel to other
treatment methods that do not address the multiple facets of symptoms in GAD patients.
IV. References
1. Barlow, D.H., Cohen, A.S., Waddell, M.T., Vermilyea, B.B., Klosko, J.S.,
Blanchard, E.B., & Di Nardo, P.A. (1984). Panic and Generalized Anxiety
Disorders: Nature and Treatment. Behavior Therapy, 15, 431-449.
2. Beck A., Emery, G., & Greenberg, R.L. (1985). Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A
Cognitive Perspective. New York: Basic Books.
3. Beck, A.T., Epstein, N., Brown, G. & Steer, R.A. (1988). An Inventory for
Measuring Clinical Anxiety: Psychometric Properties. Journal of Consulting and
Clinical Psychology, 56, 893-897.
4. Butler, G., Fennell, M., Robson, P., & Gelder, M. (1991). Comparison of Behavior
Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment of Generalized Anxiety
Disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 59, 167-175.
5. Chambless, D.L., & Gillis, M.M. (1993). Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 248-260.
6. Covin, R., Ouimet, A.J., Seeds, P.M., & Dozois, D.J.A. (2008). A Meta-Analysis of
CBT for Pathological Worry Among Clients with GAD. Journal of Anxiety
Disorders, 22, 108-116.
7. Durham, R.C., & Turvey, A. A. (1987). Cognitive Therapy vs. Behavior Therapy in
the Treatment of Chronic General Anxiety. Behavior Research and Therapy, 25,
229-234.
8. Lindsay, W.R., Gamsu, C.V., McLaughlin, E., Hood, E.M, & Espie, C.A. (1987). A
Controlled Trial of Treatments for Generalized Anxiety. British Journal of Clinical
Psychology, 26, 3-15.
9. Power, K.G., Jerrom, D.W.A., Simpson, R.J., Mitchell, M.J., & Swanson, V. (1989).
A Controlled Comparison of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Diazepam, and Placebo
in the Management of Generalized Anxiety. Behavioral Psychotherapy, 17, 1-14.
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�Section IV: Critical Essays
�The Women of Heart of Darkness
Jenna Pocius (English)1
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been both lauded and criticized since
its publication. Though it is a short novella, the extremely dense content paints a vivid
picture of the harsh realities of imperialism, for corruption and greed are manifest within
the colonizers and spill out into atrocities. While a great amount of attention should be
paid to the post-colonial elements of Conrad’s tale, focusing a critical eye on the
portrayal of women illuminates the often overlooked patriarchal elements of the text.
Throughout the story, protagonist Marlow discounts the women as either stereotypical or
indescribable and not worthy of description. Thus, by trying to discredit and diminish the
women’s power, it becomes evident that Marlow is truly afraid of the power the women
hold, for he does not understand it and does not want his masculine world to be
threatened. Overall, the women of Heart of Darkness have powerful influence within the
text, and Marlow’s demeaning representation of and response to these women stems from
his fear and anxiety of feminine power and therefore represents a patriarchal desire to
constrain women by either assimilating them or dismissing them all together.
From an initial reading of Heart of Darkness, the supposed inferiority of the
female characters is obvious. As Gabrielle McIntire reminds the reader in her essay,
“The Women Do Not Travel: Gender, Difference, and Incommensurability in Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness,” “Not a single woman has a name, women scarcely speak, and when
they do they are misunderstood, deliberately misled, or represented as profoundly lacking
a comprehensive understanding of the events in which they participate” (265). Despite
their portrayal as ignorant and unimportant, it becomes apparent that the women of the
text are powerful, for it is their influence that commences and furthers the males’ African
journeys, especially Marlow’s. As literary critic Rita Bode explains, “powerful women
seem to control his [Marlow’s] destiny at every turn. They seduce and propel him into
the heart of darkness; they receive and encompass him once he is there” (23). Clearly,
there is a conflict between the women’s actual power and Marlow’s debasing
interpretation of the women.
Marlow’s aunt is the woman who enables his journey. Marlow’s childhood
fascination with travel continues into his adulthood, and when he realizes there is a
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Erica Johnson (English) for the honors course
EN311: Modern English & Irish Literature.
82
�Swedish trading company with which he could travel, he begins to seek out a means to
join. Success in this endeavor comes through the help of his aunt. As McIntire explains,
“his aunt is, quite significantly, partly responsible for originating his story” (265). While
“the men said, ‘My dear fellow,’ and did nothing” (Conrad 8) to help Marlow in his
quest, his aunt is more than willing to help, for she has connections with, “the wife of a
very high personage in the Administration and also a man who has lots of influence” (8).
These connections ultimately get Marlow the job; Marlow explains that, “I got my
appointment-of course; and I got it very quick” (9). Without his aunt, Marlow would
perhaps never have obtained his job on the river steamer with the trading company.
Not only does his aunt’s influence propel him into the heart of darkness, but it
also establishes a powerful reputation for him before he has even arrived in Africa.
When Marlow meets the bricklayer of the Company’s Central Station and discusses the
mysterious character of Kurtz, the corrupt chief of the Company’s Inner Station in the
Congo, the bricklayer expresses his anxiety over Kurtz’s power and Marlow’s potential
power, stating, “The same people who sent him specially also recommended you. Oh,
don’t say no. I’ve my own eyes to trust” (25). At this point, Marlow realizes that his,
“dear aunt’s influential acquaintances were producing an unexpected effect upon that
young man” (25). Therefore, through her powerful connections, Marlow’s aunt enables
him to acquire his desired occupation, and her praise creates a reputation that grants him
privilege and power within his new surroundings.
Despite her obvious influence on the course of Marlow’s life, Marlow
nonetheless denies, and seeks to suppress, her power. Before he even admits that his aunt
got him the job after his attempts to receive help from men fail, Marlow qualifies his
admittance with a statement that he reveals his embarrassment and anxiety over asking a
woman for help. In an unconvincing attempt to take the situation in jest, he confesses to
his audience, “Then-would you believe it-I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the
women to work-to get a job! Heavens!” (8). Though his audience has remained silent
throughout his storytelling, allowing Marlow to freely speak his mind, Marlow
nevertheless feels the need to explain and make light of his decision to ask his aunt for
help. Thus, it becomes obvious that this statement is an outpouring of anxiety and
discomfort over putting a woman in a position of power. As McIntire explains, “Here he
must not only repeat the personal pronoun, ‘I,’ but he feels compelled to name himself to
the others in order to stress his own astonishment, to perform his alienation from
ostensibly unusual behavior” (265). His self-declaration, “I, Charlie Marlow,” when set
in opposition to the women, clearly represents an assumption of male superiority, and his
83
�incredulity over the possibility of a woman being capable of the same accomplishments
of a man is, for him, frightening.
Furthermore, Marlow uses his aunt as an example of feminine ignorance. After
his aunt expresses her belief in a missionary vision of his journey to Africa, Marlow
mockingly comments,
It’s queer how out of touch with truth the women are! They live in a world
of their own and there had never been anything like it and never can be. It
is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to
pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been
living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and
knock the whole thing over (13).
Though his aunt may indeed be naïve to the true, corrupt nature of the colonialist effort in
Africa, her ignorance is a direct product of the patriarchal suppression imposed on
women by men to ensure that the women stay within a “world of their own” that the men
can easily dominate. As Peter Hyland explains in his essay, “The Little Women in Heart
of Darkness,” “this idea that women cannot survive outside ‘civilization’ is a selfprotective male view that allows men to evade a genuine appraisal of feminine need” (5).
Because Marlow uses feminine power to attain his desired occupation, his confidence in
his masculine power wavers. Thus, to reestablish his power, he dismisses all women as
ignorant beings who are unable to survive without men in order to make his aunt’s ability
to get him a job seem unimportant. Moreover, he robs his aunt of an identity, using her
as a general representation of feminine ignorance; by doing so, Marlow is able to remedy
the obvious anxiety and fear he experiences as a result of the profound impact his aunt
has upon his life by dismissing this impact entirely. Indeed, Marlow seems to be “living
contentedly” with his decision to categorize his aunt as an ignorant woman rather than
accepting her ability to wield more power than men.
Although Marlow is easily able to dismiss his aunt’s power, he is unable to
make sense of the power of the two knitting women in the Company’s office
headquarters, and therefore describes them in an otherworldly manner that evokes fear.
When Marlow travels to the Company headquarters to sign his contract, two female
secretaries are the first people Marlow comes upon, and they are the ones to send Marlow
on his journey. Interwoven in Marlow’s interpretation of these women is a sense of
unknowable power. They are significantly described as “knitting black wool feverishly”
(10), which is reminiscent of the fates of Greek myth who weave and unweave destinies
regardless of individual wishes (McIntire 271). Indeed, these women are perceived as
being privy to the true, dismal fate of the young men who sign with the Company.
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�Marlow describes his observations of the older knitting woman, stating, “Two youths
with foolish cherry countenances were being piloted over and she threw at them the same
quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and me too”
(11). Unlike with his aunt, Marlow cannot deny that these women are privilege to truth
and the power of knowledge.
His recognition of the women’s wisdom and knowledge weighs heavily on his
mind. Though he never exchanges words with them, the effect of their interaction
lingers. Marlow admits that, “Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the
door of Darkness, knitting black wool as a warm pall, one introducing, introducing
continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with
unconcerned eyes” (11). Marlow links these women to images of death and fate, and he
is incapable of dismissing these images as he dismissed his aunt. Even as Marlow
approaches his discovery of the infamous Kurtz, the old knitting woman comes to his
mind: “The old knitting woman with the cat intruded herself upon my memory as a most
improper person to be sitting at the other end of such an affair” (64). Just as with his
aunt, the impact of his encounter with the knitting women is manifest when he reaches
Africa, revealing a feminine influence that both initiates and permeates Marlow’s story.
Essentially, the power these women possess is their connection with truth and
knowledge. As evident through his opinions about his aunt, Marlow equates women with
ignorance and men with truth. Thus, the two knitting women are on the same plane as
the men. As McIntire explains, the women’s, “‘fateful’ knowledge momentarily links
them with the community of men” (273). Marlow’s description of the women in
response to his recognition of their knowledge reveals his fear of the possibility of
women of being within an assumed male sphere of truth.
To remove them from his male sphere of truth, Marlow interprets these women
not only as puzzling but as otherworldly, for they are essentially depicted as witches.
Bode reminds the reader that, “They [the knitting women] wear black; they are
mysterious and inscrutable; the fat one looks like a witch complete with a wart and cat,
the usual familiar of witches” (24). Bode goes further to point out that, in sailor folklore,
“witches have power over the natural elements on which sailors are so dependent” (24).
The women’s witch-like portrayal, then, seems to correlate with the power they hold over
the male characters as a result of their knowledge. Furthermore, just as witches cannot be
trusted, neither does Marlow trust these women. Far from bringing him comfort, he is
fearful of the knitting women and does not know what to expect from them; they give
him and “eerie feeling” (11) and are linked to sinister images of darkness and death. By
describing the women in an otherworldly and witch-like manner, it becomes clear that,
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�“In their unpredictability, they cannot be trusted, and hence, are feared” (Bode 24).
Marlow is unable to contemplate the implications of the fact that not all women are
ignorant to the truth of the world and can, in fact, be aware of truths that men are not.
Therefore, he interprets them as symbolic and supernatural, distancing them from their
femininity in order to keep his world of masculine power and knowledge unthreatened.
In addition to the knitting women, the African woman, assumed to be Kurtz’s
mistress, is another powerful feminine enigma that Marlow renders otherworldly in order
to soothe his anxieties. Certainly, “she seems to be a collaborator with the knitting
women, fulfilling their ominous warnings that there is no return” (Bode 25). Marlow is
immediately struck by, and fearful of, her, for when she appears he explains that, “She
was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and
stately in her deliberate progress” (60). Marlow’s interpretation of her as ominous stems
from the obvious power she holds among the natives. When she comes face to face with
Marlow and his fellow travelers on the steamer, Marlow describes that, “Suddenly she
opened her bared arms and threw them up rigid above her head as though in an
uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out
on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer in a shadowy embrace”
(61). With the shadows as referring to the other Congo natives, it becomes clear that this
is not the patriarchal society that Marlow is used to because the natives obey female
command. Bode explains that, not only is her power as mysterious to Marlow as the
Congo itself, but she “also exercises control over it [the jungle]. She possesses the ability
to change the face of the landscape itself” (25). In other words, she has the power to
dictate the actions of the natives and overtake the African landscape.
In fact, even her colonizer, Kurtz, seems to be at the mercy of her power. When
Marlow and the others finally arrive to take Kurtz away, it is the African woman who
leads the attempt to ensure Kurtz remains. According to Bode, “She is the leader of her
people, standing fearless when others run in fear, initiating their cries and shouts” (25).
When Marlow asks Kurtz if he understands their “breathless utterance” (67), he describes
that,
He [Kurtz] kept on looking out past me with fiery, longing eyes, with a
mingled expression of wistfulness and hate. He made no answer, but I saw
a smile, a smile of indefinable meaning, appear on his colorless lips that a
moment after twitched convulsively. ‘Do I not?’ he said slowly, gasping,
as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power (67).
Analogously to the two knitting women, the supernatural is evoked. Though some may
claim that Kurtz’s “longing eyes” express a yearning not to be separated from his position
86
�in the Inner Station, it is perhaps more likely that his longing to stay is intertwined with
his longing for the African woman, for her powerful position is intriguing and
consuming. As Bode argues, “Kurtz’s longing to remain a part of the mysterious jungle
life seems inextricably linked to his longing for her” (25). Indeed, Marlow’s explanation
of Kurtz’s “gasping, as if the words had been torn out of him by a supernatural power,”
reveals his awareness of Kurtz’s longing for the African woman. Because he utilizes the
same explanation of supernatural power when describing the two knitting women, his use
of it when explaining Kurtz’s reaction represents an attempt to eliminate female power by
interpreting it as otherworldly.
Because the African woman has such profound influence, even affecting Kurtz,
Marlow must employ various tactics to diminish her frightening power in addition to
rendering her otherworldly. For example, any recognition of her femininity is a
stereotypical connection in order to ease the fear that she awakens. Hyland explains that,
“What Marlow attempts to do is neutralize this (to him) terrifying vision [of the African
woman] into something closer to his stereotype of a submissive, patient, suffering
woman” (8). Indeed, Marlow finds comfort in describing her as a woman afflicted by the
loss of her male love, powerless to prevent Kurtz from being taken away. Though
Marlow is initially taken aback by her “magnificent” and “ominous” appearance, he
quickly changes his tune, explaining that, “Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild
sorrow and dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half-shaped resolve”
(61). By quickly explaining her as “tragic” and filled with “sorrow and dumb pain,”
Marlow assimilates her into his mental construct of a typical, powerless woman in order
to contain his fear and anxiety.
Even though the African woman is the only native who does not run away from,
or seem afraid of, the whistle that Marlow blows to scare away the natives as Kurtz is
being taken away, Marlow disregards her strength by clinging to the tragic vision of her
that he has created. He explains that, “Only the barbarous and superb woman did not so
much as flinch and stretched tragically her bare arms after us” (67). Marlow recognizes
her ability to be unaffected by the whistle as merely a product of her “tragic” dedication
to Kurtz; in Marlow’s mind, she derives strength only through the power of her love for a
man, not from a greater inner strength. Overall, Marlow’s repetitious description of this
obviously powerful and strong woman as “tragic” is yet another attempt to control his
anxiety.
An additional method that Marlow uses to placate his fear is to deny the African
woman full humanity by interpreting her through physical, sexual terms. Marlow goes
into great detail describing the appearance of the African woman, detailing her
87
�appearance from head to toe. He describes how, “She carried her head high, her hair was
done in the shape of a helmet, she had brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to
the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek…” (60). These physical characteristics
are the only tools available to define the African woman, for, as Jeremy Hawthorn
explains in his essay, “The Women of Heart of Darkness,” “the reader is never allowed to
witness her [the African woman’s] speech or her thoughts” (411). Such a depiction
parallels that of the two knitting women, for they too are denied speech. The distinction,
however, is that while the description of the two knitting women intertwines physicality
and ominous wisdom, the description of the African woman is the physical bound with
the sexual. As Marlow explains, she is covered in, “innumerable necklaces of glass
beads on her neck, bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her…She
must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her” (60). Essentially, the
woman’s body has become a shrine for worship. Though such a display could be the
natives’ expression of paying homage to her superiority, the reader, only offered
Marlow’s lens through which to view the woman, can only view her physically. Overall,
Marlow’s attention to her physical appearance and movements is an attempt to force the
reader to view her as a solely physical, sexual object.
The idea that the African woman is denied her humanity becomes even more
apparent when she is compared to Kurtz’s Intended. The African woman seems to be full
of life, for Marlow explains that, “the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the
fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking
at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul” (60). Such a description presents
her as the physical embodiment of the fruitfulness of nature and life. If the image of the
African woman mirrors an image of fertile life, the image of the Intended mirrors that of
death. When Marlow finally meets the Intended upon his return to Britain, he describes
how, “She came forward all in black with a pale head, floating towards me in the
dusk…This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo
from which the dark eyes looked out at me” (73-74). Her “ashy halo” and paleness
coupled with “dark eyes” evokes angelic and deathlike images. Thus, from their physical
descriptions alone, the two females are set in opposition to one another. As Hawthorn
explains, “where the Intended has the odour of death about her, she [the African woman]
is the personification of life; where the Intended is a thing of black and white, she is
ablaze with color; where the Intended is refined to the point of etiolation, she is ‘savage
and superb’” (408). Clearly, the African woman and the Intended are portrayed in stark
opposition.
88
�Indeed, while Marlow is enraptured solely by the physical appearance of the
African woman, he focuses only on the devoted and chaste nature of the Intended. This
creates the distinct binary in Marlow’s narrative of a woman as physical and sexual
versus a woman as strictly moral. Hawthorn illuminates this opposition as a function of
patriarchal suppression, explaining that, “in juxtaposing the two women the narrative of
Heart of Darkness draws attention to the process whereby women are dehumanized by
being divided into spirit and body and are denied the full humanity that requires
possession of both” (409). By perceiving one as wholly physical and one as wholly
spiritual, Marlow robs them of their humanity in order to ease his anxiety, restraining the
power he perceives in them by rendering them inferior.
The Intended’s power, especially, is overwhelming for Marlow. For example,
while Marlow only mentions in passing that, “her [the Intended’s] engagement with
Kurtz had been disapproved by her people. He wasn’t rich enough or something…it was
his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there” (75), the implications of
this statement are staggering. It would seem that, in fact, it was not the desire for money
itself that led Kurtz to take a job in the ivory trade but rather it was the ultimate goal of
gaining money to be considered worthy of the Intended. By expressing such a revealing
fact about the true nature of Kurtz’s decision to work in Africa without paying any heed
to its obvious implications, Marlow clearly tries to repress the stifling notion that Kurtz’s
actions were ultimately the result of female influence. Overall, just as Marlow gains
access to the Company through the influence of his aunt, the Intended is the driving force
behind Kurtz’s venture into the Congo.
Another key aspect of the Intended’s power is that she, unlike the African
woman, is granted speech, enhancing the idea of a division between the physical and the
mental. Just as Marlow is overwhelmed by the physical appearance of the African
woman, he is also overwhelmed by the Intended’s words. Her ability to speak leaves him
completely speechless, for he only responds through imitation. When Marlow visits her
at the end of the novella and they discuss Kurtz, Marlow’s ability to speak breaks down,
and the Intended controls the conversation. When she claims that, “of his [Kurtz’] noble
heart nothing remains-nothing but a memory,” Marlow replies “hastily,” “We shall
always remember him” (75), but when the Intended exclaims, “No! It is impossible that
all this should be lost…something must remain. His words at least have not died,”
Marlow responds, “His words will remain” (76). Clearly, Marlow is extremely eager to
agree and is only able to mimic her words. When the Intended speaks of the moral
example Kurtz set, Marlow instantly responds, “True, his example too. Yes, his example,
I forgot that” (76). Though Marlow knows the true, corrupt nature of Kurtz, he is
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�befuddled and powerless to express himself. More than the Intended’s ability to get
Marlow to say what she wants, Bode explains that their conversation, “suggests a deeper
activity- the submission of his will to hers. Marlow seems to lose the ability to initiate
his own thoughts, to create his own words. He becomes a mere mimic” (28). Essentially,
the Intended has the power to rob Marlow of his words.
Marlow’s bewilderment stems from the breakdown of his stereotypical view of
women. Before he meets the Intended, Marlow sees a picture of her and thinks, “she had
a beautiful expression…She seemed ready to listen without mental reservation, without
suspicion, without a thought for herself” (72). Yet Marlow’s idea of what a meeting with
the Intended would be like is contradicted in reality; rather than the Intended
submissively listening to Marlow vent, Marlow is the one silenced and incapable of
expression or independent thought. Hyland explains that Marlow’s initial impression of
the Intended is a “reductive image that coheres with his masculine view of women that
prevents him from apprehending her as an individual” (7). Thus, when she asserts the
power of her individuality through her words, Marlow’s comforting concept of her as a
passive, mechanical being is destroyed, resulting in anxiety and fear.
To cope with this anxiety, Marlow stifles her power through a denial of truth.
When the Intended asks to know Kurtz’s last words, rather than telling her that his last
utterance was “The horror! The horror!” (69), he deceitfully claims, “The last word he
pronounced was-your name” (76). Though this lie may initially seem to be a kind
gesture, enabling the Intended to retain an untainted memory of the man she loved, it is
truly a selfish tactic to keep her in an ignorant world of her own, restoring Marlow’s
power by withholding knowledge. According to Hyland, “His lie is, in the end, an act of
self-protection. It has no effect on the woman, because it leaves her exactly as she was
before his interview with her: selfless, patient, suffering, idealistic” (10). Though the
Intended clearly demonstrates her capacity for autonomy through her domination of
conversation, Marlow denies her the ability to receive and accept truth, leaving her as
idealistic as Marlow first perceives her to be.
Marlow clings to this idealistic vision of the Intended, and women in general,
for when he first speaks of the Intended to his fellow travelers, he tempers his mentioning
her, abruptly stating, “Did I mention a girl? Oh, she is out of it-completely. They- the
women I mean- are out of it- should be out of it. We must help them to stay in that
beautiful world of their own lest ours gets worse” (48). In language echoing his
interpretation of women expressed earlier when thinking about his aunt, Marlow
outwardly admits that not only are women in a world of their own, but men must work to
keep them constrained within that world. Essentially, Marlow believes “that women’s
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�inability to see reality is a deficiency that should not be remedied…the precarious
balance of the man’s world depends on the women’s remaining in that [ignorant] state”
(Hyland 7). Therefore, Marlow’s lie to the Intended is one of the many examples of
attempted suppression that he utilizes in response to the women in order to remove any
threat against male power.
While Marlow clings to the patriarchal belief of women as submissive and
passive, the women of Heart of Darkness consistently shatter his conviction. His aunt’s
ability to get him a job, the two knitting women’s knowledge, the African woman’s social
superiority and the Intended’s influence contradicts Marlow’s theory of women as
ignorant and therefore powerless. The idea of women as powerful challenges the notion
of ultimate male superiority, resulting in Marlow’s fear and anxiety. Thus, Marlow is a
vehicle through which patriarchal values are imposed on women due to the fear of a loss
of power. By rendering the women as otherworldly, and therefore non-human,
dehumanizing them through a division of mind and body, and denying them truth,
Marlow attempts to contain the women in “a world of their own.” However, the
women’s profound influence on Marlow makes it clear that any inferior qualities are not
derived from their true nature but are rather forced on them by Marlow’s perceptions.
Overall, the ways in which Marlow interprets the women serve as prime examples of a
larger, patriarchal fear feminine power and attempts to stifle that power.
Works Cited
Bode, Rita. “They ... Should Be Out of It: The Women of Heart of Darkness”,
Conradiana 26 (1994): 20-34.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: A Norton Critical Edition (4). Ed. Paul B.
Armstrong.New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 3-76.
Hawthorn, Jeremy. “The Women of Heart of Darkness”, Heart of Darkness: a Norton
Critical Edition (4). Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
405-415.
Hyland, Peter. “The Little Women in Heart of Darkness”, Conradiana 20 (1988): 3-11.
McIntire, Gabrielle. —“The Women Do Not Travel: Gender, Difference, and
Incommensurability in Conrad's Heart of Darkness”, Modern Fiction Studies 48 (2002):
258-283.
91
�The Problems With Passing:
When Categories Don’t Fit
Shayne Zaslow (Sociology)1
In high school, I was captain of the cheerleading squad. Those who meet me
now rarely believe this to be true, but at the time, I was extremely dedicated to
cheerleading: I fought hard to get people to respect the team, to get a coach who would
teach us something, and to get the team matching uniforms, all of which the team lacked
prior to my reign as captain. Whether or not people liked me, people knew me simply
because I did all of this. Having known I was queer since about age fourteen, I wrestled
with coming out to my team, officially, for three years. I was out to close friends and
family but avoided parading my sexuality around the school, simply because I felt it
unnecessary. In my backwards high school, being a cheerleader was stigma enough—I
definitely did not need to be “The Gay Freak” on top of that. At the team’s final social
gathering, the night before our last football game of my last season of cheerleading, I
found the appropriate time to come out to my teammates. A few of them knew, but, as a
whole, they were unaware, at least to my knowledge. Expecting to be met with
comments along the lines of, “…duh. You’ve never had a boyfriend,” I was met with an
entirely different reaction.
“Really? But you’re so pretty…”
“Oh my god, I had no idea. You don’t look gay—you wear makeup!”
“You totally can’t even tell! That’s so cool!”
Slightly shocked at these reactions, I was ultimately relieved that my team had
taken it so well and did not accuse me of trying to touch them when I caught them in a
stunt.
Fast forward four years to the coffeehouse, the campus hangout at my
undergraduate college. At that point, I was no longer seventeen, sort of out, or
cheerleading captain. Instead, I was twenty-one, out to absolutely everyone as both queer
and transgendered, and would never even consider joining the cheerleading squad.
Needless to say, I was in a different place in my life entirely, presenting as androgynous,
using a gender-neutral name and switching off between masculine and feminine
pronouns. On this particular night, my starving boyfriend had sent me to the coffeehouse
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley (Sociology) for special topics course
SW291: Queer Lives.
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�to get him dinner—chicken nuggets and French fries, to be exact, which took about ten
minutes to cook, all together. Upon my arrival at the coffeehouse, once my order was
placed, I ran into a girl from one of my classes that semester. We were making small-talk
about why I was there, and I mentioned I was getting food for my boyfriend. While
continuing the conversation, we discussed the upcoming paper we had to write. She
asked me what I was writing about and I told her I was writing about the gay rights
movement and its problems, and proceeded to make a joke about how I cannot write a
paper that is not about gay-this or gender-that. In fact all of my writing over the past four
years had been variations of a (very queer) theme. We shared a laugh, she looked at me a
minute, then asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“Why are you so into gay rights if you’re straight?”
It took me more than a moment to process what she had asked me, since I had
not been perceived as a straight girl since I was a seventeen year old cheerleader. I
responded that I was transgendered, as was my boyfriend, and at some point in my life I
have identified as everything on the LGBT spectrum. Once again, we shared a laugh and
she proceeded to say, “That’s so awesome.”
These two instances stand out to me in particular because in both, I have passed
as something I was not. In high school, I passed as a straight girl, mostly to avoid
ridicule and to “survive” high school. When the inner turmoil of being closeted became
too much to handle, I came out to my teammates and I was rewarded for my feminine
appearance and as they told me they had no idea, it was said with praise. After all, I was
pretty, wore makeup, and cheered for the boys on the football team, so I could not
possibly be gay, right? My years of loneliness as a closeted captain of a heterosexist
sport were ignored and instead I was ultimately rewarded for passing. In college, I
passed as a straight girl and consequentially, my boyfriend passed as a straight biological
male. Neither of us had any intention to do so, and regardless of how I presented myself,
the fact that I was in a relationship with someone I called “my boyfriend” and the fact
that, because of my body, I still used the bathroom marked “women” somehow made us a
heterosexual couple. I never had any intention of presenting myself or our relationship as
this, yet what I passed as was not up to me.
Both of these instances share a common thread: Passing as something I was/am
not. In its loosest terms, “passing” can be described as being accepted as, or perceived as
something by other people. Passing happens every day: we pass as men, women, black,
white, gay straight, happy, sad, thin, fat, etc.—the list goes on. Regardless of what we do
and how we exhibit ourselves, what we pass as lies in the hands of others and how they
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�read our presentations more than how we present and identify ourselves. The notion of
passing, however, runs much deeper than what people think when you walk down the
street: there is a strong political and personal agenda invested in the institution of passing.
In fact, passing is not just mere validation, or de-validation as the case may be, of one’s
presentation. There are distinct and complicated power systems bound up in passing and
there is an intense pressure for people to conform and pass not just as something, but as
something “right”: the “right” gender(s) (i.e. male or female, although male is highly
preferable), sexuality, race, ethnicity, etc. Essentially, there is a pressure to conform to a
majority that people give into, sometimes consciously, but mostly without even realizing
they are doing so (Bernstein-Sycamore 8).
Whether or not people pass and whether or not it is conscious is not what I look
to examine. Literature on passing takes a pro- or anti- stance far too often; people who
do pass are either praised as successes or ridiculed for assimilating and denying a part of
themselves, while people who do not pass are praised for defying labels or ridiculed for
not fitting in. I am not taking a pro- or anti- stance on the passing of individual people
because the reasons people pass or do not pass are not for me to deem wrong or right. I
am, however, looking to explore the problems of passing as an institution, specifically in
public spaces. The pressure to pass further advances binary structures: people are either
one thing or the other, and even if they do not fit these things (and furthermore, even if
they do not personally identify as either/or), they must pick one in order to survive.
Passing is problematic because it marginalizes people, specifically those who do not fit
binaries perfectly. When this happens, those who do not fit “enough” are at risk to be
victims of discrimination, crime, and violence. The world is unkind to those who are
different and people are forced to pass something acceptable in order to survive and
better their lives.
The light-skinned person of color passes as white because she has more
opportunities given to her, yet in the process she completely rejects her mother and her
past. The butch lesbian takes testosterone and passes as male so she can work in the
factory and make a living, yet in the process, she is alone and isolated, needing to
abandon those who know her as “she.” The transgendered person must pass as either
male or female when traveling to avoid harassment and potential violence, yet this often
means wearing neutral clothing and dressing to match the sex on their birth certificates,
not the gender they identify as. All of these people are passing as something acceptable
to ensure their survival, but as a consequence, they are forced to sacrifice a part of
themselves. I would argue that this is extremely harmful and oppressive.
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�What the institution of passing does is further impose binary structures on us as
people and consequentially, further oppresses those who may not fit a binary completely.
Rather than focus on the positive and negative aspects of individuals who do or do not
pass, it is important to examine the problems the institution itself places on all people,
how it re-enforces binaries, and further marginalizes the already marginalized.
Perhaps running deepest in our society is the concept of racial passing. Living
in a country that is profoundly racist and discriminatory to those who are “not white”
(never mind the fact that what constitutes whiteness is something ever-changing) has put
people of color—Blacks, Asians, Africans, Arabs, Hispanics/Latinos, etc.—at a severe
disadvantage. It is no secret that people of color are often paid less, have more difficulty
finding jobs, and are blatantly unwelcome in certain spaces, both public and private.
Racism is still alive and well in our country, so it comes as no surprise that if a person is
able to (if his/her skin is light enough), he/she can pass as “white” and suddenly gain
access to opportunities that never would have been available to a person of color.
Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life follows the lives of four women, two mothers
and two daughters, trying to make a living for themselves. Perhaps the most interesting
character in this 1959 film is Sarah Jane, the light-skinned daughter of black housekeeper
Annie Johnson. From the time Sarah Jane is introduced on the screen, she denies her
blackness and resents her mother’s dark skin. She always desires whiteness and attends a
white school until her mother shows up to give her lunch, outing her as a light-skinned
black child. Furious, she never returns to the school again. As a young teenage girl, she
confesses that her first boyfriend is white. When her mother encourages her to meet nice,
young, black men, she remarks that she does not want to date busboys, waiters, and men
who have low-paying jobs. Eventually, her boyfriend finds out who her mother is, beats
her, and leaves her lying in a ditch. Once again, Sarah Jane blames her mother for the
burden of her race. Once she gets older, she gets a job at a night club, only to have it
sabotaged once again by her mother. At this point, she is fed up with her mother
continuing to interfere with her life and the opportunities she finds. She runs away and
severs ties with her mother. When Annie dies of a broken heart soon after, Sarah Jane
realizes that by pursuing the life she has been living, she has denied and lost her family
(Imitation of Life).
The character of Sarah Jane is fascinating on many levels. First and foremost, it
is important to note that throughout this film, Sarah Jane is not viewed as a good
character. Sinister music plays when she makes comments about wanting to be a white
girl. In addition to this, Sarah Jane is demonized further with the obvious bias towards
her mother; Annie is consistently portrayed as the self-sacrificing, giving, loving, victim
95
�of an evil daughter. She is a mother who only wants her daughter’s love and for Sarah
Jane to be proud of who she is. Even at the end of the film with Annie’s death, Sarah
Jane is devastated, insinuating that her actions have been wrong, her life has been a lie,
and the only thing that matters is the thing she lost—namely, her mother. Sirk is arguing
through these series of events that Sarah Jane is a bad person for two reasons—firstly
because, by pretending to be white, she is denying her family and who she is, and
secondly because she is not letting her race define her. With Sarah Jane’s breakdown at
the end of the film, Sirk is arguing that Sarah Jane should be punished for passing—that
her entire life has been a lie and that she has neglected what truly matters in favor of
selfish desires and getting ahead (Halley).
Annie alludes briefly to the racism black people face, but never acknowledges
why her daughter acts the way she does. Sirk further demonizes Sarah Jane by idealizing
Annie and showing her as the “right” way for a black woman to be. Since Sarah Jane
refuses to fit the “black woman’s role,” she is therefore a bad character (Halley).
Ultimately, however, Sarah Jane is not a bad person, rather someone who has
recognized the limitations of being a person of color. She does not let her race define her
and takes advantage of her situation (namely her light skin) in an effort to allow herself
more opportunities in life than she would have ever been allowed access to, were she to
present herself as a black woman. Annie is seen as the “good black woman” because she
fulfills not only a woman’s role as homemaker, but the black woman’s role as a
housekeeper and caretaker of a white family. In other words, she is a black woman who
knows a black woman’s place. Sarah Jane’s rejection of this is what she is looked at
negatively for. Her refusal to accept the constraints her race has placed on her is what
leads her to pass. Essentially, she is passing for survival—she is passing to insure that
she has access to as many opportunities as possible in order to be successful and happy.
Her mother’s life, that of a woman whose entire existence centers around catering to
white people, is not a quality of life that Sarah Jane wants to partake in (Halley).
The issue of race gets complicated even further when looking at biracial people.
Those who are born to two or more races are absolutely forced to pass as one or the other.
To use a simple example, on countless applications and standardized tests, people are
required to check off a box describing their race. What is a biracial person to do? They
must pick a box and check it. Logan Gutierrez-Mock, a queer, transgendered, lightskinned biracial person explains that light skinned privilege often forces him to pass as
white, whether he wants to or not. Gutierrez-Mock explains that he comes from a family
of light-skinned Mexican people who had a strategy in marrying the way they did. “They
wanted the best for their family, which, in the 1940’s meant blend in, use your lightness,
96
�pass, be proud but don’t be too loud. Marry white people” (Gutierrez-Mock 230). What
is a biracial person like Logan Gutierrez-Mock to do when it comes to checking a box?
He ascertains that, “My whole life I have sat on the border between Mexican and white—
pushed out of the Mexican side for not speaking Spanish and looking white, pushed out
of the white side for being half-Mexican no matter how white I looked” (Gutierrez-Mock
233). Due to his light-skinned appearance, Gutierrez-Mock passes as white quite
frequently, claiming that people are surprised when he reveals his mixed-race heritage.
Much like Sarah Jane, Gutierrez-Mock is granted more opportunities as a person who
passes as white than he would be as a mixed-race Mexican-American. Although he
further explains that he consciously chooses not to pass as white, making the Mexican
side of his race known, the fact still remains that many who are unaware of his heritage
view Gutierrez-Mock as white. Due to this biracial heritage, he is essentially
marginalized by both races, as he explains. He is neither fully white, nor fully Mexican,
thus he is excluded from racial categories. To make things simple, in order to have a box
to check, he must ignore a certain part of himself. This is highly problematic and clearly
illustrates the problems that pressures to pass place on those who do not fit perfectly into
categories (Gutierrez-Mock 228-235).
Valerie Smith explains racial passing as being, “…generally motivated by class
considerations (people pass primarily in order to partake of the wider opportunities
available to those in power) and constructed in racial terms (people describe the passing
person as wanting to be white, not wanting to be rich)” (Smith 43). This perfectly
describes the character of Sarah Jane, as well as the overarching concept that those who
pass do so as a means of survival and a way to give themselves more opportunities to
succeed, or, in the case of Logan Gutierrez-Mock, to merely give themselves a place in a
very exclusive, category-oriented world. Clearly, race is not the only factor that is taken
into consideration, since a person passing as white is, statistically, likely to have a better
job that pays more than a person of color. Men are also more likely to make more money
than women, so to be a poor woman of color is to be at quite a disadvantage. Keeping all
of these issues in mind, it is quite clear to see how the institution of passing in terms of
race is extremely oppressive. Our society is set up so that white people (or those
perceived as being white) are given privilege and given access to opportunities that
people of color are not. This is blatantly exclusive towards people of color. People of
color with light skin privilege pass because they have to—because if they are a person of
color, they are more likely to be poor and to be discriminated against. Racial passing is
problematic because it further exiles those on the outskirts (those who are mixed-race or
biracial) and further marginalizes people of color. The fact that people of color pass as
97
�white (consciously like Sarah Jane, or not like Logan Gutierrez-Mock) and this is what
allows them greater opportunities in life is appalling and sad. If they were to be
perceived and therefore pass as people of color, their lives would be limited. Racial
passing as means of survival and personal advancement is problematic simply because it
has to happen, as this is the only way for people of color to truly gain access to what has
been labeled “white privilege” but what is really the ability to have all of the
opportunities one should have as a human being, not a human being with light skin.
Racial passing is an excellent way to ground the phenomenon of passing in our
society in history, as passing is certainly nothing new. Passing in terms of gender and
consequentially, in terms of sexuality is also something that has been going on since our
society was created. When examining racial passing it is interesting to notice the shift in
public spaces that demand a person to pass as a certain race. Prior to the Civil Rights
Movement, public places like drinking fountains, dining counters, busses, etc. blatantly
denied access to people of color. There were “white only” spaces and people of color
were told to go elsewhere and find a space for “colored people”. Since the Civil Rights
Movement, these public spaces that restrict access to only white people are no longer in
existence. If one was to see a “white only” drinking fountain explicitly labeled as such
today in a public space, it would be appalling and viewed as something outdated,
oppressive, and racist. While racism has by no means been eradicated in our society, the
blatant restriction and labeling of public spaces in this manner is no longer practiced.
It is important to note that the restrictions of public spaces based on race not
only enforce passing, but also broadcast a message that one space is meant for those who
are “superior” to another. The reason behind restricting a space to “whites only” is to
exclude people of color who are seen as inferior to those that are white. While certainly
not done with this same mentality, public spaces are also blatantly restricted in terms of
gender. Race and gender are very distinct, separate phenomenon with unique problems
and social implications, yet a link can be made between the two in terms of passing. Just
as racial passing is oppressive and done to allow oneself more opportunities in life,
gendered passing carries these same problems and the boundaries of a binary gender
system are reinforced in explicitly-labeled public spaces.
Places such as bathrooms and college dorms have restricted access to only men
and only women. There are men’s bathrooms and there are women’s bathrooms, thus it
is required of people to be either male or female to gain access to these places. If one is
neither male nor female (or does not “look” male or female “enough”), then one must go
wherever one best fits, putting oneself at risk for harassment and violence. Even
language—our most fundamental form of communication—only allows a person to
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�exhibit gender in one of two ways: male or female. There is no word, no third or other
category, for a person who is not male and not female to be placed in. Pronouns are only
he/she, gender is only masculine and feminine, and sex is only male and female. Only
recently have words like “genderqueer” and “intersex” begun to enter our vocabulary and
to the general population (especially those unfamiliar with queer and gender issues),
these words are foreign and meaningless.
Based on these factors, it is plain to see that nowhere else is the reinforcement of
binary categories and exclusion this blatant and oppressive. Bathrooms marked “men” or
“women” are completely acceptable, never mind the fact that this is so clearly restricting
access to people who not only might not “look” male or female “enough”, but who may
actually not be either male or female. To house college students in “same-sex”
dormitories is to be blatantly discriminatory towards people whose sex may not be the
typical male or female. Gender oppression due to binary thought reproduced in our
culture is alive and well, as is obvious by examining these public spaces.
Essentially what these public spaces do is encourage and demand passing.
Gendered bathrooms force people to pass as either male or female. In order to gain
access to these spaces, a person must appear as masculine-gendered and or femininegendered, thus forcing them to pass within a binary. Much like race, this is horribly
oppressive to those who may not fit and likewise people are forced to pass as means of
survival. If a person is in the “wrong” bathroom, they are at risk to be victims of
violence, verbal assault, rape and a variety of other dangerous consequences. In fact,
genderqueers, transgendered people, and anyone who appears as anything other than a
typical masculine or feminine person are frequently attacked and harassed in public
restrooms for merely threatening the notion of binary genders. Needless to say, gendered
bathrooms create quite a few problems. As PISSAR (People in Search of Safe and
Accessible Restrooms) explains, “These practices—privatizing public spaces and placing
them under surveillance—demarcate the boundaries of appropriate and permissible
behavior, thereby policing both bodies and bathrooms” (Chess, et al. 195).
Given this, it is no surprise that gender-variant people feel intense pressures to
pass in these public spaces in an effort to avoid potential harassment and violence.
Examining masculine-looking women specifically, it becomes quite obvious that this
social pressure to pass in public as conventionally-gendered is highly problematic and
potentially quite dangerous. Even for people who may identify themselves personally
within a binary (such as masculine-looking, or “butch” women who may present their
gender in extremely masculine ways, yet feel comfortable using the word “female” or
“woman” to describe themselves) but deviate from the traditional gendered expectations
99
�that go along with that label are still at risk for violence and harassment, and are therefore
oppressed and hurt by passing politics. Additionally, this reinforces the notion that
passing is not about an individual’s self-identification, but rather about how they are
perceived by others. Betsy Lucal, an assistant professor of sociology, explains how our
culture characterizes those who fall outside the gender dichotomy—those for whom we
have no words to describe:
Given our cultural rules for identifying gender, (i.e. that there are only two and
that masculinity is assumed in the absence of evidence to the contrary), a person
who does not do gender appropriately is placed not into a third category, but
rather into the one with which her or his gender display seems most closely to
fit; that is, if a man appears to be a woman, then he will be categorized as
“woman,” not as something else. Even if a person does not want to do gender or
would like to do a gender other than the two recognized by our society, other
people will, in effect, do gender for that person by placing her or him in one and
only one of the two available categories. We cannot escape doing gender or,
more specifically, doing one of two genders. (Lucal 784-785)
Lucal explains that the world can be an unfriendly and even dangerous place for
those people who are gender non-conforming—essentially those who do not fit the
traditional standard of what “male” and “female” should be. Lucal describes her
appearance as that of a masculine woman who is often mistaken as a man. She explains
that, due to the fact that she has a female-sounding name, a female marker on her driver’s
license, and a masculine appearance, she constantly encounters an onslaught of problems.
Consistently, cashiers believe she is using fraudulent credit cards; she is harassed in
dressing rooms when trying on masculine clothing and has resorted to avoiding such
spaces all together; and, illustrating the concept PISSAR explained, she is subject to
harassment in restrooms. In her daily interactions, Lucal is generally perceived as a man.
(Lucal 789-791). Tori Amato, a butch woman in a position similar to Lucal, can attest to
this same experience:
…When the cop does a double take over my ID, when the cashier is hesitant to
accept my credit card signature, when some lady pulls a face as I shut the stall
door—when these things happen, I laugh, and think that they are just jealous
because they can’t walk between the worlds, because they don’t know the half
of it, and because they better watch out, better be careful, better step lightly.
(Amato 225-226).
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�For both Amato and Lucal, there is certainly an aspect of empowerment to
bending gender norms, but there is also an intense pressure to pass and consequentially,
to assume whatever gender one is perceived as in public, in an effort to avoid not only
embarrassment and ridicule, but potential violence and harassment. This furthers the
point that passing is reinforced not only through the public spaces previously described,
but by individuals and the population as a whole through the continuous reproduction of
the gender dichotomy. As I illustrated in my personal experience, “Gender is pervasive
in our society. I cannot choose not to participate in it. Even if I try not to do gender,
other people will do it for me. That is, given our two-and-only-two rule, they must
attribute one of two genders to me” (Lucal 791). People like Lucal allow their genders to
be assumed because they have to—because, as Lucal explains, she is harassed more when
people realize she is a masculine woman than when she is assumed to be a straight man.
Like Lucal, people who are gender-bending are passing to “survive”, meaning that they
are passing as whatever gender people perceive them as to avoid potential harassment
and violence. This is done due to public places, among other things, that force people to
pick a gender (one of only two choices), an expression, and ultimately an identity that
acts in accordance to normative society. A person must embody a gender identity that is
either male or female and must exhibit this gender in accordingly masculine or feminine
ways. There is no middle ground allowed and for those, like Betsy Lucal and the other
butch woman I will discuss, they must pass—either as male, which seems to be an easier
space to inhabit since accepting a person who appears to be male with a masculine gender
is much easier than a masculine woman, or as female and risk violence and harassment.
This pressure to pass is enormous and is highly problematic in its restriction on and
policing of identities, genders, and expressions.
Lucal herself is a masculine-looking woman who, while deviating from a
traditionally feminine gender expression, still identifies as female. Yet even as someone
who is, to some extent, able to identify themselves within binary terms such as “woman”,
Lucal is still subject to the pressures to pass in public spaces. Lucal explains this clearly,
stating that, “…although I ultimately would like to see the destruction of our current
gender structure, I am not to the point of personally abandoning gender. Right now, I do
not want people to see me as genderless as much as I want them to see me as a woman.
That is, I would like to expand the category of “woman” to include people like me”
(Lucal 793). Based on Lucal’s ideas, I would argue that, even if a woman exhibits her
gender in non-traditional or masculine ways yet still feels comfortable, to some degree,
with the word “woman” as a self-identification, the binary gender system and subsequent
pressures to pass within it are still excruciatingly oppressive due to this rejection of
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�socially acceptable ways of expressing femininity. In fact, Lucal explains that masculine
women are subjected to “terrible condemnation and brutality” (Lucal 792) due to this
rejection of femininity. For women like Lucal and Amato, when they are perceived as
men, much of the discrimination they face as butch women evaporates. Both women use
their own life experiences as data to support this claim (Lucal 792).
Furthering Lucal’s argument here, Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues tells the
brave and tragic tale of a butch woman (Jess) growing up in working-class New York in
the 1950’s, subjected continuously to harsh ridicule, embarrassment, discrimination, and
violence. Eventually, Jess finds that it would be easier for her to live as a man, since this
meant the avoidance of violent and dangerous situations she had so frequently been a
victim of. Even as a young child, Jess is consistently ridiculed for her masculine
appearance. She always knew she was different and even experimented with her father’s
clothes when she was younger.
I put on the suit coat and looked in mirror. A sound came from my throat, sort
of a gasp. I liked the little girl looking back at me… I didn’t look like any of the
girls or women I’d seen in the Sears catalog…All the girls and women looked
pretty much the same, so did all the boys and men. I couldn’t find myself
among the girls. I had never seen any adult woman who looked like I thought I
would when I grew up. There were no women on television like the small
woman reflected in the mirror, none on the streets. I knew. I was always
searching. For a moment in that mirror I saw the woman I was growing up to be
staring back at me. She looked scared and sad. I wondered if I was brave
enough to grow up and be her. (Feinberg 20-21)
Jess’s childhood schoolmates are rarely kind to her and her parents do not give
her much love and affection either. As a young teenager, Jess starts going to the local
gay bar where she meets other “butches”, or masculine women just like her. While she
finds community and solace with these women, they cannot escape the harsh constraints
that society has placed on them. Continually, the gay bars are raided and the butches are
taken down to the precinct where they are subjected to violence and harassment from the
policemen. As a fifteen year old, Jess witnesses her close friend, Al, another butch, get
raped and humiliated by the guards. This is especially traumatizing for Jess, as Al was
the one who took her under her wing and showed her what it meant to be a butch. Years
later, Jess is subjected to the same fate. As she grew older, Jess begins working in
factories, which is common of the butches she knows. All of the butches that work in
these factories build camaraderie with each other but they continually notice the lack of
promotions they get and the reprimanding they receive from their bosses (Feinberg 1-94).
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�Given the hardships Jess faces throughout her life, it comes as no surprise that
once she meets Rocco, a former butch who transitioned to male, she begins to think about
transitioning herself.
The last time the cops beat her she came close to dying. Jan heard that Rocco
had taken hormones and had breast surgery. Now she worked as a man on a
construction gang. Jan said Rocco wasn’t the only he-she who’d done that. It
was a fantastic tale. I’d only half believed it, but it haunted me. No matter how
painful it was to be a he-she, I wondered what kind of courage was required to
leave the sex you’d always known, or to live so alone. (Feinberg 95)
Jess eventually finds out that this is not an uncommon practice amongst butches. Many
of them, much like Rocco, realize the dangers of being a gender-bending person in a
binary-gendered world. Jess’s experience with violence and harassment due to her
gender identity and expression is something many of the butches she knows experience
as well. Yet even with all of these factors considered, Jess still experiences anxiety over
what to do: should she continue her life a butch, knowing it is an uphill battle to merely
survive and escape violence, or should she transition to be male and sacrifice the
community she has come to know and love, her partner, and her identity? (Feinberg 95147)
Eventually Jess decides to take testosterone and transition to male, much to the
dismay of Theresa, her partner. When she begins thinking about transitioning, she
confesses to Theresa that she believes that she cannot continue to fight a battle she knows
she will never win, as she explains in the following passage, “‘Honey, I can’t survive as a
he-she much longer. I can’t keep taking the system head-on this way. I’m not gonna
make it’” (Feinberg 146). Jess ends up losing Theresa over her decision and goes
through the painful process alone.
Jess’s story is a tragic one, but not an uncommon one. Throughout the novel,
Jess consistently experiences ridicule due to her masculine appearance. For Jess, the
pressures to pass are enormous. Passing as a masculine woman meant violence,
harassment, and discrimination in its most blatant form, while passing as male meant
going about her business and being unnoticed, yet it comes at a great price. Much like
Sarah Jane in Imitation of Life, Jess is faced with a lose-lose situation. If she continues
her life as a masculine woman, she is facing a difficult road ahead of her but she has the
support of a partner, not to mention an entire butch community, and she also has the
comfort of an identity she knows and likes. As a man, she avoids the social problems
that come with being butch, but she does so alone, with no partner, no community, and an
identity that does not fully suit her. There are other problems Jess experiences as a
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�transitioned male, such as her lack of identification. All her identification indicates that
she is female; therefore she cannot go and apply for credit cards, bank accounts, etc. since
she presents and passes as male. Were she to do so, she would be met with a similar
reaction that Betsy Lucal is faced with when she uses a credit card and passes as male.
What is perhaps most interesting about Jess and about Stone Butch Blues as a novel is the
fact that the character of Jess is so frequently misread as a transgendered person. It is
obvious to me that Jess is uncomfortable being a man, yet she transitioned solely because
of the pressures placed on her to be normatively gendered. Were this character to
encounter Betsy Lucal’s statement about opening up the label of “woman” to include
masculine, gender-bending identities, it seems that she would be inclined to agree.
Nowhere is this pressure to pass illustrated more obviously than with this
character in this novel. Since she was a small child, Jess was constantly ridiculed and
tortured for being a masculine woman and for not conforming to femininity. The
institution of passing is clearly and strictly enforced here and throughout Jess’s life. She
is pressured first into femininity and then into masculinity and it is communicated clearly
to her that she is not allowed to exist anywhere in between. These pressures for Jess get
so intense that falling into a normative space and inhabiting a male identity becomes the
only way for her to operate and avoid the problems she faces as a masculine woman. Jess
is a perfect example of how and why people pass merely to survive.
As is obvious, gender bending like Betsy Lucal and Jess from Stone Butch Blues
creates many layers of problems in relation to passing. For these women who call into
question what exactly it means to be a woman and how essential femininity is to a female
identity, the pressures to pass are enormous. Our society continually reproduces
standards of femaleness (namely that it is associated with a female body—breasts and a
vagina—and with a feminine gender) on both an individual and a broader scale. Public
spaces force people to pass as one gender or the other within this binary structure, thereby
restricting identities and expression of people who may not fit this binary structure.
It has become quite evident that there are pressures everywhere to pass both
racially and within the binary gender system. Yet trans identities—those that take the
gender dichotomy and not only bend it (like Jess and Betsy Lucal) but break it all
together—take pressures to pass to a whole different level. In certain aspects, trans
identities are highly grounded in passing. For some trans people, much of their validation
of their trans identity rests in their ability to pass as the gender they identify as. Katrina
Roen explains this phenomenon as well. “The political stance that privileges crossing
over passing as been described as problematic from a feminist perspective and is
inevitably problematic from the points of view of the many transpeople whose lives
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�depend on their skill at passing” (Roen 503). Roen further explains that for many trans
people, their trans status is not something they proudly proclaim throughout their lives,
rather there is an endpoint to this identity, namely to transition fully to the opposite
gender. In others words, the identity moves from trans to either male or female (Roen
502). It is because of this pressure to pass in society that another layer of passing, a
“hierarchy” of sorts is created with trans communities. This is a phenomenon I have
noticed both in my personal experience and in the research I have done in which a trans
person who consciously chooses not to pass, or who does not pass well enough for any
number of reasons, is alienated and ridiculed by other trans people as not being “trans
enough” (Roen 504). It is with this in mind that I would argue that the pressures to pass
within trans communities are just as intense as the pressures for trans people to pass
within society as a whole.
Much like butch or masculine women, passing within public spaces is absolutely
required for trans people. Bathrooms are a constant source of anxiety for trans people
because, much like Betsy Lucal and Jess from Stone Butch Blues, they are very much
prone to violence and harassment if they do not look man or woman “enough” to be in a
given bathroom. Documentation is also a problem, as many trans people transition or
start dressing as the gender they identify as before they get their documents changed. A
person with facial hair, a low voice, and a flat chest who has a driver’s license that still
says “female” creates an onslaught of problems for a transgendered individual. In fact,
document changing is one of the spaces in which pressures for transgendered people to
pass is perhaps most intense. According to Patrick Califia, a document can only be
changed from one gender to the other if it is confirmed that the person had genital
surgery. Not only is this surgery horrifically expensive, but it is not desired for all trans
people, who may present as a certain gender but may not want genital reconstruction (or
sex reassignment) surgery, or may not be able to get it, for any number of reasons. Thus,
it is quite dangerous for trans people to travel, especially if they present as a certain
gender but their identification says otherwise (Califia 69). In addition to these problems
that have already been discussed, traveling is yet another public space in which trans
people must conceal their trans identities in an effort to avoid harassment—they must
pass as normatively gendered to survive.
Terre Thaemlitz, a transgendered educator and writer, speaks about the trials
that trans people go through when traveling, specifically at airports. As Thaemlitz
explains, since many trans people have not had their documents changed to match their
gender transition, either because it is illegal, they do not have the money, or for any other
number of reasons, they are forced to travel in gender neutral clothing and sometimes
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�even “resort to using false passports showing genders that match their appearances,”
(Thaemlitz 174) all in an effort to avoid the problems that they may be faced with.
Thaemlitz continues to say that traveling with a suitcase filled with clothing that may not
match the gender marker on a person’s identification could result in accusations of
stealing. Needless to say, all of these public spaces demand trans people to pass, or at the
very least hide their trans-ness as much as possible (Thaemlitz 174-175).
It is clear to see that public spaces create pressures to pass not only for trans
people, but for all people. Transgendered people are affected quite a bit by these
institutions since, as previously stated, a piece of trasngenderism is grounded in passing.
Dean Spade, a transgendered lawyer, describes the problems of these public spaces in
relation to trans people:
There are a few different threads that run through all of the battles we have been
fighting, whether those battles are about drivers’ licenses, name changes,
Medicaid, or juvenile justice facilities. All of these threads are about the
authenticity of trans identities, and all are based on the idea that the state should
determine people’s gender identities using binary gender as the standard.
(Spade 66)
While it would be unfair, not to mention inaccurate, to lump all transgendered
people into a certain category, it is safe to say that at least a fair part of trans identity and
trans experience is based on passing and answering the following question: How can I, as
a trans person, exhibit my trans identity so people perceive as the gender I identify as, or
at least a person who is something other than the gender I was assigned at birth? Not
only is this pressure to pass in public present, but there is another underlying pressure that
trans people experience as well, namely the pressures to pass within the trans community.
I do not doubt that within communities of people of color and masculine women there is
a pressure to pass within the community, yet both my personal experience and my
research has shown that this pressure is extremely intense within trans communities.
Dean Spade got arrested for trying to use the men’s room in Grand Central
Station in New York City in 2002. Since then, Spade explains that he was ridiculed
horribly by many trans people for not passing well enough and basically for not being
“trans enough.” Spade continues to say, “People were pissed that I was representing
myself in public as trans and was not passing as a non-trans man. Folks were concerned
that the legitimacy of trans identity in the eyes of a transphobic culture is frequently tied
to how normal and traditionally masculine or feminine trans people appear. I was ruining
it for everyone” (Spade 65). For Spade, there were certainly pressures for him to pass in
public, yet there were equally as intense pressures to pass within trans communities: to
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�prove that he was masculine and essentially “trans enough” to own the label he had given
himself.
I can attest to this pressure first-hand. I came out as transgendered when I was
nineteen years old. Immediately, I went to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and
Transgendered Community Center to seek counseling and to try and find resources for
people like me. Through this process, I discovered a trans-masculine drop-in group: a
weekly meeting for transgendered people who were assigned female at birth but feel that
is an incomplete or inaccurate description of themselves. I lost a lot of sleep that month
between when I found out about the meetings and when they started up again for the
winter session.
I showed up to The Center with my hair short and spiked up, makeup on, purse
in hand, and black glitter scarf around my neck that I had hand-knit the month before.
Needless to say, I was not your stereotypical transmasculine person. Nobody outright
said anything to me, telling me I was in the wrong place, but they did not have to—their
eyes said it all. When I walked into that room, all eyes were on me and people looked
perplexed. They were obviously confused as to why I was there and why I looked the
way I did. I could very well have seen all of this as being much more dramatic than it
actually was, but the fact remains that I absolutely felt this pressure that Spade is talking
about. Through all of my interactions with transgendered people, I felt a pressure to be
hyper-masculine: to keep my hair short, to stop wearing makeup, to wear strictly men’s
clothing, to bind my chest tightly in hopes of getting top surgery later on, to pack my
pants, and most importantly, to take testosterone. None of this was ever my intention
when I assumed the label “transgendered” but all of these pressures were place on me,
and for a few months, I seriously considered taking testosterone and I did what was
expected of me as a trans man. I stopped wearing makeup for 6 months even though it is
something I enjoy. I wore only men’s clothing that was loose-fitting, even though I
preferred more fitted clothes and I would rather look pretty than look hyper-masculine. I
shaved my head even though I loved my hair and had always seen it as one of my best
features. I bound my chest and even though I liked that it was flatter, it was
uncomfortable and potentially a hazard to my health. As I write this now, I am almost
ashamed to admit I did all of these things and that I denied who I was in favor of passing
as a trans man. The pressures to pass were so intense that I felt I had no other choice—
that if I did not pass, I would have no community. Given the fact that being
transgendered makes a person an outsider to begin with, any kind of community I could
foster was something I was willing to sacrifice for, no matter how great that sacrifice may
be.
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�I have since rejected these pressures, now that I am consciously aware of them.
I refuse to feed into a certain standard of what a trans identity is supposed to be. Yet
even now, I feel a distinct pressure to be hyper-masculine and exhibit my transgendered
identity in these very typical ways. When I tell people I am transgendered now, they are
unsure of what pronoun to use and what that label really means to me. I find that to be
liberating, but others find it as a relief of sorts. If I am not hyper-masculine, that must
mean that I am not going to seek any kind of medical transition, which means that I must
not really be trans, since I am never going to be a “real man.” People consistently slip up
on pronouns if I have asked them to use only masculine pronouns and I take this to mean
that since I am not completely masculine in my gender presentation, this does not warrant
a change in what words they use to refer to me. Since they do not see me as “man
enough”, they do not have to use male pronouns. Once again, I am victim to the
pressures to be a hyper-masculine transgendered person. I find this frustrating that even
when I consciously choose not to feed into these pressures, they still restrict my identity
expression. As Betsy Lucal explained, if I do not “do” gender, others will “do” it for me.
My parents find comfort in the fact that I am not seeking medical transition because it
means I will always be their daughter. This is clearly not the case as I do not, nor will I
ever, identify as female and navigate myself as such in society. This notion of what
makes a man or what makes a woman are so deeply embedded in our minds, as products
of our culture, that nobody can remove themselves from it entirely. Regardless of where
I go or what I do, these pressures to pass are completely impossible to escape.
It is blatantly evident that these pressures to pass exist everywhere. People pass
for survival, people pass unconsciously, and people pass for any number of reasons. Yet
the complex politics that are involved in the institution of passing plague us all. Those
who are marginalized to begin with, namely those who are non-white, who are genderbending or who are transgendered, are further marginalized by the restrictive categories
that the institution of passing creates. We are forced to fit ourselves into these categories,
but from both my personal experience and from the experiences of those I have
discussed, it is clear that nobody passes. I would argue that passing only restricts the
identities and expressions of everyone, but especially those who are already
marginalized.
Passing has so deeply permeated our society that it exists absolutely everywhere
and it is virtually impossible to escape. We need to examine each and every area in
which the pressures to pass have restricted us and look to break down these categories
and allow for people to not only exercise a full expression of their identity, but to
navigate themselves throughout society without being victim to violence or harassment
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�because they do not pass, or they pass as the “wrong” thing. As Mattilda AKA Matt
Bernstein-Sycamore wonders, “If we eliminate the pressure to pass, what delicious and
devastating opportunities for transformation might we create?” (Bernstein-Sycamore 19)
We need to evaluate and eliminate these pressures and discover these “delicious and
devastating opportunities” for ourselves in an effort to create an environment of freedom
and acceptance, rather than one of violence and oppression.
Works Cited
Amato, Toni. “Would I Dare?” GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary.
Ed. Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchins. New York, NY: Alyson Books, 2002.
223-227.
Bernstein-Sycamore, Mattilda AKA Matt. “Reaching Too Far: An Introduction.”
Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt
Bernstein-Sycamore. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2006. 7-19.
Califia, Patrick. “Legalized Sodomy is Political Foreplay.” That’s Revolting!: Queer
Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt Bernstein-Sycamore.
Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2004. 65-71.
Chess, Simone, Alison Kafer, Jessi Quizar, and Mattie Udora Richardson. “Calling All
Restroom Revolutionaries!” That’s Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting
Assimilation. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt Bernstein-Sycamore. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull
Press, 2004. 189-205.
Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. Los Angeles, CA: Alyson Publications, 1993.
Gutierrez-Mock, Logan. “F2Mestizo.” Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender
and Conformity. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt Bernstein-Sycamore. Emeryville, CA: Seal
Press, 2006. 228-235.
Halley, Jean. “Race, Class, Gender, and the Family continued.” The Family. Main Hall,
Wagner College, Staten Island, NY. 6 February 2008.
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�Imitation Of Life. Dir. Douglas Sirk. Universal, 1959.
Lucal, Betsy. “What It Means to Be Gendered Me: Life on the Boundaries of a
Dichotomous Gender System.” Gender and Society. 13.6. (December, 1999): Pg. 781797.
Roen, Katrina. “‘Either/Or’ and ‘Both/Neither’: Discursive Tensions in Transgender
Politics.” Signs. 27.2. (Winter, 2002): Pg. 501-522.
Smith, Valerie. “Reading the Intersection of Race and Gender in Narratives of Passing.”
Diacritics. 24.2/3. (Summer-Autumn, 1994): pg. 43-57.
Spade, Dean. “Undermining Gender Regulations.” Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules
of Gender and Conformity. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt Bernstein-Sycamore. Emeryville,
CA: Seal Press, 2006. 64-70.
Thaemlitz, Terre. “Trans-portation.” Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and
Conformity. Ed. Mattilda AKA Matt Bernstein-Sycamore. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press,
2006. 172-185.
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�The Function of Narration in Orhan Pamuk’s Snow
Jenna Pocius (English)1
Snow by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk explores the dynamics of Turkey’s
political, social, and religious turmoil through the fictional story of Ka, a middle-aged
man who returns to the rural, Turkish city of Kars after twelve years in political exile in
Germany, and his relationships to the other characters. With the multitude of complex
issues examined in the novel, the Western reader may at times feel inundated with
unfamiliar information. Obviously aware of this conflict, Pamuk skillfully focuses on
universal emotions, such as fear and jealousy, which permeate the novel. More
importantly, however, is his recognition that, just as in their own lives, readers need to
make meaning of events; specifically, the reader will look to the ending to gain a full
understanding of the novel. In Snow, narration serves as the vehicle to allow the reader to
reach that much desired ending. Moreover, the narrator, Orhan, surprisingly transforms
from narrator to protagonist, and the reader willingly accepts this change. Using the
reader’s desire for an ending, Pamuk effectively develops Orhan to enable the reader to
accept the plot shift and to actualize his desire to expose readers to the realities of Turkish
life.
Readers seek meaningful endings that tie events together in a coherent manner,
and Pamuk’s awareness of this need is reflected in Orhan’s narration. The desire for an
ending in literature reflects an instinctual human tendency to discover the meaning of the
events of their lives. Thus, psycholoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s assertion that, “the aim of
all life is death” (Brooks 1039) is readily applicable to one’s reading experience. In its
most basic form, Freud’s statement implies that people find meanings in endings, for
endings offer a decisive conclusion from which people can base their analysis of events
and make sense of them in a larger, definitive context. Therefore, it is natural for people
to assume that the end of their lives will offer insight on past and present events.
However, knowledge of this future end is intangible, for there are no fast-forward buttons
for one’s life. Thus, as Freudian scholar Peter Brooks explains in his article, “Freud’s
Masterplot,” it makes sense that readers “seek in fictions the knowledge of death, which
in our own lives is denied to us” (1036). In this context, readers project their unattainable
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Anne Hurley (English) for EN111: World Literature.
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�desire to discover the ultimate meaning of their lives onto the attainable experience of
meaningful reading.
Recognizing this aspect of human nature, Pamuk uses Orhan to ensure readers
that they will reach their desired end. From the reader’s first encounter with Orhan as a
narrator, Pamuk makes it clear that Orhan possesses power within the novel. After
briefly introducing Ka, Orhan explains that, “I begin this story knowing everything that
will happen to him during his time in Kars” (5). By establishing his ability to expose
events, he simultaneously confirms that it is through his narration that the reader will
reach the end of the story. As a result, Orhan’s narration becomes the promise of a final
coherence that the reader desperately desires.
By allowing Orhan to have such power, Pamuk also discourages readers’
expectations of a straightforward narrative. Literary critic Frank Kermode’s explanation
of the theory of the apocalypse and its application to literature in his book The Sense of
an Ending sheds light on Orhan’s narrative power, for he explains that, “through this
power to manipulate data in order to achieve the desired consonance, you can of course
arrange for the End to occur pretty well at any desired date” (9). Though specifically
referring to the apocalypse, the statement is simultaneously pertinent to Orhan’s
narration; because he has the ability to manipulate the sequence of events in Ka’s story,
he can reveal the ending of that story whenever he so chooses. Therefore, by ensuring an
ending yet discouraging predictability, Pamuk has expertly captured his audience by
appealing to their natural tendencies to crave an ending and yet to be captivated by
suspense.
From the establishment of Orhan’s role at the outset of the story, Pamuk
employs enticement and repetition to allow the reader to become accustomed to Orhan’s
presence. Throughout the first half of the novel, Orhan interrupts the flow of Ka’s story,
offering historical information, retrospective insights, and ominous foreshadowings. For
example, Orhan prefaces chapter fifteen by foreshadowing the military coup that will
take place during a performance at the National Theatre. He uses the change in Ka’s
mentality, which has become hopeful due to the possibility of living happily with Ipek,
the woman he falls in love with, to indicate the change in the cultural climate, explaining
that, “Everything had changed during that seven-minute interval, with a speed possessed
of its own logic” (139). Embedded in this statement is the implication that events will
occur that are beyond Ka’s control, and the unyielding “speed” at which these events are
approaching implies potential calamity, sparking the reader’s interest. In his biography
about Pamuk, Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk: The Writer in His Novels, Michael
McGaha explains that, “Throughout the novel, the narrator creates a sense of foreboding
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�by constantly hinting at the disastrous events to come” (167). Not only is the reader
intrigued by the impeding sense of doom, but Orhan’s hints of future occurrences appeal
to the reader’s longing to know the ending and, as a result, enhance their desire to
continue reading.
The persistence of Orhan’s interjections, which are filled with implications of
the end, is crucial to the plot, for the readers not only accept the interruptions as a
necessity to the story but crave them as a source of information. Overall, repetition
represents another facet of the text that enables the reader to make meaning of events. As
Brooks explains, repetition allows the reader “to make connections between different
textual moments” (1037). Thus, Orhan’s continual interruptions habituate the reader to
his narration and simultaneously alert the reader to the fact that Orhan’s presence in the
text is meaningful, resulting in a reliance on his narration to carry him or her through the
unfamiliar, confusing, and at times disturbing events of Ka’s story.
With the reader’s confidence, Pamuk strengthens Orhan’s narrative power and
utilizes the unpredictable nature of Orhan’s role. While the reader is engrossed in what
will happen between Ka and Ipek, he or she is jolted by Orhan’s narration in chapter
twenty-nine, which not only forces the reader out of Ka’s story and into Orhan’s but also
reveals the ending of Ka’s story in the midst of events. Orhan begins the chapter
informing readers that, “Four years after Ka’s visit to Kars and forty-two days after his
death, I went to see the small Frankfurt apartment in which he had spent the last days of
his life” (271). The reader accepts Orhan’s statement as truth because he is the source of
power and knowledge within the text, yet the finality of his words leaves the reader
bewildered and grasping for more information. Even though Orhan reveals himself to be
a novelist and friend of Ka who is writing Ka’s biography, the reader has nonetheless
conflictingly reached an ending yet to be explained.
Though one may assume that the reader would be stifled by this plot shift, it is
precisely the conflict it evokes and the ending it implies that compels the reader to move
forward. Readers revel in crisis, for as Kermode explains, “we concern ourselves with
the conflict between the deterministic pattern any plot suggests, and the freedom of the
persons within that plot to choose and so to alter the structure, the relations of beginning,
middle, and end” (30). In other words, readers recognize and accept the potential for
characters’ actions to change their expectations of the text because it is through
unpredictability and conflict that readers remain intrigued and continue to make meaning
of the story. Furthermore, the readers recognize that the end of Ka’s story does not
necessarily constitute the end of the novel, for the reader is still in the middle of the book
and must learn of the events that lead to Ka’s fate. More significantly, however, is the
113
�cyclical nature of beginning and end. As Brooks explains, “The sense of beginning is
determined by the sense of ending” (1035). Thus, the ending of Ka’s story logically
coincides with the beginning of Orhan’s story. Ka’s end has been disclosed, and Orhan’s
engagement as a central character, rather than as just the narrator, initiates his story.
In addition to the expectation of a new plot line, the reader accepts the transition
because Orhan is a credible character. As literary theorist Edward Rosenheim explains in
his book, What Happens In Literature: A Guide to Poetry, Drama, and Fiction,
“Characters must be credible,” so that readers can, “believe in them sufficiently to be
concerned about them” (80). In other words, the characters’ actions must be plausible in
the context of the story, and the characters themselves must be rooted to the story in
relation to the other characters in order to establish connectivity and meaning. Because
Orhan has been established as both an all-knowing presence and a former close friend of
Ka, he has a pivotal and influential role in the novel. Therefore, his transition from
omniscient narrator to protagonist is convincing and acceptable to the reader.
By recognizing the reader’s desire for meaning attained through an ending and
by establishing Orhan as the vehicle to reach that ending, Pamuk is able to fulfill his own
desire to expose readers to the realities of Turkey. In an interview with Z. Ezra Mirze in
2008, Pamuk explains that, “my whole subject matter is Turkish” (Pamuk 177), revealing
that his novels serve as outlets for analyzing the issues of his country. Having such a
personal subject matter, Brooks’ description of narration in Reading for the Plot: Design
and Intention in Narrative as “the inchoate intent to tell” (53) affirms that Pamuk utilizes
Orhan to satisfy his desire to tell of Turkish experiences. Orhan keeps readers engaged in
the story through his capriciousness and omnipotent nature, and this engagement sparks
curiosity in readers as well as a desire to understand the issues that the novel presents.
Because of the personal subject matter, Pamuk inevitably shares himself and his
experiences with the readers. McGaha explains that Orhan serves as a partial self-portrait
of Pamuk, for, “Orhan is the famous novelist we are familiar with.” (160). Through
Orhan, the reader gains a sense of Pamuk’s struggle as a novelist to enable readers to
understand his subject matter. For example, as Orhan sifts through Ka’s belongings in
his Frankfurt apartment, he posses the question at the heart of the story: “How much can
we ever know about the love and pain in another’s heart?” (281). Essentially, Orhan’s
attempt as a novelist to “peer into the dark corners” (281) and understand Ka mirrors
Pamuk’s struggle to understand and effectively express the plight of the Turkish people
to a Western audience. Therefore, Orhan’s ability to engage the reader actualizes
Pamuk’s goal of opening readers’ eyes to Turkish experiences.
114
�Narration represents a powerful literary tool, and within Snow it functions as a
mechanism to captivate readers and use their interest to expose them to the realities of
Turkey. With the recognition that people instinctively seek endings, Pamuk constructs
Orhan as a powerful narrator, which convinces readers that he will bring them to the
ending they desire. Moreover, Orhan’s unexpected and often jolting interruptions to Ka’s
story that typically serve as ominous foreshadowings further enhance the reader’s
fascination with the story. Because the reader becomes engrossed in the events and has
accepted Orhan’s narrative power, his switch from narrator to protagonist as he exposes
the end of Ka’s story is, though disorienting, acceptable to the reader due to its
implication of a new beginning and hence another ending. Thus, Pamuk effectively
engages the reader through Orhan’s narration, facilitating his ability to write about
Turkey in a way that both interests and informs the reader. Pamuk’s choice of narrative
style within the novel, then, proves that the adept use of literary tools can not only
enthrall readers but allow them to gain understanding of foreign experiences as well.
Works Cited
Brooks, Peter. "Freud's Masterplot." The Critical Tradition. Ed. David H. Richter. New
York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's P, 1998. 1033-044.
Brooks, Peter. "Narrative Desire." Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in
Narrative. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1984. 37-61.
Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. New York,
NY: Oxford UP, 1967.
McGaha, Michael. Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk: The Writer in His Novels. Salt
Lake City, UT: The University of Utah P, 2008.
Pamuk, Orhan. "Implementing Disform: An Interview with Orhan Pamuk." Interview
with Z. Ezra Mirze. PMLA Jan. 2008: 176-80.
Pamuk, Orhan. Snow. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2004.
Rosenheim, Edward W. What Happens in Literature: A Guide to Poetry, Drama, and
Fiction. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago P, 1960.
115
��Section V: Intercultural
Understanding
�Laura Cereta and Humanist Theory on
Female Education in 15th and16th Century Italy
Nicole Mahoney (French and History)1
Discrepancies seem to plague questions about the true role of women in the
Italian Renaissance. In The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 19th century historian
Jacob Burckhardt claimed, “The education given to women in the upper classes was
essentially the same as that given to men.”2 Much later in the 20th century, Joan Kelly
asserted that “there was no renaissance for women- at least not during the Renaissance.”3
Even more recently, Gaia Servadio proposed that the Renaissance was a “feminine
movement, sprang from the new status of women” and the Renaissance only began when
“women became more masculine and men became more feminine.”4 Spanning a massive
plane of feminist theory, these three historians illustrate the diverse hypotheses
surrounding the socio-historical resonance and tone of women in the Renaissance.
Correspondingly, humanist thought of 15th and 16th century Italy on female humanist
education was equally as diverse and ultimately as inconclusive as that of contemporary
historians. Both quattrocentro and contemporary humanist theoretical views on women
can be studied through Laura Cereta, one of the more prominent female humanist
thinkers of Renaissance Italy. Her writings prove the membership of women in humanist
higher thinking and represent the Renaissance female voice within the ranks of learned
women throughout history.
As an invention specific to the Renaissance, humanist thought shifted ideas
about the education of women away from more conservative medieval thinking.
Traditional medieval theory held that women were to be educated by their mothers and
by their husbands. As the private home was a woman’s natural arena, she was expected
to absorb and learn all she could about running a household from her mother. Then, it
was the responsibility of the woman’s husband to give her a simple education based in
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith (History) for the honors course History
362(I): Renaissance Italy.
2
Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S.G.C.
Middlemore (1878).
3
Joan Kelly, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Women, History, and Theory: The
Essays of Joan Kelly (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 19.
4
Gaia Servadio, Renaissance Woman (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 2.
118
�religion and ethics. It was widely understood and accepted that a woman would not
participate in the world as a man and so, she did not require the same education.5
Conversely, humanist thinkers used a woman’s domestic place to redefine thoughts about
female education, rather than to unequivocally bow to long-established tradition, as was
done in medieval Europe.6
Although humanist thought grants women more intellectual freedom and
educational opportunities than medieval thought, Renaissance ideas about women’s
learning were not prejudice-free or gender-blind. For example, Lodovico Dolce’s Della
institution delle donne (1545) starts by declaring that women are equally as intelligent as
men. Then, he describes that despite a woman’s intellectual capabilities, she will always
be weaker and will have less willpower than a man. Consequently, she is unable to learn
at the same level and remains inherently less than a man.7 In his Epistola…de la vita che
tenere una donna vedova (1524), Giovanni Giorgio Trissino wrote that the education of
even the women with the most freedom, specifically widows, should be tightly restricted,
for women are essentially inferior to men. She should study only moral philosophy, with
no natural sciences and no politics, and should be devout but not overly religious.8
Furthermore, and not unlike medieval thought, some humanists promoted the
idea of female education purely as an asset to a male. Specifically through her education,
a woman may prove her dedication to her household and to her husband. Thomas More,
in To Candidus (written between 1500 and 1518), wrote that while a woman herself will
ultimately benefit from a humanist education, it is for the sake of her husband that she is
educated. As she becomes a female humanist, according to More, a women simply
echoes and ultimately parallels her male humanist husband.9 Similarly, Vives connected
a woman’s education to a man’s contentment and pleasure. A woman was to become
mulier economica (confined to the domestic), and so, her education was essentially
fundamental to her husband’s happiness.10 In the same manner of thinking, Erasmus’s
“Abbot and the Learned Lady” first discusses women as equally capable of learning as
5
A.D. Cousins, “Humanism, Female Education, and Myth: Vives, More’s To Candidus,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (2004), 214.
6
Cousins, “Humanism, Female Education, and Myth: Vives, More’s To Candidus,” 216.
7
Constance Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 69-70.
8
Jordan, Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models, 71-72.
9
Cousins, “Humanism, Female Education, and Myth: Vives, More’s To Candidus,” 227228.
10
Cousins, “Humanism, Female Education, and Myth: Vives, More’s To Candidus,” 216217, 223.
119
�men and cites intelligence as the means by which women may succeed and even hold
public office.11 He writes that women of all ages and social class should be trained in
Greek and Latin letters, and even women doing manual labor should be educated in their
own language. Underlying these claims, Erasmus writes that the female intellect is
substandard and faulty. Only by the instruction of her husband may she truly learn.
Additionally, she must be taught to be obedient and to love her husband as the center of
power and knowledge.12
Both theoretically and in practice, the education of women was defined by
subjectivity and ambiguities, with even the most educated women struggling for
acceptance in the humanist world of higher thinking. While educated women hoped to
have their voices heard, their poems read, and their papers discussed, a captive audience
was often missing, unidentified or unpredictable. At the same time as some intellectual
women worked to educate other women, others worked to change men’s minds and
create educational opportunities for women. Although most women were generally
advised to be quiet in front of men, it was the educated woman who was asked to speak at
social gatherings to heighten the evening’s atmosphere. In the same way, Antonio
Paleario wrote in Dell’economia o vero del governo della xasa (1530) that women should
be well educated in classical and modern literature, rhetoric and history. Conflictingly,
he advises women not to show their knowledge in front of men by engaging in
intellectual dialogue with them, but they should use their education to defend themselves
and their rights. Paleario suggests that women can learn through conversations with other
women and close family members and by reading books, namely his own. Stressing the
importance of rhetoric and literature in intelligent female social dialogue, Paleario
proposes that such an educated woman would be an example to other women and may
even enhance men’s conversation.13
Specifically on the topic of the humanist notions of the female education,
arguments concerning the degree to which women were educated, the means by which
women were educated and the equality of this education as compared to that of men
remain debated. Among historians, it has been widely accepted that some education was
available to upper and middle class women in their youth, most likely reading and writing
in the vernacular. However, girls were not sent to school to learn Latin and to receive
formal schooling as males. If a girl was to be formally educated, she would have been
11
Jordan, Renaissance Feminism, 59-60.
Jordan, Renaissance Feminism, 62-63.
13
Janet Levarie Smarr, Joining the Conversation: Dialogues by Renaissance Women
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 98-103.
12
120
�taught privately, most likely by her father, and if not by him, her uncles, brothers, and
rarely tutors would instruct her.14 However, a full humanist education, including the
development of talents, the arts, and personality, was rare, even among elitist men.15 So,
high-level humanist instruction was exceptionally uncommon among women, only found
amid the wealthiest and most privileged. Accordingly, women were not invited among
upper-class humanist thinkers, were largely denied equal citizenship with men and even
well-educated women were excluded from the ‘civic humanism’ of Renaissance Italy.16
While representing a minority opinion, Margaret L. King argues that these
learned women significantly participated in and contributed to the scholarly development
of early modern Europe. With much potential, a young woman with an education could
be well versed in language, literature, history, poetry, and ancient philosophy. In her
youth, there was very little interfering with a woman’s education and so, she was allowed
the freedom and leisure of study as she pleased.17 Rather than a means of empowerment,
King argues that, in reality, a humanist education generated new problems for the learned
woman. Fully educated, an intellectually liberated woman was caged by established and
traditional social mores; her mind was freer than her person. Even more, as the freedom
of youth passed, the continuation of a liberal education into adulthood was nearly
impossible for learned women, leaving them ambitious for more.18
Despite the level of their education, with the advent of adulthood, women were
forced to decide between the life of a married woman, governed by the laws of society,
and the life of a nun, governed by the laws of God.19 As King wrote, “For learned
women, the choice was agonizing. To marry implied the abandonment of beloved
studies. Not to marry implied the abandonment of the world.”20 Nevertheless, a handful
14
Margaret L. King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women Humanists,”
Journal of Medieval &Early Modern Studies 35, no. 3 (2005), 537-538; Margaret L.
King, Humanism, Venice and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2005), XI 67.
15
R.A. Sydie, “Humanism, Patronage, and the Question of Women’s Artistic Genius in
the Italian Renaissance,” Journal of Historical Sociology 2, no. 3 (1989), 181.
16
Margaret L. King, Humanism, Venice and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance
(Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), VIII 281.
17
King, Humanism, Venice and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance, XI 67-69.
18
King, Humanism, Venice and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance, VIII 280282.
19
Holly S. Hurlburt, “A Renaissance for Renaissance Women?” Journal of Women’s
History 19, no. 2 (2007), 194.
20
King, Humanism, Venice and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance, XI 69.
121
�of women defied this ultimatum and among these were Isotta Nogarola, Cassandra
Fedele, and Laura Cereta. Largely studied for her epistolary correspondence, Collected
Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, Cereta remains a pronounced voice of the
Renaissance, most importantly for her commentary on the absolute necessity of universal
education for women.
Mostly extracted from her personal letters, the life of Laura Cereta stands out
against the social norms of 15th century Renaissance Italy. The eldest of six children,
Cereta was born in 1469 into prominent social rank as the daughter of Silvestro Cereto,
an attorney and magistrate in Brescia, and Veronica di Leno, whose family claimed some
nobility.21 When she was seven years old, Cereta was sent to school at a convent where
she learned the basics of reading, writing, embroidery and Latin from a well-educated
nun, at the same time as her brothers were sent to a prominent humanist boarding
school.22 From this, Cereta developed a passionate life-long commitment to learning,
especially for classical literature and moral philosophy.23 Home from the convent in
1480, Cereta took responsibility for much of the household, including the education of
her brothers and acted as her father’s secretary.24 Nevertheless, she continued her
education under the instruction of her father, studying and writing letters after the rest of
her family had gone to bed.25
Unlike many learned women of the Renaissance, Laura Cereta did not surrender
her education to marriage. Without interrupting her studies, Cereta married Pietro Serina,
a well-respected Brescian merchant, in late 1484 or early 1485.26 Wed at age fifteen,
Cereta found her marriage to not always be harmonious and loving. Through their brief
correspondence, Cereta had trouble connecting with her husband who was away for
months at a time on business in Venice.27 After only eighteen months of marriage, Serina
died in August of 1486, presumably from some variation of the plague.28 Then, only
21
Laura Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist (Chicago: University of
Chicage Press, 1997), 4; King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women
Humanists,” 549.
22
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 5.
23
Albert Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and
Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1981), 5-7.
24
King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women Humanists,” 549.
25
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist, 5, 8.
26
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 5.
27
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist, 9.
28
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 5.
122
�after her husband’s death, Cereta fully dedicated herself to learning. A brief period of
grief and a short consolation in religion led her to a rejuvenated devotion to and
enthusiasm for her studies. While she admitted to barely knowing her husband, Cereta
truly got to know herself in the eighteen months following his death.29 At this point, she
wrote her most influential letters and established herself among the ranks of celebrated
humanist intellectuals. No writing survives from the last eleven years of Cereta’s life, if
she had even written anything. Her only remaining work is her book of eighty-two Latin
letters and a story about the death of a donkey.30 Published and circulated well after her
death, Cereta’s private letters reflect her self-actualization as a female humanist.31
Not surprisingly, Cereta’s writing gained the attention of critics, both male and
female, who sought to depreciate her work. From her defenses in her letters, it can be
concluded that Cereta was accused of plagiarism and fraud. Critics of Cereta’s work
charged that she had copied her writings from books or that her father had written them
for her.32 Cereta even believed that a spy had been sent to her home to investigate her
education and establish the validity of her work. In her own defense, she reasoned that
the accusations stemmed from the envy and the jealousy of those not as well-educated or
as intellectually able as she. Underlying these accusations, Cereta’s prosecutors implied
that a woman could not be educated enough to write such sophisticated thoughts and that
a woman could not be as learned as these letters suggested. After about six months of
escalading rumors, Cereta responded with a series of five searing letters to her critics,
four of which were sent to men and one to a woman. Her letters stand as a vivid and
intellectually violent defense of learned women during the Renaissance.33 Cereta’s two
more powerful letters, To Bibulus Sempronius and To Lucilia Vernacula, are prime
examples of her intellectual shrewdness and steadfast commitment to and enthusiasm for
women’s education.
In one of her strongest letters titled To Bibulus Sempronius: Defense of the
Liberal Instruction of Women (1488), Cereta argues for the universal education of
women. “Bibulus” is an unknown correspondent that has not been found in any other
29
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist, 10-11.
King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women Humanists,” 550; Cereta,
Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 7.
31
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 3.
32
Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and
About the Women Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and
Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992), 81.
33
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist, 12-15.
30
123
�sources and can be translated to mean “drunkard.”34 Cereta starts her essay with
frustration that as an intellectually gifted female, she is considered a minority among
women. In defense of her argument, she cites the impressive history of learned women
that have preceded her in the past and names many that join her in the present. Rather
than single out women individually, Cereta portrays women as a class, more specifically
an oppressed species that has been degraded together.35 Then, despite her own argument,
she confesses that learning is more common among men than among women and she
blames this phenomenon on tradition. Customarily, women are taught to be more
concerned with their bodies than with their minds. She argues that until this thinking can
be reversed to encourage women to study more than men, women, as a species, will
remain less educated than men.36 Along with other Renaissance humanists, Cereta
recognizes that knowledge and intelligence are not rewards given at birth or designated
by class, but they are the products of study, book learning, hard work, choice and will.
However, she takes this statement one step further and extends it to women, a fairly
unfamiliar and quite shocking idea for Quattrocentro Italy.37 In her final argument,
Cereta praises self-motivated women who search for self-actualization through learning
and encourages women to commit themselves with patience to the work required to
become fully learned. Even further, she denounces complacent women who idle
themselves with inconsequential tasks and holds women fully responsible for their own
lack of education.38 She writes:
May we women, then not be endowed by God the grantor with any giftedness or
rare talent through any sanctity of our own. Nature has granted to all enough of
her bounty; she opens to all the gates of choice, and through these gates, reason
sends legates to the will, for it is through reason that these legates can transmit
their desires. I shall make a bold summary of the matter. Yours is the authority,
ours is the inborn ability.39
Cereta’s unswerving dedication to the intellectual equality of men and women and the
promotion of learned women among humanist circles of thought is better expressed and
34
King and Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and About the Women
Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy, 81.
35
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 72-73.
36
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocento Humanist, 102.
37
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 73-74,11.
38
King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women Humanists,” 550.
39
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 79.
124
�reasoned in her letter to Bibulus Sempronius than may be found anywhere else in the
Renaissance.40
In her defensive letter titled To Lucilia Vernacula: Against Women Who
Disparage Learned Women (1487), Cereta responds to her female critics, who may have
even criticized her more harshly than men. Once again, her actual correspondent is
unknown and the name may be fabricated, but Vernacula can be translated as “common
slave” or “hussy.” As a learned female deviating from the normal social achievements of
Quattrocentro women, Cereta made herself a vulnerable target for other women’s
resentments and envy.41 The tone of her counterattack is violent, callous and aggressive.
Cereta roots these attacks from other women in jealousy of achieved, educated women
and in frustration with their own hollow, unfulfilled lives. She condemns these women
for pointing their fingers at motivated and educated women while they, themselves, are
too lazy to work at becoming learned.42 Cereta explains:
Virtue is something that we ourselves acquire; nor can those women who
become dull-witted through laziness and the sludge of low pleasures ascend to
the understanding of difficult things. But for those women who believe that
study, hard work, and vigilance will bring them sure praise, the road to attaining
knowledge is broad.43
She explains learning as a stem of virtue and, essentially, claims that one who does not
inwardly love learning will only be led by external forces, rather than by self-direction.44
Trapped in their own personal failure to obtain learning, these critical women resent more
educated women, namely Cereta, for an education which they themselves could
achieve.45 Cereta reproaches conventional femininity, female acceptance, and women’s
laziness as a lack of self-motivation and will, for literature and learning had freed her
from those very shackles.46
40
King and Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and About the Women
Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy, 81.
41
King and Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and About the Women
Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy, 85.
42
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 81.
43
Cereta, Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist, 82.
44
King and Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and About the Women
Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy, 85.
45
Rabil, Laura Cereta: Quattrocentro Humanist, 96.
46
King, “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious, and the First Women Humanists,” 551.
125
�As the contributions and reverberations of women in the Italian Renaissance
have been debated for decades, from Burckhardt to Kelly to Servadio, Laura Cereta’s
work serves as outstanding evidence for the inclusion of women into the ranks of learned
humanist thinkers. Her well-reasoned, well-argued essays reflect a profound level of
thinking beyond that of a quotidian domestic Renaissance woman. Cereta’s studies
surpass the confining and restricting theoretical views on women’s education of
Renaissance humanists and are an integral part of humanist theory. In rewriting women
into the history of the Renaissance, Laura Cereta’s life and writing prove the relevance
and resonance of learned women in higher humanist theory.
Works Cited
Burckhardt, Jacob. “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.” trans. S.G.C.
Middlemore, 1878.
Cereta, Laura. Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1997.
Cousins, A.D. “Humanism, Female Education, and Myth: Erasmus, Vives, and More’s
To Candidus.” Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 2 (April 2004): 213-230.
Hurlburt, Holly S. “A Renaissance for Renaissance Women?” Journal of Women’s
History 19, no. 2 (2007): 193-201.
Jordan, Constance. Renaissance Feminism: Literary Texts and Political Models. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Kelly, Joan. “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Women, History and Theory: The
Essays of Joan Kelly. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984.
King, Margaret L. Humanism, Venice, and Women: Essays on the Italian Renaissance.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
---. “Petrarch, the Self-Conscious and the First Women Humanists.” Journal of Medieval
& Early Modern Studies 35, no. 3 (2005): 537-558.
126
�King, Margaret L. and Albert Rabil. Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works by and
About the Women Humanists of Quattrocentro Italy. Binghamton, NY: Medieval &
Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992.
Servadio, Gia. Renaissance Women. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005.
Smarr, Janet Levarie. Joining the Conversation: Dialogues by Renaissance Women. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Sydie, R.A. “Humanism, Patronage, and the Question of Women’s Artistic Genius in the
Italian Renaissance.” Journal of Historical Sociology 2, no. 3 (1989): 175-205.
Rabil, Albert. Laura Cereta: Quattrocentro Humanist. Binghamton, NY: Medieval &
Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1981.
127
�Colonization and Injustice in
Horacio Quiroga’s Juan Darién
Stephanie Berrios (English and Education)1
Widely recognized as the father of the Latin American short story, Horacio
Quiroga has been universally admired by critics as being among the first to devise and
advance a theory of the short story form (“Horacio Quiroga Biography” 1). Though
Quiroga published two novels and wrote a play, short stories were his preferred literary
genre. With influences ranging from Edgar Allen Poe to Rudyard Kipling, Quiroga
crafted some of the most prominent short narratives in the Spanish-speaking world.
Quiroga’s life and short fiction were characterized by persistent tragedy, violence, death,
and emphasis on the bizarre and madness. While thematic elements of death, horror, and
madness are infused into many of his stories, many readers tend to overlook a crucial
aspect of Quiroga’s writing, namely his references to colonialism and imperialism in
South America. Quiroga wrote a great portion of his short stories during a period of
massive European emigration to his native Uruguay and neighboring Argentina.
Generating many social changes, the influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans arriving
in South America produced considerable tension and anxiety between the native,
traditional inhabitants and the new settlers. The anxiety that derives from the clash of
opposing forces is portrayed in Quiroga’s “Juan Darién.” Viewing these poignant stories
through a post-colonial lens, Quiroga resists colonialist ideologies by revealing the
negative effects of oppression, depicting the evildoings and misdeeds of oppressors, and
the anguish of subjugated peoples.
Over the years, Quiroga’s “Juan Darién” has been extensively analyzed and
interpreted as a magical-realist text, a story that incorporates fantastic symbolism and
supernatural elements. In spite of this, “Juan Darién” can be interpreted as a post-colonial
text in many regards. Postcolonial theory provides readers with a framework for
examining human oppression across different cultures. According to Lois Tyson,
postcolonial theory “seeks to understand the operations-politically, socially, culturally,
and psychologically-of colonialist and anticolonialist ideologies”(Tyson 418). In
addition, postcolonial criticism evaluates how dominant ideological forces compel
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Dr. Marilyn Kiss (Modern Languages) for EN 213(I):
Hispanic Literature in English Translation.
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�subjugated non-white individuals to adopt colonial beliefs and values and how, on the
other hand, endorses the resistance of colonized peoples against their oppressors (Tyson
418).
A great number of Horacio Quiroga’s short stories take place in South America,
particularly Argentina. The setting of Argentina is of great significance because the
country was charted and colonized by Spain in the early 1500’s (Rock 6). The Spanish
were lured to Argentina with the hopes of acquiring bullion and thoughts of an empire
that rivaled those of the Aztecs and the Incas (Rock 6). The extension of Spain’s
authority over Argentina would yield valuable resources such as minerals and
commercial crops. In addition, Spain’s authority would also yield the labor necessary to
extract and export such resources to Spain (Lewis 26). Spain’s grandiose plans for
extracting natural resources and finding gold never came to fruition since they were
unable to locate them in this part of their colonial possessions. In their eyes, the only
valuable resource was the indigenous tribal populations, whom they later colonized
(Rock 6). Interested in spreading its culture and religion to the native Indians of the New
World, Spain had the largest cultural impact on Argentina.
Between the 1500’s and early 1800’s, Spain acted as the dominant imperial
power in Argentina (Minster 1). Even though Spanish colonial domination came to an
end in 1816 when Argentina gained independence, Spanish culture had a lasting effect on
those countries that were subject to its rule. Spanish culture greatly influenced the
government systems, businesses, and education in Argentina. After suffering from
Spanish oppression, a great number of indigenous people ended up internalizing Spanish
culture and language. Spanish culture continued to linger and impact the lives of the
colonized. It greatly influenced the government systems, businesses, and education of excolonials (Tyson 418). The indoctrination of Spanish culture, system of government,
education, and values to the colonized gradually led to what Tyson calls “cultural
colonization.” Cultural colonization may be defined as “the inculcation of a Spanish
system of government and education, Spanish culture, and Spanish values that denigrate
the culture, morals, and even physical appearance of subjugated peoples”(Tyson 419).
The concept of cultural colonization shapes and influences Quiroga’s “Juan Darién.”
With its setting in a small South American village located on the margins of a jungle, this
short narrative begins with a prologue explaining the story of a tiger named Juan Darién
that changed into a human (Tyler 711). When reading the prologue, one can presume that
many of the villagers originated from the European continent, particularly Spain. The
story begins with a description of how “a plague of smallpox that killed many people”
(Quiroga 87) affected the small village. The mentioning of a smallpox outbreak in this
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�village can serve as a validation for the rise of European immigration to South American
countries since smallpox tends to afflict recently-arriving immigrants. Since the village
was colonized and established by Spain, many of the immigrants living in the village are
of Spanish descent. As a result, Spanish culture would act as the dominant ideology in the
village.
The Spanish inhabitants were fearful of the indigenous population, of beings that
existed on the outskirts of their village, namely the “ferocious animals” (Quiroga 87) of
the jungle. As an “orphaned tiger cub”(Wheelock 424), roaming in the jungle, Juan
Darién belongs to this population of “beastly creatures” whom the villagers abhor deeply.
Looking at the story through a post-colonial lens, one can associate the jungle animals as
the persecuted and subjugated outsiders while the Spanish settlers in the village can be
perceived as the domineering colonizers. Although the jungle animals, particularly tigers,
were despised and feared by the villagers for their aggressive and terrorizing demeanor,
the young widow who sees Juan Darién as a “tiny, hesitant” tiger cub stumbling into her
gate “accepts and welcomes the new arrival as if it were a gift sent from heaven”(Tyler
711). Feeling pity for the tiger cub, the widow made a decision to assume a maternal role
and starts nursing the cub with her own milk. After this incident, a series of situations
occur that connect to the idea of cultural colonization. The idea of Juan transforming
from a tiger to a human implicates the idea of cultural assimilation and the abandonment
of one’s cultural roots and background to internalize aspects of the dominant culture.
Even though the serpent told the widow that “all living creatures are of equal value,” the
fact that Juan gets changed from a tiger to a human reinforces the idea that those who are
different from the dominant population are inferior and should set their own cultures
aside to acculturate the values and ideals of the dominant culture or population. Once
Juan Darién transforms from a tiger to a human, he quickly gets indoctrinated with
Spanish culture. Juan Darién is “raised and educated among men”(Quiroga 87). He goes
to school with village children of his own age and receives a “Spanish” education. He
starts to mimic the physical appearance of the settlers by dressing in “pants and a
shirt”(Quiroga 87). Juan Darién also experiences the effects of cultural colonization when
he resumes his animal form after being vilified by the villagers and animal trainer. After
Juan returns to being a tiger, he realizes that he “has retained three human traits: his
memory, human speech, and the use of his paws as hands” (Wheelock 425). Juan Darién
still possessing these traits can serve as an indication of the “residual effects of colonial
domination”(Tyson 419) and “assimilation that impact subjugated peoples.”
Colonialist ideologies and the concept of “othering” act as essential components
of “Juan Darién.” Frequently referred to as “colonist discourse,” Tyson describes
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�colonial ideology as language that conveys the colonizer’s assumption of their own
superiority, which was contrasted against the supposed inferiority of indigenous or native
peoples, the original inhabitants of the lands they invaded (Tyson 419). Colonialist
ideology stressed the belief that the culture of the colonizers was civilized and
sophisticated. Conversely, native or indigenous peoples were characterized as being
savages, backward, and underdeveloped. In addition, the colonizers viewed themselves as
the “embodiment of what a human being should be,”… “the proper self”(Tyson 420).
Alternatively, native peoples were perceived as being different and inferior, the
persecuted “other” who is less than fully human (Tyson 420). “Othering” is a tenet of
colonialist ideology that acts as a way of defining one’s identity through the
stigmatization of an “other”. Othering separates the world between civilized peoples and
savages (the “others”). Native peoples that are depicted as savages are recognized as
“demonic others” since they are believed to be both wicked and inferior
Colonialist ideology plays a significant role in Juan Darién. The language that
was utilized to describe Juan Darien as a tiger and human are incredibly degrading and
reveal his alleged inferiority against the colonizers. As a tiger cub, Juan Darién was
portrayed as a “little enemy of man”(Quiroga 87) since the villagers believe that tigers
are horrible beasts of the jungle that can kill anything in sight, especially humans. Juan
Darién’s inferiority and the superiority of the villagers are exemplified when he is
described as a “small, defenseless beast”(Quiroga 88) that the widow “could so easily
have destroyed”(Quiroga 88). Juan Darién being labeled as small and defenseless can
correlate to how the colonizers view the native, subjugated peoples. Juan Darién being
viewed as small shows the subservience of the native populations to the ruling power
system, which would be the villagers. Likewise, when he is rendered as being
defenseless, it not only portrays the alleged inferiority of native peoples but it also shows
how the indigenous population does not have a sophisticated or “metropolitan” culture
with advanced technology needed to defend themselves against oppressors and invaders.
The belief that indigenous people lack cultural sophistication can be applied to
the scenario in the story where a man “who was running by the women’s house” hears the
muffled growls of a tiger inside the widow’s house (Quiroga 88). Ready to shoot the
tiger, the enraged man came to an abrupt halt and took it upon himself to knock on the
widow’s door with his revolver in hand. This male villager recognizes Juan Darién as a
"demonic other" . The widow hiding the tiger cub in the garden reinforces the notion that
there are overwhelming and oppressive forces up against Juan Darién. The widow's
decision to hide Juan Darien in the garden for protection can show how her mentality is
influenced by the village society, the "colonizers". The act of hiding Juan Darién in the
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�garden can symbolize how the widow believes that he is vulnerable to attacks and is
incapable of defending himself against the hostile male villager or “colonizer” since he
cannot utilize any form of weapon. This action affirms the colonialist idea that colonizers
saw themselves as the embodiment of what beings should be. According to Tyson, people
who possess dominance view themselves at the center of the world due to their advanced,
civilized culture. The savage, oppressed individuals are “stationed at the margins” (Tyson
419).
Frequent instances occur in which Juan Darién is reduced to being less than
human. Juan Darien is “otherized” when he starts to attend school with children his own
age. Although he was not particularly intelligent, Juan displayed a strong passion for
acquiring knowledge and studying. Despite gaining recognition as the "best pupil" of his
school, Juan Darién was pestered by his classmates because he exhibited physical
attributes that were different than most of the students. He did not fit or conform to the
village's standard of beauty. He was constantly teased for having "flaws" in his
appearance such as coarse hair and the "greenish reflection" of his eyes (Quiroga 90). In
addition to experiencing torment for his looks, his classmates also mocked him for being
reserved and timid while in the presence of other students.
Along with his fellow classmates, Juan Darién was also "otherized" by members
of the village community. An exemplary student, Juan Darién is an upstanding member
of his community who possesses such positive qualities as intelligence and honesty.
However, he was not "loved in the village" (Quiroga 90). The village settlers are envious
of his admirable qualities and express resentment and disdain for "boys who are too
generous and who study with all of their hearts"(Quiroga 90). Essentially, these villagers
marginalize Juan Darién because he conveys qualities that diverge from social norms set
in place by the village. Since Juan Darién neither acts nor looks like other villagers,
people start to hint at his abnormality and suspect that he might be a tiger (Tyler 711).
The concept of “othering” truly comes to the forefront when Juan Darién gets handed
over to suffer from the vices of the animal trainer, who had a hatred of tigers. He ardently
tries to expose Juan’s tiger stripes to the community by brutally whipping him and
throwing him into a cage for wild beasts. Even though Juan Darién was a “creature
innocent of all blame”, he suffered tremendously at the hands of those who feared the
unknown, feared those who were different from the majority (Quiroga 96). Making a
spectacle of him, the animal trainer further debilitates Juan by torturing him with Bengal
fireworks to reveal his tiger stripes. The animal trainer wants to reveal who Juan Darién
truly is to affirm his dominance and authority over those who are evil and different.
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�According to Tyson, persecuted outsiders have a tendency to experience double
vision in their lives. Commonly referred to as “double consciousness”, double vision is a
term that is used to describe colonial subjects or oppressed peoples’ “way of perceiving
the world that is divided between two antagonistic cultures; that of the colonizer and that
of the indigenous community”(Tyson 421). Coined by W.E.B. DuBois, this term is
primarily used to describe people whose sense of identity is spilt between the dominant
culture and the indigenous culture. Double vision is employed in this story when Juan
gets hypnotized by a suspicious school inspector who asks him to describe the jungle and
its surroundings. In a cunning manner, the inspector engages in this activity mainly to
locate Juan Darién in the village and figure out if he depicts the jungle based on what he
has read in books or whether he sees the jungle through the eyes of a “wild
animal”(Quiroga 91). Unlike his classmates who describe the jungle using information
found in their readings, Juan Darién describes the jungle surroundings through the
perspective of a tiger, revealing that he sees “dry leaves flattened on rocks” and that the
rocks graze his ears when walking (Quiroga 92). With all the maltreatment, hostilities,
and discrimination that Juan Darién endures throughout his life, Juan Darién has an
unstable sense of self. Double vision is significant because it helps him reconnect with
the jungle and his early memories of being a tiger. In a way, hypnotism helps Juan Darién
reclaim his past as a tiger.
The concept of nativism was woven into “Juan Darién”, serving as a critique to
colonialist ideology. Nativism is a term that is used to describe how ex-colonials or
persecuted individuals believe in the importance of asserting a native culture to avoid
being swamped and obliterated by those in dominance (Tyson 423). Nativism acts as a
way to perpetuate the culture of native societies in the face of cultural colonization and
imperialism. After being tortured, harassed, and severely injured by the villagers, Juan
Darién, as a tiger, decided to retaliate and seek revenge against the animal trainer who
had made him writhe in agony and pain. In this scenario, the animal trainer can fit into
the colonizer archetype, with his European “red jacket and his high patent leather boots”
(Quiroga 93), who inflicted pain and anguish on Juan Darién, the oppressed colonial.
With his painful experience as a human being who was not accepted in society, Juan
knows the cruelty of the villagers and wishes to protect his fellow “brother”(Quiroga 97)
tigers by harming the animal trainer who catalyzed the troubles in the first place. Juan
locates the animal trainer and scourges the circus trainer until he dies (Tyler 711). As he
was doing this, Juan exemplifies his nativist stance by saying to his fellow tigers:
“Brothers for twelve years I lived among men, like a man.
And I am a tiger.
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�Perhaps what I am about to do will erase that stain.
Brothers, tonight I break the last tie that binds me to the past” (Quiroga 97).
He also displays nativism when he visits his widow mother’s grave to pay his final
respects, to renounce his human name, and to bid “civilization” goodbye (Tyler 711).
Horacio Quiroga’s “Juan Darién” can act as an example of literature that
addresses the evils of colonization in Latin America. The short shory conveys the theme
of loss and redemption. Through the negative sentiments of the villagers to the cruel
actions of the animal trainer, Horacio Quiroga truly resists colonialist ideologies. Most
importantly, Quiroga also highlights the destruction and sheer brutality that arises from
the rejection of the persecuted “other”.
Works Cited
“Horacio Quiroga Biography and List of Works.” http://www.littweb.net. 19 Apr. 2009.
Lewis, Daniel K. The History of Argentina (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern
Nations) [Electronic Version]. New York: Greenwood P, 2001.
Minster, Christopher. “Argentine Culture.” Viva Travel Guides. 2006. 10 Apr. 2009
<http://www.vivatravelguides.com>.
Quiroga, Horacio. The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories. New York: University of
Wisconsin P, 2004.
Rock, David. Argentina 1516-1987 from Spanish colonization to Alfonsín. Berkeley:
University of California P, 1987.
Tyler, Joseph. “From the Fabulous To The Fantastic: The Tiger And Its Fearful
Symmetry In The Twentieth-Century Spanish American Short Story.” Romance
Language Annual IX (1998): 710-16.
Wheelock, Carter. “Fantastic Symbolism in the Spanish American Short Story.” Hispanic
Review 48(1980): 415-34.
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�Dreams of ‘Home’ in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Marina McFarland (English)1
As in many texts that focus on the subaltern’s quest to reclaim a sense of home
in the wake of colonization, Midnight’s Children represents what Salman Rushdie later
describes as his “first attempt at such literary land reclamation” (Step Across This Line
180). Through the character of Saleem Sinai, whose fortuitous birth mirrors the genesis
of post-Independence India, Rushdie expresses the plight of the cultural nomad, the
migrant forever caught between the “present that is foreign” and the “past [that] is home”
(Imaginary Homelands 9). As more of an allegory for the nation than a character in his
own right, Saleem’s personal quest is a reflection of the collective nostalgia for the India
that “had never previously existed” (124). Rushdie poignantly summarizes the sense of
unhomeliness crippling Saleem’s identity formation in his later short story “At the
Auction of the Ruby Slippers”: “‘Home’ has become such a scattered, damaged, various
concept in our present travails. There is so much to yearn for. There are so few rainbows
any more” (93).
Attesting to his claim that “most of what matters in your life takes place in your
absence” (270), Saleem begins his epic narrative by establishing what he deems his
“inheritance” (119), or the tale of his alleged ancestry. Of course, as the reader later
discovers, Saleem’s is a falsely appropriated ancestry; as the victim of Mary Pereira’s
post-natal baby-swap, Saleem is ostensibly the rightful son of William Methwold (the
novel’s figurehead of British imperialism) and one of the local Indian wives. By virtue of
his true birthright, Saleem represents the ultimate cultural hybrid, perhaps explaining his
“desperate need for meaning” (190) in a world he cannot call his own. Indeed, critic R.
Radhakrishnan posits post-colonial hybridity as “a frustrating search for constituency and
a legitimate political identity”, in which one attempts the “act of self-production by and
through multiple traces” (753). In this sense, Saleem attempts to reconcile his hybrid
identity by creating a legitimate role for himself in both society and history. Despite his
biological roots, Saleem adamantly insists on his central role in the Sinai family saga,
asserting his pivotal place in history. As critic Leela Gandhi notes, Saleem’s narrative
recognizes that “the colonial aftermath is also fraught by the anxieties and fears of failure
which attend the need to satisfy the historical burden of expectation” (5). Saleem seeks,
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Christopher Hogarth (English) for EN314(I):
Postcolonial Literature.
135
�therefore, to justify his national relevancy through the foundation of a specious
genealogy.
It is clear that of all his relatives, Saleem identifies most with his maternal
grandfather Aadam Aziz, who, like Saleem between cultures, “was knocked forever into
that middle place” between belief and disbelief (6). Having spent five years of study in
Europe, Aadam returns to Kashmir as a “half-and-halfer” (13), suddenly forced to view
his beloved homeland “through traveled eyes” (5)—or what Homi Bhabha describes as
“the migrant’s double vision” (7—8). Indeed, Aadam’s own sense of displacement in
Kashmir sets the precedent for Saleem’s later in the novel. Critic Patrick Colm Hogan
argues that the early Kashmiri chapters “outline the transition to national imagination
from what went before” (528), as Kashmir represents the pre-lapsarian India of the
national imagination. Aadam, as an obvious reincarnation of the biblical first man,
embodies the inevitable beginnings of modernity taking root in his homeland, a Paradise
that for him “is already lost” (Hogan 533). The clash between Tai, the symbol of
tradition, and Aadam, the symbol of impending progress, suggests that the two cannot
live harmoniously if Kashmir is to preserve its untainted tradition. Modernity, as a
disruption of his homeland’s harmony, therefore dooms Kashmir’s innocence to be “lost
in the Fall” (531). No longer able to appreciate the bucolic beauty of Kashmir, Aadam
laments the curious state in which he is simultaneously “at home and feel[s] so utterly
enclosed”, stifled and resented by his suddenly “hostile environment” (5). As a member
of a “transitional group… displaced from both camps, not fully at home in either”,
Aadam suffers from what Hogan calls “alienating hybridity” (531). In a similar vein, this
state of cultural and self-estrangement is the novel’s first example of what Homi Bhabha
deems “unhomeliness”, or “the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations”
(13). Furthermore, Aadam’s unhomeliness attests to Bhabha’s claim that a real home,
with all its accompanying emotional and physical attachments, is “for others who will
come after” (19). Having deserted his Kashmiri paradise for the modernized world of
Amritsar, Aadam must strive to mediate the clash between Naseem’s traditionalism and
his acquired modernity. As the first of his family to breach the boundaries of Kashmiri
existence, however, Aadam himself is unable to reap the rewards of feeling at home in
his adopted culture. The promise of home, therefore, lies in wait for generations to come
(if not Saleem, then perhaps his own son, Aadam Sinai).
Having inherited both his enormous nose and “the alienness of blue eyes” (119),
Saleem aligns himself with Aadam; together, they must choose between “Indian or
Kashmiri?”, forced to immerse themselves in one culture or the other. They choose India,
but nevertheless, the bitter boatman Tai’s “magic hangs over us still, and makes us men
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�apart” (119). Tai, whose “claim to an antiquity so immense it defied numbering” (9),
represents the unchanging Kashmiri tradition, “the ‘tie’ that binds the present to the past,
the people to their customs and to one another” (Hogan 528). As such, Saleem’s first
sense of home (or rather, of home lost) is experienced vicariously through Aadam’s love
for Kashmir, the Eden of India’s past. Indeed, following the death of his grandfather,
while Saleem is in Pakistan, he finds himself dreaming repeatedly of Kashmir, a place he
has never physically visited. As the pastoral site of his family’s idyllic past, Saleem
covets Kashmir as an elusive, intangible dream of an unattainable past. Just as the
migrant writer must create “imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind” (1982 10), Saleem
longs for the serene stability of a home he never experienced. Uncertain of where his
loyalties lie—Kashmir or India?—Saleem’s dreams serve to remind him of his
“separateness from both India and Pakistan” (377), countries with which he (similar to
his grandfather) will never truly identify. That the longings of Aadam Aziz have seeped
into Saleem’s consciousness supports Rushdie’s definition of loving a country: “that its
shape is also yours, the shape of the way you think and feel and dream. That you can
never really leave” (2002 180). Even in death, Aadam’s desire for home has found new
life in his grandson.
The motif of the perforated sheet, through which Aadam falls in love with
Naseem, is also crucial to Saleem’s (and the nation’s) fractured identity. Just as Aadam—
forced to view his future bride in fragments—must imagine her as a whole being, so must
Saleem strive to envision a whole, undivided India. Aadam becomes infatuated with “this
phantasm of a partitioned woman” (22), as he glimpses through the sheet “things which
had filled up the hole inside him which had been created when he had been hit on the
nose by a tussock and insulted by the boatman Tai” (23). Thus, the void left by his sense
of unhomeliness is temporarily appeased by the dream of a full-fledged woman, who
could potentially re-adhere the shattered elements of his identity. Hogan proposes that
initially, Aadam is drawn to Naseem for her embodiment of “the nation-India” in its
entirety—“she is dreamed of as the whole that will be partitioned” (529). That Aadam is
drawn to Naseem’s elusive promise of wholeness shows that he is prey to the “mass
fantasy” (124) of Indian nationhood, the imagined India of his (retrospectively) idyllic
past. Thus, the perforated sheet, as Saleem surmises, “condemned me to see my own
life—its meanings, its structures—in fragments” (119). As a result of the eventual
partition of India himself, Saleem shares Aadam’s “vulnerability to women, but also its
cause, the hole at the center of himself caused by his (which is also my) failure to believe
or disbelieve in God” (315).
For Saleem, too, the feminized India of his imagination is symptomatic of his
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�internal conflicts, the sense of loss that results from his place in between identities. His
recognition that his “grandfather had begun to crack” (315) is yet another indication of
their bond, as well as a harbinger of Saleem’s own eventual disintegration.
Irrevocably separated from the original homeland of Aadam’s Kashmir, Saleem
ultimately revels in the eclectic, unruly chaos of Bombay, a city “as teeming, as manifold,
as multitudinously shapeless as ever” (143). Just as Saleem prefers people whose minds
resemble his own “pell-mell tumble of a brain” (246), he is drawn to Bombay’s
celebratory embrace of Indian diversity. Despite the “constant doubts about what [he]
was for” (187)—or perhaps because of them—Saleem purports to take his “place at the
center of the universe” (143), locating that center in Bombay itself, thereby inextricably
binding himself to the city. Referring to Bombay as his “kingdom… the heart of [his]
childhood” (104), Saleem grounds his own sense of history in this city, a history that
continually eludes him in the ever-changing India of his present. His conceit that he is
“somehow creating a world” (199), wielding control over the fate of the nation and its
subjects, is another attempt to “remain an individual in the midst of the teeming
multitudes” (121). Unable to accept anonymity or exclusion from his ideal of India,
Saleem places himself at the forefront of the nation’s burgeoning history, which he
himself impels forward.
Despite his retrospective bravado, however, Saleem’s childhood is plagued by
insecurity, as the “haze of anticipation” (173)—in many ways akin to the nation’s
optimistic view of the future— exacerbates his fear of a purposeless life. Driven by a
desire to escape “the terrible notion that I, alone in the universe, had no idea of what I
should be, or how I should behave” (174), Saleem takes refuge in a series of safe havens.
The first of these places, his mother’s washing-chest, is “a hole in the world”, in which he
is “safe from all pressures, concealed from the demands of parents and history” (177). As
a place where he can forget the mocking of his nose (itself a remnant of his hybrid
identity) and the folly of his father, the washing-chest is an interstitial place between
home and the threat of the outside world. It is upon his mother’s intrusion of this linenlined sanctuary—“a refuge has been lost forever” (184)—that Saleem discovers his
telepathic powers, and thus, his “reason for having been born” (186). It is not an entirely
happy recognition, however, as Saleem discovers that his ability plunges him into “a
world in which [he] could no longer tell the people who mattered most about the goingson inside [his] head” (187). Ironically, the gift that offers him his greatest sense of
connection (and arguably, his truest sense of home) also estranges him from those he
loves, as he can no longer reveal his true identity.
Denied the comforts of withdrawing into his washing-chest, Saleem seeks a new
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�hideout in the form of the old clock tower, which, along with his newly tuned telepathy,
offers him a panoptical view of the world. Safely sequestered in the clock tower, Saleem
imagines himself as a god, “capable of acting-at-a-distance and shifting the tides of the
world” (199). Able to experience the diversity of India through the eyes of unsuspecting
natives, Saleem familiarizes himself with his country, acknowledging that, “in the exotic
simplicities of travel I was able to find a modicum of peace” (198). Not only is he most
comfortable in the illusion of undetected control and surveillance (as the principle of the
Panopticon functions), but he also understands the appeal of a nomadic lifestyle, almost
in anticipation of his eventual state of migrancy.
As a character who is perpetually thrown into varying degrees of geographical
exile, Saleem finds his greatest sense of home not in the physical terrain of India, but
rather in the mental community of the midnight children. Uncertain of the role he plays in
his own family (particularly upon the discovery that they are not, in fact, his biological
kin), Saleem revels in this family of his own creation, a family based on merit (as
established through their midnight-granted gifts) rather than blood. Furthermore, the
superiority of his own power enables him to claim his place at the heart of this
community, as he acts as “a sort of national network… a kind of forum in which they
could talk to one another, through me” (259). Deprived of a sense of home in both his
domestic and political environments, Saleem builds his own, magical home (not to say
imaginary), “which is somehow outside time” (243). Able to surpass the language divides
that are wreaking havoc in his beloved Bombay (in form of the language marches and
demands for further partition along linguistic lines), Saleem’s telepathy enables him to
perceive the “universally intelligible thought-forms which far transcended words” (192).
In this sense, the MCC offers him respite from the continuous splitting of his national and
cultural identity, the inevitable conflict of the post-colonial condition. According to
Hogan, what Saleem seeks through the MCC is “to reestablish practical identity within
the modern context of rival categorical identities” (524). In light of the many divisive
categories that threaten his sense of a full identity—differing religions, castes, languages,
and other means of public identification—Saleem attempts to gain a “direct
interconnectedness” (Hogan 519) with a personal community, regardless of public or
political disparities. In the community of the midnight children, Saleem’s differences are
beneficial—as opposed to a “shameful deformity” (190)—and therefore propel him to
“the center of the most exciting world any child had ever discovered” (260). Furthermore,
because the children are dependent on one another’s self-projections of their appearances,
Saleem is literally able to create his own identity, to paint a portrait of himself to send
“across the thought-waves of the nation” (251).
139
�The “uncanny,” which Homi Bhabha defines as “a liminal, uncertain state of
cultural belief when the archaic emerges in the midst of margins of modernity as a result
of some psychic ambivalence or intellectual uncertainty” (206), invades Saleem’s
midnight sanctuary through the vessel of Shiva. Forcing Saleem to face “matter of fact
descriptions of the outré and bizarre, and their reverse, namely heightened, stylized
versions of the everyday” (250), Shiva presents a menace to Saleem’s carefully crafted
internal world. By casually juxtaposing “a picture of the world of startling uniformity”
with “the dreadful murder of prostutues which began to fill the gutter-press in those days”
with “the intricate details of a particular hand of cards” (250), Shiva exposes Saleem to
the disorienting reality of post-colonial India, in which the simplicity of tradition is
suddenly on par with the shock of modern tragedy.
It is during “his first exile” (274) with his Uncle Hanif and Aunt Pia that
Saleem’s sense of unhomeliness becomes apparent, as this period initiates him into a state
of cultural nomadism. The discovery that Saleem is not, by blood, a true Sinai catapults
him into the ambiguities of an “’in-between’ temporality” (Bhabha 19), where he is
neither Indian nor British; neither Muslim nor Hindu. Deserted by his parents, Saleem
“realizes that something has gone wrong with the world” (274), that it has, in effect,
crumbled around him. However, Saleem’s hybridity endows him with yet another
talent—“giving birth to parents… a form of reverse fertility beyond the control of… even
the Widow herself” (278) (That this talent flaunts even the authority of the Widow, Indira
Ghandi, implies that even the identity forced upon him by the newly emerging state of
India cannot hinder his quest for home). Because Saleem lacks a stable, singular state of
home, he is able to take advantage of his multiple places of residency, acting out his
“most treasured bit-part” by occupying “the sacred place of the son [Pia] never had”
(278). Rejected by his own parents, who have recently discovered his illegitimacy,
Saleem has recruited a new mother and father with whom he can ingratiate himself.
Upon returning to his parents and sister in Buckingham Villa, Saleem notes that
he has been guilty of neglecting the midnight children at times, allowing “the demon
lurking inside me (it had two heads)… to get on with its devilment” (294). Haunted by
the discovery that he is “neither-Alpha-nor-Omega” (319), belonging to neither Amina
nor Amed, Saleem is once again in between; this double-headed demon embodies the
specter of this newfound identity in which he is trapped. The eventual discovery that he is
not the biological son of his mother and father leads to the disintegration, too, of the
midnight’s children. Just as he must conceal his telepathy from his family, Saleem must
now seal off the part of his mind that could betray his true birthright to Shiva and their
fellow children. It is this disingenuous secrecy that threatens the conference, as the
140
�children essentially refuse to tolerate Saleem’s distance. Soon after, Saleem notes,
“having exiled Shiva, I found myself hurled into an exile from which I was incapable of
contacting my more-than-five-hundred colleagues” (324), as he is forced to cross the
border into Pakistan.
The contrast between the “amphibian terrain” (325) of Pakistan and the vibrancy
of Bombay is a crucial component of Saleem’s unhomeliness in the novel. Forced to
relocate to the “dull, lifeless house” (327) of his Uncle Zulfikar, where he is neither
welcome nor comfortable, Saleem once again finds himself at the mercy of his relatives’
generosity. Furthermore, he perceives a “gap” between him and his mother and sister,
terrified that their imaginations would be unable to assimilate the knowledge that he is
not their own (329). Driven to prove himself “worthy of their kinship” (329), Saleem
displays his “fitness for sonship” (332) by usurping his cousin’s place in the household of
General Zulfikar, whom he assists in a pepper pot revolution. Despite this major foray
into the political sphere of Pakistan, however, Saleem refuses to see himself as anything
but a “refugee, not citizen” (334). Given his embrace of “the rainbow riot” of Bombay
(340), Saleem cannot acclimate himself to the banal uniformity of his relatives’s home in
Pakistan, where the house motto—“Let’s get organized!” (327)—directly attacks his love
of disorder. This characterization of Pakistan depicts it as a place fixated on
categorization, classification, in pursuit of the “internal tidiness” (246) that so repels
Saleem. Indeed, Saleem’s own hybridity demands that he eschew any rigid definitions of
identity, as he resides in the no-man’s-land of hyphenated ambiguity (Anglo-Indian,
Kashmiri-Indian). More than just its moral connotations, “Land of the Pure” implies the
more sinister ideal of racial or ethnic purity, with little tolerance for “half-and-halfers”
like Saleem, who is “forever tainted with Bombayness” (355). His “marked preference
for the impure” (355) is a way of rebelling against the suffocating sameness of Pakistan,
whose citizens “exuded the flat boiled odors of acquiescence” (353), to both Islam and
homogeneity.
Jamila’s submission to “the insidious spell of that God-ridden country” strikes
Saleem as a sort of betrayal, “the final break with the legacy of her grandfather” (334), as
she aligns herself with the side of the believers. Considered the “new daughter-of-thenation” (359), Jamila comes to represent the nation (and voice) of Pakistan, a land that—
given his agnosticism and mixed heritage—is largely forbidden. That he should fall prey
to “the ultimate impurity of sister-love” (352), then, represents his own temporary
infatuation with the “new wholeness” of both Pakistan and his sister. As critic Jean Kane
argues, “Jamila, as Pakistan, becomes the missing and inaccessible part that Saleem, as
India, incestuously desires to possess” (111). His fleeting, shameful desire for Jamila
141
�implies that to Saleem, the abhorrence of Pakistan is tantamount to the taboo of incest.
Even more importantly, however, is his alienation from the midnight’s children.
Discovering that “the existence of a frontier ‘jammed’ [his] thought-transmissions” (325),
Saleem is exiled from his greatest source of community, daunted by the imaginary line of
partition. Having fled his original home, Saleem is unable to function as his original self,
instead forced to bide his time until “Back-to-Bom!” (340). The ebullience of his
homecoming, however, is fleeting. Reuniting with the midnight children after a four-year
exile, Saleem learns, “family reunions are more delightful in prospect than in reality, and
that the time comes when all families must go their separate ways” (341). As his mind
becomes “the battleground on which they annihilated [him]” (341), Saleem is forced to
accept the dissolution of his adopted community. His ultimate, final severance with the
midnight children (a result of his nose-draining operation) casts him into “the desert of
[his] later years” (344), in which the “silence, like a desert”, and “air, like a vandal” (348)
represent the emptiness that has engulfed his sense of self. The midnight children, as a
microcosm of India’s diversity, represent Saleem’s sole connection to his homeland, a
place so infinitely various that he can grasp it only through the magic of telepathy. As an
extension of Rushdie himself, whose India “has always been based on ideas of
multiplicity, pluralism, hybridity” (1982 32), Saleem feels most at home among the
culturally superabundant crowd of the midnight children. Deprived of his “truest
birthright” (325), Saleem is similarly estranged from his homeland.
In an attempt to construct a newly found sense of home in Pakistan, the Sinai
family plants Saleem’s (or is it Shiva’s?) umbilical cord at the construction site of their new
house, giving “birth to a split-level, American-style modern bungalow” (353). That
Saleem’s purported umbilical cord should produce such an architectural hybrid is of course
appropriate, as it reflects his own cultural syncretism. His disdain for the alien city of
Karachi is based on its construction of “entirely unsuitable cords”, causing “deformed
houses, the stunted hunchback children of deficient life-lines” (354). This is perhaps an
expression of scorn for “the faith upon which the city stood” (353), the ‘submission’ of
Islam, which instills in his new neighbors “the flat boiled odors of acquiescence” (353). Or,
alternatively, the fear “of splitting, that was buried like an umbilical cord in every Pakistani
heart” (404). This characterization of Pakistan is indicative of what Hogan describes as
Rushdie’s “conflict with a transgeographical, centralizing, authoritarian, categorical Islam”
(528). Pakistan, as a country based on its homogenizing, unifying vision of an Islamic state,
promotes the conformity that Saleem finds so distasteful. Religion, as “the glue of Pakistan,
holding the halves together” (404), attempts to create a false sense of national identity, in
branding its citizens as members of its authoritative creed.
142
�Indeed, the narrator Saleem distances himself from his stint in the Pakistan
army, as he is unable to accept that he, as he is in the present tense, “became a citizen of
Pakistan” (401). He therefore disassociates himself from that period in his personal
history, referring to himself (“the Buddha”) in the third person: “I insist: not I. He. He,
the Buddha. Who, until the snake, would remain not-Saleem; who, in spite of runningfrom, was still separated from his past” (414). This convenient distance is achieved by
virtue of Saleem’s memory loss following his encounter with a flying spittoon, an
incident that allows him to “begin again” (401). Unburdened by the restraints of his
consciousness and his memories, the Buddha leads a historyless existence, indulging in
“the arts of submission” (401) that are so prevalent in his adopted nation. Separated from
his sense of self, Saleem conforms to Islamic ideals of obedience—a dangerous example,
he declares, as this same detachment from history leads Sheikh Mujib to declare the
newly formed state of Bangladesh (404). Memory, as an element of “the awareness of
oneself as a homogeneous entity in time, a blend of past and present… [is] the glue of
personality, holding together our then and our now” (404). Thus, deprived of memory or
consciousness, the Buddha does not represent Saleem as his true self; rather, this
penetration into the terrain of the other (as a submissive Pakistani military man) enables
Saleem to experience Pakistan without truly identifying with it.
Saleem’s foray into “the historyless anonymity” of the Sundarbans (414) is
effectively a journey to reclaim his lost sense of self. Just as Sheikh Mujib acts from
outside the constraints of history in forming Bangladesh, the Buddha is similarly foolish
in the “absurd fantasy” of the Sundarbans (417), whose canopy of anonymity frees him to
act as Saleem would (or should) not. As a being untainted by the “myriad complex
processes that go to make a man” (419), the Buddha exudes a passive blankness that
makes him vulnerable to the lures of the rainforest. It is not until he is “rejoined to the
past, jolted into unity by snake-poison” (419) that he can begin to reclaim his lost history,
including the first name that continues to elude him. The fact that he is unable to summon
his name, but rather can only recall his many nicknames—“Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy,
Sniffer, Piece-of-the-Moon” (425)—underscores his multiplicity of selves. His agonized
failure to recover his true, given name, however, indicates that a wealth of identities does
not necessarily bestow a clearer sense of self. Despite his array of parents, names, and
homes from which to choose, Saleem remains fixed on the notion of a sole,
encompassing self. Unlike India, whose splintering states of Pakistan and Bangladesh
prove faulty, Saleem is determined to retain his many identities.
Saleem is not effectively reborn (and thus given back his name) until he has
abandoned the sinister reclusion of the Sundarbans, reemerging to find that “what you
143
�were is forever who you are” (423). He likens the regaining of his name to “another
independence day” (434), and thus marks this day as his personal renaissance, as he is
transformed from “the Buddha in his shapeless anonymous garment” (434) to Saleem,
upon the arrival of India and Parvati-the-witch. That another child of the MCC should
restore Saleem to his former identity is fitting, as she instills him with the sense of self he
lost upon the draining of his telepathy. It is with Parvati’s help that Saleem returns—
through the interstitial vessel of her “basket of invisibility”, in which he is “both there
and not there” (438)—to his homeland of India. This easily fits Homi Bhabha’s
description of a “negating activity,” which establishes “a bridge, where ‘presencing’
begins because it captures something of the estranging sense of the relocation of the
home and the world” (13). Thus, once again Saleem inhabits an in-between place
between existence and nothingness, “a sphere of absence” (438) in which he resides
between the conflicting nations of Pakistan and India.
“Exile,” as Rushdie states, “is a dream of glorious return” (2002 181). For
Saleem, however, return is by necessity a clandestine, evasive act, as he is “without
passport or permit” transported across the border (438). Ironically, Saleem now finds
himself “in law an illegal immigrant (having once been a legal emigrant)” (447) in his
own country, with the threat of P.O.W. camps awaiting him. Having been reduced to the
status of alien in his native land—his “subcontinental twin sister” (444)—Saleem must
rely on the reluctant generosity of his Uncle Mustapha, the only relative to survive the
night that made him the Buddha. This last remnant of family, however, proves
insufficient for Saleem, who comes to view their presence in Delhi as “a desecration of
[his] own past… this terrible Fly was crawling upon sacred soil” (451). The city of his
parents has been effectively tainted by this pathetic excuse for family, leading him to
declare the very notion of family “an overrated idea” (456).
Upon his eventual “expulsion from the last gracious home open to” him (456),
Saleem seeks refuge with Parvati in the magicians’ ghetto, a place where he feels
“instantly and comfortingly at home” (457). The avid Communism of the magicians and
Picture Singh—“the last in the line of men who have been willing to become [his]
fathers” (435)—appeal to Saleem’s abandonment of his “true faith… Businessism” (457),
as he now shares their impoverished social status. Furthermore, like the MCC, the
magicians’ ghetto offers Saleem a means of benefiting from his differences, as he earns
his living entertaining tourists with “the marvelous perspicacities” of his nose (457). In
contrast to the illusions and untruths of Pakistan, moreover, Saleem notes that “the
magicians were people whose hold on reality was absolute; they gripped it so powerfully
that they could bend it every which way in service of their arts, but they never forgot
144
�what it was” (459). Despite the magician’s claims of the supernatural, they cynically
recognize that such magic is superficial, refusing to believe literally in their own
metaphors. Just as India presents an array of marvelous imaginary possibilities to Saleem,
the magicians do not offer false promises. However, despite the absence of “religious and
regionalist bigotry”, Saleem observes that “our ancient national gift for fissiparousness”
(459) nevertheless invades his sanctuary, as the rivaling performers are in a constant state
of war. Like his beloved MCC, the magicians’ ghetto “falls prey to the divisive identity
categories for which it was to serve as an alternative” (Hogan 525).
In fact, as Saleem despondently admits, “the crime of Mary Pereira had detached
me from two worlds, not one; having been expelled from my uncle’s house I could never
fully enter the world-according-to-Picture-Singh” (475). Mary’s post-natal baby switch,
which gave Saleem his privileged upbringing, rends him incapable of truly conforming to
the anti-rich attitude of Communism. His orphan status, however, prevents him from
returning to the world in which he was raised, leaving him in what Shailja Sharma terms
“a position of perpetual in-betweenness” (599). Rather than belonging to both worlds,
Saleem is unable to find complete acceptance either as Indian, Anglo or Pakistani; his
plurality eternally excludes him from complete assimilation to any of his eclectic
cultures.
Having “been forced by cultural displacement to accept the provisional nature of
all truths, all certainties” (1982 12), Rushdie instills Saleem with a similar sensibility
regarding India, “a collective fiction in which anything was possible” (124). Saleem
distinguishes India’s “infinity of alternative realities” from the “infinite number of
falsenesses, unrealities and lies” (373) of Pakistan. By this, he suggests that India, in its
(relative) recognition of diversity and ambiguity, embraces the “subaltern as the porous
embodiment of a violent, hybrid history” (Kane 94—5), as opposed to Pakistan’s
stubborn adherence to the ideals of “purity” and “wholeness”. Saleem’s view of a human
being as “anything but a whole, anything but homogeneous; all kinds of everywhichthing
are jumbled up inside him” (270) underlines the importance of celebrating cultural
pluralism. His additional mandate that the body (or nation, metaphorically speaking) be
“indivisible, a one-piece suit, a sacred temple” (270) seems by consequence
contradictory. However, as Hogan argues, the novel’s allegory of the personified nation
gives “imaginative unity to a great diversity of places and individuals… a way of
envisioning this diversity as one perceptual form” (525). That Saleem defines himself as
“the sum total of everything that went before me” (441) emphasizes his role as the
unified face of India, as one being that simultaneously comprises “every one of the nowsix-hundred-million-plus of us” (441). Indeed, “by placing the multiplicity inside
145
�Saleem’s (singular) mind, Rushdie tries to reconcile these apparent contradictories”
through the concept of the MCC (Hogan 525).
As an identity that Rushdie describes as “at once plural and partial” (1982 15),
Saleem’s hybridity draws him to India’s eclectic populace, its multi-faceted identities, its
“hundreds of millions of possible versions” (1982 10). Rather than attempt to quash the
diversity through partition (as did Pakistan and Bangladesh), India must find solidarity in
its differences, much as Saleem finds refuge in the unified hybridity of the midnight
children. Indeed, in his endless quest for home, Saleem’s “cultural ambivalence” (Gandhi
153) manifests itself in a multiplicity of homes, rather than a dearth. As Rushdie refuses
“the relative securities of belonging to one country alone” (Sharma 603), Saleem remains
open to the “ambivalencies and ambiguities… [the] sundering and splitting” of the
unhomely world (Bhabha 27). Though unable to maintain a stable sense of home, Saleem
embraces the dynamics of his post-colonial migrancy through a series of homes and
families, enabling him to consume the “multitudes… jostling and shoving inside” him
(4).
Works Cited
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. 1994. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory. New York: Columbia UP, 1998.
Hogan, Patrick Colm. “Midnight’s Children: Kashmir and the Politics of Identity.”
Twentieth Century Literature 47.4 (2001): 510—44.
Kane, Jean M. “The Migrant Intellectual and the Body of History: Salman Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children.” Contemporary Literature 37.1 (1996): 94—118.
Radhakrishnan, R. “Postcoloniality and the Boundaries of Identity.” Callaloo 16.4
(1993): 750—71.
Rushdie, Salman. “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers.” East, West: Stories. New York:
Vintage, 1994.
---. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981—1991. London: Granta, 1991.
---. Midnight’s Children. 1981. New York: Random House, 2006.
---. Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992—2002. New York: Random House,
2002.
Sharma, Shailja. “Salman Rushdie: The Ambivalence of Migrancy.” Twentieth Century
Literature 47.4 (2001): 596—618.
146
�Machiavelli’s Nature
James Messina (Philosophy and English)1
Machiavelli is not as enigmatic as is commonly believed. His views on human
nature, religion and fortune remain constant and pragmatic throughout The Prince and
The Discourses. That Machiavelli achieves this despite advocating for two separate and
conflicting types of government is perhaps his greatest feat as a writer and political
strategist. He accomplishes this by establishing that politics is a world of its own,
unaffected by rules and codes of conduct that govern the other aspects of human life.
Doing so allows him to speak in a commonsensical manner without creating conflicts of a
moral nature. To many philosophers, this duality presents a problem, but Machiavelli was
not a philosopher, and he saw no reason that he or anyone else should have to apply the
rules of virtuous living to successful leadership. Machiavelli was a man exiled from his
native land, desperate to reach his goal of reintegration into the Florentine political scene
through his revolutionary, sometimes brutal, but always consistent, interpretation of the
human psyche. It is in this context that his two major works were written, and it is this
context that precludes the notion that either of them was intended to be taken in a less
than serious light.
“It is safer to be feared than loved.”2 These are perhaps the most discussed and
most heavily disputed words that Machiavelli ever wrote. The statement itself
intentionally raises many questions regarding the nature of human beings. The answers to
these questions, according to Machiavelli, define the validity of the statement itself.
Machiavelli maintains that fear, when employed by a leader, is more effective in
controlling people than affection. He believes this based on his assumption that because
men are, on whole, self-serving beings, they will sooner betray the laws of someone they
love than of someone they fear. This is because the consequences of the latter are
suspected to be far more severe than the consequences of the former and often, such
severe repercussions will outweigh any perceived benefits of breaking the law. In
addition, the prince can control whether or not the populous fears him. Love, on the other
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith (History) for the honors course History
362(I): Renaissance Italy.
2
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Translated by Peter Constantine. Introduction by
Albert Russel Ascoli. New York: Random House Publishing, 2007: pg 78.
147
�hand is largely in the emotional jurisdiction of the people. In this sense, Machiavelli
displays man as unworthy of being governed by a loving ruler because he would likely
abuse his leader’s benevolence in times of uncertainty or war. He goes on to say that a
successful prince must only strive to appear to be altruistic and selfless so as to avoid
being hated. The best way to ensure such is to avoid seizure of property, “…because a
man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony”.3 Here,
Machiavelli sheds even more light upon the extent to which he believes men are evil.
This statement seems to run counter to what all humans would like to believe about
themselves. Machiavelli asserts that men value money, material, and power over family
and friends. He attempts to demonstrate that human nature has existed in such a way
throughout time. Machiavelli advances his theory and goes further by asseverating that a
successful ruler must adequately understand human nature in order to reign over humans
themselves. By understanding human temperament, his message resonates; a ruler can
easily manipulate human nature to work in his favor.4
Machiavelli portrays a similar message in The Discourses, despite the fact that it
advocates for a republic, over a monarchy. When discussing the value of indictments as a
tool of manipulation used by republics, Machiavelli states “…for fear of being
prosecuted, its [the republic’s] citizens attempt nothing prejudicial to the state…”5
Despite the fact that Republican states are generally considered to be governed by the
people, Machiavelli still finds a way to employ fear against the masses. In this case,
instead of a prince using fear to maintain power and thwart revolt, a republic must instill
fear in its citizens to ensure the longevity of its sovereignty and to avoid mutiny. Two
separate forms of government: one consistent view of human nature. Felix Gilbert argues
that this concept is paramount to his success, “In The Prince as well as in The Discourse,
Machiavelli outlined forms of government which used these egoistic drives of men in
such a way that they would not endanger the government, but would even increase the
strength of the political body.6” In this way, Machiavelli set himself apart from the
3
The Prince: Pg 79.
King, Margaret L., The Renaissance In Europe. Laurence King Publishing, 2005: Pg.
230
5
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Discourses. Edited with an Introduction by Bernard Crick
using the translation of Leslie J. Walker, S.J. with revisions by Brian Richardson.
Penguin Books, 2003: Pg 124.
6
Gilbert, Felix. Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth Century
Florence. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965: Pg 157.
4
148
�ancients and from his contemporaries. In doing so, Machiavelli was able to offer
something unique to his readers and demonstrate to those in power in Florence that he
could offer something truly unique to the political world.7
Machiavelli proposed manipulation of human nature in several ways. Most
offensive of which to his critics was the use of Catholicism. Machiavelli, many argue,
seems to hold his own religious roots in the paganism of the ancients.8 It is clear
throughout both The Prince and The Discourses that Machiavelli views Catholicism as a
great channel through which to instill a sense of morality in a populous, despite believing
it to be a greatly flawed religion.9 This use of religion is constant and exemplifies the
straightforward and pragmatic way that Machiavelli catalogs leadership. He treats
Christianity in an almost paradoxically secular light, advocating its usefulness only in the
spectrum of control. As Gilbert notes, “…he [Machiavelli] realized the usefulness of
religion for disciplining the members of society…”10 While this is true, Machiavelli
astutely recognized that religion often caused inner conflict within politicians. He
believed men should choose one of two options. The first was to lead a good Christian
life, devoid of politics, and the second was to live a life of politics devoid of Christian
morality. Never does he advocate for evil actions over good actions, he only wishes to
establish a line between politics and the rest of a human being’s life. If one were to
choose the path of politics, one would be forced to dedicate oneself fully to his country’s
cause. There was no room, according to Machiavelli, for half-invested politicians. For
example, in The Prince, Machiavelli states, “In order to maintain the state, a prince will
often be compelled to work against what is merciful, loyal, upright, and scrupulous…he
must not, if he is able, distance himself from what is good, but must also, when
necessary, know how to prefer what is bad.”11 This dichotomy, this sort of double
standard, as it is often seen, presents a problem for critics of Machiavelli.12 That is
because they fail to see that Machiavelli recognized such moral conflicts, and found a
way around them. In doing so, he decidedly states that morality and politics belong in
7
Gilbert: Pg. 158-161
Nederman, Cary J., “Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli’s
Thought”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 60.4 (1999): Pg 1.
9
Gilbert: Pg. 196.
10
Gilbert: Pg. 196.
11
The Prince: Pg. 83
12
Benjamin G. Kohl and Alison Andrews Smith, edited Major Problems in the History of
the Italian Renaissance. D.C. Heath and Company, 1995: Pg. 188-192
8
149
�two separate spheres. Unlike his contemporaries, Machiavelli advocates for a sort of
political structure and mode of action that is only judged against its efficacy in
maintaining a successful state.13
Machiavelli promotes a sort of world in which men of power and true greatness
are responsible for their successes as well as for their shortcomings. When discussing the
failure of Borgia, Machiavelli states, “Borgia made a bad decision. And it was ultimately
this decision that brought about his ruin,”14 clearly advocating for personal accountability
on the part of a ruler. Borgia brought about his own ruin by allowing Julius to become
pope, and because of this, he secured his own fate. In making such an assertion, he
references and analyzes the humanist conflict between fortune and free will. Later, in his
chapter regarding this issue specifically, Machiavelli sends a clear message that should be
read in the context of his humanist contemporaries who advocate for “humanism of
action”, or in laymen’s term’s: the ability of human beings to overcome fortune.
Machiavelli simultaneously endorses and condemns this theory.15 While on the one hand,
he places the fate of the prince on the prince’s own shoulders, he also states that there are
often extenuating circumstances brought about by fortune that the prince cannot avoid.
His infamous comparison of Fortune to a woman seems to indicate that a prudent and
politically active prince can beat fate into submission by acting violently towards her, and
always anticipating her next move. “Fortune seems to be the arbiter of half our actions,
but she does leave us the other half, or almost the other half, in order that our free will
may prevail.”16 The incongruity of his thoughts on this subject indicates that he did not
necessarily believe that any concrete conclusion could be made. That is to say, he felt that
a leader must be constantly active in order to avoid the wrath of Fortune, and that even an
impetuous yet somehow paradoxically prudent ruler could fall victim to her fate roughly
half the time. What he does seem to believe more conclusively is that when
circumstances go to extremes, man is incapable of resisting his natural inclinations.17 A
distinction must be made, however, between a man’s nature and a man’s fate.
Machiavelli believes that while man may in fact be capable of controlling fortune, he is
inherently incapable of acting with virtue against his natural, inborn complexion. On
autonomy, Machiavelli is ambivalent, but at the very least, he is consistently so.
13
Kohl and Smith: Pg. 188
The Prince: Pg. 38.
15
Nederman: Pg. 3.
16
The Prince: Pg. 115
17
Bernard, John D., “Writing and the Paradox of the Self: Machiavelli’s Literary
Vocation.” The Renaissance Quartlerly, 59.1 (2006): Pg 2.
14
150
�Machiavelli saw human beings as nothing more than animals whose instincts
were controlled and tamed by the norms of society. He believed that society and morality
had a harmful effect on the political sphere and limited the potentiality of great leaders. It
is because of this that he advises a new ruler to possess traits of a fox (cunning) or a lion
(strength) or, ideally, both. Only by doing so could humans reach their full potential in
the world of politics.18 He criticizes those who condemn the use of military force by a
ruler, recognizing that in order to manifest expansion and promote the longevity of
sovereignty, a good military was irreplaceable. Throughout The Prince and The
Discourses Machiavelli denounces mercenary militaries as uniformly bad, “They have
driven Italy into slavery and disgrace”19. Because humans are driven by egoistic desires,
mercenary armies may seem most professional in times of peace, but are unlikely to be
great in times of war. In times of peace there is great incentive to be a part of a mercenary
army because it is a paid position with little risk involved. As soon as war breaks out, the
mercenary salary is not great enough to offset the perilousness of war. Consequently,
when needed most, Machiavelli recognized that the natural desire to keep oneself out of
harm’s way would greatly outweigh any amount of fiscal gain. A municipal, state
controlled army with the state’s best interest in mind was always preferable. While, in
The Discourses, promoting an army that fights for glory and not salary, Machiavelli
states, “…for they [mercenaries] have no cause to stand firm when attacked, apart from
the small pay which you give them”.20 Hence, in yet another way, Machiavelli’s
viewpoints run perfectly parallel to one another between the two acclaimed works.
On the subject of slander against a republic, Machiavelli states that it should be
a crime punishable to the fullest extent of the law. “Calumnies, too, are among the
various things of which citizens have availed themselves in order to acquire greatness”.21
Because this is a tool used to play on human nature, and often effective in turning a large
number of people against a governing body, Machiavelli sees character assassination as a
terrible crime. So too he condemns conspirators in The Prince, stating that “The worst
that a prince can expect from a hostile populace is for them to abandon him, but from
hostile noblemen he has also to fear their conspiring against him.”22 Here, he sagaciously
notes that slander and intrigue against a prince is only really effective when in the hands
of the nobles, because they possess the intellect to prudently wield such weapons of
18
Glibert: Pg. 191-193
The Prince: Pg. 62.
20
The Discourses: Pg. 218
21
The Discourses: Pg. 130
22
The Prince: Pg. 45
19
151
�deceit. Because it is human nature to desire to be free, and to gain and maintain power,
noblemen are always to be feared, and the denigration that they may use against the state
must be punishable.
Machiavelli’s pragmatism was so revolutionary and unique that it has been
embraced by philosophers and politicians alike. His controversial views on the use of
cruelty by a leader must have given rise to theories of utilitarian consequentiality, more
simply described in the maxim that “the ends justify the means”. This is best exemplified
in The Prince, when Machiavelli states “Cruelty can be called well used if it is executed
at a single stroke out of necessity to secure one’s power and is then not continued but
converted into the greatest possible benefit for one’s subjects.”23 This seems to resonate
very well with John Stuart Mill’s Greatest Happiness Principle, which, written several
hundreds of years later, epitomizes the above quote. This consequentialism runs rampant
through Machiavelli’s work. To most, it is this theory that makes Machiavelli equally
interesting and disturbing. Many theorize that The Prince was written by Machiavelli in
an attempt to mock the type of ruler it describes, however the down-to-earth tone he
employs throughout each of his political works, especially when regarding cruelty, would
seem to hinder the rationality of this theory.
That The Prince was intended to be a parody is a theory that only assumes any
sense of validity if one removes the context from which it was written. With the Medici
family’s return to power in Florence, came Machiavelli’s 1513 exile. He was accused of
conspiring against the family, and was thus thrust out of the political world. During the
time of his exile, he first drafted a preliminary copy of The Prince that was dedicated to
the Medici, and then wrote The Discourses. Through production of The Prince and The
Discourses, he attempted to demonstrate that he had attained a great deal of knowledge
about politics through both his experiences and through his studies. If he could
adequately sell himself as a cunning and adept politician, he was fairly certain that the
Medici would allow him to play a part in the Florentine government. Make no mistake;
Machiavelli was, at heart, a republican. It is very clear that he demonstrated great
preference for a governing body led by the people because, in his own words, “…the
blending of these estates [monarch and aristocracy to form democracy] made a perfect
commonwealth…”24 Many wonder, “if he was in fact such a staunch republican, why,
then, did he write an entire book about princedoms?” The answer lies in his desperation
to become active in politics once again. He thought that if he could sell himself as not
only sensible and masterful but also versatile, that he would maximize his chances of
23
24
The Prince Pg. 43
The Discourses: pg. 111
152
�political reintegration. The disparate ideologies of the two works would seem less strange
to Machiavelli’s contemporaries, who were “accustomed to write under an external
stimulus, often with the intention of gaining the favor of a patron.”25
Many fall victim to the illusion that The Prince and The Discourses advocate for
different things. This illusion is perpetuated by the fact that they discuss different
political ideologies, but is dissolved by the fact that each ideology is supported by the
same assertions and assumptions about human nature. Only by looking past the
superficial premise of each work does the overall message become transparent. By
establishing that all men are inherently evil and are egoistic by nature, Machiavelli
creates a methodology for successfully sustaining a government that could adequately
suppress that nature. That, above all else was his intention.
Obviously, Machiavelli will continue to be the topic of political, philosophical
and historical debates until the end of time. He successfully captivates the imagination of
his readers by speaking in a truly down to earth manner that few others dare to wield. By
reading critically, and studying the circumstances under which Machiavelli wrote his two
famous works it becomes very clear that he was a man desperate to reenter the world of
politics, for, in his mind, the better of his country. This sort of patriotic goal makes
Machiavelli admirable. He would argue that he was only fulfilling his duty to the state by
exercising the one thing that was truly important: his political mind. Writing and
theorizing were only done in the absence of work for the state, and it is very clear that
given the choice between writing about politics, and living in the political world, he
would choose the latter time after time. Given the nature of the renaissance movement in
16th century Italy, it is easy to see that Machiavelli rose to the challenges presented to him
by his contemporaries.
Works Cited
Benjamin G. Kohl and Alison Andrews Smith, edited Major Problems in the History of
the Italian Renaissance. D.C. Heath and Company, 1995.
Bernard, John D., “Writing and the Paradox of the Self: Machiavelli’s Literary
Vocation.” The Renaissance Quarterly, 59.1 (2006).
Colish, Marcia L., “Republicanism, Religion, and Machiavelli’s Savanorolan Moment.”
Journal of the History of Ideas, 60.4 (1999).
25
Gilbert: pg. 188
153
�Gilbert, Felix. Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth Century
Florence. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965.
King, Margaret L., The Renaissance In Europe. Laurence King Publishing, 2005.
Nederman, Cary J., “Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli’s
Thought”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 60.4 (1999).
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Discourses. Edited with an Introduction by Bernard Crick
using the translation of Leslie J. Walker, S.J. with revisions by Brian Richardson.
Penguin Books, 2003.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Translated by Peter Constantine. Introduction by
Albert Russel Ascoli. New York: Random House Publishing, 2007.
Nederman, Cary J., “Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli’s
Thought”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 60.4 (1999).
154
�Weight of Womanhood: The Condition
of Women in African Literature
Sarah Nehm (English)1
When reading Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions or Buchi Emecheta’s
The Joys of Motherhood, the reader cannot help but take notice of the condition of
women in these texts. As Lois Tyson explains, there is an unfortunate “double oppression
of postcolonial women” (Tyson 423). While the colonizing culture manipulates and
controls the colonized, men within patriarchal native cultures likewise oppress women. In
both texts women are controlled through economic and marital practices, live in a virtual
state of servitude, are considered less worthy of an education, and are unable to express
their sexuality. Influenced by the colonial condition, these practices become even more
complicated and oppressive. Women are often subject to physical, and even sexual,
abuse. Both texts also show that there is some flexibility to the roles women are forced
into, but this flexibility comes with severe consequences. However both Dangarembga
and Emecheta end by offering a glimmer of hope that these conditions for women are
changing or at least have the possibility to change.
In both texts, men economically control women. In both Nervous Condition and
Joys of Motherhood, when a woman makes money it automatically becomes the property
of the husband or father. In Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions the character Maiguru,
Tambu’s aunt, explains to Tambu how Babamukuru and her have received the same
education, “Yes, we both studied, your uncle and I, in South Africa for our Bachelor’s
Degrees and in England for our Master’s” (102). She does nearly the same job as
Babamukuru yet she “never received her salary” because it became part of Babamukuru’s
wealth (103). Scholar Deepika Bahri argues that Babamukuru has essentially “‘stolen’
her labor to enhance his position” (6). Babamukuru is highly esteemed in the family for
his wealth and for his generosity with this wealth. He is so highly thought of that he is
seen as a deity type figure, demonstrated by Tambu’s description “Stoically he accepted
his divinity. Filled with awe, we accepted it too” (Dangarembga 88). However, a large
portion of this wealth, and therefore the ability to be generous, comes from Maiguru’s
income; Maiguru states “Your uncle wouldn’t be able to do half the things he does if I
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Christopher Hogarth (English) for EN314(I):
Postcolonial Literature.
155
�didn’t work as well” (103). Sadly she is never given real credit for her economic input
and is not given the same respect. Tambu, the narrator, also experiences this custom of a
woman’s money not belonging to her. She had successfully earned enough money to pay
her school fees, but her father believed the money was rightfully his; “That money
belongs to me. Tambudzai is my daughter, is she not? So isn’t it my money?” (30). While
the headmaster does not agree, and Tambu is allowed to stay in school, this episode still
demonstrates this custom.
In Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood a group of wives in Lagos teach Nnu
Ego how “to start her own business so that she would not have only one outfit to wear”
(52). This does not seem problematic at first; Nnu Ego will have something to do that
will give her a little money for herself. The kind women “let her borrow five shillings
from the woman’s fund” (52). The “women’s fund” shows that women in the community
have found it necessary to have a separate pot of money that they can keep away from
their husbands and help other women with it. It also seems that this money is kept
secretly to buy things that a husband would not allow or give money to his wife for such
as starting up a new business or the “luxury” of a second outfit. Her trading becomes the
main source of income when Nnaife takes a position in the armed forces. She starts to
pay for almost everything including her children’s school fees by selling firewood and
other wares (Emecheta 216). Yet she explains in the court scene towards the end of the
text how even though this was money she earned it was technically Nnaife who paid;
“Nnaife is the head of our family. He owns me, just like God in the sky owns us. So even
though I pay the fees, yet he owns me. So in other words he pays” (217). Nnu Ego is
flustered trying to explain this unjust system where women are economically oppressed
and unable to call anything their own.
The colonial condition both helps and hinders the economic freedom of women
in these cultures. In The Joys of Motherhood, after Nnu Ego’s nod, which confirmed she
not only paid the school fees but also helped with feeding and clothing the children,
Nnaife is condemned in the eyes of the court; Emecheta writes, “she had nailed the last
nail in Nnaife’s coffin. It became clear that she was doing nearly all the providing and
that Nnaife was away in the army for four years, she had only received two allowances
even though she had five children to look after” (217). It seems that the court set up by
the colonial powers is for the economic freedom of women; they saw the injustice of
Nnaife calling this money his own. The colonial powers also employed many of the
native people. However, in a conversation between Nnu Ego and her friend Cordelia, we
find out that these jobs underpay for the work they require. The women compare their
husbands to slaves, “the only difference is that they get some pay for their work, instead
156
�of having been bought. But the pay is just enough to rent an old room like this” (51). If
the colonizers had paid more money, the financial hardship for the native people may not
have existed or would have existed to a lesser extent, which would have made the native
culture’s unjust system less obvious.
Part of this economic oppression was caused through the institution of marriage.
Both novels portrayed patriarchal marriage systems that considered marriage more of an
ownership than a partnership and trapped women at a young age. Tambu felt this
inescapable pull towards marriage, “it was irritating the way it always cropped up in one
form or another, stretching its tentacles back to bind me before I had even begun to think
about it seriously, threatening to disrupt my life before I could even call it my own”
(Dangarembga 183). In this culture women are commodified, or used to promote
“advancement financial or socially” like objects may be used (Tyson 62). Tambu’s
mother examined Nyasha for her marriage potential like one examines a farm animal
“’The breasts are already quite large’ she declared, pinching one” (Dangarembga 133). In
addition, the way the system is set up, parents are less willing to invest in their daughters.
Tambu’s parents often say that they are unwilling to send her to school because her
education will only benefit her husband’s family; “‘Have you ever heard of a woman who
stays in her father’s house?’ growled my father, ‘She will meet a young man and I will
have lost everything’” (30). They will invest in sons with the hope that it will bring
greater wealth to the family one day, but with daughters investing seems like a waste for
they will inevitably be married off and their income will improve the condition of their
new family.
In The Joys of Motherhood, marriage, like the economy, favored the male
gender. In this polygamous society a man demonstrates his wealth by his many wives and
children. The co-wives are set up to constantly be in competition with one another. Cowives compared the time they spent sexually with the shared husband, how much money
each was given, and how many kids or more specifically sons each had. Nnu Ego states
that when Adaku, the co-wife, first came it was “strange how in less than five hours
Nnaife had become a rare commodity” (Emecheta 121). Nnu Ego never really cared too
much for Nnaife but she also did not want to share him or compete for shared resources,
“Where would Nnaife get the money from?” she wondered (115). Nnu Ego has an even
more difficult situation because she lives in Lagos; instead of having her own hut like she
would have had back in her village she has to share a bedroom with the other wife and
her kids. She becomes disgusted when Adaku, her co-wife, and Nnaife make love for the
first time in her presence. Nnaife says to Adaku loudly enough so that Nnu Ego can
overhear, “You must learn to accept your pleasures quietly, my new wife Adaku. Your
157
�senior wife is like a white lady: she does not want noise” (Emecheta 124). As the novel
explained earlier it was bad for a woman’s “morale to hear her husband giving pleasure
to another woman” (21) and yet Nnaife seems to enjoy the jealousy he inspires between
the two women when they overhear the other making love. It is also important to note
that with this polygamous society, like most polygamous societies, men could have
multiple wives, but women could not have multiple husbands.
The colonial culture complicated the marriage systems that were already in
place in these native cultures. In Nervous Conditions, Babamukuru believed in the
Christian view of marriage. Although there were still references to the brideprice
(Dangarembga 128) and multiple wives (129) in the book, Babamukuru enforces
Christianity and coerced Tambu’s parents into having a traditional Christian ceremony
“to be cleansed of sin” (163). Tambu’s mother did not like the idea but she went along
with it simply because Babamukuru was the head of the family and he believed it was
necessary; Tambu’s mother “waited without enthusiasm for her wedding” (163). Tambu
was so outraged by this wedding that it was one of the first times in the novel that she
refused to obey direct orders and did not attend the “wedding that made a mockery of the
people I belonged to and placed doubt on my legitimate existence in this world” (165).
The colonial conditional also complicated Nnu Ego and Nnaife’s marriage in Emecheta’s
text. Nnaife was almost forced to marry Nnu Ego in the Christian church for fear he may
lose his job if he did not do so (Emecheta 50). Nnu Ego fights with Nnaife on this subject
“You behave like a slave! Do you go to her and say ‘Please, madam craw-craw skin, can
I sleep with my wife today?” (50). This made the hierarchy in their marriage even more
unfair. It was not just Nnu Ego being controlled by Nnaife, but Nnaife was ultimately
controlled by the colonizing power.
This economic and matrimonial oppression led to a virtual state of servitude for
women. Women were conditioned to believe that it was their duty to serve the men and
bear heavy burdens; Tambu is told by her mother that “When there are sacrifices to be
made, you are the one who has to make them” (Dangarembga 16). Tambu is frustrated
with these beliefs, “what I didn’t like was the way all the conflicts came back to this
question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness” (118). At the
nightly dinner table, Maiguru serves Babamukuru first; she held each dish “out for him
respectfully with both hands while he spooned food on his plate” (81). No one else is
allowed to touch a dish until he has taken what he pleases from all the plates. Once when
dinner was held up for a while to make gravy, Maiguru took the lukewarm plate that
Babamukuru had first made himself and let him take a nice warm new plate; “Maiguru
said that Babamukuru’s old meal was no longer fresh. She said she would eat it herself,
158
�that Babamukuru should serve himself another portion of food” (82). When Maiguru
becomes fed up with this life of servitude she leaves the house and exclaims that she is
tired of being a “hotel,” a “housekeeper,” and “of being nothing in a home I am working
myself sick to support” (174). Being a hotel and a housekeeper indicate her position as
one of service, and “being nothing” further indicates that she is in a slave-like position;
not only does she act as servant but she also has the status of one.
In Joys of Motherhood, Emecheta throughout the novel skillfully connects the
role of being a wife and mother to being a slave. In the very first chapter the reader learns
that Nnu Ego’s “chi was a slave woman who had been forced to die with her mistress”
(Emecheta 9). Expert on African literature, Stéphane Robolin believes it is this original
connection “through which Emecheta eventually conjoins the condition of slavehood and
the condition of womanhood” (78). This theme frequently reoccurs. First, when her child
is born Nnu Ego accepts clothing from her landlord, “She forgot that in her own culture
only slaves accepted worn outfits for a newly born baby” (Emecheta 54). Her condition is
so close to slavery that she acts like a slave is expected to act in her culture. Emecheta
makes the connection even more obvious when the narration states that Nnu Ego’s “love
and duty for her children were like a chain of slavery” (186). Many characters actually
use the word “own” like one would for a slave or an object to describe the relationship
between a man and his daughter or wife. Ona, Nnu Ego’s mother, used it early on in the
novel; “she supposed she should regard herself as lucky that two men want to own her”
(25). Later in the novel when Nnaife’s brother dies, Nnaife inherits his brother’s wives
(115). The fact that one could inherit a wife like one could inherit land demonstrates this
slave-like position again. The wives are passed from being property of one brother to the
property of the other.
Women in both texts have to serve men, not just their husbands, but their
fathers, sons and the colonizers as well. Emecheta’s Nnu Ego cries to her son “Please
stay and be my joy, be my father, be my husband” (104). One scholar explained that
“from this perspective… a change in the specific authority figure- be it father, husband,
or son- makes minimal difference when one is invariably required to remain a
‘serviceable and serving’ enabler of male privilege” (Robolin 82). Nnu Ego is told, “you
have already proved you are a good daughter, but a good daughter must also be a good
wife” (Emecheta 155). She must show proper service to each man in her life. Colonial
occupation again complicates this matter. Nnu Ego’s friend Cordelia explains this well;
while speaking about their husbands she states, “They are all slaves, including us. If their
masters treat them badly, they take it out on us” (51). In Dangarembga’s text, Tambu’s
mother explains to her the type of double servitude women in a colonized area oppose,
159
�“And these days it is worse, with poverty of blackness on one side and the weight of
womanhood on the other. Aiwa! What will help you, my child, is to learn to carry your
burdens with strength” (Dangarembga 16). This seems to be the overarching message of
each text; a woman’s position is a difficult one complicated and worsened by the colonial
condition.
In both texts, it is more important for the male children in the family to receive
an education than it is for the female children. Male children were seen as more important
because they will one day bring greater wealth and status to the family. In
Dangarembga’s text, Tambu has to fight for the right to be educated even though she has
shown more passion for learning and more initiative than her brother. Tambu comes up
with a plan so that their family can afford school for all the children, she states, “I will
earn the fees,” “If you will give me some seed, I will clear my own field and grow my
own maize” (Dangarembga 17). Even when she earns the money, her father still tries to
make excuses for why she cannot go. He does not even seem the least bit proud of his
daughter’s intelligence because as he states “Tambudazai’s sharpness with her books is
no use because in the end it will benefit strangers” (56). Tambu knows even from an
early age how important it is for her to receive an education; “I knew how lucky I was to
have been given this opportunity for mental and eventually, through it, material
emancipation” (89). Education is seen as the path to freedom and Tambu has to
continuously struggle with her family to let her continue her education.
In Emecheta’s work, Tyson might describe Nnu Ego as a patriarchal woman
because she has “internalized the norms and values of patriarchy” (85). She finds it more
important for her sons to go to school than for her daughters. The girls need to help with
the household chores because the boys “have to go to their lesson” (Emecheta 175). Nnu
Ego states “there may be a future for educated women” when she is speaking about the
daughters of other women, but for her own daughters she believes “the most important
thing is for them to get good husbands” (Emecheta189).
The school fees enforced by the colonizing power exacerbated the education
problem. These fees made it impossible for the native people to send all of their children
to school. Often families chose whom to send by gender and birth order. While there may
be a more just way of deciding who goes to school and who stays home, the fact that
these families had to make such a choice was a position that was forced on to them by the
colonizing power. Tambu actually earns her school fees from the charity of a white
woman named Doris. When Doris first saw Tambu selling cobs she yelled “Child labour.
Slavery!” and then she said, “This child ought to be in school” (Dangarembga 28). While
the words spoken by Mr. Matimba, the teacher who took her into town to sell her mealies
160
�to the white woman, are not written, it is implied that he explains how the school fees
imposed by whites have created Tambu’s position and now she was raising the money for
this cost. This woman then donates and the crowd cheers but others point out “white
people could afford to be, in fact ought to be, generous” (29). As we saw in both texts
children often had to receive scholarships for the opportunity to gain a higher education.
In Dangarembga’s text, the only reason Tambu is able to continue her education is
because she receives a full scholarship for the “finest education in Rhodesia” and even
Babamukuru believes that Tambu “must not be denied the opportunity” (186). In
Emecheta’s text, Nnu Ego, who had originally chosen to pay for her sons’ educations
over her daughters, later said that “my only regret is that I did not have enough money to
let the girls stay at school” (214). This again demonstrates that the colonial powers that
offered an education also at times made it impossible for all children to go. When forced
to make a decision, families did what was going to help them most economically.
Beyond being controlled by economic, marriage and education systems, often
sexuality is another aspect of a woman that men control in these texts. Having control
over one’s body seems like it would be the most basic form of autonomy, however both
Dangarembga and Emecheta demonstrate that even at the most basic level, women are
again without authority. The culture contains rules on how to dress, sexual appetite, how
and when to have children, etc. Tyson explains that “’bad girls’ violate patriarchal sexual
norms in some way: they’re sexually forward in appearance or behavior, or they have
many sexual partners” (90). In Nervous Conditions, Nyasha is considered a “bad girl”
and branded a whore by Babamukuru for the way she behaves and dresses even though
there is no evidence of sexual promiscuity. Babamukuru insists that Nyasha will not leave
the house “dressed up in such an ungodly manner” even though Maiguru has bought her
the dress as a reward for how well she did on her exams (Dangarembga 111). After this
scene Tambu and Chido tease Nyasha, “It’s your fault. What do you expect if you insist
on dressing up like that?” (111). Even though this is just gentle teasing, the fault is placed
on Nyasha when all she has done is wear a dress that her mother has bought her. When
Nyasha returns home a few minutes later than Chido and Tambu, she is scolded for her
actions; “No decent girl would stay out alone, with a boy, at that time of night,”
Babamukuru stated (115). Her father has equated a simple, innocent act as absolute
indecency.
Tambu similarly struggles with her body as she transitions from child to adult.
Tambu loved to dance but once she became better at dancing and had a shapelier body
she had to stop, “As I had grown older and the music began to speak to me more clearly,
my movements had grown stronger, more rhythmical and luxuriant; but people had not
161
�found it amusing anymore, so in the end I realized there were bad implications for the
way I enjoyed the rhythm” (Dangarembga 42). While women are expected to beget
children, the process of menstruation that gives the woman the ability to do this is never
addressed. Tambu only knows that it is a shameful part of being a woman that cannot be
talked about because it would “contaminate immaculate male ears” (71). No one has even
taught her about her own body; when Nyasha gives her a tampon and the instructions on
how to use one, Tambu expresses surprise, “Did it really look like that on the inside?”
(97). Tampons make the menstruating process more manageable and sanitary, but simply
because these Western contraptions imply a certain action, or even the ability to
comfortably touch one’s body, they are associated with being a “bad girl.” Nyasha’s
mom believed that “Tampons were offensive, that nice girls did not use them” (97). In
actuality, the use of tampons does not reflect a woman’s sexual choices. Tampons are not
even remotely sexy or pleasurable yet they are equated with having sex.
In The Joys of Motherhood, similar restrictions and rules are placed on a
woman’s body and how she expresses her sexuality. When Nnu Ego marries her first
husband, visitors say, “we pray that it is less than ten months our in laws will come and
thank us again for the birth of her baby” (Emecheta 31). For a baby to appear in ten
months that means Nnu Ego is expected to conceive within the first month. There is no
question of whether Nnu Ego wants this for herself or not. Her people believe that “When
a woman is virtuous it easy for her to conceive,” so if Nnu Ego has trouble conceiving or
hypothetically if she did not want to conceive right away, her reputation would be at
stake (31). Later the reader finds out that a woman is judged harshly if she shows
enjoyment during sex. Nnu Ego cannot believe that Aduku, her co-wife, enjoys sex so
much; “What did she think she was doing? Did she think Nnaife was her lover and not
her husband to show her enjoyment so?” (124). Tyson explains how often a “good”
woman is “expected to find sex frightening or disgusting,” “it was believed unnatural for
women to have sexual desire.” Nnu Ego embodies this patriarchal belief when she passes
judgment on Adaku.
The colonial powers, and specifically Christianity, reinforce the ideas
concerning sexuality and women. This is especially apparent in Dangarembga’s Nervous
Conditions. Nyasha has to live up to her own culture’s ideals as well as the ideals of the
colonizing power. As Carolyn Shaw explains “Babamukuru’s surveillance of Nyasha’s
sexuality derives in large part from Christianity that he learned in the mission, but also is
motivated by his need to protect and promote his position in the colonial system” (10).
This argument is evident when Babamukuru yells at Nyasha for staying out late with a
boy, “I am respected at this mission. I cannot have a daughter who behaves like a whore”
162
�(Dangarembga 116). He is not worried about her safety or anything besides his image and
how those at the mission with see him. While Babamukuru chooses what he likes best
from each culture it seems that “the traditional Shona ideal of female restraint or
containment meshes well with this puritanism” (Shaw 11). In this case, the Western
culture helps justify the patriarchal native culture.
Some of the most difficult parts of both novels for Western readers are the brutal
beatings and virtual rape scenes depicted. In Dangarembga’s text one of the most
upsetting scenes is when Babamukuru viciously beats Nyasha for staying out late with a
boy. The scene read more like a wrestling match than an interaction between father and
daughter; “Babamukuru alternately punching Nyasha’s head and banging it against the
floor” (Dangarembga 117). Babamukuru justifies his actions based on Nyasha’s behavior
after punching him in the eye, “if Nyasha was going to behave like a man, then by his
mother who was at rest in her grave he would fight her like one” (117). Violence to this
extreme degree can only happen in a culture where violence between father and daughter
has been previously accepted.
Emecheta’s Nnu Ego is beaten by her first husband. Even though Nnu Ego is hurt
so badly that her father wants her to recover in his own house for a while, he says to her
husband “I don’t blame you for beating her so badly” (Emecheta 35). The father accepts
another man beating his daughter without becoming angry. Nnu Ego is also beaten by her
second husband, “Nnaife lost his temper and banged the guitar he was holding against her
head” (91). Not only has Nnu Ego been the sole financial provider at this point in the text,
she is also pregnant when she is hit with the guitar. Later in their marriage, Nnaife “could
now afford to beat her up, if she went beyond the limits he could stand” (117). In addition
to Nnu Ego’s physical abuse, a less central character, Iyawo Itsekiri is described as
“mellowed by the constant beatings of her husband” (105). With Nnu Ego’s second
husband, the sex on her wedding night is virtually a rape, although that would not be a term
applied in their culture. Nnaife demands his “marital right” and “worked himself into an
animal frenzy” (44). He is described as “hungry” and “insatiable” but Nnu Ego “bore it and
relaxed as she had been told” (44). Nnaife keeps waking her up to have sex and will not let
her sleep even after her long journey. In addition, Nnu Ego learns that Nnaife’s brother had
heard them all night, and she “felt humiliated” (44). However she had no right to say “no”
to him, as Nnaife pointed out this was his marital right.
In both texts the woman’s body becomes a battleground over which the struggle
to express sexuality and autonomy is fought. Nyasha’s disordered self “suggests the
texualized female body on whose abject person are writ large the imperial inscriptions of
colonization, the intimate branding of patriarchy and the battle between native culture”
163
�(Bahri 1994). Nyasha is a growing woman; she is interested in boys, Western culture, and
expressing her sexuality and desired independence. Yet her father sees her confidence
and love of the West as sinful. In Dangarembga’s work, “Nyasha’s breakdown represents
her fear of the desires of her adolescent body, desires for which her father condemned
her” (Shaw 9). Nyasha is caught in between, “How could she be an obedient daughter
and at the same time a sexually mature adult? Caught in this dilemma, Nyasha tries to
stave off womanhood through anorexia/bulimia” (Shaw 9). By starving herself she denies
Babamukuru the right of deciding what goes into her body. She refuses his authority by
refusing to eat the food prepared in his house. However, she also denies her body and her
emerging womanhood. Preferring “bones to bounce” (Dangarembga 202) may be an
internalization of Western ideals, but she is also denying the type of body that is makes
her a commodity in her own society. She is both denying her body and showing her
control over it at once.
In Emecheta’s text, Nnu Ego is similarly pulled in too many directions and
breaks down as a result of this. When she finally has a child after being declared
“juiceless” (33) she has proven herself, but the loss of this child is too much. She has not
lived up to other’s ideals so she attempts to take her own life. However she is denied the
right to do this, in her culture “you are simply not allowed to commit suicide in peace,
because everyone is responsible for the other person” (60). Her own body and her life did
not belong to her; they believed “an individual’s life belongs to the community not just to
him or her” (60). This may have been true for men too, but it still demonstrates how
oppressive her culture is. When she is stopped she is told, “you are shaming your
womanhood, shaming your motherhood” (61). Everything she does is a reflection of
those two roles, and those two roles are the only reflection of herself. Throughout the text
Nnu Ego believes that if she can have children she will be cared for in her old age.
Robolin points out her “repressive service to society throughout life and the ever-deferred
honor, which she cannot enjoy alive and ‘not even in death’”(Robolin 81). Nnu Ego
continues to deny any personal desires to become an esteemed wife and mother. Nnu
Ego’s “double pursuit of social acceptance and internalized sense of self-fulfillment must
most ironically be achieved by suspending her own hopes, desires, and goals; hence the
double-bind of minimizing self in order to maximize one’s esteem ”(Robolin 81). By the
end of the novel she has minimized herself to the point of death; she dies unexpectedly
and alone on the side of the road.
The roles of women and the institutions that kept women in these roles were
oppressive, but this did not stop the women from trying to fight against them. One
critique argues that third world women are always portrayed as “ignorant, irrational,
164
�poor, uneducated, traditional, passive and sexually oppressed” (Wood 430). However,
this seems unfair especially when it comes to the terms “irrational” “passive” and
“traditional.” Both Dangarembga and Emecheta offer examples of women who try to
break out of their presubscribed roles. Unfortunately the women who do so are often met
with severe consequences. For example, Emecheta’s Adaku, Nnu Ego’s co-wife, does not
like being trapped in an oppressive system and seeks to emancipate herself economically.
She leaves Nnaife to gain economic independence. While she successfully breaks out of
the system, she faces consequences for doing so. This act earns her “a certain degree of
social ostracism” (Robolin 88). She is labeled a prostitute and even calls herself one
(168); though the reader is unsure of whether she has truly become a prostitute or rather
she has just been labeled as such; “Adaku reveals the workings of an oppressive and
damaging social structure that she desperately wants to abandon even at the cost of her
own social respectability” (Robolin 88).
While Emecheta’s Adaku breaks out of the economic system, Dangarembga’s
Lucia, Tambu’s aunt rejects, the role of wife. However she is not able to do so freely. She
faces social ostracism as well, others talk about her and say “There is nothing of a woman
there. She sleeps with anybody and she hasn’t borne a single child yet” (128). Her
womanhood is taken away from her simply because she does not want to settle down and
have children. Not only is she considered less of a woman, but she is even demonized;
the men of Tambu’s family say “She’s been bewitched. More likely she’s a witch
herself” (128) because of her marital status. Tambu states that Lucia was “indicted for
both her barrenness and her witchery” (128). In addition, her promiscuity affected her
family’s reputation and caused her sister’s brideprice to be reduced greatly (128).
In Emecheta’s text, one of Nnu Ego’s twin daughters, Kehinde breaks away
from the system of arranged marriages and marries a man from the Yuroba tribe.
Basically from her parents neglect, “no one missed Kehinde , until it was too late” she is
able to break free from one of the customs that bound women (Emecheta 206). The
Yuroba people, although disliked by Nnaife are described quite favorably. They do not
have the same tradition of a brideprice (215), many send their daughters to school (168),
and they found the tradition of multiple wives “strange” (217). It is hopeful that Kehinde
will have a better life than Nnu Ego did. The depiction of the in-laws at sister Taiwo’s
wedding is bright and joyful, “The Yoruba in-laws made the whole thing more colorful
than many anticipated,” (Emecheta 221). This is one of the final scenes in the novel and it
shows cultural blending and a mellowing of strict cultural norms. However there was a
dark shadow that loomed over this action. It led to violence and the eventual court
sentence for Nnaife. The reader is not given too much information, but based on the
165
�hatred between the Yuroba and the Igbo it seems likely that Kehinde will be disowned by
her people for this action.
In both texts the youngest generation of females seem to reject the idea of
serving the men in their family. Dangarembga begins her novel with Tambu stating, “I
was not sorry when my brother died” (1). One literary expert explains, “This
unapologetic statement stands out against traditions of male preference, or female
solicitudes, and of family loyalty” (Shaw 14). Nyasha also refuses to stand for this sort of
servitude. While Maiguru is making quite a ceremony of serving Babamukuru, Nyasha
helps her self to the dish of rice, one of the earliest signs of her rebellion (82). However
later her love of Western culture leaves her completely torn, she is severely beaten and
eventually develops bulimia. In Emecheta’s novel, Nnu Ego’s older twins likewise seem
unwilling to serve men in the same way Nnu Ego does. They point out a few times how it
is unfair that they have to do chores when the boys can go to school (175).
While many of the younger women in Nervous Conditions and in Joys of
Motherhood want to attend school and stay in school as long as their brothers do,
Dangarembga offers an example of a woman who has done just that and suffered for it.
Tambu describes how because of Maiguru’s education she was in a state of alienation, “I
was concerned that she did not have many people to talk to, but I supposed it was the
consequence of her being so educated since none of the other married women at the
mission with whom she may have been friendly had degrees, not even a Bachelor of Arts,
let alone a Master of Philosophy like my aunt did” (Dangarembga 99). Maiguru being
one of very few educated woman is unable to make friends. In addition, she knows that
she brings in a good portion of the wealth into the household and yet she is not honored
for doing so as she should be. Her education has made her more aware of her oppressed
condition, but she says she chose “security” over “self” (103).
Tambu, likewise, has the ability to continue her education, but is met with obstacles
to overcome. Her diligence earned her a full scholarship to one of the best schools. This seems
like a great moment in the text, Tambu receives the freedom that she desired. However, when
she arrives at the school she finds out she will be anything but free. The “Africans” share a
room meant for four between six girls (Dangarembga 198). She will be separated from the
white girls who live at the school. In addition to being a minority at the school, Tambu’s
mother believes that Tambu’s brother, Nhamo’s death and Nyasha’s break down were both
caused by “the Englishness” (207). She said “It’ll kill them all if they aren’t careful” (207).
Although Tambu enjoyed studying away at school, her mother’s theory plagued her with
nightmares. Tambu may have rid herself of a man’s rule for a period of time, but now she
would fully understand what it meant to be black in a colonized society.
166
�The question the reader must ask is “Do Dangarembga and Emecheta offer any
hope?” This is a difficult thing to answer. It seems that any step forward was met with a
huge amount of resistance, and that if anything even the strongest women characters were
able to win only half- victories. Dangarembga ends her text with Tambu completely
separated from her family. Yet she is telling “the story of four women and our men”
(208), which shows a sense of self and a voice that she did not seem to have earlier in the
text. She even demonstrates possession of the men with the use of “our.” Likewise the
last scene of Emecheta’s text is bittersweet. Nnu Ego’s spirit refuses to grant children to
barren women. While her rebellion is overshadowed by the fact that she had to wait until
death, it is not a completely pessimistic end. Both Dangarembga and Emecheta see that it
is necessary to critique a culture for it to change and hopefully progress. They are both
able to be realistic about the possibility of change. The half-victories in the novel
demonstrate that change is possible, but it will not be easy. Both Dangarembga and
Emecheta, provide a window into a culture that for many seems scary and unknown, but
by doing so they are increasing awareness of the obstacles that many postcolonial women
encounter and offering the possibility of change.
Works Cited
Bahri, Deepika. “Disembodying The Corpus: Postcolonial Pathology in Tsitsi
“Dangarembga’s ‘Nervous Conditions.’ ” Postmodern Culture. 5.1, (1994): 1-17.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. Boulder: Ayebia, 1988.
Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. New York: George Braziller, 1979.
Robolin, Stephan. “Gendered Hauntings: The Joys of Motherhood, Interpretive Acts, and
Postcolonial Theory. Research in African Literatures. 35.3, (2004): 76-91.
Shaw, Carolyn Martin. “‘You had a daughter, but I am becoming a woman’: Sexuality,
Feminism and Postcoloniality in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions and She No
Longer Weeps.”Research in African Literatures. 38.4, (2007): 7-26.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide. 2nd ed. New York:
Routledge, 2006.
Wood, Cynthia A. “Authorizing Gender and Development: ‘Third World Women,”
Native Informants, and Speaking Nearby” Napantla: Views from South. 2.3, (2001):
429-446.
167
�
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Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research
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Volume 8, Number 1
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Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference -- 1 Abstracts -- 2 Linear and Non-Linear Oscillation of a Pendulum / Jacqueline Scanlon -- 2 The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba as a Result of Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation / Ryan Patricia Rogers and Dr. Ammini S. Moorthy -- 2 The Effects of Oscillating Electrical Fields on Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus / Yuliya Seldina and Joseph Scala -- 3 The 3N+1 Problem / Crystal Kilkenny -- 3 More Than Just Mean Girls: Intervention on Bystanders to Relational Aggression / Christina Herrera -- 4 Effects of Nutrients on the Transepithelial Voltage and Strong Luminal Alkalinization / Sejmir Izeirovski, Dr. Stacia B. Moffett, Dr. David F. Moffett and Dr. Horst Onken -- 5 Bohr Theory Studies / Peter Acerios -- 5 Morphological Characterization of Neurovasculature and Whole Blood of the Adult Zebra Fish (Danio rerio) / Marlene Streisinger, Lauren Levy, Zulmarie Franco, Prof. Linda Raths, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 6 Preparation of Thin Sections of Drosophila Ovaries for Examination by Transmission Electron Microscopy / Tanya Modica, Georgia Dellas, Christopher Corbo and Dr. Heather A. Cook -- 6 Sticky Situations: From Failing Prophecies to Peanut Butter and Jellies / Dana Trottier -- 7 Use of Squashed Retina and Optic Tectum to Study Regenerative Capacities of the Visual System in Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / Michael Gutkin, Anna Lysenko, Christopher Corbo, Prof. Linda Raths and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 7 Evaporation Studies / Melanie Cambria and Rachel Chille -- 8 Effectiveness of Selenium Supplementation in Combating Cytotoxicity of Arsenic due to Ingestion of Arsenic from Groundwater in Bangladesh / Erida Behri, Meaghan Robbins and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin -- 8 The Role of Runx2 Y433a in Osteoblast Differentiation / Thomas Beesley, Dr. Gary Stein and Dr. Yang Lou -- 9 Gender Differences Created by Urinary Creatinine Adjustments Made to Heavy Metal Measurements / Christopher Cappelli, Mary Gamble, X. Liu, Pamela Factor-Litvak, Vesna Slavkovic and Dr. Joseph Graziano -- 10 Electrical Suppression of Bacterial Growth & Reproduction / Joseph Scala and Yuliya Seldina -- 10 The Effects of Different Ethanol Concentrations on the Activity Level of Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / Lauren Levy and Dr. Brian Palestis -- Section II: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 12 The Effect of Oscillating Electrical Fields on the Growth of Escherichia coli / Yuliya Seldina, Joseph Scala, Dr. Gregory Falabella, Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt and Dr. Roy Mosher -- Section III: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 34 Communities in Disaster: A Model for Social Support Outcomes, Deterioration, and Social Role Resiliency / Gretchen Jacobs -- 63 The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder / Anjuli Chitkara -- Section IV: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 82 The Women of Heart of Darkness / Jenna Pocius -- 92 The Problems With Passing: When Categories Don’t Fit / Shayne Zaslow -- 111 The Function of Narration in Orhan Pamuk’s Snow / Jenna Pocius -- Section V: Intercultural Understanding -- 118 Laura Cereta and Humanist Theory on Female Education in 15th and16th Century Italy / Nicole Mahoney -- 128 Colonization and Injustice in Horacio Quiroga’s Juan Darién / Stephanie Berrios -- 135 Dreams of ‘Home’ in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children / Marina McFarland -- 147 Machiavelli’s Nature / James Messina -- 155 Weight of Womanhood: The Condition of Women in African Literature / Sarah Nehm
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Spring 2010
Volume VIII, Number 2
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural
Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are
limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
This issue contains several noteworthy papers which encompass a variety of topics. The
interested reader will explore the effects of sleep deprivation on undergraduate nursing
majors and the life story of Robert Johnson whose blues music has impacted many other
famous guitar artists but who is notorious for allegedly selling his soul to the devil at a
Mississippi crossroads. Also, be sure not to miss a very insightful examination of
Donoghue's Kissing the Witch.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Erica Johnson1, English
1
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Prof. Patricia Tooker, Nursing
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
Sabbatical replacement for Dr. Peter Sharpe
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
2
The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba
as a Result of Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation
Ryan Patricia Rogers
Section II: The Social Sciences
34
The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Academic
Performance of Baccalaureate Nursing Students.
Raychel M. Ryan
Section III: Critical Essays
44
50
58
64
70
76
85
95
106
Moving Beyond a Lesbian Feminism:
The Role of Choice in Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch
Charisse Willis
Meursault’s Pursuit of Social Justice
James Messina
Robert Johnson: More Than The Crossroads
Jonathan Pigno
A Power and Masculinity Perspective on Domestic Violence
Mary Beth Somich
The Instability of Language: A Clockwork Orange
Jessica Verderosa
Speak Up, Women! Paul Would Encourage It!
Sarah Nehm
In Pursuit of Honor: The Balance between Widowhood
and Motherhood in the Letters of Alessandra Strozzi
Cassandra Brewer
I Am Woman: An Impressionist Tale
Sophie Fonner
Air-Space vs. Urban-Space in Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses:
The Ideals and Realities of Hybridity
Jenna Pocius
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
�The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba as a
Result of Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation
Ryan Patricia Rogers (Biology)1
The bean species, Vicia faba, is a popular subject for cytogenetic studies. It has only
twelve diploid chromosomes and the chromosomes are fairly large, making them more
easily identified. Research conducted with Vicia faba has provided the scientific
community with an abundance of information regarding mutations. These occur as a
result of mutagens that cause breaks in the chromosomes. The aim of this study was to
determine the chromosomal aberrations caused by Ultraviolet A and Ultraviolet B rays on
the chromosomes in the Vicia faba bean plant. Both UVA and UVB are known
clastogens as they are readily absorbed into the DNA and are capable of causing
chromosomal breaks. Due to the fact that it has a shorter wavelength, UVB is expected
to cause more breaks as it is more easily absorbed into the DNA. In order to observe and
quantify these effects, Vicia faba seeds were sprouted, the roots were exposed to
radiation, and the resulting aberrations were observed and statistically analyzed. To
study the wavelength effects, several groups of root tips were treated under different
conditions. Three groups were treated with colchicine to remove the spindle fibers, while
three were left alone so the phases of mitosis could be observed. For the purposes of this
experiment, root tips were viewed at the highest magnification under an oil immersion
lens (1000X). Based on the visual data and the quantitative analysis it can be stated with
reasonable certainty UVA and UVB radiations cause significant damages to the Vicia
faba chromosomes.
I. Introduction
Vicia faba is a species of bean commonly found in North America and
Southwest Asia. It is a favorite subject for cytogenetic studies due to the fact that their
diploid chromosome number is equal to twelve and the chromosomes are fairly large,
making them more easily identified (Natarajan, 2005). Research conducted with Vicia
faba has provided the scientific community with an abundance of information regarding
chromosomal damage such as: translocations, deletions, formation of thymine dimers as
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biological Sciences)
in partial fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
2
�well as many other mutations that occur as a result of UV radiation, microwaves, or
mutagens capable of causing breaks in the chromosomes.
Some of the most significant information regarding spontaneous as well as
induced chromosomal aberrations stem from in-depth studies of the Vicia faba root
meristem (Natarajan, 2005). The root meristem is the region in a plant containing a
multitude of undifferentiated cells undergoing several divisions at different times. Under
the high power of a compound microscope, it is possible to view several phases of
mitosis occurring simultaneously. The present study examined the root tip at the highest
magnification under an oil immersion lens (1000X). This allowed the identification of
chromosomes as well as the kind of aberrations that they undergo.
Chromosomal mutations can be classified into spontaneous, which occur
normally in nature, or induced, which are caused by various mutagens. Both of these
mutations are known to lead to visible chromosomal damage as well as minor DNA
damage. Exposure to UVA and UVB radiation from sunlight acts as a mutagen causing
chromosomal damage and skin cancer. The two main types of ultra violet radiation
associated with skin cancer are ultraviolet A, UVA, and ultraviolet B, UVB; the latter
being a major causative agent in photocarcinogenisis (Mitchell 2003).
UVB has a wavelength of 280-315nm and its shorter wavelength makes it more
easily absorbed by DNA. This leads to the carcinogenic nature of UVB. This form of
radiation is capable of causing one or both strands of DNA to break in cells that are
consistently exposed to sunlight. Exposure alone will not always cause mutation; the
type of damage induced by radiation is dependent upon the location of the break as well
as the developmental state of the cell (Mitchell 2003). In normal cells, any breaks or
lesions will be repaired and the cell will eventually resume normal cell activity. If the
break is missed during the repair process, or if there is a problem with the DNA repair
mechanisms, interference during the DNA replication or transcription is likely to occur
(Mitchell 2003).
If this occurs, a mutation is likely to follow and can either be negligible, lethal,
result in the activation of an oncogene, or repression of a tumor repressor gene (Mitchell
2003). On a molecular basis, UV radiation causes reactions pyrimidine dimers. As the
pyrimidine bases absorb photons, they enter an excited state which requires a certain
biochemical pathway to resolve the unstable configuration. If the base remains in an
unstable configuration, then there is a high probability for photoreactions to take place
resulting in the formation of free radicals (Mitchell 2003). Free radicals can lead to
further harmful reactions leading to chromosomal damage.
3
�After exposure to UV radiation, photoreactions occur at high frequency resulting
in the bonding of adjacent pyrimidine bases, the most frequent of which being thymine.
The covalently bound bases would normally be repaired through excision repair. The
dimer would be removed and DNA polymerase would fill in the complementary bases. If
there is chromosomal breakage, the restitution time is approximately four minutes. This
time frame can fluctuate based on the amount of UV exposure resulting in some breaks
remaining open longer or even permanently (Natarajan 2002).
There are two theories explaining the mechanisms of chromosome aberration
formation. The “breakage first theory” of L.J.Stradler, states that irradiation directly
results in a chromosome break. The resulting aberrations will depend on the fate of the
breaks, meaning restitution and whether or not the break will rejoin with another break
(Natarajan 2002). The other theory is known as the “exchange theory” and was proposed
by A.S. Serebrovsky. This theory states that exposure to radiation results in a small
lesion that will decay over time and ultimately result in a chromosomal break. If two
lesions are close together, they may undergo an exchange process resulting in a number
of different possible aberrations (Natarajan 2002).
Both of the theories support current research which demonstrates that
chromosomal aberrations induced by radiation result mainly to DNA double strand
breaks. Cells defective in double strand repair are more sensitive for ionizing radiation
with is detrimental to the cell (Natarajan 2002). The repair processes in the cell involve a
number of steps and multiple enzymes. Repeated exposure to radiation leads to
weakening of the DNA repair mechanisms and this process does not always occur
correctly (Mitchell 2003). The two main pathways of repair for this type of breakage are
non-homologous end rejoining and homologous repair. Research has demonstrated that
the efficiency of these mechanisms is related to the cells position in the cell cycle
(Natarajan 2002). When compromised, the mechanisms may fail completely. This
weakening of repair mechanisms can lead to cell death or irregularity in replication.
Irregularity can be defined as any visible variation from the normal morphology.
UVA radiation has a wavelength of approximately 315-400nm and is highly
abundant in sunlight and not readily absorbed by DNA. Previous research has
demonstrated that UVB is the major spectrum that leads to mutations and resulting
changes in DNA. UVA generates hydroxyl as well as oxygen radicals. These radicals
react with the DNA and form monomeric photoproducts or even strand breaks
(Lautenschlager, 2007). The mutagenicity of UVA exposure does not solely depend
upon frequency of exposure, but also on the location of the exposure on the DNA strand.
4
�Research regarding the overall effects of UVA and UVB radiation on genetic
material reveals that UVB radiation will induce a higher percentage of chromosomal
aberrations than UVA (Emri 2000). One of the major factors affecting the
carcinogenicity of UV radiation from the Sun is the Earth’s natural protecting agent in the
form of ozone, which is located in the Earth’s stratosphere. Ozone is responsible for
absorbing and blocking large amounts of UVA and some UVB rays from reaching the
surface of the Earth, therefore providing a partial shield from the harmful radiation.
Unfortunately certain agents, namely chlorofluorocarbons, have been causing depletion
of the ozone layer since the 1970’s and as a result there is an increase in the amount of
UV radiation reaching the Earths surface (Lautenschlager 2007).
II. Objectives
The objective of this project was to study the effects of UVA and UVB on Vicia
faba chromosomes using a number of different groups of root tips treated in different
conditions. Some groups were treated with colchicine as a means of removing the
spindle fibers, and some groups were left untreated. Having two control groups for the
two conditions would make it possible to distinguish breaks and whether or not they were
spontaneous or a result of the clastogenic radiation.
Upon completion of the experiment, it was necessary to conduct statistical
analysis on the data, in the form of the G test for Heterogeneity, in order to draw
conclusions regarding the effects of UVA and UVB radiation in terms of mutagenicity.
This experiment is a significant first step in studying these potential breaks and
using the data obtained from the Vicia faba bean plant as a means of understanding
chromosomal aberrations on a larger scale.
Table 1: Treatments observed during the experiment.
Root Tips Not Exposed to Colchicine
No UV Exposure (CONTROL)
Exposure to UVA
Root Tips Exposed to Colchicine
No UV Exposure (CONTROL)
Exposure to UVA
Exposure to UVB
Exposure to UVB
5
�III. Materials and Methods
Biological Material
The Mediterranean bean Vicia faba from the kingdom Plante was used as a
model organism. The beans were purchased from the Ed Hume Seed Company and
sprouted at the home of Dr. Ammini Moorthy.
Vicia faba (http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/faba/vicia/vicifab3.jpg)
Other Materials
In order to ensure the success of this experiment, other essential materials were
required. The growth of the root tips alone required: a heating pad, a glass jar, sterile
water, sodium hypochlorite (1.8%), wire netting and a thermometer. In order to perform
the UV treatments, a UV box with a UV light was required. In preparing the root tips for
slides 6M HCl, Modified Carnoys Solution (Carolina Science), sterile water and Carbol
Fuchsin Stain were necessary. Also three small glass dishes, two separate pairs of
forceps, bibulous paper, optic lens paper, droppers, dissection needles, slides and cover
slips were used in the making of the slides. For permanent slides Xylene, 95% EtOH,
100% EtOH, Euperol, and dry ice were necessary.
Techniques
6
�Growing the seeds
Seeds of Vicia faba were purchased from the Ed Hume Seed Company. They
were then washed with lukewarm water containing 5% chlorox solution two to three
times. This was done in order to remove any potential fungal spores or contaminants
present on the seed coat that may have been problematic during germination. The seeds
were then soaked in lukewarm water for two hours in glass jars with wire nets on top.
These jars were kept under light on a low heating warm platform at approximately 70-72
degrees Fahrenheit.
The thick seed coat, known as the testae, was removed at the point of the
germinal vesicle region as a means of easing out the root formation. If the testae were
not removed, then there would be a high likelihood of bacterial or fungal contamination
because the germination time would increase. The seeds were washed again with
lukewarm water and placed on a platform for germination. It is important to wash the
seeds every day and keep them moist. After 48 hours, roots that were 2-4 centimeters
emerged from all of the seeds. The root tips were cut with a razor blade removing them
from the actual seed and then fixed in a modified Carnoy solution so that mitosis could be
observed.
Figure 1: Growing Conditions
Exposure to UV Radiation
The seeds were put into a UV box for twenty four hours and exposed to either
UVA or UVB radiation. During this time period the UVA light or UVB light was turned
on flooding the box with the respective radiation. After twenty four hours, the seeds
7
�were removed, washed in distilled water, and the root tips were cut with a razor blade
then placed in modified Carnoys solution.
Fixing the Root Tips for Microscopy
Before looking at the root tips under the microscope it was necessary to treat the
root tips through a number of steps. The root tips were first removed from the modified
Carnoys solution and placed into 6M HCl for approximately seven minutes. This was to
degrade the cellulose cell wall surrounding the cell. The root tips were then moved into
Modified Carnoys Solution for approximately six minutes. Carnoys solution is a fixative
and prevents further degradation from the HCl. After this the root tips were placed on a
microscope slide and the very tip was cut with a razor blade. This tip was then placed in
Carbol Fuschin stain for two and a half minutes.
Preparation of Slides
The root tip is removed from the stain and placed on the cleaned microscope
slide. One to two drops of distilled water are placed on the root tip and the excess is
removed with bibulous paper. A cover slip is carefully placed on top of the root tip so
that the small tip does not come out. Bibulous paper is placed over the cover slip in order
to absorb excess water and stain and then forced down via the “squash technique,” for
thirty seconds to one minute (Sharma 1980).
Preparation of 0.3 % Colchicine Solution
In order to remove the spindle fibers it was necessary to prepare a 0.3 percent
colchicine solution. First 0.3 gram of colchicine was measured on an electric balance.
Using a graduated cylinder 100mL of distilled water was measured and transferred to a
glass bottle. The colchicine was combined with the water and mixed. In this particular
experiment 0.6 grams of colchicine was used for 200mL of water in order to make more
0.3% solution. After the colchicine and water are combined it was necessary to remeasure the solution in a graduated cylinder and add more water if necessary. Once the
solution is made, it is important to label the bottle with the date.
Preparation of Colchicine Treated Root Tips
Root tips were soaked in the 0.3% colchicine solution for three to four hours in
order to destroy the spindle apparatus. Colchicine depolymerizes the microtubules,
destroying the spindle, which allows the chromosomes to spread apart. The spreading of
the chromosomes allows for more clear and accurate observation of chromosomal
8
�spreads. After soaking the root tips were returned to the modified Carnoys solution for
fixation.
Photography with Oil Immersion
After the slides were fixed, they were taken to the camera microscope for
photographing. The computer program was opened and the camera turned on with a light
level of 4.5. The iris and condenser were adjusted in order to attain the best possible
resolution. Once a spread was located and suitable for photographing, the oil immersion
lens was used and the slide was focused and adjusted before taking the picture. The file
was saved under a branching system of folders so that it could easily be located at a later
date.
Preparation of Permanent slides
Before working with the slides, it is first necessary to wash the slides thoroughly
with dishwashing detergent in a 500 ml beaker for at least ten minutes. Then the cleaned
slides were transferred to a staining dish containing a mixture of de-ionized water and
Poly-L- Lysine for five minutes then drained and dried over night. The slides were
coated in this solution in order to facilitate adhesion
In this particular experiment, low temperature fixation was applied. The slides
were placed in close proximity to dry ice until they appear frosted. The cover slip was
quickly removed using a razor blade. The slides were then placed completely in 95%
ethanol for one to two minutes as a means of removing excess stain. The slides were then
moved to a clean dish of 100% EtOH for the same amount of time. The final bath
contains Xylene where the slides sat for approximately five minutes. The slides were
removed, air dried and permanent slides made using Euperol to mount the cover slips.
Statistical Analysis
Once all data has been collected, statistical analysis was done on the results.
The slides from each mitotic category were analyzed and 25 cells were observed. Tallies
were made for the metaphase and anaphase portions of mitosis due to the fact that those
stages demonstrate the most visible irregularities. For the Colchicine treated slides 20
spreads were analyzed and tallies were made regarding spreads containing breaks vs.
spreads containing no breaks. That date was then interpreted and analyzed via the G-test
for heterogeneity (Sokal 1981).
9
�IV. Results
Photographic Results
Chromosomes were viewed under high power oil immersion lens (100X) and
stained with Carbol Fuchsin. The amount of light varied dependent on how well the
chromosomes stained and how long the slides were left out before observation. The first
component of the project was to generate a karyotype of the 12 normal Vicia faba
chromosomes (Appendix A: Figure 2). This was done in order to have a template for
subsequent comparison with those exposed to UV radiation.
Photographic results demonstrate that in comparison to normal Vicia faba root
tips, the mitotic behavior of root tips exposed to UVA and UVB radiation is effected
resulting in differences in appearance and the presence of abnormalities (Appendix A:
Figures 3-6).
The UVA colchicine treated root tips show distortion as well as chromosome
breakage (Appendix A: Figures 7-9). Distortion was characterized based on any
variation from the control morphology. When comparing the normal root tips mitotic
behavior with that of UVB exposed root tips, clear deformities are apparent (Appendix A:
Figures 3-6). Cells in metaphase are difficult to distinguish and there are numerous
chromosomal breaks in the anaphase stages. Those treated with colchicine and exposed to
UVB exhibit many breaks as well as fragmentation of chromosomes that distort the
appearance of the chromosomes (Appendix A: Figures 10-12).
As predicted, the Vicia faba root tips exposed to UVA ad UVB radiation
possessed chromosomal aberrations and some even showed chromosomal breaks and
numerous small chromosomal fragments (Appendix A: Figures 7-12). Chromosomal
breaks as well as visible mitotic irregularities were more common and consistently
present in root tips exposed to UVB radiation due to the fact that UVB has a shorter
wavelength and is more readily absorbed by DNA. The chromosomes consist of the
DNA and therefore are capable of absorbing large amounts of UVB radiation when
exposed.
Statistical Analysis
Twenty metaphases and anaphases from control, UVA and UVB were scored
(Appendix B: Tables 2, 3, 4). The G-test for heterogeneity is a goodness of fit test related
to Chi Square. This test was implemented to compare the ratios of normal to irregular
cells between the experimental groups. Critical values were obtained from The Critical
Values of χ2 Distribution based on Sidáks Multiplicative Inequality (Sokal 1995). Data
10
�for anaphase and colchicine treated root tips was transformed by adding one to each
frequency. First a general G-test was completed and showed a statistically significant
difference (α=0.05) between at least two sets of ratios. Each G-test is present in
Appendix B and the data organized in Table 5 for metaphase, Table 6 for anaphase and
Table 8 for colchicine treated root tips. The Simultaneous Testing Procedure (STP)
followed making pair wise comparisons between each of the groups in order to determine
which groups differed significantly from each other. All data is present in Appendix B
Tables 5a-c, 6a-c, 8a-c. The data demonstrates that root tips exposure to UV radiation
during mitosis will present physical irregularities at a higher frequency than those not
exposed to radiation. However, after further analysis and observation it is apparent that
UVB results in greater damage over UVA. This can be expected because, as previously
mentioned, the shorter wavelength of UVB makes is more easily absorbed by the DNA.
The values obtained from the G Test for Heterogeneity demonstrate a statistically
significant difference between those root tips treated with UV radiation and those under
normal conditions.
V. Discussion
This research project began in January 2008 and it took a fair amount of time
before the techniques necessary for obtaining results were realized. Vicia faba seeds are
very large and have extremely hard coats therefore it is difficult to sprout them by
conventional means. The first boundary to overcome was in growing the seeds
themselves. Originally the seeds were set on sponges in 1% Rootone solution in order to
germinate. Half were left out on the bench and half were placed in the UVA box. This
procedure was highly unsuccessful because it took over a week for the seeds to sprout
and some even began to grow fungus and other contaminants. The presence of fungus
compromised the results because it would be difficult to determine whether or not any
irregularities were due to the fungal presence or the exposure to radiation.
Another method was tested in order to try and grow the seeds at a more rapid
rate. This method involved the introduction of a bean sprouter. The sponge was placed
inside the bean sprouter, the seeds were set atop the sponge and a lamp was shone on the
seeds. Again, the seeds grew slowly taking approximately six days, to showing minimal
sprouting and there was also fungus present on certain seeds. This method also failed to
produce a suitable starting material that was needed to begin the research.
It was not until later in the semester, near March 2008, that the current method
was developed and employed. This method was capable of growing the root tips in half
11
�the time allowing for quicker analysis. Once the problem of growing the root stems was
surmounted, the next issue was trying to locate the mitotic region and stain the samples.
At first the fixation method was structured after that for an onion root tip. This
method involved treatment in HCl for only 4 minutes and then transference to modified
Carnoys solution for four minutes. This technique did not work for the Vicia faba, for
their root stems were significantly thicker than those of the onion and it was difficult to
get a good squash or see any phases of mitosis. Many times the root tip would come out
from beneath the cover slip, or not completely squash. Also, when observing the root tips
under the microscope, little to no mitosis was present; this led to the idea that there may
be a very low rate of mitosis for the Vicia faba bean. It was obvious that mitosis was
occurring because the roots were growing, it was just necessary to locate the mitotic
region of the root tip.
Additional literature search provided framework for the introduction of new
techniques and modification of the protocol regarding the duration of time that the root
tips would be submerged in HCl. The time period changed from 4 minutes to 7 minutes
in order to induce more of a metaphase arrest; however, the root tips could not be left in
any longer than 7 minutes in fear of total degeneration of genetic material. The root tips
were then transferred to the modified Carnoys solution for approximately five minutes.
This fixed and softened the root tip so that it would squash easier and would be less likely
to escape from underneath the cover slip.
The next portion of the procedure needing refinement would be the actual sizing
of the sample. Under the microscope, many cells were visible; however there were very
few undergoing mitotic division. Mitotic division only occurs at the very tip of the Vicia
faba root stem, so in cutting the roots fairly large, additional cells were added to the field
of observation making it difficult to locate the meristematic region. In the larger samples
of the root tips, there was also the presence of fat globules. This made it difficult to see
the phases of mitosis clearly if at all. It was determined that in order to acquire the
maximum number of mitotic cells, the root tip would have to be cut significantly smaller
in order to get the meristemiatic region and avoid clouding from the fat globules. After
cutting the root tip very close to the tip, many more phases of mitosis were observed and
better observation of each stage was possible.
Once size of the root tip was adjusted for increasing the visibility of mitotic
stages, the next step would be to stain the cells so that the mitotic phases were clear.
Originally Toluidine Blue 2% was used to stain the cells. This stain was capable of
staining the chromosomes; however it was difficult to adjust the light so that the
chromosomes would be clearly distinguishable from the background of the slide.
12
�Approaches such as staining the cells for longer and using less water did not increase the
clarity of the slides, leading to the usage of a new stain. This stain was Carbol Fuchsin
and would be the stain used for the remainder of the experiment.
Cells stained with Carbol Fuchsin demonstrated clear outlined cells that stood
out from the background in a pink/purple color. The root tips were left in this stain for
approximately two and a half minutes, but it was important to make sure that the entire
sample was submerged for equal staining. If one side of the root tip was exposed to more
stain than the other, it would be obvious on the slide and create difficulty when viewing
the entire stems mitotic activity. Also, the Carbol Fuchsin stain could not be left out for
long. If the stain were left out at the beginning of the experiment during fixation, by the
time the root tip was ready for staining, the stain would have evaporated and lost its
staining power resulting in lighter stain if any stain at all. In order to avoid this problem,
the stain was dropped into the holder right after the root tip was cut in order to ensure
maximum staining power.
After numerous squashes and constructing a functional method for creating
slides, a number of interesting observations were made regarding the Vicia faba
chromosomes and the exposure to UVA and UVB radiation. In terms of staining it was
interesting to observe that cells exposed to UVA or UVB radiation took up the Carbol
Fuchsin stain more readily than the normal control cells. Each cell did take up the stain;
however UVA was able to stain dark, while UVB stained darker. This could be due to
the fact that the DNA has absorbed radiation and has been damaged making it easier for
the stain to seep into the irregular chromosomes. It is possible that the defense
mechanisms of the cell as a whole had been compromised and the ability to remove waste
is unable to function as it would in a normal cell; therefore the cell holds the stain instead
of releasing the foreign particles as waste.
In sequence with this hypothesis, another possible explanation for this is that the
cell is denatured and as a result is physically different. After absorption of UVA and
UVB radiation it is possible that the physical texture of the cell changes as a result of the
denatured chromosomal material. The cell may become softer and as a result more
permeable to the stain making it less difficult to see the irregularities resulting from the
radiation.
The irregularities observed in the chromosomes exposed to UVA and UVB
radiation were numerous. In UVA alone, nearly every anaphase demonstrated some form
of irregularity (Appendix A: Figure 4). This is a crucial stage in cell division because
this is when the chromosomes pull apart before forming new independent cells. If there
is a problem in this stage of mitosis, it is likely that there will be further complications
13
�later on in development and growth. It is highly unlikely for a normal cell to form from
chromosomes damaged during mitosis because the mistake is carried through each phase
and will be repeated in later divisions. A major problem observed was anaphase lag,
which is the delayed movement of chromosomes during anaphase (Sharma 1980). As
mentioned this can lead to other problems during telophase and cytokinesis resulting in
malformed cells.
The root tips treated with UVA and colchicine also presented abnormalities, as
well as chromosomal breakage. This was expected based on the appearance of the
mitotic cells. The UVA chromosomes that were treated with colchicine were found to
contain irregularities as well as breaks (Appendix A: Figures 7-9). The breaks were
likely to be induced by the radiation because when compared to the normal colchicine
treated chromosomes, the breaks were absent (Figure 2). The breaks are significant
because they serve to provide visual depiction of the harm that UVA radiation can cause
in genetic material. Previous literature has demonstrated that chromosomal breaks can
also lead to carcinogenesis.
Another interesting trend observed in the cells treated with UVA was
fragmentation of chromosomes. The chromosomes would almost look as if they were
deteriorating (Figure 9). At times it was difficult to determine whether or not
chromosomes were present; however after comparing the shapes of the fragments with
those of other similar cells with complete chromosomes, it was decided that the
fragmentation was remnants of damaged chromosomal matter.
As expected from previous studies, UVB radiation demonstrated a larger
amount of chromosomal aberrations (Appendix A: Figures 10-12). It is known and has
been stated that UVB wavebands are more readily absorbed by DNA due to their shorter
wavelength. The photographs taken of the UVB treated root tips physically display this
information.
Irregularities in the metaphase of these root tips make it difficult to even
distinguish which phase of mitosis the stage is currently experiencing (Figure 3). Mitotic
aberrations were easier to score during anaphase because during metaphase there is
frequent overlapping of chromosomes preventing clarity. The chromosomes are very
close together and when lined up do not exhibit the normal physical characteristics of a
metaphase when compared with the control. There is apparent chromosomal damage and
breaks when observing the anaphase of UVB treated chromosomes as well (Figure 4).
These chromosomes not only exhibit anaphase lag, but multiple breaks throughout the
chromosomes resulting in multiple breaks in the final product. Chromosomal breaks can
cause genetic information to be damaged and acentric fragments to form.
14
�The normal karyotype of Vicia faba clearly illustrates the diploid 12
chromosomes in order (Figure 3). It is difficult to construct correct karyotypes of the
UVA and UVB treated chromosomes due to the high frequency of fragmentation and
asymmetry observed. The Carbol Fuchsin stain coats the entire chromosome so the
difficulty arises in correctly pairing the chromosomes together. However, the karyotypes
of the chromosomes exposed UVA and UVB radiation would show visible displays of
chromosomal aberrations in terms of breaks as well as acymetric pairing. Certain
chromosomes are larger than other as a result of fragmentation. Other chromosomes are
distorted and breaks are apparent near the telomere which can result in a loss of genetic
information during the next replication because the region has been lost. Mitosis is
supposed to be identical asexual replication; however, when chromosomal aberrations
occur there is going to be differences in the daughter cells.
In order to do statistical analysis, 20 metaphase cells were scored from the
control, the UVA and the UVB; 20 anaphase cells were scored from control UVA and
UVA; and 25 colchicine treated cells were scored from each group. The statistical
analysis further demonstrates that root tips exposed to UV radiation during mitosis will
present physical irregularities at a higher frequency than those protected from radiation.
Analysis also shows that UVB results in greater overall damage than UVA. In root tips
exposed to UVA radiation 60% of cells in metaphase demonstrated irregularities whereas
in root tips exposed to UVB 80% demonstrated abnormalities.
In observing the UVB chromosomes treated with colchicine, fragmentation is
observed signaling past breaks and leading to different sized chromosomes (Figures 1012). This will lead to future problems in replication because the missing pieces of
chromosomal material will be absent causing abnormal formation of the new
chromosomes.
The G-test for heterogeneity is a goodness of fit test related to Chi-Square
(Sokal 1981). This test was employed to compare the ratios of normal cells to irregular
cells in each of the experimental groups for metaphase and anaphase during mitosis and
colchicine treated root tips. First an overall G-test was completed comparing Control,
UVA and UVB and the value obtained showed that there was a statistically significant
difference between two of the groups (α=0.05). In order to determine which groups
differed significantly the Simultaneous Test Procedure (STP) was employed to make pair
wise comparisons.
After completing the STP on the cells during metaphase and anaphase it was
evident that UVA and UVB differed significantly in the ratio of normal to irregular cells
when compared to the control group. This was important because it demonstrated that
15
�both wavelengths of radiation are capable of mutagenesis. It was interesting to observe
that for each STP, the GH value obtained for UVB was greater than that for UVA,
alluding to the fact that UVB was more mutagenic. During mitosis, chromosomes may
overlap and it may be difficult to see all actual breaks that is why it was necessary to
observe the colchicine treated root tips and analyze them using the same test.
The G test for the colchicine treated groups also yielded a statistically significant
value, meaning that there was a difference in the ratios of normal chromosomes to
irregular and broken chromosomes between the three groups. The STP test demonstrated
that the difference lies in the ratios between the Control and UVB because the pair wise
comparison resulted in a statistically significant value (α=0.05). This data demonstrates
that UVB has a greater clastogenic effect than UVA because the GH value obtained for
the STP between the control group and UVA was not statistically significant.
The experimental results clearly demonstrated the mutagenicity of UVA and
UVB in accordance with previous research published by previous research workers such
as Gabriella Emri and A.T. Natarajan. Statistical analysis also reveals what percentages
of cells are affected providing data necessary to generate a ratio of normal cells to
damaged cells. Research has opened venues for future research that will clarify and
ascertain the damage of UVA and UVB radiation. One future project involves protecting
agents in the form of sunscreen to see if the chemical shield actually reduces the
frequency of chromosomal breaks after UV exposure.
The basic goal of this experiment was to determine whether or not UVA and
UVB radiation had a significant effect on chromosomes. Based on the data obtained, and
the analysis that followed, it can be stated, with fair certainty, that UVA and UVB
radiation is in fact an agent capable of causing chromosomal aberrations. If exposure to
these harmful clastogens is not monitored, more negative side effects will be observed.
VI. References
1. Anderson, H.C.; Kihlman,B.A., (1987). “Localization of Chemically Induced
Chromosomal Abberations in Three Different Karyotypes of Vicia faba”, Hereditas
107, 15-25.
2.
Emri G, Wenczl E, Van Erp P, Jans J, Roza L, Horkay I, Schothorst AA. (2000).
“Low Doses of UVB or UVA Induce Chromosomal Aberrations in Cultured Human
Skin Cells”. Department Of Dermatology, University Medical School. Hungary:
PubMed.
16
�3.
Klug, William S; Cummings, Michael R; Spencer, Charlotte A. (2007). Essentials of
Genetics, 6th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
4.
Lautenschlager, S, HC Wulf, and MR Pittelkow. (2007) “Photoprotection”, Lancet
370: 528-37.
5.
Mitchell, D. ( 2003). DNA Damage and Repair. A Handbook of Organic
Photochemistry and Physiology. CRC Press: London.
6.
Natarajan, A.T. (2005). “Chromosome Abberations: Plants to Human and Feulgen
to Fish”, Current Science 89(2), 335-339.
7.
Natarajan, A.T. (2002). “Chromosomal Aberrations Past, Present and Future”,
Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis 504
(2), 3-16.
8.
Quian, Xiao-Wei; Luo, Wei-Hau, Zheng, Ou-Xiang. (2006). “Joint Effect of
Microwave and Chromium trioxide on root tip cells of Vicia faba”, Journal of
Zhejiang University Science.
9.
Sharma, Arun Kumar; Sharma, Archana. (1980). Chromosome Techniques: Theory
and Practice, 3rd Edition. Boston: Butterworths.
10. Socher,S.H.; Davidson,D. (1971). “A Method for Estimating G2”, The Journal of
Cell Biology, 48, 248-252.
11. Sokal,R; Rohlf; F. (1981). Biometry: The Principles and Practice of Statistics in
Biological Research, 2nd Edition. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company 722-730.
12. Sokal. R; Rohlf; F. (1995). Statistical Tables, 3rd Edition. New York: W.H. Freeman
and Company 27-28.
13. Stavroulakis,A. (1992). “Study of Species Relationships in Several Dwarf Bearded
Irises”. New York University.
14. Takehisa, S. (1968). “Colchicine-Induced Supercontraction of Chromosomes and
Heterochromatic Segments in Vicia faba”, Japan J. Genetics 43(2), 149-152.
17
�15. Wang, LE, (2005). “Ultraviolet B Light Exposure Associated With Increased Risk of
Skin Cancer”, Science Daily.
VII. Acknowledgements
This study has been supported by a grant from the Benjamin
Cummings/MACUB Research Grant. I would like to thank Dr. Moorthy who is my
thesis advisor and the entire Biology department at Wagner for their continuous support.
I would also like to extend gratitude to Benjamin Serbiak for lending his hand and
expertise with digital photography.
18
�Appendix A: Photographic Results
Figure 2: Vicia faba normal colchicine treated root tip and karyotype.
19
�Figure 3: Experimental groups of Vicia faba mitotic cells during prophase.
Figure 4: Experimental groups of Vicia faba mitotic cells during metaphase.
20
�Figure 5: Experimental groups of Vicia faba mitotic cells during anaphase.
Figure 6: Experimental groups of Vicia faba mitotic cells during telophase.
21
�Figure 7: UVA Exposed colchicine treated root tip
demonstrating breakage and fragmentation.
Figure 8: UVA Exposed colchicine treated root tip
demonstrating inconsistency with the control.
22
�Figure 9: UVA exposed colchicine treated root tip
demonstrating irregular shaping and fragmentation.
Figure 10: UVB Exposed Colchicine treated root tip demonstrating breakage.
23
�Figure 11: UVB Exposed Colchicine treated root tip
demonstrating breakage and fragmentation.
Figure 12: Frequent fragmentation of chromosomes after UVB exposure.
24
�Appendix B: Statistical Results
Mitotic Cells
Table 2: Normal Mitosis
Mitotic Stage
Normal
Irregular
Metaphase
19
1
Anaphase
20
0
Table 3: UVA Mitosis
Mitotic Stage
Normal
Irregular
Metaphase
8
12
Anaphase
10
10
Table 4: UVB Mitosis
Mitotic Stage
Normal
Irregular
Metaphase
4
16
Anaphase
9
11
G Test for Heterogeneity
Null hypothesis: There is no significant difference between the ratios of normal
to irregular cells in the different groups.
Alternative hypothesis: At least one ratio of normal to irregular cells differs
from at least one of the other groups.
25
�Metaphase
Table 5: G test for Metaphase Cells
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Control
19
1
20
0.95
UVA
8
12
20
0.40
UVB
4
36
20
0.20
Totals
31
29
60
--
α=0.05
Degrees of freedom (df) = 2
GH=28.232
χ2 critical= 5.991
Table 5a: STP for Control and UVA Metaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Control
19
1
20
0.95
UVA
8
12
20
0.40
totals
27
13
40
--
Simultaneous Test Procedure (STP)
α=0.05
df = 1
χ2= 5.701
GH=15.586
26
�Table 5b: STP for Control and UVB Metaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Control
19
1
20
0.95
UVB
4
16
20
0.20
totals
23
17
40
--
α=0.05
df = 1
χ2= 5.701
GH=26.592
Table 5c: STP for UVA and UVB Metaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
UVA
8
12
20
0.40
UVB
4
16
20
0.20
totals
12
28
40
--
α=0.05
df = 1
χ2= 5.701
GH=1.934
27
�Anaphase
Table 6: G Test for Anaphase Cells
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Normal
21
1
22
0.95
UVA
10
11
22
0.50
UVB
11
12
22
0.45
Totals
42
24
66
--
*Data was transformed
α=0.05
df = 2
GH=17.572
χ2 critical= 5.991
Table 6a: STP of Control and UVA Anaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Control
21
1
22
0.95
UVA
11
11
22
0.50
totals
32
12
44
--
STP
α=0.05
df = 1, χ2= 5.701
GH=12.93
28
�Table 6b: STP of Control and UVB Anaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
Control
21
1
22
0.95
UVB
10
12
22
0.45
totals
31
13
44
--
α=0.05
df = 1
χ2= 5.701
GH=14.958
Table 6c: STP of UVA and UVB Anaphase
Group
Normal
Irregular
∑
Pi
UVA
11
11
22
0.50
UVB
10
12
22
0.45
totals
21
23
44
--
α=0.05
df = 1
χ2= 5.701
GH=0.092
29
�Colchicine Treated
Table 7: Analysis of Colchicine Treated Spreads
Treatment
Normal
Irregular
Breaks
Control
25
0
0
UVA
18
4
3
UVB
14
5
6
Table 8: G-test for Colchicine Treated Spreads
Group
Normal
Irregular
Breaks
∑
Pi
Control
26
1
1
28
0.93
UVA
19
5
4
28
UVB
16
6
7
28
0.54
Totals
50
12
12
84
--
*data was transformed
α=0.05
Degrees of freedom=3-1=2
2x2=4
GH=12.45
χ2 critical=9.49
30
0.68
�Table 8a: STP for Colchicine treated Control and UVA
Group
Normal
Irregular
Breaks
∑
Pi
Control
26
1
1
28
0.93
UVA
19
5
4
28
0.68
totals
45
6
5
56
--
STP
α= 0.05
df = 2
χ2= 8.155
GH=5.936
Table 8b: STP for Colchicine treated Control and UVB
Group
Normal
Irregular
Breaks
∑
Pi
Control
26
1
1
28
0.93
UVB
15
6
7
28
0.54
totals
41
7
8
56
--
α= 0.05
df = 2
χ2= 8.155
GH=12.04
31
�Table 8c: STP for Colchicine treated UVA and UVB
Group
Normal
Irregular
Breaks
∑
Pi
UVA
19
5
4
28
0.68
UVB
15
6
7
28
0.54
totals
34
11
11
56
--
α= 0.05
df = 2
χ2= 8.155
GH=1.404
We reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis.
32
�Section II: The Social Sciences
�The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Academic
Performance of Baccalaureate Nursing Students
Raychel M. Ryan (Nursing)1
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of sleep deprivation on the
academic performance of senior baccalaureate nursing students at a private university.
The amount of sleep college students receive nightly has been on the decline. College
students are known to sacrifice sleep to study and complete other course work. Students
try to make up hours of lost sleep on the weekends which leads to further sleep
difficulties. Sleep deprivation is considered to occur when a person receives less than 8
hours of sleep a night (Noland, Price, Dake & Telljohann, 2009, pg 224). There have
been numerous studies that link sleep deprivation with physical, emotional and academic
difficulties. Sleep deprivation has been linked to difficulties with paying attention,
memory and other concentration issues. There are research studies that suggest the
relationship between sleep deprivation and poor academic performance. Many studies
demonstrate the effects of sleep deprivation on adolescents and first year college
students. There is no research on the effects of sleep deprivation on fourth year college
students or nursing students. A convenience sample of 42 baccalaureate nursing students
was given a questionnaire consisting of twelve questions in which the students selfreported on their sleep habits and their academic performance.
I. Introduction
The amount of sleep college students receive nightly has been decreasing
gradually over the last few decades. According to Hicks and Pellegrini (1991), college
students received an average of 7.5 hrs of sleep nightly in 1969 and 6.5 hrs in 1989. If the
trend Hicks and Pellegrini discovered continues, college students in 2009 should be
getting 5.5 hours of sleep a night. It is recommended that people receive approximately
eight hours of sleep nightly. College students who receive less than the recommended
eight hours of sleep nightly are considered to be sleep deprived. Research has linked
students poor sleep patterns to increased tension, irritability, depression and confusion.
Sleep difficulties have also been linked to emotional, physical, social, vocational and
academic problems. Sleep deprivation can have an impact on a person’s health.
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Lauren O'Hare (Nursing) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
34
�“Insufficient sleep of less than 6 hours per night can contribute to a 50% reduction in T
cells, which can compromise the immune system.” (Brown, Buboltz & Soper, 2006, pg
231)
A major impact of sleep deprivation is the deduction of time spent in REM sleep.
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is the phase of sleep in which the body becomes
paralyzed and the brain remains highly active. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep.
During a regular 8 hour night of sleep, a person cycles between non-rapid eye movement
sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. When a person is sleep deprived, there is less time
spent in REM sleep. De Koninck , Lorrain, Christ, Proulx and Coulombe (1989)
demonstrated that learning consolidation is dependent on cycles spent in REM sleep.
They also demonstrated that students with increased REM sleep after an intensive
learning experience did better on examinations. College students are known to sacrifice
sleep to study for exams. “Some students pull all night “cramming” sessions and do not
perform well academically. The student often does not make the connection between
poor academic performances with the lack of sleep.” (Buboltz,Brown & Soper, 2001, pg
131) De Koninck and his associates demonstrated that students, who receive less than 8
hours of sleep, miss some of the last 2 hours of REM sleep. The last 2 hours of REM tend
to be the most important for integrating new information. Therefore, the student that
“pulls the all nighter” before an exam, is at a disadvantage. They have not integrated the
material that they spent hours studying.
Sleep deprivation is not the only factor to be considered. Sleep hygiene is another
problem among college students. Students often sacrifice sleep to study and do
homework on weekdays. Many try to make up the lost sleep on the weekends.
Unfortunately, hours of lost sleep on weekdays can not be made up on weekends. Sleep
hygiene suggests that a daily routine of wake up and bed times be maintained. According
to Brown et al (2006), if the cycle of sacrificing sleep during the week and sleeping long
hours on the weekends continues, it can lead to progressively later sleep and wake times,
missed classes and poor academic performance.
Sleep deprivation has been shown to cause difficulties with memory, paying
attention and concentration. Nursing students are faced with a demanding course load
that requires many hours of studying. These demands often result in the nursing student
sacrificing sleep to complete course work and study for exams. Academic performance
was defined by grades on papers, exams and the student’s GPA. The purpose of this
study was to determine the effects of sleep deprivation on the academic performance of
baccalaureate nursing students.
35
�II. Research Question and Hypothesis
Q: What are the effects of sleep deprivation on the academic performance of
baccalaureate nursing students?
H: Sleep deprivation will negatively impact a nursing student’s academic performance.
III. Review of Literature
There have been numerous studies linking sleep deprivation to the poor academic
performance of students. They indicate that sleep deprived students have difficulty
staying awake in class, paying attention and achieving high grades on exams.
Noland, Price, Dake and Telljohann (2009) surveyed 384 adolescents from three
Midwest High Schools about sleep behaviors and their perceptions of sleep. Most of the
students (91.9%) reported receiving inadequate sleep (≤ 9 hrs) on school nights with 10%
of the students receiving less than 6 hrs each week night. A majority of the students
indicated that inadequate sleep had effects on them. The effects reported included the
following: being more tired during the day (93.7%), having difficulty paying attention
(83.6%), lower grades (60.8%), increased stress (59.0%) and having difficulty getting
along with others (57.7%). Noland and her associates were also able to conclude that
students that received fewer hours of sleep were significantly more likely to be stressed
and overweight. A vast majority of the students in the study reported sleeping for fewer
than 9 hours during week nights. The students reported receiving more hours of sleep on
the weekends with different bedtimes and rise times. The study demonstrated that
dramatic changes in the sleep cycle and an inadequate number of hours of sleep can have
detrimental effects on the adolescents. “It can take several days or longer for one’s sleep
schedule to become regulated again. During this time, the adolescent may suffer from
extreme tiredness, mood swings, feelings of jet lag, lack of motivation and difficulty
concentrating, all symptoms that teachers see on Monday mornings.” (Noland et al, 2009,
229)
Brown, Buboltz and Soper (2006) developed the sleep treatment and education
program for students (STEPS). The study consisted of 2 introductory psychology classes
during the early part of a fall term. The introductory psychology class consisted of
primarily freshman. The treatment program was implemented “early in the term because
sleep habits tend to deteriorate as the semester progresses”. Students received a
demographics questionnaire, The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), The Sleep
Hygiene Awareness and Practices Scale (SHAPS) and The Sleep Habits Survey (SHS)
prior to treatment and 6 weeks post-treatment. The students in the treatment group
demonstrated overall better sleep quality and better sleep hygiene practices. The results
36
�of the study suggest that the inclusion of a psychoeducational program, such as STEPS,
may significantly reduce sleep disturbances and improve sleep habits. The research
demonstrates that “students with more consistent week and weekend wake times have
better sleep quality and academic performance” (Brown et al, 2006, pg 236).
Trockel, Barnes and Egget (2000) examined health related variables and academic
performance among first year college students. Students sleep habits were one of the
variables investigated. The participants were 200 randomly chosen 1st yr students who
lived on campus at a large private university. The students filled out a questionnaire that
was developed by the researcher with health-behavior variables that are potential
predictors of academic performance. The significant finding of the study was the
relationship between sleep habits and higher GPA. “There is strong support for the
hypothesis that sleep habits account for some of the variance in the 1st year college
students GPAs.”(Trockel et al, 2000, pg 129)
The research supports that there is a relationship between sleep deprivation and
academic performance. There is no research that examined the relationship of sleep
deprivation of senior college students and their academic performance. Nursing students
were not specifically included in any of the research studies about sleep deprivation. The
focus of this study was to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on the academic
performances of baccalaureate nursing students. Once the relationship between sleep
deprivation and academic performance is understood, improvements of sleep patterns can
be made to improve academic performance among nursing students.
IV. Methods
A convenience sample of 42 baccalaureate nursing students at a large private
university was used. The students were given an anonymous questionnaire consisting of
twelve questions (see appendix A) in which they self-reported on their sleep habits and
their academic performance. Academic performance was evaluated by subjects’ report of
their grades on exams, papers and overall class performance. GPAs were also compared
to see if there was any difference in those who are sleep deprived and those who get the
recommend eight hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation was defined as less than the
recommended eight hours of sleep nightly. Subjects were asked to describe their ability to
function academically after a night of little sleep. The amount of sleep the subject
received on a regular night was compared to the amount of sleep received before an exam
or paper deadline. This comparison was used to determine if the student was “cramming”
and its effects on the student’s academic performance.
37
�V. Limitations
The students participating in the study had to be honest about their academic
performance to a fellow student. Students may have felt the need to report a better
academic performance than they have actually achieved. Since the questionnaire was
completely anonymous, students may have been compelled to answer the questions
honestly. The researcher was unable to determine if the student report was accurate.
Grades and GPAs cannot be released from the college staff due to legal issues. There is
also no way to determine if the information about sleep habits is reliable. A major
limitation to the study was that there is no control group or randomization. It is a
comparative study among students exposed to many different extraneous variables. There
was no way to determine if poor academic performance was a direct result of sleep
deprivation or another factor in the student’s environment. The creation of a control
group and an experimental group would be unethical. It would be unethical to deprive a
student of sleep to see if they have poor academic performance. Randomization would
eliminate the effects of extraneous variables and increase the internal validity in this
study. Unfortunately, due to ethical issues, it is impossible to randomize the nursing
students to experimental and control groups.
VI. Results
The average amount of sleep the baccalaureate nursing students received on a
regular night was 7.9 hrs with a standard deviation of 0.98. 75% of the students surveyed
responded “true” to the statement “I do better on an exam if I get a full night of sleep”.
Despite this response, the average number of hours before an exam was 5.52 hours with a
standard deviation of 1.61. 83.3% of the students surveyed reported that they believe
they function better academically when they get more sleep. The remaining 16.7%
believed that there would be no impairment in function or weren’t sure if sleep
deprivation would affect their academic performance. When the students were asked to
describe the effects of sleep deprivation (< 8 hrs) on their academic performance, 78.57%
reported that it would have a negative impact. The students described this negative
impact as a decrease in the ability to pay attention, decrease in ability to remember newly
learned material and increased anxiety levels. Students reported academic success by
achieving passing grades on papers, exams and overall class grades (see table 1). 37 of
the 42 students (88.09%) surveyed reported a GPA of 3.0 or higher, 1 student reported a
GPA of < 3.0 and 4 students omitted the question.
38
�Table 1: Reported student grades in percentages
B(s)
B(s) & C(s)
Omitted
question
A(s)
A (s) and B(s)
Exams
28.57
0
60.91
0
10.52
Papers
54.76
23.80
16.7
0
4.74
Class grades
11.9
66.67
14.28
1
6.15
VII. Discussion:
The baccalaureate nursing students surveyed demonstrated sleep deprivation
especially the night before a deadline or exam. However, the students exhibited no
detrimental effects on their academic performance. Grades achieved by the students
caused many to qualify for Sigma Theta Tau, the international honor society of nursing.
The baccalaureate nursing students surveyed are in the program due to their increased
ability to achieve. It is possible that the results of this study would be very different if
administered to students in other departments of the college. The fact that all the students
surveyed are seniors can be another contributing factor. After completing several years of
college, the students may have determined what sleep patterns work for them and prevent
any impact of sleep deprivation on their academic performance.
The extraneous variable that may have had the most impact on the results of this
study is the fact the researcher was a fellow student. It is possible that some of the grades
reported were exaggerated knowing another student would see their grades. This is
believed to be the reason why some questions were omitted by students. The study
would have more statistical significance if the researcher was able to see the students’
actual grades on exams, papers and in courses from professors and the registrar.
Most people believe that sleep deprivation would affect their academic
performance. Contrary to this belief, this study demonstrated sleep deprivation to have
little effect on the academic performance of senior baccalaureate nursing students.
However, most of the students confirmed that prolonged sleep deprivation would have
detrimental effects on their academic performance. If the study was to be repeated in the
future, it would be beneficial to expand the study to include the entire student population
on campus. A larger and broader sample would include students of different academic
levels as well as students of different majors. This would eliminate the possibility that the
39
�results observed in this study are just a trend for senior nursing students and not the entire
institution.
VIII. References
1. Brown, F.C., Buboltz, W.C., & Soper, B. (2006). “Development and evaluation of
the Sleep treatment and education program for students (STEPS)”, Journal of
American College Health, 54 (4), 231-237.
2.
Buboltz, W.C., Brown, F. & Soper B. (2001). “Sleep Habits and Patterns of College
Students: A preliminary study”, Journal of American College Health, 50(3), 131-135.
3.
De Koninck, J., Lorrain, D., Christ, G., Proulx, G., Coulombe, D. (1989). “Intensive
language learning and increases in rapid eye movement sleep: evidence of a
performance factor”, International Journal Psychophysiology,8,43-47.
4.
Hicks, RA., & Pellegrini RJ .(1991) “The changing sleep habits of college students”,
Perceptual & Motor Skills, 72, 1106.
5.
Noland, H., Price, J.H., Dake, J., & Telljohann, S.K. (2009). “Adolescents’ sleep
behaviors and perceptions of sleep”, Journal of School Health, 79(5), 224-230.
6.
Taras, H. & Potts-Datema, W. (2005). “Sleep and student performance at school”,
Journal of School Health, 75(7), 248-254.
7.
Trockel, M.T., Barnes, M.D., & Egget, D.L. (2000). “Health-Related Variables and
academic performance among first-year college students: Implications for sleep and
other behaviors”, Journal of American College Health, 49, 125-131.
40
�Appendix A: Questionnaire
1) How many hours of sleep do you get on a regular night?
2) How many hours of sleep do you get the night before a paper deadline or exam?
3) After a night of little sleep, what is your performance like on an exam?
4) How would you describe your ability to function after a night of little sleep?
5) Do you think you function better academically when you get more hours of sleep?
6) How would you describe the effects of sleep deprivation (< 8hrs) on your academic
performance?
7) I have a hard time paying attention in class after a night of little sleep. (Circle one)
True
False
8) I do better on an exam if I get a full night of sleep. (Circle One)
True
False
9) My grades on exams are usually (Circle one):
100s
90s
80s
77s
<77
10) My grades on papers are usually_________.
11) My overall grade in classes are usually (circle one)
A(s)
A(s) and B(s)
B(s)
12) My GPA is:_________
41
B(s) and C(s).
��Section III: Critical Essays
�Moving Beyond a Lesbian Feminism:
The Role of Choice in Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch
Charisse Willis (English)1
Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue explores various topics, ranging from
lesbian relationships between Cinderella-like characters and their godmothers to a
romantic encounter between a cross dressing caretaker and her charge. Rich with material
for lesbian and queer critics, Donoghue’s novel, which is a collection of short stories,
lends itself to being taken as an advocate of radical feminism, specifically the practice of
lesbianism and the belief that it is the ultimate escape from a patriarchal society.
However, to stop at this aspect of the novel would be an extreme disservice to
Donoghue’s work. While her novel can be seen as a work of radical feminism, it is
important to note that it leans more towards a radical-libertarian feminism, taking care
not to promote lesbian separatism; it focuses, instead, on a patriarchal society as the root
of women’s oppression and stresses the idea that all women, whether they embrace or
escape the circumstances of their assigned role in life, find their own way in the world
and achieve some form of independence.
While most people associate radical feminists with lesbian separatists who
believe that any relationship with men is an oppressive one, radical-libertarian feminists
have a different view. Though they do not deny that heterosexual relationships are forced
on most women, they do not agree that lesbianism is essential to being a feminist and
escaping patriarchy; what is most important is a woman’s pleasure, whether it is from a
man or a woman (Tong 70). Furthermore, radical-libertarian feminists believe that male
individuals are not the problem, but rather, a patriarchal society is responsible for
women’s oppression (70). To sum up the argument of the radical-libertarians and the
theme in Kissing the Witch, “Freedom comes to women as the result of women giving
each other the power of self-definition and the energy continually to rebel against any
individual man, group of men, or patriarchal institution seeking to disempower or
otherwise weaken women” (Tong 71).
Though Donoghue makes it clear that women are oppressed, the plots do not
necessarily cite men as the oppressor. Instead, society is highlighted as the cause of
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Susan Bernardo (English) for EN347: The Study of
Fairy Tales.
44
�women’s oppression. In “The Tale of the Shoe,” the speaker makes it clear that she does
not have anyone to make her do things or to punish her, but she feels the need to
complete difficult chores and punish herself. The lines, “nobody made me do the things I
did, nobody scolded me but me, nobody punished me but me,” make it clear that some
invisible force is causing the speaker to live this harsh life (Donoghue 2). However, that
invisible force is not identified as a male force. The fact that “the shrill voices were all
inside,” gives the impression that scrubbing, sweeping, separating food and other chores
were actions that were ingrained in her psyche. As opposed to some allusion to a father or
any other male figure that told her these things needed to be done, the voices are more
like the laws of society that stress that women maintain a clean household and engage in
other domestic activities.
The voices continue throughout this tale, instructing the speaker to return to the
prince and accept his proposal of marriage, but the voices are not the only clue that there
is an outside force instructing this modern day Cinderella. When she gets to the palace
where the prince is, she says that she knows exactly what she is supposed to do, but no
explanation is given for why she would know what to do. Once again, the speaker’s
behavior is governed by a set of unwritten societal rules. These rules tell her to not eat or
to throw up the little that she does eat; they tell her not to engage in conversation, but
rather nod and smile while the men ramble on about nothing (Donoghue 4-6).
This same set of rules seems to determine the role that the speaker in “The Tale
of the Voice” plays. The little mermaidesque character finds that she is not the only
woman to trade her voice for the affections of a male. She noted that her “predicament
was not unique;” all of the girls that she saw at the parties maintained her same silence
and furthermore, “even their bodies were silent” (198). However, once again there is no
mention of a male hierarchy. In fact, a few paragraphs after these lines a sex scene occurs
in which the female is in a position of dominance. It is almost as if Donoghue places this
scene directly after the speaker’s realization in order to stress that it is not the man that
has put the woman in this position; the speaker of this story followed a societal pattern
that suggested that she be prettier and silent in order to achieve the happiness of love.
The idea of society, not men, being the cause of women’s oppression becomes
clearer at the end of the voice tale. The speaker of the tale leaves the man that she gave
up her voice for and she survives life on the road through prostitution, but in the end she
marries a man that “liked to hear [her] sing, but preferred to hear [her] talk” (204). This
story does not end with a lesbian relationship or simply an ending that involves no men.
Instead, Donoghue makes it clear that lesbianism is not the only solution to women’s
45
�suffering; life with a man can be fulfilling and freeing as long as the woman is
independent and makes her own decisions.
The speaker from the voice tale does not reject a normative heterosexual
relationship to escape the limits society puts on her sex, just as the princess in “The Tale
of the Apple” does not reject the position that she was destined to fill, but rather
embraces it. After the death of her father, the king, the princess in the apple tale decides
to leave the world of kingdoms and royal expectations. She moves into a house of
woodsmen, but instead of making the story into a tale where the princess escapes royal
life, Donoghue uses the princess’ character to show that simply doing the opposite of
what society expects will not free women. This too fits with the beliefs of radicallibertarian feminists who took a middle ground between liberal feminists who preferred
masculine traits to feminine ones and radical-cultural feminists who advocated an
embrace and elevation of feminine traits and the rejection of masculine ones; radicallibertarians proposed androgyny which allows women to take on both feminine and
masculine traits.
The princess’ realization and acceptance of her role in society does not mean
that she will adhere only to the feminine traits associated with this role. In fact, unlike
other Snow White tale types, the princess is not avenged by the death of her stepmother
and reinstated to her rightful place. Instead, the princess makes the active decision to own
her role in society, not succumbing to the oppressive nature of being a queen in a male
dominated kingdom, but choosing the place that feels most comfortable to her. By doing
this, she exhibits masculine traits.
“The Tale of the Apple,” also draws on the radical-libertarian idea that women
should help each other. Part of the reason that the princess returned to the castle was the
relationship that she had with her stepmother. The stepmother says, “’I haven’t had a
night’s sleep since you left,’” suggesting that she needed the princess for comfort and to
help with the kingdom. The sharing of the apple at the end of the tale is not the sign of
trickery that poisons the princess in previous Snow White tale types. Instead, it is a sign
that the stepmother is willing to share the kingdom with her stepdaughter, entering into a
kind of equal partnership. Thus, when the princess realizes that she was not poisoned, she
knows that it is her role to help her stepmother.
The witch in “The Tale of the Voice,” also plays the helping role. She is not a
horrible woman who simply takes advantage of a lovesick-girl. Unlike other versions of
this tale, the witch tries to talk the girl out of trading her voice for the man that she loves
and even after the girl realizes that her sacrifice would not be enough to keep the man
that she wants, the witch is useful. She helps the girl find her way home and she takes the
46
�sisters’ payment, not because she is evil and simply wants the sisters to suffer, but
because “people never value what they get for free. Having paid so dearly, [the] sisters
will treasure you [the speaker] now” (203). Assigning such positive characteristics to the
witch suggests that Donoghue is consciously “‘rehabilitating the witch,’ speaking in the
voice of a witch who is both human and vulnerable, contesting the ways the witch has
been represented in generations of tale-tellings” (Harries 130).
It is also interesting to note that helping the love-sick woman in “The Tale of the
Voice” does not mean refusing to give her what she wants. Though the witch knows that
other girls have asked for the same thing and have regretted their decision, she also
knows that one must learn from experience. Women need to make their own decisions
even if they are not necessarily the right ones.
The notion of following one’s own passion and making choices, despite the
possibility of negative consequences is the thread that pulls the tales of Kissing the Witch
together. The speaker in “The Tale of the Needle” is a perfect example of a woman
making an active choice to leave behind a world of protection and take charge of her life.
The speaker lives in a place where, literally, the world stops for her. After puberty sets in,
instead of trading her position as daughter for the position of wife as women are usually
expected to do, the speaker seeks knowledge and independence, both of which she finds
in the old woman that she meets.
Donoghue makes it clear that the speaker in the needle story has a choice
between the life of shelter that she has always led and a life that is full of uncertainty, but
offers a world where one can make their own path. Furthermore, the reader sees the
speaker making a decision. The speaker heard her name being called, looked at the door
and then made the active decision to close out the world, “[pull] the bolt across,” and
learn something that would give her value in society.
Similarly, in “The Tale of the Spinster,” the speaker is forced to make a decision
between being a successful business woman and focusing on a life of domesticity. The
mother in this tale makes it clear that work is the best option for women as it allows them
to have “a level place to rest” (120). In trying to follow this example, the spinster
completely rejects feminine traits and focuses on surviving in the business world. The
spinster regrets her decision after her child is taken from her by her assistant and, as the
preceding story tells us, she turns to stealing other children to assuage her feelings of
guilt. Though the speaker makes a decision that she ultimately regrets, this story is not a
contradiction to the theme of choice in the novel. Rather, the story is meant to show that
all decisions have consequences and with the freedom to choose comes the freedom to
make mistakes. Women who push for equality have always faced this fact; with
47
�oppression comes a certain level of protection and by choosing to break free, a woman
must choose to accept the risks that come with responsibility.
This story highlights another issue that all women have to deal with: how to
choose between the public and private spheres of society. In describing her decision to
join a lesbian separatist community, one woman quotes Betty Friedan to stress the need
for women to be economically independent: “for women to have full identity and
freedom, they must have economic independence. Equality and human dignity are not
possible for women if they are not able to learn. Only economic independence can free a
woman to marry for love, not for status or financial support…” (Rudy 194). The spinster
embraced this idea and made sure that she was able to provide for herself, saying that
work made her forget that she was a woman (Donoghue 125).
However, by embracing the public sphere, she lost her connection to the private
one. She makes the comment that she would not have married the father of her baby even
if she could have because she “was a woman of business now…far too far gone to make a
good wife” (125). This passage shows the problem with Friedan’s statement that
economic independence makes it easier for women to make their own decisions. Though
the spinster followed the guidelines for happiness as described by most feminists, the
acquisition of wealth left her just as confined as the acquisition of a husband would have.
Unlike men, women have to carry a child and, as society demands, nurture it as well,
which makes the lives of women who choose to have children and strive for economic
independence that much harder. Donoghue, in this story, makes it clear that Kissing the
Witch is not a novel that seeks to make the life of a feminist or a lesbian seem like a
complete escape from patriarchy, but rather it strives to show and call into question the
obstacles that arise in an oppressive society.
The last tale, “The Tale of the Kiss,” is told by a woman, or more accurately, a
witch. In this tale, the themes of the novel are replayed in a blatant manner, making sure
to leave readers questioning their own role in this cycle of women’s liberation. One of the
witch’s first lines makes it clear that the theme of this tale will be one of power, fitting, as
Kissing the Witch is a novel that seeks to empower women. The reader is immediately hit
with knowledge of the witch’s menstrual cycle and that she is barren. The speaker is not
dismayed at this thought and she chooses to leave her home and seek a life of solitude.
Unlike other women speakers in the novel, it is clear that the witch knows her worth in
the world and she is prepared to exceed the expectations of society. Subsequently, she is
rewarded with power. She says of power, “I never sought it; it was left out for me to
stumble over” (Donoghue 209). However, if one has been paying attention to the
48
�message Donoghue has been sending in the last twelve stories, it becomes clear that by
choosing to go above what society had planned for her, the witch did seek power.
With that in mind, I would argue that the point of this tale is not to drive the idea
of a powerful woman home, rather it is to show the extent of power that women can have
and what can be done with it. The witch’s words make this idea clear, “Power I had to
learn how to pick up without getting burnt, how to shape it and conceal it and flaunt it
and use it, and when to still my breath and do nothing at all” (214). Here is the answer to
what to do with the knowledge that Donoghue has shared in the previous tales; she, the
author, has laid out the steps to power and now she is making sure that the reader learns
how to hone that power.
Elizabeth Harries says that this last tale is written so that, though the writer’s
voice stops, the reader’s voice carries on (133). I would agree and go one step further by
noting that the reader is not only pushed to tell his or her story at the end of this novel,
but he or she is also pushed to challenge his/her story and reality. The last line, “I leave it
in your mouth,” instructs the reader to do just what the speaker of “The Tale of the Bird”
says in her story, “take your own life in your hands” (228,11).
Works Cited
Donoghue, Emma. Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins. New York: HarperCollins,
1997.
Harries, Elizabeth Wanning. “New Frames for Old Tales”, Twice Upon a Time: Women
Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale. Princeton, N.J: Princeton UP, 2001. 129-34.
Rudy, Kathy. “Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory”, Feminist
Studies 27.1 (2001): 191-221. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 09 Dec. 2009.
Tong, Rosemarie. Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. Boulder,
Colo: Westview, 1998.
49
�Meursault’s Pursuit of Social Justice
James Messina (Philosophy and English)1
Human experience is defined by an all-encompassing desire to know the truth.
The truth about existence, the truth about the afterlife (if there is such a thing), the truth
about what is right, the truth about what is wrong, why it is wrong, and how these things
came to be such. In The Stranger, Albert Camus places his readers, all incidentally livers
of life, in a position of extreme discomfort by immediately calling into question modern
conventions of conscientiousness. Meursault, Camus’ protagonist, is oddly situated in a
world that is markedly familiar to readers, defined by contrived conceptions of justice,
morality, and codes of behavior, which are essentially byproducts of mankind’s
continued attempt, throughout history, to exercise rationality over absurdity. Through this
aporia, and through this modern, absurd man, Camus challenges twentieth century (and
incidentally, due to a static western social structure, twenty-first century) abstractions of
social justice and morality.
In order to understand the true implications of The Stranger as a commentary on
social justice and morality, it is important to understand how Camus believes the absurd
man comes to be. In his article entitled “Albert Camus and the Rights of Man”, Thomas
Thorson asserts that,
The condition of being “well adjusted,” of being at home in the world, is for
Camus a consequence of human mental construction either conscious and
deliberate or unconscious and habitual. The absurd arises when it becomes clear
that the arrangement of compatibility between man and the world is not truth,
but construction. (Thorson 286)
Camus recognizes his first task to be to contextualize Meursault in an environment that
imposes upon him a great sense of absurdist alienation. In this bipartite novel, the first
part is dedicated to achieving just that. Meursault’s actions seem to readers to be defined
by a general lack of conscience or emotional connection to the world. His mother dies
and he feels nothing but the pang of societal obligation. When he thinks of his mother’s
first weeks in the nursing home, he thinks of the inconvenience her discomfort caused
him. Once she became acclimated to the living conditions there, he stopped visiting: “it
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Erica Johnson (English) for EN111: World
Literature.
50
�took up my Sunday,” he admits (Camus 5). Because of the guilt that he knows he should
feel regarding having put his mother in a nursing home, he begins to explain himself to
the director. The director explains to Meursault, “You don’t have to justify yourself”
(Camus 4). That Meursault feels the constant need to appear to be something that he is
not to his peers, places him in a requisite position of extreme absurdity.
There are several instances where Meursault’s actions reflect, not his own
desires, but those of other characters. This is significant because it demonstrates his
perceived need to fit in, accentuating his feeling of distance from society as a whole, and
thus furthers the position of his absurdity. The first major occurrence of this phenomenon
is when Raymond is introduced for the first time. Raymond, who is introduced as
particularly unpopular and who is notoriously employed as a pimp, invites Meursault to
his apartment for dinner, and because the proposition of a free meal that he does not have
to prepare sounds so appealing, Meursault agrees. While discussing an altercation
Raymond had recently gotten into with a man “trying to start trouble,” Raymond asks
Meursault if he wants to be his friend. Meursault reacts as follows, “I didn’t say anything,
and he asked me again if I wanted to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed
pleased” (Camus 29). Here, Meursault recognizes that this man is probably associated
with trouble (as is socially defined), but obliges his request at friendship to appease him,
rather than to fulfill any sincere desire to actually befriend the man. Along the same lines
of this strangely impersonal social contract is his engagement to Marie,
That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I
said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to.
Then she asked me if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time,
that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. (Camus 41)
Marriage, has, for years, been seen through Western ideologies as a symbol of love and
commitment, rather than a cold, emotionless bargain. When people bring up his
engagement to Marie, they are often surprised by his apparent callousness regarding the
issue. These situations within which Camus submerges his protagonist move him further
toward recognition of his absurdity.
Once Camus makes it clear that Meursault is in some way different from those
that surround him, he is able to make a strong case for why this is. In The Myth of
Sisyphus, one of four essays crafted with the intention of explaining the philosophy
surrounding The Stranger, Camus writes, “If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is
conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding
upheld him?” (The Myth of Sisyphus) Camus believes that in order to truly accept the
position of the absurd man, one must first abandon all hope. The human condition of
51
�inquisition, he argues, is characterized by the strong desire to attribute false optimism that
there exists some sort of metaphysical realm within which death could be avoided, or
within which consciousness could continue after death. Camus contends that to subscribe
to such delusional theories is to remain somehow unaware of the reality and the
proximity of death to every human being. What follows is that Sisyphus (or any man, for
that matter) can only be miserable (in the true philosophical sense) if he is aware of the
nature of the true fate that awaits him. That is not to say that the conscious man cannot be
happy, either, rather, that this happiness must be contrasted always with the plight of
human misery, “There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night”
(The Myth of Sisyphus). Here, Camus explores the idea that human’s can’t know
happiness except when it is contextualized within misery. This is a definition based on
binary logic and relativism, but it seems to contain some truth, nonetheless. Meursault
does not begin the novel as hopeless, but he experiences several things that end in his
epiphany that regardless of how it happens, every human being is fated to the same
destiny, which is ultimately, death.
Meursault never particularly cares one way or the other to address important
issues, preferring to indulge life’s pleasures, however, the end of Part One represents an
awakening of sorts. As he fires the revolver four more times into the already lifeless body
of the nameless Arab, he reflects, “it was like knocking four times on the door of
unhappiness” (Camus 59). Meursault, to this point, has been living a life in a state of
what is essentially, based on the definition provided by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus,
diminished consciousness. It is not insignificant that his moment of awakening occurs
with the passing of an event that is both morally (murder) and physically (loud noise and
recoil) jarring. This is both a symbolic and literal awakening to the world around him.
Meursault was not in a state of total ignorance before this incident, however, the
problems he did perceive with the social constructs defining his world did not
inconvenience him at all until they led to his arrest and trial.
Thorson notes that Camus perceived three possible ways of dealing with
absurdity, such as that which is beginning to face Meursault. These are, “suicide, hope,
and living with it” (Thorson 287). As was already demonstrated, hope, for Camus, is
essentially philosophical suicide, and must be ruled out. Suicide in the literal sense is also
ruled out because it is an escape from the problem, rather than a solution. Thorson
contends that Camus believes that learning to accept the situation of absurdity is the only
way to truly attain happiness within society. This theory is corroborated within The Myth
of Sisyphus: “This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor
futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself
52
�forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart” (The
Myth of Sisyphus). Clearly, Camus believes that there is great nobility in accepting
control over one’s fate, and in embracing absurdity rather than deluding oneself with
false hope, or running from the problem by way of suicide.
When the machinations of human justice begin to extend their hand over
Meursault, the alarming fallibility of this system becomes exposed. Though Camus has
still not fully converted Meursault into his ideal absurd man, he begins his social
commentary at the very outset of Part Two. During Meursault’s initial interrogation, the
Magistrate asks the accused if he has hired an attorney. Meursault asks why this is
necessary, noting that his case was “pretty simple” (Camus 63). Shortly after this, he is
visited by his state appointed lawyer, and asked not a single question about the murder of
the Arab, but instead about the emotions he felt on the day of his mother’s death. At the
end of the interrogation, Meursault even notes, “that none of this even had anything to do
with [his] case” (Camus 65). When Meursault relays what he recalls feeling, his lawyer is
displeased by his pragmatic answers, and asks if Meursault would be willing to tell the
jury that he had held back his true feelings during the preliminary hearing. Meursault
frankly says, “No, because it’s not true” (Camus 65). This refusal to lie represents the
dedication of absurdist existentialism to the truth. Camus does not condone self-deception
or deception of others for any purpose. The justice system is (ideally) aimed at
prosecuting and rehabilitating those who do wrong for the purpose of attaining retribution
for those victimized by criminals. During the eleven-month investigation, however, those
involved seem to temporarily forget that Meursault is a murderer, and treat him as a
friend. This hypocrisy catches Meursault off guard, but he soon becomes accustomed to
such treatment, “I was almost surprised that I had ever enjoyed anything other than those
rare moments when the judge would lead me to the door of his office, slap me on the
shoulder, and say to me cordially, ‘that’s all for today, Monsieur Antichrist’” (a clear
reference to Nietzsche) (Camus 71). The investigation that will inevitably lead to his
conviction placates Meursault and distances him from the reality of his situation. This
becomes a sort of metaphor for the ways in which the things human beings assign value
to distract them from the finite number of days they have to live.
Marie comes to visit Meursault in prison, and she tells him that he must have
hope. He appeases her by agreeing, when secretly, he realizes, “I wanted to squeeze her
shoulders through her dress. I wanted to feel the thin material and I didn’t really know
what else I had to hope for other than that” (Camus 75). Here, Meursault begins to
embrace the fate that has always existed, but that hasn’t yet been officially assigned to
him by the state. At the same time, Camus wishes for readers to note that his fate will be
53
�the same in the end no matter the court’s decision, given that Meursault is a mortal man.
This takes Meursault’s necessary absurdity to the next level; however, he has not reached
the apex of Camus’ existential absurdity. This is especially true during his later relapse
into western ideology where he hopes ardently that he will be able to escape and reform
the justice system that has failed him.
Finally, the day of his trial arrives. It is here that Camus’ absurd man evokes the
greatest sympathy in his readers. It is also here that Camus forces readers to recognize the
shortcomings of a system so relied upon for social structure. Instead of merely convicting
and sentencing him for the crime he admitted to committing, the court is dead set on
alienating him from society based on qualitatively, subjectively analyzed happenings
with no bearing on the true incident at hand (the murder of the nameless Arab). “For the
first time in years I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel how much all these
people hated me” (Camus 90). They do not hate him because he committed murder; they
hate him because he sees the world differently than they do. Camus would argue that he
is beginning to see the world for what it really is, in conjunction with Thorson’s process
of absurdist recognition referred to earlier. The jury does not find interest in anything
anyone has to say that will defend Meursault’s goodwill as a man; however, no defense
witness testimony was as detrimental to his case as that of Raymond. Meursault ends up
implicated in several of his friend’s minor crimes, and as a result, even though Raymond
is testifying in favor of Meursault, he ends up deprecating further his reputation with the
jury. Meursault recognizes that it was his choice to help Raymond, and that in this way he
has sealed his own fate. As the trial is reaching its conclusion, Meursault’s lawyer
becomes exasperated, and demands, “’is my client on trial for burying his mother or for
killing a man?’” (Camus 96). There is never a point throughout The Stranger that Camus
more sharply criticizes modern conventions of justice.
Camus notes that the nature of westernized justice systems essentially involves
the removal of the accused from the courtroom. It is as if the entire process is a charade.
Camus asserts through these criticisms that society, as a whole, is willing to exercise
superficial solutions to dissolve problems that run deep beneath its gilded surface.
Meursault finds it odd that his lawyer speaks in the first person as if he was the one on
trial, “I thought it was a way to exclude me even further from the case, reduce me to
nothing, and, in a sense, to substitute himself for me” (Camus 103). The contradiction
here is that even though the attorney places himself in Meursault’s shoes, it is still
Meursault that must eventually pay for his crime. As such, Camus seems to be stating
that it does not make sense to fill laws with exploitable loopholes requiring that the
accused acquire legal representation, but to approach the penal code with pragmatism
54
�foreign to the 20th century court system. Meursault is finally sentenced to death after a
trial that did not even offer retribution to the Arab or those close to him. In fact, there is
no mention that anyone that knew the Arab attended the judicial proceedings. Camus
symbolically notes that this death sentence does not alter Meursault’s individual fragment
of the human condition.
In addition to challenging the process by which social justice is attained, Camus
criticizes certain moral structures. Rather than attack morality as a whole, he chooses
Christianity to represent a general concept of the contrived conception of ethical
boundaries within western society. This criticism of Christianity and the narrowmindedness that it is characterized by is really only mentioned in Part Two, but becomes
important in supporting Camus’ attack on optimistic metaphysical theories. When
speaking to a clerk prior to his trial, Meursault informs him that he does not believe in
God. The clerk finds this to be particularly offensive and exclaims that all men believe in
God. He says, “that is [my] belief and if [I] were ever to doubt it, [my] life would become
meaningless” (Camus 69). He accuses Meursault of attempting to remove meaning from
his life, to which Meursault laughably remarks that it has nothing to do with him. The
second time Christianity is called into question is during an altercation between
Meursault and the prison chaplain. It is the disconnect of this world order that makes
Meursault finally abandon all hope of escaping his fate. Prior to this incident, the
protagonist is forced into a period of introspection that forces him to believe that he
might escape prison, and hence, execution. “What really counted was the possibility of
escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give
whatever chance for hope there was” (Camus 109). He thinks that if he could possibly
evade his punishment, he would “reform the penal code. [he] realized that the most
important thing was to give the condemned man a chance” (Camus 111). This reveals
Camus’ sympathy for the absurd man working against the machinations of social reform.
This is representative of the aporia that faces human beings attempting to understand and
give order to a world that is in fact indefinable and arbitrary. The chaplain enters his cell,
after Meursault refuses to see him, and the two engage in a heated argument about
religion. During said confrontation, the chaplain refuses to accept that Meursault does not
believe in a benevolent otherworldly force. This debate serves as a catalyst that finally
completes Meursault’s metamorphosis into Camus’ absurd man, stating that it was “as if
that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time in that night alive
with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world” (Camus
122). At the novel’s conclusion, Meursault has recognized and chosen to accept the fact
that the universe is absurd, and that the only thing that matters is his life on Earth.
55
�Camus encourages readers to sympathize with his protagonist’s condition,
however, he does not wish to fully excuse him either. He fully understands the value of
human life, and is not by any means a nihilist. As Thorson relays in his article regarding
Camus’ induction as a political philosopher it is important to note, “everything is not
permitted and that the absurd carries within itself what Camus calls ‘limits’” (Thorson
288). Since Meursault kills a man, he is by no means seen as innocent, however, his trial
and punishment are seen as equally abhorrent. This ethical commentary is best
represented by Meursault’s commitment to the fate of the condemned, and the story he
relays about his father’s observation of a murderer’s execution. “Just the thought of going
had made him sick to his stomach. But he went anyway, and when he came back he spent
half the morning throwing up. I remember feeling a little disgusted by him at the time.
But now I understood, it was perfectly normal” (Camus 110). Meursault notes that
society’s execution of any man, no matter how guilty was something to be nauseated by.
Thorson observes of Camus’ moral code regarding execution that “Society has no right to
kill in the absence of absolute certainty, first, that it possesses a metaphysical or religious
right to do so, and second, that there is no possible doubt in a particular case that there is
no error of legal judgment” (Thorson 290). Conversely, in her article entitled “The
Philosophical Camus,” Jane Duran astutely notes that Camus would have agreed that
“hiding behind a set ethics or, as Kierkegaard did, a religious view, constitutes a sort of
bad faith in that it is a refusal to recognize fully one’s predicament” (Duran 369). So, yes,
Camus would say that Meursault did wrong by violating a principle so sacred as the
taking of a human life, but he would also say that his trial was defined by an error of legal
judgment, and that his punishment was as a result, unjust and in violation of certain
principles that should never be violated.
Duran goes on to say that ‘‘Camus is concerned to alleviate suffering in the here
and now’’ (Duran 367) His version of morality seeks to eliminate suffering of the
individual, especially when it is caused by society’s tendency toward faulty logic based in
lofty, unsubstantiated metaphysics. This idea is supported in The Stranger when
Meursault considers the ways in which he would reform the penal code. He notes that
even if one in one thousand condemned men were given a chance, he would have made a
worthwhile difference.
So it seemed to me that you could come up with a mixture of chemicals that if
ingested by the patient (that’s the word I’d use: ‘‘patient’’) would kill him nine
times out of ten. For by giving it some hard thought, by considering the whole
thing calmly, I could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that you had no
chance at all… (Camus 111)
56
�Even though the guillotine (and its finality) later come to represent the fact that no human
being has the chance of escaping life alive, Camus admits that eliminating immediate
individual suffering should be a definite ethical goal.
Clearly, throughout The Stranger, Meursault comes to be Camus’ absurd man,
eventually fitting all the qualifications set forth in The Myth of Sisyphus. Once
established as such, Camus is able to make a case not only for his particular brand of
th
st
absurdist existentialism, but also one against 20 and 21 century abstractions of justice
and religious morality. What emerges from this critique is an intentionally ambiguous set
of ethics aimed at alleviating immediate suffering from the life of the individual, and a
marked condemnation of any contrived metaphysics aimed toward an ascetic ideal for the
purpose of salvation.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. “Albert Camus: ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’.” SCCS. Swarthmore. 21 April
2009. <http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/msysip.htm>.
Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York: Random House, 1988.
Duran, Jane. “The Philosophical Camus”, The Philosophical Forum, Inc 4th ser. 38
(2007): 365-71.
Thorson, Thomas L. “Albert Camus and the Rights of Man”, Ethics 74 (1964): 281-91.
57
�Robert Johnson: More Than The Crossroads
Jonathan Pigno (English)1
Blues music has often been the subject of folklore and urban myths throughout
American history. Tales of the supernatural, paranormal, and even downright fantastic
accounts of black magic or demonic evocations have become intertwined with the very
genre itself. This sentiment can be traced down to one legend in particular – that of
Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads. Most likely, the
story of Robert Johnson’s contract with evil is a byproduct of circumstance in a
tumultuous era for African-Americans rather than superstition. Spawning decades worth
of speculation and remaining the most influential blues to date, Johnson’s music
impacted guitar greats such as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page. Instead of
illustrating this artistic dominance as the result of an infernal pact, it’s necessary to
convey a holistic picture of Johnson’s life to better comprehend why such a legend would
arise. Through this broader scope, it’s clear to see that Johnson was a human being with
frailties and needs that just so happened to retain an unprecedented genius which would
give birth to numerous milestones in the recording industry.
A man of the times, Robert sought solace, freedom, and musical expression as a
means of making a living. Before anyone could begin to question the validity of his
infamous deal, they must look toward the setting of his life. Born near Hazelhurst,
Mississippi in 1911, Johnson was brought into this world in a locale of extreme poverty
and unrest. The Mississippi Delta was known for post-Civil War violence and radical
demonstrations of prejudice, including lynchings and imposed labor. Concentrated
mostly of African-Americans, it created a distinct atmosphere for cultural growth,
steeped in the roots of yesteryear while allowing a whole new generation of children to
break tradition. Many of Johnson’s contemporaries neglected their unfortunate work as
sharecroppers, seeking to acquire money at what they enjoyed rather than what was
imposed. This is most likely due to the fact that modernization quickly reached the
Delta. The region needed to be cultivated, so high hopes and great wages were promised
to black farmers in exchange for their labor. Eventually, many of these same workers
would move north, to Chicago, and abandon the Southern lifestyle.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Rita Reynolds (History) for HI100: Who Owns
History?
58
�This only encouraged progress. Transportation was decent and music from
urban centers reached these communities quick, beginning the influence that would
eventually give birth to electric blues. According to author and blues historian Elijah
Wald, “In the 1930’s, jukeboxes arrived in many of the local bars…It was already clear,
though, that the rural lifestyle was fading…Hot on their heels came the generation that
would electrify their music and turn it into the toughest roots sound on the urban
landscape.”2 As such, Johnson’s acoustic work is all the more poignant. Bridging the gap
between youthful innovation and antiquated ritual, Robert utilized his aspirations as the
son of sharecroppers as inspiration in songwriting. This was in clear contrast to his quest
for fame in big cities, but also explicitly tied to upbringing in the Delta.
Perhaps it is here that Robert Johnson’s crossroads legend begins to formulate in
the mind of a suspended-generation musician. Robert was known for having familial
issues and a distaste for authority from the very beginning. The illegitimate son of Julia
Dodds, married to a maker of wicker furniture by the same last name, he found solace in
music and isolation more than others his age. He was often seen playing harmonica or
building a rudimentary string instrument on the sides of wooden homes rather than
working like his peers. Education never seemed to be a priority and home was not
isolated to one particular place. Robert traveled with his mother around the Southern
region, forcibly removed from Mississippi after Charles Dodds was run out of town and
took on the last name of Spencer after moving to Memphis. This was on account of a
feud with prominent community figures in Hazelhurst, and Dodds’s other children were
brought one by one to their father over the course of a few years once things died down.
Robert was still excluded from this mix, and took on an identity of his own. According to
author and historian Peter Guralnick, “Robert is said to have taken on the name Johnson
as a teenager, when he learned who his real father was, but he didn’t get along with his
stepfather in any case.”3 Thus begins Robert’s personal journey in the blues.
If there was any person who understood what the blues meant, it most certainly
was Johnson. Despite being ostracized from his family, neglecting steady employment,
and growing fond of music in a locale filled with influence, Robert fell in love and
married early on in life. He wed his sixteen year old wife in 1930, after moving to
Robinsonville where his mother and new stepfather, Dusty Willis, now resided. By many
accounts, Robert was truly in love and desired to have a family of his own but this was
tragically cut short. His wife died soon in childbirth, leaving Robert deeply saddened and
2
Wald,Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. (New
York: HarperCollins, 2004), 88-90.
3
Guralnick, Peter. Searching For Robert Johnson. (New York: Penguin Group, 1989), 12.
59
�bitter. Alone with nothing to turn to, he wholly embraced the blues and attempted to
master the guitar which he had taken an affinity toward. It is at this point in Robert’s
legacy that things grew exceedingly hazy.
Though he would marry again, Johnson began exhibiting traits that were
increasingly suspicious. Besides the gossip of denouncing God and further family
troubles, Robert disappeared for a short time and most likely honed his musical skills far
in the Delta. Fellow musicians Johnny Shines and Son House were living in the area at
the same time, and remember seeing him perform on guitar prior to the aforementioned
exile. They often mocked and thought little of his skill, which was confirmed by House to
be rather poor. Hence, it is during this mysterious period that the mystical transformation
from novice to master happened overnight. Elijah Wald mentions that “House recalled
that Johnson was only away for about six months”4 before he came back and blew
audiences away with an unparalleled skill that was scarily impressive. Guralnick also
makes note of this scenario, writing about the spread of the crossroads story and a Satanic
deal rumored to be the root of another Delta musician's prominence as well – Tommy
Johnson. Though unrelated (except coincidentally in name), Tommy’s story echoed
Robert’s closely, and stirred controversy in the community of musicians that included
mentor Son House and friend Johnny Shines. Guralnick states, “Many stories have been
advanced to account for such sudden proficiency in the blues…Tommy, who like Robert
went off from home scarcely able to play the guitar, came back an accomplished
musician.”5
Proclaiming to the Delta he had sold his soul to the devil, Tommy Johnson
indirectly laid the groundwork for Robert to capitalize on the myth and reap its rewards
with abundant talent to back such a claim. Who can blame him? Due to the horrendous
economic and social conditions imposed upon African Americans, Johnson eventually
outsmarted his oppressors and fellow victims alike with a tall tale for the ages. This is
crucial in understanding why the crossroads legend is more than superstition and remains
a significant example of historical circumstance. It completely ushered in Johnson’s call
to fame, while single-handedly affirming the musician a spot in urban folklore for
generations to come – all supported by the foundations of Robert’s uncanny genius.
According to Guralnick, “That was the beginning…of Robert’s travels and his life as a
4
Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. (New
York: HarperCollins, 2004), 110.
5
Guralnick, Peter. Searching For Robert Johnson. (New York: Penguin Group, 1989),
17-18.
60
�professional musician…Johnson had the entertainer’s gift of establishing an almost
instant rapport with his audience as well as with his peers.”6
It was also this enigmatic persona that eventually led to Johnson’s untimely
downfall. Living and dying the blues, Robert achieved fame in conjunction with
exploiting his musical ability for guilty pleasures of all sorts. This behavior was common
for bluesmen. Evangelical preachers and followers of radical religious sects linked the
genre to sin, as it was a means of exorcising inner demons through raw emotional
expression. Sexually charged dancing, drinking, and other vices were seen as hand in
hand with the music. Therefore, it was not unusual for these artists to lead troubled lives
filled with turmoil and questionable activity.
Lyrics reflected this sentiment as well, and Robert is no exception. Many of his
songs retain allusions to unabashed sexuality and flirtations with the devil that
continually affirmed his crossroads pact. Historian Marybeth Hamilton particularly
discusses these instances in her essay “Sexuality, Authenticity and the Making of the
Blues Tradition”, commenting on Johnson’s mysterious track, “Stones In My Passway.”
She writes, “The images of impotence strewn through the song – the passway as the
body, the stones as sexual collapse – work subtly and insistently to evoke a more
amorphous horror…”7 Considering Robert’s lifestyle, the thematic elements within the
piece are not surprising. However, they do offer an insight into Johnson’s ego and desire
for intimacy that was often temporary in the life of a traveling blues musician. With the
death of his young wife in mind, one can only feel sympathy toward his plight as
expressed through the music.
Robert left his mark on history by stepping into the recording studio. In 1936,
Johnson was discovered by those seeking talent from regional artists. He was brought to
Texas to record and soon released his first single, “Terraplane Blues” on a double-sided
LP (with “Kind-Hearted Woman Blues” on the other half). It was a hit back home and
sold 5,000 copies. In 1937, he was brought back to Texas for a final recording session
with the Vocalion label. It is from these sessions that Johnson reveals most about himself,
but not without a price. The “rambling” that Robert was so accustomed to finally
overwhelmed the talented young man. Before the recordings were released, Johnson was
killed on August 16, 1938. He was poisoned by a jealous husband through a spiked
6
Guralnick, Peter. Searching For Robert Johnson. (New York: Penguin Group, 1989),
18-19.
7
Hamilton, Marybeth. "Sexuality, Authenticity and the Making of the Blues Tradition."
Past and Present November, no. 169 (2000): 135-136.
61
�alcoholic beverage. Robert’s affinity for womanizing, drinking, and the fast lifestyle
finally took its toll.
Sadly and ironically, he was sought out for more record deals and even a chance
to play Carnegie Hall with other blues artists after his passing. Such high praises didn’t
end there – Johnson would continue to be hailed as the greatest Delta musician that lived,
outshining his elders Son House and Charlie Patton. Rock and roll acts from the 1960’s
forward would cite his music as their most lasting inspirations, with guitar greats Eric
Clapton and Jimmy Page introducing his raw, desperate sound to a new generation of
fans. On the academic front, scholars continue to piece together the fragments of his life
to get a final portrait no one is still able to seize. Are these all on account of the infamous
crossroads?
Apparently, some bizarre occurrences have coincided with Johnson’s “deal.”
These seem to coincide strictly with blues-inspired musicians and those within close
proximity to the supposed scene of the crime. Bessie Smith, the famous blues performer,
was killed right around Clarksdale, Mississippi on Highway 61 – supposedly in close
proximity to Robert’s site. Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers
Band, who are enamored with Johnson, have also experienced horrible situations in their
life. Even actor Morgan Freeman was in a severe car accident this summer on Highway
61 near Clarksdale (he happens to own a blues club as well). The legend has also
inspired great art. Bob Dylan acknowledges and fears the story, going as far as to name
one of his most famous albums after it (Highway 61 Revisited).
Most likely, Johnson’s story was crafted by the man himself for notoriety and
gossip in a tumultuous era for African-Americans. Performers always have publicity
stunts, and Robert certainly wasn’t an exception. He would have been hard pressed to
make something of himself in such difficult circumstances without a haunting or
enigmatic tale. He was also always musically gifted, and it is largely believed that an
unrecorded blues guitarist in the Delta region tutored him in masterful fretwork after the
death of his wife. Either way, it is important to remember that the legend should be
respected and treated as a testimony to Johnson’s amazing gift. You can either believe the
legend or not, but it remains an essential facet to American musical history and should
not be taken lightly.
62
�Works Cited
Bennighof, James. “Some Ramblings on Robert Johnson’s Mind: Critical Analysis and
Aesthetic Value in Delta Blues”, American Music 15, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 137-158.
Guralnick, Peter. Searching For Robert Johnson. New York: Penguin Group, 1989.
Hamilton, Marybeth. “Sexuality, Authenticity and the Making of the Blues Tradition”,
Past and Present November, no. 169 (2000): 132-160.
Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. New
York: HarperCollins, 2004.
63
�A Power and Masculinity Perspective on Domestic Violence
Mary Beth Somich (Psychology and Sociology)1
Domestic violence within intimate relationships has long been a significant
issue affecting the lives of millions of women. As men are the primary perpetrators of
domestic violence and abuse, the key to understanding why they commit such violent acts
is essential. In accordance with the feminist interpretation of domestic violence, there is
significant evidence to conclude that male perpetrated violence within intimate
relationships, heterosexual or homosexual, is a socially constructed phenomenon.
Additional explanations focused on alcoholism, learned social behavior, etc, have been
explored, yet, time and time again, socially constructed notions of power, control and
masculinity dominate research. The ways in which males are socialized in modern day
life are within the framework of hegemonic masculinity, which stresses that males must
be strong and in control. It also enforces the idea that men should be the sole
breadwinners in the family. Possessing control over one’s environment, one’s self, and
one’s intimate partner is a way of demonstrating masculinity for most men in
contemporary society (Umberson & Anderson & Williams & Chen, 2003, p. 236). When
the control is lost, men tend to utilize violence to regain it, and thus, regain their
masculinity. Thus, “men who are domestically violent are those who most dramatically
demonstrate cultural images of masculinity” (Umberson et al, 2003, p. 235). This in
mind, one may conclude that the reasons why men are the primary perpetrators of
domestic violence within intimate partnerships, heterosexual or homosexual, are largely
related to socially constructed notions of power and masculinity.
There are numerous definitions of domestic violence, yet, the most suitable and
all-encompassing is “any behavior that is intended to control and subjugate another
human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults...the
systematic persecution of one partner by another” (Berry, 2000, p.1). Annually, six
million women in the United States alone, are on the receiving end of such violence
(Johnson, 1995, p. 283). This is not to say that this statistic has not risen in the almost
fifteen years since it was originally noted. Many of these six million women are not just
dealing with any form of domestic abuse, but a specific form, patriarchal terrorism.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley (Sociology) for the Freshman Learning
Community: Making Privilege Visible: Seeing Power in Race, Class and Gender.
64
�Patriarchal terrorism is “a product of patriarchal traditions of men’s right to control
“their” women...” (Johnson, 1995, p. 284). No other kind of abuse shows the emphasis of
control, power, and masculinity as precisely as patriarchal terrorism. Perpetrators of
patriarchal terrorism may be greatly influenced by societal institutions such as church or
the military, that reflect gendered, patriarchal values (Haugen & Glassman &Szumski &
Cothran, 2005, p.69). Keeping a woman in her place is the unfortunate focus of a
patriarchal terrorist.
Historical notions of gender tell males that being a man means holding the
power in the relationship. For super-hegemonic males, being considered masculine often
entails control over women even if violence becomes “necessary” to maintain that control
(Umberson & Anderson & Gluck & Shapiro, 1998, p. 445). This speaks volumes about
male gender expectations. Although violence is generally seen as unacceptable in our
culture, men who cherish values of Western society see it as a means to enforce those
values, including male dominance, aggressiveness, and female subordination (Dobash
and Dobash, as cited in Dutton, 2006, p. 96). Men know that violence is wrong, but when
their masculinity is jeopardized, society has taught them that it is acceptable to carry out
violence in order to maintain it. What kind of messages does this send about Western
culture? When culture has fueled the thought that males can carry out terrible acts against
their wives, girlfriends, or partners in order to maintain their superiority, there are serious
gender inequality issues stemming from power and control.
Everyone, regardless of sex, feels the need to have some form of personal
control. Yet, for men, this personal control is directly related to their masculinity.
Personal control is defined as “the belief that one’s own intentions and behaviors can
impose control over one’s environment” (Umberson & Anderson & Gluck & Shapiro,
1998, p. 442). Traditionally, hegemonic males are expected to hide their emotions.
Personal control involves monitoring emotions and holding them inside. When personal
control is lost, often times, instead of crying like a “weak” man would, a male may be
violent and physical, because this way, he can express himself without jeopardizing his
masculinity (Umberson & Anderson & Williams & Chen, 2003, p. 234). At certain times,
violence is more likely to occur than others because of this feeling of lost control. When a
woman threatens to separate or divorce her boyfriend or spouse, the potentially affected
male feels a stronger sense of threat and is more likely to commit domestically violent
acts (Umberson & Anderson & Gluck & Shapiro, 1998, p. 444). To a male perpetrator, a
woman is seen as inferior, and the fact that this inferior person may have the power to
leave, signals to the male that he is losing power, and thus, must reinstate it.
65
�A man’s occupation or lack thereof also affects his perception of his
masculinity. Our culture has enforced the idea that men should be out in the workforce
and women should stay at home and tend to the children and housework. Television
shows such as Leave it to Beaver, and The Brady Bunch reinforce this concept. If those
are outdated, there is also Seventh Heaven or The Simpsons. Studies have shown that
when men do not live up to the ideal as sole “breadwinner” in the family, violence is
more likely to occur because they feel as if their traditionally masculine roles are not
being upheld (Melzer, 2002, p. 281). Such feelings of insecurity worsen when a man is
not employed at all.
Statistics show that men who are unemployed against their will “are 50% more
likely to be violent against female partners” (Melzer, 2002, p.830). Fifty percent is a very
large statistic, signifying how strongly men feel about employment as a component of
masculinity. MacMillan & Gartner (1999), found that “the effect of a woman’s
employment on her risk of spousal violence is conditioned by the employment status of
her partner” (p. 947). This means that a man may not be threatened by his wife’s
employment if he holds a much higher and more profitable position than she. Yet, if she
begins to rise above him in means of wages, he then begins to have a problem with her
employment status. Women who make 67% or more of the income in a heterosexual
relationship face a 93% increase in their chances of experiencing domestic violence
(Melzer, 2002, p. 828). This is an astonishing statistic with regards to males feeling the
need to be foremost contributers to the partnership’s income. Wouldn’t it be accurate to
think that a woman’s employment would help and not harm a male partner’s emotional
and mental state? Surely, it would take some stress off from him. It is amazing to find
that men do not want all of that stress relieved, and if they feel that their wives are
becoming too financially independent, they are threatened instead of exonerated
(MacMillan & Gartner, 1999, p. 947). This phenomenon shows that our culture has a
perception of masculinity that tells men they need to be the sole breadwinners, and that
woman should be dependent upon them.
The type of work men do can also lead them to be more violent as compared to
others. Physically violent occupations such as the military, police force, etc., teach men
that violence is an appropriate way to solve conflict, therefore, the men sometimes bring
this mindset back and utilize it in their homes the way they do in the workplace (Melzer,
2002, p. 822). Their social environments teach them that violence is an acceptable way to
sort out disagreement, and they see no distinction between the workplace and the home,
where mediated problem-solving would work best instead of violence. Physically violent
occupations are not the only ones that are male-dominated. Observing other male-
66
�dominated fields is also educational with respect to domestic violence rates. Managerial
positions have long been male-dominated, and continue to be. Yet, men who hold
managerial positions are 43% less likely than men in physically violent occupations to
use violence against their intimate partner (Melzer, 2002, p. 827). Surely, this is because
their ways of solving conflict are more likely to be talked through and discussed rather
than handled physically.
It not solely male-dominated occupations that show high levels of violence, but
on the contrary, men in female-dominated occupations follow closely behind (Melzer,
2002, p. 823). Being employed as a nurse, teacher, secretary, etc., means being immersed
into a female-dominated arena. Men who serve in such occupations are seen as not being
traditionally masculine, and may be looked at differently for their career choice. Not only
is their masculinity questioned outside the workplace, but possibly, within it as well
(Melzer, 2002, p. 830). It is not unlikely to assume that the majority of a man’s fellow
colleagues in a female-dominated occupation are women, and that he is immersed into a
feminine culture within the workplace. After a long day at work, a man working in a
female-dominated occupation may feel the need to affirm his masculinity in the home,
because he lacks the opportunity to do so at work (Melzer, 2002, p. 823). This testimony
of manhood is likely to be in the form of intimate partner violence. Asserting control and
power over another is a key component of masculinity that a man in such a position may
enact upon in order to prove that his masculine identity should not be questioned despite
his traditionally feminine career choice.
Notions of power, control, and masculinity are not solely applicable to
heterosexual relationships. Gay men are raised in the same culture as straight men, and
thus, receive the same messages about masculinity. Although they are often more
feminine than straight men, they too are acutely aware of ways in which masculinity is
commonly expressed, one of which is violence. Therefore, it is not surprising that
intimate gay relationships and intimate heterosexual relationships are not so dissimilar
when it comes to domestic violence. One would think that a gay partnership would be
more egalitarian and therefore, decrease chances of domestic violence because both
members of the relationship are male. Yet, this is untrue. As of 1998, approximately
350,000-650,000 homosexual men in the United States were affected by domestic
violence perpetrated by their partners (Cruz & Firestone, 1998, p. 159). This statistic goes
to show that men in gay partnerships are undoubtedly affected by domestic violence.
Traditionally, the straight, hegemonic male keeps his distance from anything that may
associate him with seeming feminine. Yet, gay males rarely keep this distance and
embrace femininity. Due to socially constructed notions of masculinity and a struggle to
67
�be comfortable with their sexuality in a society that is not always supportive, they have
conflicting ideas about what it means to be a homosexual male. Cruz and Firestone
(1998), argue that a gay males internalized homophobia and insecurity about their
rejection from society may be what leads them to take out their frustrations on their
partner (p. 161). It is not solely heterosexual men that feel the need to establish power
and control within their intimate relationships, but gay men as well. When gay men who
were victims of domestic violence by their partners were interviewed and asked how they
would define domestic violence or abuse, all responses mentioned the perpetrator’s need
to feel a sense of control over them (Cruz & Firestone, 1998, p. 164). This is an example
of a parallel between heterosexual and homosexual violence. One of the men interviewed
quoted:
Men are conditioned to be the ones who are in charge of a relationship and the
ones who make all the calls. And so when you get two men in a relationship
together, they both expect that power and I think a lot of men don’t know any
other way to get that power except to hit whomever they’re with. Too much
testosterone! (Cruz & Firestone, 1998, p. 166).
His quote perfectly describes the dynamic within a gay relationship. It also gives readers
a look into how men lack knowledge about how to instate their power through any other
means besides physical violence, or hitting. Society has taught men that they can be the
one in control of the relationship, assuming the other partner is female. Yet, when the
other person is male, a serious conflict arises, which could be the cause for the drastically
high rates of domestic violence within the gay community.
Taking a thorough look into contemporary American culture and what it means
to be a man in society, gives insight into why men turn to violence when they feel as if
they lack power or control in an intimate relationship. Additional influences such as
occupation and sexuality also affect the probability of a male being violent because
society has deemed particular jobs and sexual practices masculine, and others
unacceptable for a “real man.” Because the link between violence, control and
masculinity is so immersed into culture, many men do not even realize what they are
doing is wrong. Lydia Martinez, a member of the New York City Police Department
spoke about male perpetrators of domestic violence she had dealt with in the past, stating
“They do have rigid, stereotypical thinking about men’s and women’s roles and feel it is
their male right. Often they are stunned when they are arrested” (McCue, 1995, p.108).
When a society has historically shown examples of “putting a woman in her place”
without punishment, it is not a far reaching thought to presume men may be confused
when punished. In the minds of the men Ms. Martinez was speaking of, they were just
68
�showing off their masculinity. Educating men about the consequences of perpetrating an
act of domestic violence is only a small step in the right direction. We must focus on
embracing sexuality and women’s emergence into the workplace. It is not until culture
moves toward gender equality and open-mindedness that there will be a significant
change in violent actions committed by men toward their intimate partners.
Works Cited
Berry, B.B. (2000). The Domestic Violence Sourcebook. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Cruz, J. and Firestone, J. (1998). “Exploring Violence and Abuse in Gay Male
Relationships”, Violence and Victims, 13(2), 159-173.
Dutton, D. G. (2006). Rethinking Domestic Violence. Vancouver, BC: UBS Press.
Haugen, D., Glassman, B., Szumski, B., & Cothran, H. (2005). Domestic Violence:
Opposing Viewpoints. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Johnson, M. (1995). “Patriarchal Terrorism and Common Couple Violence: Two Forms
of Violence Against Women”, Journal of Marriage & the Family, 57(2), 283-294.
MacMillan, R. and Gartner, R. “When She Brings Home the Bacon: Labor-Force
Participation and the Risk of Spousal Violence Against Women”, Journal of Marriage
and Family, 61(4), 947-958.
McCue, M. L. (1995). Domestic Violence. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Melzer, S. (2002). “Gender, Work, and Intimate Violence: Men's Occupational Violence
Spillover and Compensatory Violence”, Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 820832.
Umberson, D., Anderson, K., Glick, J., & Shapiro, A. (1998). “Domestic Violence,
Personal Control, and Gender”, Journal of Marriage and Family, 60 (2), 442-452.
Umberson, D., Anderson, K., Williams, K., & Chen, M. (2003). “Relationship Dynamics,
Emotion State, and Domestic Violence: A Stress and Masculinities Perspective”, Journal
of Marriage and Family, 65(1), 233-247.
69
�The Instability of Language: A Clockwork Orange
Jessica Verderosa (English)1
Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange can be insightfully inspected
through deconstruction criticism. The nightmarish story of a teenage criminal who
undergoes torture by the government in order to be “redeemed,” the book contains many
deconstructive elements to be deciphered. Divided into three parts, it settles heavily on
the idea of performativity: each section opens up with the very same line; the reader
comes to expect the events that followed the initial time it was spoken, but is shocked by
how context changes its meaning. The very definitions of evil and good are also explored
throughout the text, breaking down the idea of binary opposites, or polar opposites, and
proving that there can even been traces of wickedness found in the righteous.
The central focus of deconstructive criticism is that language is truly a fluid,
unstable, and ambiguous entity, rather than the steady, consistent, reliable tool human
beings often assume it to be. Without even being consciously aware, people have based
their lives on the existence of language, interpreting the world around them through
words and sentences and phrases. This reliance has become so embedded into the human
psyche that language has erroneously been labeled a dependable force. “Because we are
so used to the everyday patterns and rituals in which language seems to work the way we
want it to,” Tyson asserts, “we assume that it is by nature a stable and reliable means of
communicating our thoughts, feelings, and wishes.” (250) One has grown so accustomed
to his or her personal manipulation of language, that he or she has come to believe that
language always means whatever one thinks it does.
The deconstruction theory, however, serves to unravel these mistaken beliefs. Its
foundation lays on the notion that language is forever indistinct and evolving, its meaning
changing due to context or different perspective. A main object of deconstruction is the
idea of performativity—that the same sentence can have a very separate interpretation
depending on what situation the phrase is taking place in. Oftentimes, the connotations
behind language are associated with the environment in which the words are being said,
the personal history of the speaker, and the personal perceptions of the listener.
Deconstruction fortifies this notion that language’s meaning is malleable due to various
contexts in its description of the chain of signifiers.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Christopher Hogarth (English) for EN212: Intro to
Literary Analysis and Theory.
70
�The chain of signifiers can be linked back to the structuralist belief that
communication is broken into two categories: the signifier, or the sound, image, gesture,
or word, and the signified, or the “concept to which the signifier refers.” (Tyson 251)
Basically, the signifier is the symbol that a person uses to communicate something, and
the signified is the literal thing that is being communicated. Jacques Derrida, the
originator of deconstruction theory, however, disagrees with structuralist criticism’s neat
and simple theory. “According to Derrida,” Dyndahl describes in his article, Music
Education in the Sign of Deconstruction “the status of linguistic sign is decentered, that
is, it is separated from any stable meaning. A state in which all signs continuously change
meaning in relation to other signs which are also in a state of motion suggests, then, that
signs determine what can be thought and not the other way around.” (127) Derrida claims
that while communication does include a signifier, there is no true existence of a solid
and permanent signified. Since every person’s perception of something is slightly
different, every individual will associate a given signifier with different experiences and
memories. Instead of an exact and universal signified, personal belief and remembrance
will create a chain of one signifier setting off another signifier, or whatever word, sound,
image, or gesture we have come to associate with whatever thing is in question. (Tyson
252) Therefore, a concept is truly nothing more than “all the chains of signifiers we have
come to associate [with a something] over the course of our lives.” In this way, language
cannot be viewed as a stable and stationary body, but something that fluctuates from
person to person. Dyndahl accurately explains, “All language is metaphorical, including
that which we perceive as direct, literal, or neutral, as it all comprises conventional or
dead metaphors.” (129) Language can never refer to actual entities in the world because it
is based entirely on one’s perceptions, and one’s perception is constantly changing due to
different experiences.
This idea of performativity, or sentences that change due to shifting situations,
can be clearly shown in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. An account of a
horrific teenage criminal, Alex, and the state’s shocking efforts to “make him good,” the
very opening of the novel is a line that is repeated throughout the story: “What’s it going
to be then, eh?” (3) Upon the beginning of this book, the reader knows absolutely nothing
of the characters or the context of this statement. The mind is a blank slate, but
immediately begins to absorb thoughts and signifiers as one learns the whereabouts of the
situation. One immediately discovers that the speaker is the protagonist Alex, and that he
is proposing what he and his friends should do for the night. The reader is then forced to
endure Alex’s brutal descriptions of what they do for entertainment. They harass an old
man by forcefully grabbing and tearing at his library books, then commencing to
71
�savagely beat him. Even more horrendous than this, Alex reveals to the reader how they
then don masks and trick a women into opening her door to them; they enter only to
destroy the work of a writer living there, violently assault him, and have Alex brutally
rape his wife before his very eyes. The scenes are described in disconcerting “nasdat” or
teenage slang, yet at the same time are absolutely vivid in their terror—the reader is
automatically left with an extreme amount of revulsion, disgust, and dread linked to this
initial inquiry.
Yet upon the beginning of Part Two of the novel, the very same question is
again brought up: “What’s it going to be then, eh?” (85) Immediately, the mind of the
reader associates this line with the events that happened the last time it was spoken: stark,
repulsive scenes of attack, theft, and rape. One acts due to his or her chain of signifiers,
connecting the signifier that is this statement with the events that unfurled in the last
section of the book, cringing and awaiting the horror. But as the scene continues, the
reader soon discovers that the sentence has a completely different meaning and
connotation, as it is in an entirely new context. Rather than adolescent teenagers
discussing violence and plunder, the speaker is now an aged priest, asking an imprisoned
Alex and other criminals alike what sort of moral decisions they will make in life. “I was
in the Wing Chapel,” Alex informs the reader, “it being Sunday morning, and the prison
Charlie was govoreeting the Word of the Lord.” (87) While the reader has associated that
inquiry with crime, and looked on it in dread, the new situation completely changes its
meaning—from something of horror, to the pious message of a priest attempting to
preach reform.
Finally, the same line is again asserted at the conclusion of the novel, in a
manner that is very similar to its opening: “What’s its going to be then, eh?” an older
Alex announces to his “three droogs, that is Len, Rick, and Bully.” (200) Again, the
reader finds Alex with a group of carousing youths; again, the reader winces in the
expected impact of terrible and violating spectacles. The chain of signifiers has already
tied this scene to the previous similar one, making one associate the inquiry with the
nastiness and violence of the opening chapter. But once more, performativity and context
changes everything: when the reader delves deeper into the text, he or she discovers that
Alex has now grown worn and exhausted of his rambunctious days of crime. Although
the entire environment seems the same, Alex eradicates former connotations by stating
despondently, “but what was the matter with me these days was that I didn’t like care
much. It was like something soft getting into me and I could not pony why. What I
wanted these days I did not know.” (206) Alex has become tired and bored with the
horrors he commits; he is apathetic and hopeless. Instead of crime, Alex ends up
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�wandering down nighttime streets and coming to the conclusion that he is now too old for
the bloody behavior of yesterday. Shockingly enough, he decides that he must find a wife
and start a family, as he is no longer a child. His prior violence is something only the
youth can find entertainment in. The starting line of the chapter is transformed from what
he should do with his evening to what he should do with his life. Once more, language is
changeable and does not give one the correct interpretation: due to performativity and
chain of signifiers, one expects the violence of prior chapters, only to realize that the
situation is now completely different.
Another important notion of deconstruction is the idea of binary oppositions.
Again taken from the framework of structuralist criticism, binary oppositions explains
how people “tend to conceptualize experience in terms of polar opposites.” (Tyson 254)
Human beings comprehend and understand something only by contrasting it to something
else; one realizes that the color red is in fact red because it is separate from blue or green.
(253) Much like the idea of the signifier and the signified, however, Derrida again
expands on the structuralist notion. In deconstruction, binary oppositions are said to
create a sort of hierarchy in language, programmed by ideologies: one of the binary
opposites is privileged over its polar opposite. Deconstruction then seeks to break down
these apparent differences by proving that the two binary opposites are in fact more
similar than ideologically believed. In his article, Dyndahl explains how “instead of
accepting a hierarchical logic, which systematically favors one attribute over the other,
Derrida offers the possibility that what appears like binary oppositions should be
regarded as arbitrary relations between components in a sociocultural system.” (128) The
ideologies of human society have been embedded in the language people base their
existence on, therefore come to almost instinctively accept binary opposites—but
deconstruction proves how two notions perceived as opposites actually have traces of one
another inside of them.
Faulty binary opposites are vividly exemplified in A Clockwork Orange. The
most intense example throughout the entire novel would be the notions of evil and good.
Burgess literally centers his work on defining these two concepts, delving deep into
forbidden realms, thoroughly questioning and dissecting every aspect of each. On the
surface level, Alex can clearly be seen as the representation of evil; he carries all the
attributes, or characteristics, of one who is entirely and repulsively wicked. He is a rapist,
a thief, a drug-user; he finds intense satisfaction in violence and terrorizing others; he is
obsessed with cruelty and power. In everyway, Alex is definitely the villain. If Alex is the
victimizer, then, the structuralist’s idea of binary opposites would label his victims as
representations of good. Victims such as the old man Alex assaulted, and especially the
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�writer whose home he wrecked and wife he violated, are viewed in utmost sympathy. But
deconstruction stresses that these two opposites are not really as separate as they
appear—namely, there can be traces of evil found in good, shattering this notion of
perfect binary opposites. While Alex is a definite perpetrator of violence, the divisions
between good and evil blur when the victims begin acting similarly to the victimizer.
When Alex is freed from prison, drugged so that he either does good or feels agony, he is
recognized by the old man mugged and savagely beaten by the elderly. Here, the victims
exhibit behavior and mentality akin to Alex’s own: “They were creeching vesches like:
‘Kill him, stamp on him, murder him, kick his teeth in,’ and all that cal.” (Burgess 163)
The companions of the old man beaten are now responding to Alex in a way akin to his
own actions; they are bent on only violence, concerned and enraptured only by inflicting
harm and damage.
Even more so, however, the indistinct nature between good and evil can be seen
in the writer Alex has wronged. Burgess makes a direct point to name the writer F.
Alexander, drawing noticeable parallels and proximity between the protagonist Alex and
him. Alex even makes a point to say, “Good Bog, I thought, he is another Alex.” (178)
Alexander is the ultimate victim here; having witnessed a disgusting attack dealt to his
wife, following her death; in addition to being beaten and having his work completely
trashed. Yet, when he unknowingly reunites with Alex, and starts to suspect his identity,
he automatically mimics the same violence thought to be the opposite of him. “For, by
Christ, if he were [here] I’d tear him,” he growls loathsomely at the thought of his
victimizer, “I’d split him, by God, yes, yes, so I would.” (184) Revenge-crazed, F.
Alexander actually locks Alex in the room he was sleeping in and blares classical music
that makes Alex insufferably ill, driving the boy to actually attempt suicide to escape
such agony. Just as Alex was the cause of his wife’s death, F. Alexander longs to be the
cause of Alex’s death; the division between evil and good is utterly broken, swimming in
pools of gray. In addition, these distinctions are also challenged by the motives of F.
Alexander and his group of companions bent on uprooting a government they find
totalitarian. Just as Alex dehumanized his victims by terrorizing and assaulting them, F.
Alexander and friends dehumanize Alex by using him as a tool; they view him merely as
a marker of oppressive government due to the procedures the State has inflicted upon him
in order to “redeem” him. The group as a whole also wishes for Alex’s suicide, knowing
they could use his death as a symbol of what government has done. Their selfish behavior
also dissolves binary opposites—they cannot be entirely good, there are shades of bad
within them. Deconstruction of Clockwork Orange has served to destroy any true
opposition between evil and good.
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�Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is a horrific though philosophical novel that can
be approached through a deconstructive viewpoint. The notion of peformativity, or that
the same words can change drastically depending on context, is very apparent in the text,
with the same opening line speaking at the beginning of each part of the book. It also
upholds the deconstructive idea that all binary opposites, or polar opposites, are faulty by
nature by breaking down the apparent barriers dividing evil and good. There is no such
thing as two complete separate entities; if analyzed close enough, traces of similarities
can be found in the unlikeliest of things. A Clockwork Orange is a vast and complex
piece of literature that can yield insightful results when studied through a certain lens;
revealing stunning ideas about language and the nature of evil and good.
Works Cited
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
1962.
Dyndahl, Petter. “Music Education in the Sign of Deconstruction”, Philosophy of Music
Education Review 16.2 (2008): 124-144.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Guide. New York: Routledge,
2006.
75
�Speak Up, Women! Paul Would Encourage It!
Sarah Nehm (English)1
The apostle Paul, a major contributor to the content of the New Testament, has
unfairly earned a reputation for being a patriarchal church leader who believed women
should be subordinate to men within marriage partnerships and public worship. Over time
Paul has been remembered both as an adversary of women’s leadership in the church and
contradictorily celebrated as a major proponent of women and their ministries. This
difference in opinion concerning Paul is not the reader’s fault. Paul’s name has been
attributed to thirteen letters in the New Testament and these letters simply offer
conflicting views. One letter describes a woman who has earned the respected title of
“Apostle” (Romans 16:7), but another letter urges all women to “keep silent” (Timothy
2:12). However, of the thirteen letters claiming Paul’s authorship, biblical scholars agree
that only seven of these letters are indisputably from Paul’s hand. Even within these
undisputed Pauline letters there is the problem of interpolation, verses or names added
later, which reflect the views of a patriarchal society and not the views of Paul. When
only taking into account the undisputed letters of Paul, his views reflect attitudes of
gender equality as well as a positive opinion of women’s participation in church
leadership. These views are presented through passages that discuss the roles of women
in general terms and passages that praise specific women.
Of the thirteen possible Pauline letters, biblical scholars agree that Romans, 1
and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon were each
written by Paul (Ehrman 93). This leaves Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2
Timothy and Titus as works that claim Paul’s authorship but are not necessarily his works
(Ehrman 94, MacHaffie 18). The disputed texts are believed to have an author, or
multiple authors, other than Paul for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the text of
one letter states that such forgeries existed (Ehrman 93). 2 Thessalonians warns readers
of a letter that is circulating with Paul’s name but not written by him. Even though 2
Thessalonians is one of the letters that is no longer considered written by Paul, this
statement illustrates the existence of counterfeit letters either way; “Either 2
Thessalonians is from Paul’s own hand and he knows of a forgery that is floating around
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Joseph Smith (Religion) for the honors course
RE224: Mary Magdalene and Judas.
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�in his name, or 2 Thessalonians is not from Paul’s hand and is itself a forgery” (Ehrman
93). Both ways reveal that forgeries in Paul’s name existed. Feminist scholar MacHaffie
states that to reevaluate scripture, “A careful textual study must be made using all the
available tools of biblical scholarship” (6). Today there are tools available to scholars that
just were not available hundreds of years ago, such as “methods of literary analysis,
indexes of vocabulary and grammatical stylistic preferences, data retrieval systems, and
so on” (Ehrman 93). These tools reveal that Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1
and 2 Timothy and Titus all differ from the undisputed texts in some way by either
writing style and vocabulary, theological points of view represented, or the historical
situation behind the writing; one letter even mentions events that occur after Paul’s death
(Ehrman 93-94). The disputed letters “appear to have been written by later Christians
who were taking Paul’s name in order to propagate their own views” (Ehrman 94).
One passage from an undisputed Pauline letter that seems to proclaim a message
of equality is found in Galatians. The text states “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is
no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Klyne Snodgrass states that this passage is “the most socially
explosive statement in the New Testament” (Hailey 131). Historically, “The Jewish male
of Paul’s day was expected to thank God daily that he was not a Gentile, a slave or a
woman” (MacHaffie 18). Therefore, this verse demonstrates Paul possessed a view that
was radically different than Jewish tradition and his contemporaries’ opinions. However,
the exact meaning of this verse is still unclear. While some quote Galatians 3:28 to
promote women’s leadership in churches, others claim this passage only advocates “that
access to God is open to all through faith in Christ” (Hailey 132). In other words, they
claim, the passage describes the openness of membership in the body of Christ, not
leadership within that body (Hailey 133). While it is clear with this passage that
Christianity has broken down long-standing binaries of the past and now promotes some
sort of equality in either this world or the next life, it does not describe when, where or
how this new equality works.
Another surprising statement of equality is found in 1 Corinthians 7, which
contains Paul’s longest discourse on marriage. As feminist scholar MacHaffie points out,
“There are six passages in 1 Corinthians 7 (vv. 3-4, 10-11, 12-13, 14, 16, 32-33) that
suggest reciprocal or equal responsibilities in the relationship” (19). The most striking of
these passages in terms of equality is 1 Corinthians 7:4, “For the wife does not have
authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have
authority over his own body, but the wife does.” This passage grants reciprocal authority
between husband and wife, not just the complete submission of wife to husband.
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�Throughout Paul’s discourse on marriage, women seem to be equal partners to their male
counterparts; “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the
wife to her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7: 3). Paul even asserts that marriages between
Christian and non-Christian may have positive spiritual consequences, and the
unbelieving spouse may become Christian by influence of the believing spouse; “For the
unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made
holy through her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14). This would show a wife’s ability to
convey the gospel message to her husband, whether through words or actions, a view that
would probably be contested by 1 Timothy, a disputed letter, that claims a woman can
have no spiritual authority over man (1 Timothy 2:11-12).
Paul’s longest discourse on celibacy, which also occurs in 1 Corinthians 7,
presents women with a new option that did not involve being a wife and mother. Paul
states, “to the unmarried and the widows I say it is well for them to remain unmarried as I
am” (1 Corinthians 7:8). This option would have been considered revolutionary. For the
first time, women could choose to remain single and not have children (MacHaffie 20).
There were strict social and religious traditions that compelled women to get married and
have children. At this time “authorities in the Roman Empire were articulating concerns
about the reluctance of some citizens to marry and the necessity to produce children for
the general stability of society and to fill army legions with soldiers” (MacDonald 212).
This concern actually affected Roman legislation; “Emperor Augustus and his successors
made marriage mandatory between 20 and 50 years of age” (MacDonald 212). The law
even affected people who had been previously married; “Divorcees and widows were
required to remarry after brief periods which ranged from six months to two years”
(MacDonald 212). Within this context, today’s readers can see how much more liberating
and more revolutionary Paul’s words were in his own time.
In 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 there is a discussion of women wearing head coverings
as they pray and prophesy. The wording in Greek is unclear and “scholars have debated
whether the issue at stake in Paul’s response to the Corinthian women prophets involves
veiling or hairstyles” (MacDonald 215). Either concerning veiling or hairstyles, Paul’s
words may have had more of a cultural than a spiritual foundation. There is a biblical
suggestion that “loosened hair could be perceived as a sign of adulteress (Num 5:18), and
the release of women’s hair might have been part of some foreign religious rituals that
Paul did not want to associate with the Corinthian community” (MacDonald 215). Both
of these statements demonstrate that the head coverings were a matter of perception.
Also, those outside of the church may have been unfairly judging the Christian church by
its interaction of men and women. In this society, where men and women had defined
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�separate spheres, “physical location and degree of visibility were central means of
defining virtue and vice. Illegitimate religious groups were accused of encouraging
immoral mingling of women and men” (MacDonald 216). The urging of women to wear
head coverings, or a certain hairstyle, may have been so the surrounding community did
not become suspicious of the religious group. This may have been the type of verse
feminist scholar MacHaffie was cautioning readers about when she stated, “the demands
of God must be distinguished from the demands of a particular culture” (MacHaffie 6).
These letters were written for a particular people at a particular time and give “us only a
preliminary hint at the new reality of the gospel” (MacHaffie 6). It is also interesting that
in 1 Cor 14.1, “prophecy is singled out as the most important spiritual gift. The New
Testament refers to specific women who were prophets” (MacDonald 215). Regardless of
Paul’s reasoning for why women should keep their heads covered in church gatherings,
the fact is that Paul “assumes that women will pray and prophesy” (Gilbert 43). He was
only urging that the women prophesy in a way that was tasteful during that time.
There are also issues of authorship with certain passages that occur within the
undisputed letters. One verse in 1 Corinthians, an undisputed letter of Paul, seems to have
a different writer. Author Bart Ehrman addresses this line when discussing the issue of
interpolation. 1 Corinthians 14: 24-36 states that women should be “silent in the
churches,” since they “are not permitted to speak.” Yet these lines seem terribly out of
place when read in context, for Paul’s letter to the Corinthians discusses prophets directly
before and after this random interjection (Ehrman 94). This passage also completely
contradicts 1 Corinthians 11, where women are told that they must pray and prophesy
with their heads covered. Why would Paul say that in one chapter women must speak
with their heads covered and then say three chapters later that women should not speak at
all? These controversial verses are also placed in different locations in other manuscripts
“as if they were originally a marginal note made by a scribe that was placed in different
spots by different scribes who later copied the manuscript” (Ehrman 94). Feminist
scholars remind us that “the Bible has been written, translated, and interpreted for
centuries by men in cultures that were patriarchal” (MacHaffie 5), so it is important to
find places of possible inconsistency and test their authenticity. After all, the biblical text
we read today has passed through the hands of many translators and scribes over the
course of hundreds of years, and while we would like to assume that the Bible is errorfree, the people who translated and transcribed it were not.
As one scholar points out, “Paul makes honorable mention, by name, of more
contemporary women than all the other New Testament writers together” (Gilbert 39).
Women were often mentioned by name in correspondence to house-churches; “in every
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�case where a house-church is mentioned in Paul’s letters, there is a woman in the house”
(Gilbert 43). These women were not just a part of the spread and maintenance of
Christianity, but were displaying also signs of wealth and leadership, by offering their
houses as meeting places and participating in worship. In Romans 16 alone Paul
references ten women, “Phoebe, Prisca, Mary, Junia, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, the
unnamed mother of Rufus, Julia, and the unnamed “sister” of Nereus (MacDonald 207).
Some of these women are a part of “missionary partnerships,” like “Prisca and Aquila
(Rom 16:3) and Nereus and his ‘sister’” (MacDonald 207). Yet for others, there is no
partner mentioned. While today’s reader may glance over these unfamiliar names,
“feminist scholars have paid particular attention to the names of women and what these
names suggest about leadership in early Christianity and Paul’s attitudes toward women
in leadership” (Epp x). Even though most of these women are mentioned very briefly,
scholars have attempted to reconstruct their identities based on the short passages of
scripture where they are mentioned, historical records and the writings of contemporaries.
Chloe is one woman of importance in 1 Corinthians that is only mentioned
briefly, yet scholars can use historical data to fill in some of the missing information, or
at least provide some possible answers. Chloe’s name appears in 1 Corinthians: “For it
has been reported by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and
sisters” (1 Corinthians 1:11). “Chloe’s people” is not very clear and its connotation
changes over the course of time. However, biblical scholars have looked at what this brief
reference might have meant in Paul’s time. Some believe the reference “may mean
members of Chloe’s immediate family, but most likely refers also to the members of the
kind of extended household that was typical of the ancient world,” including slaves,
freedpersons, and dependent workers (MacDonald 200). For MacDonald, “The fact that
the people who gave the report are identified in deference to Chloe (literally, the ones
who belong to Chloe) suggests that she was head of this household” (MacDonald 200).
Chloe may have been a wealthy widow, “Wealthy widows frequently exerted power over
their own affairs” (MacDonald 200). While there is no evidence in the text that Chloe
herself was Christian, early Christian literature suggests “well-to-do women were
attracted to the movement, and their entry into the group was prized by its leaders”
(MacDonald 200). When a wealthy woman entered the movement, it meant that there
was an opportunity for possible patronage and a new, blossoming church was always in
need of funding.
In 1 Corinthians another woman makes quite an impression. Prisca, also
translated as Priscilla, “must have been one of the most prominent figures in the Christian
circles at Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome” (Gilbert 40). She appears in the passage, “The
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�churches of Asia send greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their
house, greet you warmly in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 16:19). In the past, “Prisca and
Aquila have been judged to be a married couple,” yet they are only “explicitly defined
that way in Acts,” and “when evaluating the evidence in the undisputed letters, it is
important not to jump to conclusions of their partnership” (MacDonald 202). Paul states
in Romans 16:15 that it is the right of an apostle to be accompanied by “a sister as wife”
(MacDonald 202). This “sister as wife” suggested a male- female pairing, a kind of
couple that was “vital to the successful expansion of the mission” (MacDonald 202). A
man and a woman travelling together would have more opportunities to preach the gospel
than a man or a woman travelling alone. For the woman traveling, there were also
benefits considering protection and logistic advantages (MacDonald 203). Some even
state that male-female pairings were created to give the semblance of marriage “in a
world of male power and violence” (MacDonald 203). It is important to note that within
this pairing, “There is no indication whatsoever of the female partner having a different
or diminished role in relation to the male partner. Both Prisca and Aquila are called
Paul’s coworkers (synergos Rom 16:3)” (MacDonald 203). Also demonstrating the
importance of Prisca, Romans 16:3 lists Prisca’s name first which means she may have
been of higher status than Aquila or otherwise it would have been customary to list his
name first (MacDonald 204).
It is clear from the undisputed letters of Paul that worship teams, or couples, did
not always have to be male-female pairings, as in the case of Aquila and Prisca. Paul also
mentions a female-female ministry team, Euodia and Syntyche, in Philippians 4: 2-3; “I
urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you
also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the
work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my coworkers, whose names
are in the book of life.” While Paul is assumedly addressing a disagreement between
Euodia and Syntyche because he is urging them to be of the same mind, the disagreement
is not the most significant part of these two verses. One important aspect is that this
ministry pairing does not include a man, which proves that women do not have to be
married or otherwise coupled with a man to be involved actively in the work of the
church. Another critical aspect is the fact that Paul states that the women have “struggled
beside” him and are among his “coworkers.” Struggle is sometimes translated as labored.
Labor has its own connotations; it “suggests heroic striving, and this striving was ‘in the
Gospel,’ that is, in the service of the Gospel, for its advancement”(Gilbert 39). Expert in
the field, George Gilbert emphasizes the significance of this passage: “Eleven years later,
Euodia and Syntyche are still laboring in Philippi, and are so prominent in the church that
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�some disagreement between them is counted, by the apostle, worthy of mention in his
letter to the church” (Gilbert 40). This brief passage does not just address a disagreement,
but rather an important female ministry team well known in Philippi.
Another important woman, Apphia, appears in Philemon; “To Philemon our
dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to
the church in your house:” (Philemon v. 2). Unfortunately, simply because the placement
of Apphia’s name lists her directly after Philemon, “it has been traditionally assumed that
she is Philemon’s wife, but that is by no means certain” (MacDonald 206). It cannot be
assumed that Apphia is the wife of Philemon when “Apphia is one of three individuals
(Philemon, Apphia, and Archippus) singled out in a way that suggests that each was
prominent in the community” (MacDonald 206). In the passage we see that Apphia is
preceded by the title “sister.” Sister is not just a term of endearment or a term implying a
familial relationship; it is also textually presented as a respected title. One text states,
“This is a term that could be applied to a female member of a missionary partnership”
(MacDonald 206). It is often the term used when describing Phoebe, who is also
described as leader in the church at Cenchreae. In addition, “the masculine equivalent of
the term is a frequent designation for Paul’s very important missionary collaborator,
Timothy” (MacDonald 206). While, the term sister does not designate her specific roles
or responsibilities with the church, it does imply that Apphia had played an important
part in her faith community.
Paul also gives high praise to Phoebe, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a
deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as fitting for
the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a
benefactor of many and of myself as well.”(Romans 16: 1-2). Indisputably, Phoebe is
described as a “benefactor,” which means she provided necessary resources to church and
ministry initiatives. The controversy in this verse lies in the Greek word “diakonos” that
has been translated to English as “deacon.” Authorities question if Paul used “diakonos”
to refer to the technical hierarchal church “office” or if it was used meaning “servant” or
“minister” (Walter 180). Surprisingly the term “diakonos” is the same term used by Paul
to refer to male office holders, and “it was not until the beginning of the fourth century
that a special feminine form of the word came into use to refer to the office of deaconess”
(MacDonald208). Even if the Greek term has the ability to mean simply “helper” or “one
who serves,” it was also definitely used as “an important designation in the Pauline
mission” (MacDonald 208). Paul not only uses the same word to apply to other male
coworkers, but also to refer to himself (MacDonald 208).
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�One of the most controversial people mentioned in Paul’s letters is a woman by
the name of Junia. The passage where her name appears is brief, but infers great
importance, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they
are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16:7).
Scholars were perplexed that Paul would describe a woman as “prominent among the
apostles.” They knew that “if the second individual is a woman, then Junia is presented
here as the first and only woman to be called “apostle” in the canonical writings of the
New Testament” (Epp 22). At some point during the 1920s, biblical scholars assumed
that the use of the feminine “Junia” must have been a mistake and that truly the passage
was describing a man named “Junius” (Epp xi). Yet when trying to verify this character,
“Researchers have been unable to locate a single example of the male name Junius in
ancient literature or inscriptions, either in Latin or Greek,” however they have “found
over 250 examples of the feminine name Junia” (Walters 186). The use of “apostle” was
controversial because for most of the New Testament it was applied only to the original
twelve men who followed Jesus during his lifetime (MacDonald 210). Paul, however,
seems to broaden that definition to include anyone who had a post-resurrection vision and
commission by Jesus Christ, which is how he legitimized his own apostleship
(MacDonald 210). Author of the book Junia, Eldon Jay Epp states that some scholars
argue that Paul did not actually mean “Apostle” when he wrote “apostle” (Epp x).
Diminishing of the importance of her title is similar to critics who claim “diakonos”
means servant when used to describe a woman, but means an official in the church when
used before a man’s name. As Eldon Jay Epp strongly proclaims at the end of his
introduction, no matter what critics say “it remains a fact that there was a woman apostle,
explicitly named, in the earliest generation of Christianity and contemporary Christians
must (and eventually will) face up to it” (Epp x).
In conclusion, the depiction of specific influential women leaders and verses
positively discussing women in general in the undisputed letters of Paul lead one to
determine that Paul accepted women as equals and encouraged their participation in the
church. While a few verses remain controversial, they can each be explained by cultural
practices, interpolation or forged authorship. In the undisputed letters of Paul, there are
passages that proclaim strong messages of equality within marriage and within the church
community. His letters are filled with examples of female prophets, female ministry
partners, female ministry teams, female church officials, female benefactors, and even a
female apostle, all of which are important leadership roles. While popular opinion may
have condemned Paul as anti-feminist or gender-biased, it is clear that Paul was a
proponent of women, and he should be remembered that way.
83
�Works Cited
Ehrman, Bart D. Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and
Legend. New York: Oxford Press, 2006.
Epp, Eldon Jay. Junia: The First Woman Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
Gilbert, George H. “Women in Public Worship in the Churches of Paul.” The Biblical
World. 2.1, (1893): 38-47.
Hailey, Jan Faver. “‘Neither Male and Female’ (Gal. 3:28).” Essays on Women in
Earliest Christianity. Vol 1. Ed. Carroll D. Osburn. Joplin: College Press, 1995. 131-166.
Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. Augsburg Fortress: Minneapolis, 1990.
MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Reading Real Women Through the Undisputed Letters of
Paul.” Women & Christian Origins. Ed. Ross Shepard Kraemer and Mary Rose
D’Angelo. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 199-220.
MacHaffie, Barbara J. Her Story: Women in Christian Tradition. Philadelphia: Fortress,
1986.
84
�In Pursuit of Honor: The Balance between Widowhood and
Motherhood in the Letters of Alessandra Strozzi
Cassandra Brewer (History)1
A popular conception of a widow is a woman who is, from the time of her
husband's death on, relegated to a life of mourning. Alessandra Strozzi was most
certainly not this type of woman. Seventy-three of Alessandra’s letters to her sons
remain, and act as a testament to her active life after her husband’s death. Her letters are
composed mostly out of necessity in conducting business with her merchant sons and
give valuable insight into the life of a Renaissance widow. 2 After her husband's death,
she made the choice to dedicate her life to continuing the legacy of her husband's family
and to her children, specifically her sons. Alessandra Strozzi was an intelligent woman,
even though she received no formal education. She effectively balanced practicality and
emotion in her letters to her sons, and was successful at using the power she had as a
widow to manage her finances, preserve her husband’s lineage through her sons and
establish herself as an honorable widow.
Alessandra Strozzi, originally Alessandra di Filippo Macinghi, married Matteo
Strozzi, a man from a family of influential Florentine bankers, when she was fifteen.3
She was, previous to marriage, a woman of patrician status from a family of wealthy
merchants.4 Because of her status, Alessandra was lucky to have a large sum for a
dowry: sixteen hundred florins. This and other results of her patrician status would later
be of great benefit to her as a widow.5
Alessandra, because of her belonging to a merchant family, would have learned
to write and keep basic records at home as a young woman. Her education would not
have consisted of any humanist texts, and as it can be seen in her letters, she shows no
interest in secular learning, and shows interest only in the religious and practical in
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith (History) for HI362: Renaissance Italy .
Brucker, Gene A. 2005. Living on the edge in Leonardo's Florence: selected essays.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
3
Crabb, The Strozzi of Florence, 20. Can be spelled both Macinghi or Macingi. Also,
she is listed sometimes as being 14 at the time of her marriage, although the majority of
sources indicate she was fifteen.
4
Crabb, 20.
5
Crabb, 22.
2
85
�relation to her daily life.6 However, once she was married, she would not have had to use
these skills, at least with any regularity; as her husband, or even an elder son, would have
kept the records for the family.7 Her letters later suggest that she was perfectly content
being under the control of her husband, as she tells her son she feels that “a man, when
he is a man, makes a woman a woman; and he should not be so in love that, when at first
she makes little errors, he fails to reprimand her…”8 This illustrates that she has no
desire to be the head of her household, however later, she proves that she is, in fact, very
intelligent and capable when the necessity presents itself. She often writes that she does
not enjoy the act of writing letters, but realized the importance for both business and
personal reasons. If she wanted to keep her family in good financial standing and keep
close relationships with her sons she needed to keep detailed and carefully crafted
correspondence.
After being married four years, Alessandra gave birth to five sons and three
daughters, of whom only five would survive to become adults and the subject of many of
her letters: Filippo, Caterina, Lorenzo, Lessandra(or Alessandra) and Matteo.9 Much of
Alessandra’s life before her husband’s death is known only through the actions of her
husband, as there was no necessity for her to leave a written record of her actions. It is
not until after his death, with the beginning of her letters, that her devotion to her children
and to her husband’s family name can be seen.
After her marriage, Alessandra became more and more distant from her
Macinghi family. It is possible she did not feel a strong connection to them because she
lost her mother at a young age, and her father not much long after – he later had
remarried and had more children.10 Also, Alessandra knew that after her marriage she
would assume the identity of her husband’s family. It is possible that because of her
family’s lower political status than that of the Strozzi, Alessandra felt her energy was
better spent fostering a strong relationship with the family most likely to benefit her. She
was living Florence, an important political city, and needed to place herself in the best
political and social situation; which she could do by associating closely with her
husband’s family.11 Distancing herself from her Macinghi family might have been
6
Strozzi, Alessandra Macinghi, and Heather Gregory. 1997. “Selected letters of
Alessandra Strozzi”, Biblioteca italiana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 6.
7
Crabb, 22.
8
Strozzi and Gregory, 157.
9
Strozzi and Gregory, 4.
10
Strozzi and Gregory, Selected letters of Alessandra Strozzi.
11
Crabb, 22.
86
�merely a strategy in the creation of her identity as a Florentine wife. She remained in
contact with some of her family over the course of her life, but only intimately with her
brother Zanobi.12 It is clear in her break from most of her Macinghi family that she
believed strongly in following the patrilineal tradition. This strong feeling of loyalty to
her husband’s family can explain how Alessandra’s widowhood really came to define her
after her husband’s death in 1436.13 Not only did it define her in the sense that she
dedicated her life to preserving the Strozzi name, but it gave her new responsibilities that
would consume most of her daily life, making widowhood an integral part of her identity.
She would have not had a reason to hone her merchant management skills if not for her
widowed status, and it was these transactions that were her primary focus.
In 1434, twelve years after her marriage, Alessandra Strozzi’s family faced
hardship. In their home city of Florence, the Medici were dominant, and began to impose
heavy taxes and exile to those who opposed them. The Strozzi unfortunately fell victim to
these heavy and excessive fines as well as exile. There is little evidence as to the exact
reason for Matteo Strozzi’s banishment, but it is most likely that the Medici desired to rid
the city of their strongest and most vocal political competition. Matteo was not the only
man to be sentenced to exile, and many of the Strozzi men were either exiled or
permanently barred from holding a government position. Alessandra and her children
followed her husband into his exile in Pesaro, but only two years later her husband and
three of their children died of the plague. 14 Alessandra was only twenty eight, and could
have remarried if she wished. However, she was fully capable of taking care of her
family, as during the exile she would have learned how to manage her husband’s
affairs.15 She was not restricted by the necessity of having a man to handle the
household; and was free to decide for herself whether or not to remain a widow.
What made her decide to stay a widow and take on so much financial
responsibility? Aside from religious convictions that a chaste woman had only one
husband, another reason to remain a widow would be to protect her children and lineage.
16
If she remarried, Alessandra would have to give up her dowry to her new husband, and
it could no longer be used exclusively for her children. Also, she would have become a
part of her new husband’s family lineage and dissolved good relationships with both
extended family and her children; as they would most likely remain loyal to their father’s
12
Crabb, 20.
Brucker, 149.
14
Brucker, 151.
15
Crabb, 44.
16
Crabb, 77.
13
87
�name.17 Although widowhood defined Alessandra, it did not do so in a negative way.
Alessandra must have been aware of this, as it was, in the end, her decision to stay a
widow. Her decision to remain a widow is clearly related to her love for her children and
desire for personal and familial honor.
Widows were often left financially burdened after the death of their husbands.
They had to first and foremost pay out money from the estate to the heirs. They were,
however, not always financially devastated. Their fathers had paid dowries to their
husband-to-be’s family, and in the end, the widow herself received that money if and
when her husband died. Because of this rule, and her patrician status, Alessandra was left
with significant assets and subsequently, significant power. Not all widows would have
been so financially minded, but after her husband’s death Alessandra became
preoccupied with her and her children’s financial situation, and was able to use the power
she gained from her returned dowry in a successful way.18 Also, in not remarrying, and
consequently keeping her loyalty to the Strozzi lineage, Alessandra was able to call on
male family members for assistance. She was able to send her two oldest sons to work
with their uncles and learn the merchant trade, which in the end benefited both her and
her sons. 19
By law, as a widow, Alessandra needed a man to co-sign in any legal
transaction, as women were not legally able to act alone in making decisions. However,
as many other women did, Alessandra made the decisions herself and the presence of a
man was merely a formality.20 She shows very clearly that she is independent and fully
capable of taking care of her husband’s estate and her children. Her husband must have
known her capabilities and her devotion to her children because he left her a good
amount of control over his estate in his will. He left her the deciding vote in a group of
guardians in all affairs relating to their children.21 By the time he died, many of the other
co-guardians had as well, and Alessandra was left with complete control over her
children until adulthood, something a woman did not legally have if her husband were
alive.22 Although under unfortunate circumstances, gaining this power was essential for
17
Brucker, 152.
Crabb, 58.
19
Brucker, 125.
20
Crabb, 58.
21
Crabb, 63. This was not extraordinary, but was considered to be on the high end of
what a widow would be left with in her husband’s will in regards to her children.
22
Couchman, Jane, and Ann Crabb. 2005. “Women's letters across Europe, 1400-1700:
form and persuasion”, Women and gender in the early modern world. Aldershot,
England: Ashgate, 23.
18
88
�Alessandra in creating and asserting herself in a relationship with her sons in which they
would still see her as an authority even after they legally had to.
Alessandra’s surviving letters to her son begin in 1447, about ten years after the
death of her husband.23 It is probable she wrote earlier letters to her sons, but this is
where the collection begins, as saved and preserved by her two eldest sons, Filippo and
Lorenzo. The letters that remain continue until just about a year before Alessandra’s
death and tell a fascinating story of her life. She spends the majority of these years
without seeing her sons, as they had the chance for a brighter future outside of Florence
due to their late father’s political situation. However, she is still able to maintain a close
relationship with them. Her balance of emotion and practicality, both financial and
political, made her a successful mother and head of household. She seems very aware
that being either too emotional or too aggressive in her advice could have damaged her
relationship with her sons, which was most important to her. Her greatest fears seemed to
be to have no money and to lose her sons to death. In order to best deal with these fears,
Alessandra composed letters. She mentions disliking the act of writing, as it felt
uncomfortable to her.24 Still, she was able to effectively use writing - even though to her
it was a basic skill and not a scholarly pursuit- to preserve what was of most importance
to her: her sons and the Strozzi family name.
In Alessandra’s letters, she clearly shows how important her sons are to her
through her constant worry about losing them or not seeing them before she dies. Not
only was she a widow, but a victim of exile as well. Her husband’s initial exile forced
her to leave her home in Florence and relocate to Pesaro, and the extension of this exile to
male kin would leave her separated from her three sons. Alessandra is clearly troubled by
the distance from her sons and in one of her earlier letters she says, bluntly, “I have no
other good in this world but you my three sons.”25 In almost all of her letters, she
expresses this overwhelming attachment and devotion to her sons through her wish to see
them again before she dies. In some letters, Alessandra very frankly states her fears and
expresses that “…my greatest fear is that I’ll die before I can see either of you again” or
that “…without you I’m dead” 26 After the death of her youngest son (to survive
childhood) Alessandra becomes increasingly more preoccupied with death and writes to
Filippo that she hopes to not live long enough to lose another child and that she has “been
23
Strozzi and Gregory, 29.
Strozzi and Gregory, 7.
25
Strozzi and Gregory, 49.
26
Strozzi and Gregory, 91, 167.
24
89
�worrying about this day and night and…can’t get any rest.”27 Alessandra became
preoccupied with this worry and even near the end of her letters she says, “…I must pray
that God will give me the grace to spend the little time I have left with both of you…”28
A devotion to her sons and an anxiety about never seeing them, because of exile or death,
is clearly seen through these expressions. This anxiety undoubtedly increases after the
death of her son and will continue to increase as she worries she will never see the end of
her sons’ exile. Alessandra seems to channel these fears into focusing on making the best
of the situation and continuing to center her efforts on managing her family’s affairs in a
beneficial way.
The main concerns of the majority of Alessandra’s letters are the family’s
finances and good standing in Florentine society; specifically in reference to her sons.
She tries to provide for them, and also gives them advice about both their finances and
their behavior. Early on, it is clear that she considers her and her sons’ assets to be
mutual, since she is using her dowry to support them. Her sons had a right to a piece of
the inheritance of their father’s estate, but the family’s political situation complicated
this. There would have been more taxes and separation of the property from communal
and familial to individual. By keeping all of the money and property within the family
and sharing it between Alessandra and themselves, her sons were able to remain in a
more stable financial situation.29 Alessandra’s dowry had to be returned to her, and it
made more sense to keep the value in property, that by renting out, was making money
for the family.30
More than just financially, Alessandra supports her sons in all of their interests
and puts equal emphasis on the importance of bringing honor to their shared Strozzi
name. Since her sons are in exile, she is their representative in Florence and is essentially
in charge of keeping a good reputation for them and subsequently, herself. Through her
financial support and political necessity in the lives of her sons she is able to gain and
keep a significant amount of influence over them.
Alessandra begins many of her letters by discussing the financial burdens that
worry her and that she feels should be worrying her sons as well. Alessandra’s fear as a
result of her past political situation can be seen again through the preoccupation in her
life and in her letters with her family’s finances. In the beginning of her letters,
Alessandra is trying to find husbands for her daughters and is worried mostly about their
27
Strozzi and Gregory, 83.
Strozzi and Gregory, 83.
29
Strozzi and Gregory, 49.
30
Strozzi and Gregory, 49.
28
90
�dowries. 31 These dowries were a considerable sum, about 1000 florins, and would have
worried Alessandra greatly, as she was still preoccupied with the financial burden of
taxes.32 Interestingly, however, Alessandra writes to her son Flilippo that the money for
the dowries would be “partly yours and partly mine”.33 Here, in the beginning of her
letters, Alessandra makes it clear that she never acts without considering both her
interests and the interests of her sons.
As her letters progress, Alessandra suggests that her sons shared similar
concerns about money, as she is often reassuring them of her ability to handle money and
make smart decisions. She writes to her son Filippo saying, “I wrote to you…to tell you
what I wanted to do with the money, so you wouldn’t think I’d spent it on something
else.”34 She also demonstrates her good choices to her sons by explaining why she
refrains from non-necessary purchases, saying, “It isn’t the right time to spend money on
this sort of thing because there are more important things to do with it.”35 Here, she is not
only illustrating her awareness of how to manage finances, but she is attempting to prove
to her sons that she is trustworthy and capable of assisting them in handling their affairs.
When Alessandra is telling them how she is managing their finances well, she is also
using this to express how she wants her sons to act in regards to money. She is both
validating herself to her sons and asserting her motherly influence over them.
Almost of equal concern to Alessandra as finances is the behavior of her sons in
relation to upholding the Strozzi name. She manages her sons’ reputation and image in
Florence and also frequently advises them on how they should behave even though they
are abroad. In the beginning of her letters, Alessandra’s advice is cautionary. In a letter
to her son Lorenzo, she says, “you’re old enough to behave in a different sort of way
from how you have been; you’ve got to sort yourself out and concentrate on living
properly.”36 She seems only slightly worried about doing damage to the family name and
instead is more worried about warning her sons that bad behavior is not acceptable for
any decent young man. Later, however, as her sons get older, Alessandra becomes ever
more concerned with how their actions reflect on the family name. She uses her
influence over her sons to assert herself and be more stern in her suggestions about their
behavior. For example, she recommends that her son Filippo help a family friend
31
Strozzi and Gregory, 63.
Strozzi and Gregory, 61.
33
Strozzi and Gregory, 31.
34
Strozzi and Gregory, 103.
35
Strozzi and Gregory, 67.
36
Strozzi and Gregory, 69.
32
91
�because it will reflect well on his character.37 Instead of simply advising them generally
on their behavior, Alessandra, at this point, begins to suggest actual acts for her sons to
engage in that will show them in the best light possible to the public.
Alessandra does not only criticize her sons but also sometimes praises them
when they behave in a manner that she believes to be appropriate for someone bearing
the Strozzi name. When she received word of good news she says to her son Filippo, “I
thank God to hear such good news from you, that you’re doing so much business to
bringing honor and profit…” 38 Alessandra is often very honest with her sons and does
not hide that she is pleased they have brought themselves honor as well as brought her
honor as a good mother and widow. She also praises Filippo several times for his
generous gifts of flax to a family friend and his sister, Caterina.39 However pleased she
may be with those situations, Alessandra clearly values her and her sons’ public image,
through the upholding of the Strozzi name, more than family relations. This is possibly
because what went on between family members was considered to be very private,
whereas the family’s collective image is very public. When her son Filippo sends flax to
her daughter Caterina, Alessandra questions why he would spend money on something
Caterina and her husband could afford on their own. In her next letter, however,
Alessandra instead praises Filippo for his nice gesture saying “…it will seem as if you’re
really thinking of her.”40 It is clear that Alessandra is more concerned with the image
than the gesture itself. This is further proved through the reaction Alessandra has to
Filippo sending flax to a family friend. She writes to him, “I hear you sent 80 pounds of
flax to Mona Ginerva di Gino. I am glad, as it will really seem as if you value the favor
she did for you.”41 Alessandra is clearly focused on presenting her sons and herself as
good citizens. She is less concerned about Fillipo presenting a good image to his sister
than to the public; because his relationship with his sister is private and not beneficial.
The relationship with the family friend, however, could be an issue of making or keeping
an important alliance, which is why Alessandra would place more importance on it.
Much like she carefully handles the family finances, she is carefully managing their
public image and level of honor.
With the stress of the extended exile, Alessandra asserts her power over her
sons’ behavior more and more both through criticism and praise. It is possible that this is
37
Strozzi and Gregory, 85.
Strozzi and Gregory, 147.
39
Strozzi and Gregory, 115.
40
Strozzi and Gregory, 115.
41
Strozzi and Gregory, 143.
38
92
�because bringing honor to the Strozzi name affects both her and her sons, and she has less
control over it than over finances. Alessandra seems to have had a strong hold on the
family’s finances and did not expect to experience any great loss of money. However,
the political climate in Florence at the time was unstable and honor and respect were lost
much easier than money, which is why they would cause more concern and anxiety in
Alessandra. In the later years, Alessandra’s anxiety over the exile of her sons increases,
especially because she is unable to control the situation. She has no say against the
dominant political power of the Medici, and can simply hope to get back into their good
graces by proving she is an honorable mother to two morally upstanding sons. She can
only observe the political situation and attempt to uphold respect for her family in hopes
that the climate, coupled with this respect, will allow her sons exile to be lifted.
Alessandra Strozzi proved to be a highly intelligent woman, despite never
receiving a formal education. She learned by practice and through necessity; and was
able to successfully run the household and estate left by her late husband. She effectively
used her motherly instincts as well as her practical skills, such as writing and account
keeping, balancing personal and sensible aspects of her family’s existence. Alessandra’s
most valuable means of bringing honor to her family was through her sons; and she used
financial control as well as emotional tactics to influence their behavior. She dedicated
her life to preserving the Strozzi family name and was driven largely by her love for her
children. Alessandra Strozzi was a powerful woman who gained her influence not by
choice, but by widowhood. She came to embrace her status and become a representation
of a successful Renaissance woman.
Works Cited
Brucker, Gene A. 2005. Living on the edge in Leonardo's Florence: selected essays.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Couchman, Jane, and Ann Crabb. 2005. “Women's letters across Europe, 1400-1700:
form and persuasion”, Women and gender in the early modern world. Aldershot,
England: Ashgate.
Crabb, Ann. 2007. ““If I could write”: Margherita Datini and Letter Writing, 1385-1410”,
Renaissance Quarterly. 60 (4): 1170.
93
�Crabb, Ann. 2000. “The Strozzi of Florence: widowhood and family solidarity in the
Renaissance”, Studies in medieval and early modern civilization. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
Strozzi, Alessandra Macinghi, and Heather Gregory. 1997. “Selected letters of
Alessandra Strozzi”, Biblioteca italiana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 6.
94
�I Am Woman: An Impressionist Tale
Sophie Fonner (Sociology)1
Broken up into three sections, the overall paper is an ethnographic study of what it means
to be female, particularly in Tanzania. The first and second parts both consist of
italicized sections that are my own fictional stories embedded within the essay while the
last portion consists of italicized sections that are my own field notes taken while in
Tanzania. The first short essay examines education in Tanzania, with particular focus on
the education of females. It attempts to exemplify both the importance of educating
females as well as the disadvantages of education for females in Tanzanian society. The
second essay deals with fistula in Tanzania, focusing particularly on the social, physical
and emotional effects fistula has on the female. The third and final part is written
through my own perspective in attempts to examine what it means to be an advantaged
Caucasian American traveling in Tanzania. Throughout the papers I use my own stories
and ethnographic field notes (in italics) as well as scholarly sources.
Woman
Sophie Fonner
I am Woman
I am not transient in nature nor do I fall
I may be concerned
But I am strong
I am Perempuan2
I may need comfort
But I am always self reliant
I am Yeosung3
I may be scared
But I have the right to be me
I am Mwanamke4
I am Woman.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley (Sociology) after attending the 2009
EYH trip to Tanzania for SOC 291: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Tanzania: Writing
Women's Lives.
2
“Woman” in Bahasa Melayu
3
“Woman” in Korean
4
“Woman” in Kiswahili
95
�Education: Gender Inequality
What does it mean to be female? The disadvantages are almost
palpable from the beginning. Red stained her skin as it trickled down
her leg. At least three days out of every month she misses school
because of this natural process. The boys can always go to school.
The wavulana (boys) never miss a day.
As I listened to the speaker at Hakielimu, a non-profit educational organization,
I found myself immersed in a culture that was so far from anything to which I have ever
before been exposed. The speaker emphasized the corruption that has swallowed the
Tanzanian government. In response to the government’s secrecy, Hakielimu prints up
papers in Swahili explaining exactly what actions the government is taking (or lack of
action), that are detrimental to its people, and Hakielimu distributes these papers to the
Tanzanian people. I think part of the reason privileged Americans in the United States do
not take it upon ourselves to support the efforts of developmental organizations such as
Hakielimu in third world countries is because we, as a culture, do not necessarily
understand what it means to be privileged. If the everyday lives of people in third world
countries are not understood, then how can privileged Americans understand just how
privileged we really are?
Her sponsorship started a while ago because her parents could not
afford to send her to school anymore. She had finished primary school
but wanted to continue with her education. Her family found her
‘sugar daddy’ through her father’s friend. She believed that he was a
good man for helping to pay for her education, but she had to sleep
with him in exchange for the help. She has become very tired and often
has headaches and has become nauseous; it must just be the flu, her
mother says.
The education of females is vital to their development, particularly affecting the
age at which a female (here I use “female” as opposed to “woman” because often those
who become pregnant are young enough to still be considered girls) first becomes
pregnant. Education can be beneficial because females who further their education may
delay the age at which they marry, likely affecting when they become pregnant. Both of
these are factors associated with HIV/AIDS and are therefore prevalent issues in
Tanzania, a country in which girls between 15 and 19 years old are six times as likely to
become infected with HIV as are their male counterparts (Vavrus, 2003). Education may
be one of the few forms of protection women have against HIV/AIDS and may enable
96
�women to become more economically independent and therefore have more control over
their sexual relationships (contraception usage), marriage and childbearing decisions.
One of the programs that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) has taken part in within various countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa, is referred to as “Gender Mainstreaming” which emphasizes the importance of
gender equality within education. In April of 2000, the World Education Forum
promoted the importance of guaranteeing education for females because lack of
education for girls and women is one of the key factors in “poverty eradication and
development” (UNESCO, 2009). UNESCO’s goals dealing with education are: to
encourage education as a “fundamental right in accordance with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights”; to improve the quality of education by promoting
diversity; and to promote the sharing of information (UNESCO, 2009). As imperative as
it is to educate females about HIV/AIDS the importance of educating males along with
females has become clear. Like many societies, Tanzania is a patriarchal society in
which males dominate, therefore it is evident that educating males and females together
might help to reduce the power gap between sexual partners and make clear the decisions
about, and ramifications of, sex for both partners.
Tanzania’s ratio of male to female secondary school enrolment is 5:1 (Larsen,
Vavrus, 2003). A survey done in 1996, conducted by Macro International Inc., reported
that of the 8,120 Tanzanian women surveyed 49% have less than a primary education,
46% have primary school as their highest level of education, and 5% have secondary
school as their highest level of education (Larsen, Vavrus, 2003). Although the education
of females is imperative to the empowerment of women, it is not always enough to
measure education in terms of how many years one has attended school. In order to
support the upheld belief that education can help to relieve Tanzania of its increased
HIV/AIDS rate, teachers must be teaching HIV/AIDS education and prevention,
especially to female students so that they are able to make informed decisions. Similarly,
it is of the utmost importance that teachers teach basic reading skills so that students are
able to read material on issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and contraception choices.
Education should therefore be measured by the amount of educational material that is
taught to students and the information that is taken away by students rather than the
number of years a student attends school.
She became pregnant a couple months after she began having sex with
her sugar daddy. She spent a night with him in his village, a night that
traditionally meant she would not return to her parents but rather
97
�remain with him in his village. With the sexual act, ownership was
passed from her parents to her sugar daddy and she was now his.
Although education should be a safe environment, the classroom is not always a
safe haven for females. Female students are vulnerable to sexual harassment by teachers
and fellow students. A last resort made by families who cannot afford to send their
daughter to school is often to hire a ‘sugar daddy’, who pays for the girl’s school, often
expecting sexual favors from her in return for his ‘generosity” (Vavrus, 2006). These
factors impede the opportunities for females who attend school because they reinforce the
idea that females are sexual objects that ‘owe’ men something.
Given that Tanzania has limited resources and the culture seems to limit the
education of females, it is important that countries such as the United States provide
support to programs such as Hakielimu which propose better resources for schools.
Women in countries such as the United States should encourage the education of females
in safe environments because of the historical struggle women in the United States have
had, and continue to have, for gender equality. Women in the west are currently in a
better place because of their past struggle for equal rights, to support women in Tanzania.
Western women have more sympathies than men because they have historically had to
struggle for equality whereas men have been the standard by which others are measured.
We therefore must think of gender equality on a global scale because third world
countries such as Tanzania are struggling with issues of gender inequality similar to the
ways in which we, in the United States, have historically struggled with such issues.
Fistula: A Matter of Human Rights
The physical agony dragged on for what seems like an eternity. Her
mother-in-law stayed close by with cloths to wipe off the sweat that
entrenched her whole body. No doctors were present, possibly why the
birthing process took two days. She begged for a hospital but her
mother-in-law and husband refused; the closest hospital was 58
kilometers away and there was not enough money to spare for
transportation and medical supplies when the birth could occur at
home. The infant was stillborn as it was pulled from what had been a
safe-haven of its mother’s womb. The mother was left with a heavy
heart and a body which was all torn up inside and would continuously
leak feces for years to come.
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�According to WebMD, a vaginal fistula is “a passage or hole that has formed in
the wall of the vagina”. There are four types of vaginal fistula, the first opening into the
urinary tract is called vesicovaginal fistula. The second opening into the rectum is called
rectovaginal fistula. The third opening into the colon is called colovaginal fistula. The
fourth opening into the small bowel is called enterovaginal fistula (“Vaginal Fistula”,
2007). Even though obstructed labor is often the cause of fistula, females who suffer
from it are vulnerable to having it long before delivery begins. Females who live in
extensive poverty are more likely to suffer from malnutrition which may lead to stunted
pelvic growth resulting in an obstructed labor (Obaid, 2004). Similarly, females who
marry young commonly have children at a younger age which can be detrimental to the
body because they have not fully maturated. Lastly, fistula may also occur in older
women whose bodies have been weakened by multiple pregnancies (Mrisho et al., 2007).
Unfortunately, females who live in such circumstances often do not have the proper
access to health care that they require, particularly during childbirth (Obaid, 2004). In
addition to being a physical condition fistula has social consequences with tremendous
ramifications for those who suffer from it.
After the birth she not only struggled significantly with the inability to
control her bowels, but also with the loss of her first-born child. She
experienced tremendous scrutiny from her community, whether it was
because they did not understand the physical consequences of fistula or
because they blamed her for what was happening to her body. She was
disowned by her husband, who was of no moral support, and ostracized
by most of her community. She remained by herself the majority of the
time, mostly because people could not stand the horrific stench that
protruded from her entire body.
A question I feel is often asked in the United States about affairs outside of our
borders is why should we care? My answer would be that we should care as a country
because fistula not only impinges on the lives of females in Tanzania but is global in
scope. In 2003, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) initiated a global
campaign to “End Fistula.” Working in cooperation with governments, NGO’s, and
medical institutions, the goal was to raise awareness, assess the needs of females living
with fistula, increase treatment and examine the cause of it (UNFPA, 2003). Females
worldwide, should care about the effects of fistula because of the simple fact that this
treatable condition is a “long-neglected women’s health concern” affecting women on a
global scale (UNFPA, 2003). The UNFPA has provided medical support to “more than
20 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia” (UNFPA, 2003). Now that I
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�am aware of this issue, I see that it is important for the United States to try to designate
resources to help end fistula and alleviate these types of problems in third world
countries. As a person who is concerned about the world, I strongly believe that allowing
this to continue is a human rights violation that demands our attention now.
The prevention and treatment of fistula is not simply a medical concern; it is a
human rights concern which addresses the fact that every person should have adequate
medical care. A medical condition with such tremendous physical and social
consequences should not be ignored. Even more than the obvious factors such as poverty
and vulnerability, this female health issue is embedded in the political and societal
inequality of women, perhaps even on a global scale. One of the points made by Maggie
Bangser, the director of Women’s Dignity Project in Tanzania, was that even a very dehumanizing condition cannot rob someone of their dignity if they do not allow it to, and
these women do not. Even after being thrown out of their homes and ostracized by their
entire community, these women are dignified. I do not ask or encourage anyone to pity
these women, they simply do not need our pity. They need those with the necessary
resources to care enough and recognize that no one deserves to go around leaking feces
for decades.
How did she get to this place of complete isolation? When her parents
found out that she was pregnant [at 17] they immediately married her
off to the man whose child she would soon be having. After the birth
everyone around her seemed to slowly dissipate like the happiness she
once experienced as a child. She could not control the stench that
enveloped her. Her husband finally concluded he could no longer take
their rotting bed and kicked her out. After being rejected by her
nuclear family, she finally found comfort with her grandmother who
was supportive and encouraged her to save up enough money to get a
corrective procedure for the fistula. After various attempts, arriving at
the hospital and the doctor being unavailable, she finally found a
doctor who could perform the surgery of which she was in dire need.
At the age of 23 her suffering finally ended and her dignity remained
intact.
Most females who suffer from fistula are unaware of the surgery that can be
performed to repair the tearing that is the cause of it. Many who are aware of the surgery
lack the resources to pay for treatment or even to travel to a hospital. Fistula can be
surgically repaired even years after it occurs and symptoms can be alleviated so that these
women can regain their normal lives. The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data
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�collected in 40 countries between the years of 1995 and 2003 confirmed that “more than
50% of neonatal deaths occur after home birth without skilled care attendance” (Mrisho
et al., 2007). The same data also showed that “home births without a trained attendant
resulted in three times higher perinatal mortality than those in a health facility with
trained attendants in rural Tanzania” (Mrisho et al., 2007). There are various reasons that
women give birth 84% more often in the home than in a health facility with trained
attendants (Mrisho et al., 2007). These include distance to a health facility, lack of
money for transportation, sporadic timing for public transportation, and medical costs. It
was found that 84% of women who had intended to give birth at a health facility actually
gave birth at home because of distance and transportation problems (Bicego et al., 1995).
Although the Tanzanian government has mandated that such health services be free of
charge, the reality is that women are in fact asked to pay for and bring delivery kits
including razor blades, gloves, cotton wool, and sometimes even cleaning products to
clean the room after delivery (Mrisho et al., 2007). The cost of home delivery averaged
to be no more than 600 Tanzanian schillings (approximately $0.50) while the cost of
hospital delivery averaged to be around 5000 Tanzanian schillings (approximately $4.00)
(Mrisho et al., 2007).
More than the high cost of medical facilities, many women give birth at home
for more personal or even social reasons. Workers at many health facilities often use
abusive language toward patients, denying women service. One woman interviewed by
the DHS, who had waited at the health facility all day to see a doctor, explained her visit:
“At the end of the day, she (the nurse) told me to come to the health facility next
Tuesday. When I asked her what the reason was, she replied that she was tired. Imagine,
I stayed hungry for the whole day, my children hadn’t eaten. I left with sorrow, and
ended up crying at home” (Mrisho et al., 2007). Another reason why many women do
not deliver in a health facility is due to the lack of privacy, particularly from men. A
second woman interviewed described her knowledge of health facilities as follows:
“Some health facilities have no special room for delivery; the room is small and all
treatment for both men and women are taking place in the same room; you can easily be
seen while giving birth” (Mrisho et al., 2007). A third reason some women deliver at
home is due to the traditional belief that long labor is potentially caused by extramarital
affairs of the woman during her pregnancy. A reason to therefore deliver at home is to
keep the ‘affair’ a secret. An interviewee said “If it is a woman’s time for delivery and
the child doesn’t come out, a woman would be asked to mention all men who she has
slept with apart from her husband” (Mrisho et al., 2007). This is one of the major reasons
for misinterpretation to occur between husband and wife, and sometimes may lead to the
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�breakdown of the marriage. Although this traditional belief was evident in a rural village
in Tanzania, “it is said to be disappearing” (Mrisho et al., 2007). Lastly, women are often
not the ones who actually decide whether to give birth at home or in a health facility.
Women often must first ask permission of the husband and mother-in-law, who are the
decision-makers in this case. More often than not the husband and mother-in-law will
deny the woman’s request to have her baby delivered in a medical facility, increasing the
chances of the woman having complications that are not attended to properly.
When more awareness about fistula is given to those affected by it, perhaps
there might not be as much stigma attached to it. This is why influential countries such
as the United States need to support the efforts for fistula awareness and repair. Women
directly affected by it do not deserve to be isolated for something that they have no
control over, which is why we must care. This is more than just a medical issue; fistula is
a pressing human rights issue that needs immediate attention. Every woman should have
the right to a safe and healthy body and it is every woman’s duty to support the efforts
that make that possible. Also, by supporting efforts that raise community awareness
about fistula and that provide aid, those communities are learning that it does not have to
be a life-long ailment.
The Kimarekani (American)
As I walked through the streets of Dar Es Salaam I almost found it hard
to breathe. I am female, just like Tanzanian females, but somehow I
felt so completely disconnected from these women. I felt myself cringe
as we walked on the reality tour, through people’s homes; what right
do we, a group of predominately Caucasian Americans, have to walk
through these homes waving at children and mothers and families?
What right do we have to capture images, with our cameras, of these
run-down homes so different from our own? And what right do we
have to eat our snack bars and drink from our water bottles as we walk
over a bridge that leads across a stream of trash and sewage?
Having traveled and lived in various places, the majority being in South East
Asia, I feel pretty well-rounded. I became accustomed to being different and feeling
uneasy by not knowing what was always happening. I grew used to it. However, it was
drastically different in Tanzania where we were traveling as such a notably different,
privileged group. We were obvious. We were Americans.
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�I was overly enthusiastic about eating out; one of my favorite parts of
traveling is tasting the cuisine of the host country. However it was
difficult to find restaurants, which, when reflecting, I figured must be
because 60 percent of Tanzania’s 35 million people population live on
less than US $2.00 per day (Obaid, 2004), so eating out is far from
feasible for many people. Since we could not find a Tanzanian
restaurant, of course, the group consensus was to eat at a fancy hotel.
Why not, we can afford it right? I could hardly eat a bite because I
was so infuriated that no one else seemed to question the group’s
decision. Perhaps we do have the money, but what is the point of
traveling if we stay within what we are comfortable with: pasta, fish
sticks and hamburgers? Why travel if we are not going to taste the
local food, support the local restaurants but rather dine at the fanciest
hotel-restaurants that are completely empty because those are not the
places the majority of Tanzanians eat? What makes us stand out from
the rich, upper-class Americans if we travel to Tanzania and dine at a
hotel which mostly caters to rich, foreign business people?
When traveling to the women’s village my initial reaction was excitement that
this was a village comprised of self-sufficient women in a society in which there seems to
be distinct issues of gender inequality. Each woman seemed to have picked up a
particular trade and mastered it in a way that they could earn an income.
One of the women, whose job it was to care for the cows and collect the
cow milk to sell, explained to us that the cows had not been producing
as much milk as they normally produced within the past couple of
months. She claimed that the cows’ diets had not changed yet they
were producing less and less milk. She asked us if we had any
suggestions about what cows are fed in the United States to keep them
healthy and producing a plethora of milk. None of us had any idea
about how cows are kept in the United States. None of us had probably
even ever had to think about that question. However all of us seemed
ashamed that we could not answer what this woman rightly thought
should be such a simple question. How could we describe how
drastically different our lives are, being the privileged Americans that
we are?
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�Since I grew up overseas, American society and culture has been oddly foreign
to me. Attending college for the past two years in the United States has therefore been a
complete [reverse] culture shock for me. When I first moved back to the U.S. I did not
always recognize the popular songs people sang, that everyone else seems to know
immediately, or the popular television shows that everyone seemed to know quotes from.
I still do not understand why people use the words “retarded” and “gay” to emphasize
something they do not like. These are examples of my own culture that are still
confusing to me. This is partially why I enjoyed being in a predominantly Caucasian
American group in foreign Tanzania. I finally felt as though I was on the same page as
the rest of the group; none of us completely understood the culture in which we were
fully immersed.
The heat seemed to physically latch on to my entire body, so much so
that it was difficult to move comfortably. It was so intense it felt almost
impossible to breathe. As we made our way through the largest market
place in Dar es Salaam, I figured people should be laughing at how
awkward we maneuvered ourselves through the narrow dirt walkways
between the abundance of food stalls; however people just seemed
curious. Most people smiled or stared, some raised their fists as we
walked by to “pound” our two fists together in a friendly Tanzanian
greeting. This uneasiness yet excitement that tumbled around in my
stomach brought me back to my first couple of weeks in Korea. I felt so
lost in a culture I was so unfamiliar with and did not understand, yet
after a while, I knew I would be okay. And I was…more than okay.
Now, two and half months after my return from Tanzania, I can still see the faces of the
people we met and still think about the everyday issues that Tanzanians deal with,
particularly issues related to women. The face of the first little girl I saw as I walked
through the airport is vivid in my mind, the way she stared at our group, not out of anger
but rather out of curiosity. I have thought about the fact that I am a privileged Caucasian
woman living in the United States and I have wondered what that means to most
privileged Caucasian women living here. I have wondered if they even think about it. I
have thought about the fact that my socioeconomic status and the color of my skin
enabled me to travel to Tanzania and do so many things that most Tanzanian women
living there would never be able to do because they do not have enough money. They
worry on a day to day basis how they are going to feed and bathe their children. With
this consciousness comes the choice of whether to simply acknowledge this inequality or
to actually get others to see that actions must be taken to support our sisters in other
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�countries. The everyday issues for Tanzanian women are moral issues to which my hope
is that more women join in this awareness. Since I have returned home I have decided
that I am not able to live a comfortable, guilt-free life until all women are able to live
comfortable lives. This is a sisterhood in which none of us are free until all of us are free.
Works Cited
Bicego, G., Curtis, S., Raggers, H., Kapiga, S., Ngallaba, S. (1997) “Sumve Survey on
Adult and Childhood Mortality, Tanzania”, Demographic and Health Surveys.
Larsen, U., Vavrus, F. (2003). “Girls’Education and Fertility Transitions: An Analysis
of Recent Trends in Tanzania and Uganda”. Retrieved March 1, 2009, from EBSCO host
database.
Mrisho, M., Schellenberg, J.A., Mushi, A., et al. (2007). “Factors Affecting Home
Delivery in Rural Tanzania”, Tropical Medicine and International Health. Retrieved
February 20, 2009, from ProQuest database.
Obaid, T. A. (2004). “Healing Wounds, Instilling Hope: The Tanzanian Partnership
Against Obstetric Fistula”. Retrieved February 20, 2009, from
http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/qcq/QCQ16.pdf.
UNESCO. (2009). “Capacity Development & Training Programme in Gender
Mainstreaming”. Retrieved March 2, 2009, from http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=11005&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
UNFPA. (2004). “Campaign to End Fistula”, from http://www.endfistula.org/contacts.htm.
Vavrus, F. (2003). “The Acquired Income Deficiency Syndrome: School Fees and
Sexual Risk in Northern Tanzania”. Retrieved February 20, 2009, from EBSCOhost
database.
Vavrus, F. (2006). “Girls’ Schooling in Tanzania: The Key to HIV/AIDS Prevention”,
AIDS Care. Retrieved March 2, 2009, from EBSCOhost database.
WebMD. (2007). “Vaginal Fistula”, from http://www.women.webmd.com/tc/vaginalfistula-topic-overview.
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�Air-Space vs. Urban-Space in Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses:
The Ideals and Realities of Hybridity
Jenna Pocius (English)1
Though perhaps best known for the controversy it sparked, The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie exemplifies a work rich in subject matter. Indeed, the novel extends
far beyond “the Rushdie affair” and delves into a variety of themes involving cultural,
racial, and gendered identities. One of the most prominent and well-defined themes is
that of postcolonial migrancy in a postmodern world. As readers see through the
struggles of protagonists Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta, the migrant condition
presents both opportunities and consequences for the migrant. Realities that seem
incompatible fuse together, and the idea of new, hybrid creation lies at the heart of the
text and plays out in its spatiality. In an examination of air-space versus urban-space
within the novel, we see that the postmodern and postcolonial ideal of hybridity is both
idealized and problematized depending on the spatial positioning of the protagonists.
Thus, while Rushdie himself considers The Satanic Verses a celebration of hybridity (“In
Good Faith” 394), he nonetheless points out the difficulties and potential consequences of
embracing hybridity in its ideal conception, as he juxtaposes the ideal air-space with the
reality of postmodern, urban settings in which the migrant condition is resisted and
demonized.
The idea of the postmodern world stipulates a valorization of mobility,
mutability, and newness, which is also inherent in the migrant condition. As Terry
Eagleton explains in The Illusions of Postmodernism, the concept of postmodernity
envisions “the world as contingent, ungrounded, diverse, unstable, indeterminate, a set of
disunified cultures or interpretations…” (vii). The migrant’s shift from one culture to
another necessarily creates a diverse and often conflicting sense of identity, thus
embodying the postmodern notion of a world undergoing continual change. With the
foundations of a postmodern world built upon the idea of hodgepodge and the indefinite,
the migrant serves as a prime example of the social construction of essential identity
which postmodernity seeks to expose; the migrant is shaped by various cultures and thus
there is no stable, singular essence of self. In Politics of Postmodernism, Linda Hutcheon
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Christopher Hogarth (English) for EN245: Senior
Seminar.
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�illuminates this issue of instability in her description of the contradictory nature of
postmodernism in its fusion of binaries which results in parody that unsettles all accepted
beliefs and ideologies (95). Within The Satanic Verses, the protagonists embody
contradictions in their simultaneous English-Indian identity, hence establishing the
instability and hybridity characteristic of postmodernity.
Rushdie’s choice to begin the action of the novel in air-space as his two
protagonists hurtle through the air from an exploding airplane, which had been heading to
London from India, foregrounds the postmodern, as air-space becomes a defining
location of ideal hybridity. The narrator’s definition of air-space echoes Eagleton’s
definition of postmodernity, for it is described as the “most insecure and transitory of
zones, illusionary, discontinuous, metamorphic…” (5). Hence, as Gillian Gane explains
in “Migrancy, the Intellectual, and the City in The Satanic Verses,” “air-space becomes a
charged and transformative site, simultaneously empty and dense with meaning” (20).
While the airplane serves as the vessel for crossing borders in this air-space, it is through
the explosion of the plane that Rushdie sets up the potential problem of migration.
Essentially, the migrant is violently severed from a sense of home, as evidenced through
the description of the debris of the passengers:
Mingling with the remnants of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd,
there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves,
severed mother-tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished
futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land,
belonging, home (4-5).
Thus, early on Rushdie establishes the potential loss inherent in the hybrid state.
However, in air-space the loss has a positive connotation, as this loss creates the
potential for the birth of a new self: as the text stipulates, “To be born again, first you
have to die” (86, 418). Birth imagery pervades the air-space, and, as Gane points out, the
airplane is repeatedly envisaged as a source of procreation (22): it is “a seed-pod giving
up its spores, an egg yielding its mystery” (Rushdie 4); it is “a metal phallus, and the
passengers were spermatozoa waiting to be spilt” (Rushdie 41). As Gibreel and Saladin
fall from the explosion, they are “like bundles dropped by some carelessly open-beaked
stork” and Saladin descends “head first, the recommended position for babies entering
the birth canal” (5); this birth canal is also “the hole that went to Wonderland” (7).
Migration, therefore, as a process of death and rebirth, is also a form of reincarnation
infused with a sense of myth and magic that creates the potential for new and unknown
existences to enter the world. With migration occurring via air-space, the traditional
perception of humans as earth-bound with identities rooted in a particular territory of
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�“home” is reversed (Gane 20). Instead, as Gibreel explains in the note he leaves in his
house before he departs for the flight, “We are creatures of air, Our roots in dreams And
clouds, reborn In flight [sic]” (13). By situating air-space as the source of identity rather
than the earth-bound conception of home, what is considered natural becomes denaturalized (Hutcheon 49) and thus valorizes the acceptance of hybridity rather than
inherent identity.
Indeed, air-space comes to represent an ideal space in which identity can be
continually renegotiated and where unbridled hybridity can exist. In The Location of
Culture, Homi Bhabha posits this idea of a “Third Space” which he describes as the space
between binaries that rejects homogeny (36). Ultimately, he posits that this space can
create “an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the
diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of culture’s hybridity” (38).
For Bhabha, much like for postmodernists, the concept of hybridity is structured around
the idea of the interchanging self, and Bhabha clearly envisions this hybridity as a
positive force that fosters understanding. Thus, the notions of crossing borders and
rebirth that are manifest in the text’s air-space at the outset of the novel reflect the
dividing and multiple nature of the migrant identity.
Certainly, with this Third Space dynamic established in the text, readers are
exposed to the unique world view of the migrant in his or her different forms; Rushdie
himself deems the novel “a migrant’s-eye view of the world” (“In Good Faith” 394).
Essentially, the migrant is a hybrid by nature, as his or her identity is the product of
various cultural influences. As Summer Pervez explains in her article “‘Hybridity is
Heresy:’ Homi Bhabha and The Satanic Verses,” the migrant is “forced to go through
identity revisions from a third space ‘in-between’ two or more nations” (154). When this
revision takes place in the air-space of the novel, a supplement/minority discourse opens
up a new cultural space—the third space—where the characters negotiate their national
identity. Saladin and Gibreel’s metamorphosis in air therefore demonstrates Bhabha’s
Third Space ideal.
Indeed, the potential for hybridity has hopeful connotations in air-space. As the
narrator explains, “when you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible”
(5). Anything does become possible, as the two characters morph together, becoming
“Gibreelsaladin Farishtachamcha” in their “angelicdevilish” fall (5). As they fall, Saladin
becomes aware of this metamorphosis in their “embrace,” and he realizes that “he had
acquired the quality of cloudiness, becoming metamorphic, hybrid, as if he were growing
into the person [Gibreel] whose head nestled now between his legs and whose legs were
wrapped around his long, patrician neck” (7). The use of “embrace” and “nestled” to
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�describe their conjoined state implies a sense of nurturing, affirming that their “collision,”
despite its power, can result in a positive renewal. Because they are in a third space that
lies outside of national borders, their identities are forced into revision. More than that,
their revision juxtaposes angel and devil, England and India, suggesting an uninhibited
hybridization that produces the possibility for interchangeability and hence the potential
for the deconstruction of binaries.
The idea of air-space as the ideal is intensified by the text’s portrayal of the
characters’ turn to flight and air-space as a result of a loss of faith in the “once solid
ground of the earth” (Gane 21), or the idea of a stable sense of home and identity. The
idea of a loss of faith is exemplified in the numerous suicides that take place: Rekha
Merchant, Gibreel’s mistress, throws herself and her children off a roof after she finds
Gibreel’s note—it is described that perhaps she had the “rebirth bug” and that she was
also a “creature of the sky…rooted in dreams” (15); Otto Cone, the father of Gibreel’s
love interest, Allie Cone, jumps down an elevator shaft to his death after trying
unsuccessfully to “wipe the slate clean” and become wholly English and deny his Polish
heritage (308)—his act, in turn, prompts Allie to climb Mount Everest (309); the parents
of Saladin’s wife, Pamela Lovelance, committed suicide by jumping off a building in
London. All these characters abandon earthbound existence for air-space; they cannot
actualize their desires on earth and therefore seek to be renewed or reborn in air. Again,
we see the trope of “to be reborn, first you must die” play out in air-space. Though
ultimately plunging to their death, their flight of sorts stems from the inability to cope
with the strictures of society, and air comes to represent a space through which they can
escape their realities in the hopes of something new and better.
In addition, Allie Cone’s scaling of Mount Everest serves as a prime example of
the draw to air-space. As she climbs, she comes to believe that it is only on the
mountaintop where truth can be found. Indeed, mountains are described as “land’s
attempt to metamorphose into sky; it is grounded flight, the earth mutated—nearly—into
air” (313). This conception again emphasizes the idea that air-space has the potential for
the collapse of binaries whereas on earth they are inescapable. Allie explains to Gibreel
her belief that it is impossible to place things within the binary categories that society
requires and thus “you can either break your heart trying to work it all out, or you can go
sit on a mountain, because that’s where all the truth went, believe it or not, it just upped
and ran away from these cities…and it hid up there in the thin thin air” (323-24). This
emphasis on air as the element of truth typifies the transience and discontinuity
characteristic of postmodernism, for air becomes the space in which binaries mutate into
hybridity and the power struggles inherent in social structures vanish. Thus, the struggles
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�of the other characters demonstrate a desire to reach the state in which Saladin and
Gibreel find themselves while in air: a state of hybridity actualized in air-space as it
comes to represent a blank slate upon which new meaning can be written, unlike the
already established binaries within society.
Juxtaposed with this ideal air-space is the “reality” of urban-space. As already
partially evident through an analysis of the use of air-space in the novel, hybridity in
urban space is problematized. Furthermore, while air-space represents the Third Space of
the hybrid ideal, a close examination of how hybridity works against Saladin and Gibreel
in the urban spaces of the text reveals that this ideal is unattainable in the postmodern
world. Indeed, Rushdie himself refers to the modern city as a “locust of incompatible
realities” (“In Good Faith” 404); whereas the realities are able to fuse in the ideal airspace of the novel, within London they become “incompatible.” While Saladin and
Gibreel’s metamorphosis in air makes it clear that the novel is about their quest for
wholeness, in the urban space they must grapple with the divisions in their identity. These
divisions become complicated and a source of demonization; both characters ultimately
end up rejecting the Third Space because it is incompatible with the world in which they
live.
Both Saladin and Gibreel migrate to London due to some loss of faith that they
view as irreconcilable. As Rushdie explains, Saladin is divided “between East and West”
while Gibreel’s division is “spiritual, a rift in the soul” (“In Good Faith” 397). For
Saladin, who embraced an English life and education, it is a sense of unhomeliness that
Bombay evokes for him. He tries to explain to Zeeny, his Indian mistress, that “in this
city where I grew up I get lost if I’m on my own. This isn’t home” (59, emphasis added).
He originally returns to Bombay for an acting job, and though Zeeny prompts him to
attempt to reconcile with his father and embrace his Indian roots, he is ultimately unable
to accept the Indian part of his identity. Gibreel, on the other hand, comes to the
realization that god does not exist, as it is only when he resigns himself to no longer
needing Allah to save him from his illness that he begins to recover (30). Up until this
point, Gibreel has made his living playing Hindu gods on television and in movies and
has ultimately embraced his Indian identity. With his loss of faith, however, Gibreel
leaves India in an attempt “to be born again” and to become “a new man with a new life”
(32), thus seeking a new identity. Overall, both characters depart Bombay for London in
an effort to rekindle their sense of identity.
In the reality of the urban space binaries are maintained, as we see each
character possessing distinctive characteristics of the English-Indian, angel-devil
dichotomy. Before the flight, Saladin “possessed a face of quite exceptional innocence, a
110
�face that did not seem ever to have encountered disillusion or evil…” (139). Gibreel, on
the other hand, is described as having some devilish characteristics: “Gibreel’s
exaltations, those of ochre clouds of sulphur and brimstone, had always given him—
when taken together with his pronounced widow’s peak and crowblack hair—an air more
saturnine than haloed, in spite of his archangelic name” (13). Thus, through the
description of the characters in society, readers recognize the binary of good versus evil.
Though these binaries break down in air-space, Saladin and Gibreel find
themselves in the urban-space of London after the plane crash, and the binary is back in
place but also flipped. When the immigration officers come to Rosa Diamond’s house,
the woman who takes in Saladin and Gibreel after the plane crash, Saladin grows devillike horns and is taken away by the officers while a halo-type light forms around
Gibreel’s head and he remains with Rosa Diamond. Saladin, having always identified
himself with the English and therefore the privileged, “angelic” half of the EnglishIndian, angel-devil binary, is now taken for the demonized, both literally and
metaphorically, illegal immigrant. Hence, though they are in a global city where multiple
communities exist together, racial/cultural hierarchies and stereotypes nonetheless
pervade the culture of the city and thus prevent the potential for a hybrid Third Space.
The nature of established cultural hierarchies and stereotypes becomes more
pronounced during Saladin’s time in the detention center and sanatorium for illegal
immigrants. As the immigration officers keep him held in the detention center and
ruthlessly abuse him, his devilish/goatman characteristics increase and he becomes hairy
and develops hoofs. Despite the fact that several of the immigration officers have a
lower-class drawl and little to no morals while Saladin, in his impeccable mimicry, has
worked all his life to sound and be English in its ideal conception, he is nonetheless
rendered inferior due to his Indian heritage. Essentially, Saladin’s transformation results
from hegemonic description, what Bhabha describes as “difference into demonism”
(226). Hence, Saladin’s metamorphosis into ‘the Goatman’ makes palpable his hybridity
at the same time as it makes literal the demonization of immigrants (Gane 27).
Moreover, as Vassilena Parashkevova explains in her essay “ ‘Turn Your Watch Upside
Down and You See the Time in London’: Catatropic Urban Configurations in Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses,” Saladin’s transformation as a product of hegemonic
versifying “becomes synonymous with the process of translation and migration as the
sites of multiple determinations” (16). In other words, his transformation can only be
reversed through the re-appropriation of his immigrant identity.
When Saladin wakes up in the sanatorium hospital wing after nearly being
beaten to death, he finds himself surrounded by hybrid monsters that he describes as
111
�“beings he could never have imagined, men and women who were also partially plants, or
giant insects, or even, on occasion, built partly of brick or stone; there were men with
rhinoceros horns instead of noses and women with necks as long as any giraffe” (176).
All these hybrid monsters are immigrants, coming from Nigeria, Senegal, Bombay, etc.
(173). When Saladin questions the manticore about how the detention officers are able to
turn them into these monsters, the manticore explains that “They describe us…That’s all.
They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct”
(174). Thus, we see the exaggerated establishment of the self-other, native-foreigner,
colonizer-colonized, binary in which the privileged colonizer has the power to project
negative characteristics onto the other, therefore demonizing the other, as we see literally
in the text. Therefore, while hybridity exists in London, it is demonized and suppressed,
certainly a far cry from the Third Space ideal.
After escaping the sanatorium with the other hybrid monsters, Saladin takes
refuge in the Shaandaar Café owned by an immigrant family, the Sufyans, and the father
Muhammad attempts to make sense of Saladin’s devilish transformation by proposing
two theories of metamorphosis. On the one hand he presents the Ovidian argument,
which maintains that identity is an immutable essence, that we “‘Are still the same
forever, but adopt In [sic] their migrations ever-varying forms’” (285). On the other hand
is the Lucretius argument of constant mutability in identity, as transformation requires
“‘immediate death to [the] old self’” (285). Essentially, readers are presented with an
essentialist vs. postmodern argument in the conception of the self. As Nicole Fugmann
explains in “Situating Postmodern Aesthetics: Salman Rushdie’s Spatial Historiography,”
“The problem consists in whether the crossing of cultural frontiers permits freedom from
the essence of the self (Lucretius), or whether, like wax, migration only changes the
surface of the soul, preserving identity under its protean forms (Ovid)” (340). Herein lies
the essential question of the text: can migration foster new, hybrid identities, or does
society perpetuate and thus necessitate essentialist and definitive concepts of identity?
Saladin further locates the tension inherent in the migrant situation through his analysis
of the Ovid vs. Lucretius debate: “Either I accept Ovid and conclude that some demonic
and irreversible mutation is taking place in my inmost depths, or I go with Ovid and
concede that everything now emerging is no more than a manifestation of what was
already there” (286). Either way, the urban space is governed by the strictures of society.
Though he lives in a postmodern world, the societal norms that govern this world do not
live up to the postmodern/postcolonial ideal. Unfortunately, then, the migrant seems
doomed for demonization.
112
�While Sufyan chooses the Ovidian idea, Saladin, because he must “translate
himself into the medium of the metropolis” (Parashkevova 12) in order to attempt to help
“newness enter the world,” chooses Lucretius over Ovid, but qualifies that choice: he first
reaffirms “the inconstant soul, the mutability of everything,” but in thinking about
hybridity he exclaims, “…eclecticism, hybridity. The optimism of those ideas! The
certainty on which they rested: of will, of choice! But, Zeeny mine, life just happens to
you…it happens to you as a result of your condition” (297). Hence, in the urban-space
people are defined in relation to others and, as evidenced through Saladin’s experience in
the sanatorium, migrants are rendered inferior. Saladin decides to confront the hostile
notions of the immigrant in British culture, as he is “a being who had crossed the
frontier” and was “roaming loose about the city” (297). Because migrants are hybrids by
definition, the injustices the characters suffer demonstrate that hybridity in its ideal, Third
Space conception cannot exist. Nonetheless, his acceptance of a Lucretius definition of
his transformation indicates his acceptance of the hybrid immigrant condition as it exists
imperfectly and unjustly in the urban space of London because, for Saladin, maintaining
some form of British identity is still preferable to an acceptance of an essentially Indian
identity.
Unlike Saladin’s acceptance of self, Gibreel resists his hybridity. While Saladin
strives to assimilate himself into London culture, Gibreel seeks to transform London, for
his Ovidian, or essentialist, conception of identity dictates his belief that he has the power
to manipulate and define the social structure within the metropolis. Furthermore, when
Gibreel remembers his hybrid experience with Saladin he rejects the image, exclaiming,
“No more of these England-induced ambiguities, these Biblical-Satanic confusions! —
Clarity, clarity, at all costs clarity!” (364). Thus, we see that, for Gibreel, the ambiguity
of hybridity is manifest in the postmodern metropolis (Fugmann 341). Ambiguity
conflicts with an immutable essence of self, and Gibreel therefore sees London as the
“most slippery, most devilish of cities! — In which such stark, imperative oppositions
were drowned beneath an endless drizzle of greys” (364). As evident through his idea of
“imperative oppositions,” Gibreel rejects the idea of hybridity in the urban space, as he
maintains his belief in an Ovidian immutable essence of self that is incompatible with the
conception of hybridity. Therefore, as Parashkevova explains, “The clash between
Saladin’s and Gibreel’s Londons articulates what can be defined as the migrant’s
duplicitous, angelic/devilish or foreignizing/domestication translation of the metropolis”
(20). Again, we see the characters’ division in the urban-space as further representative
of the reinforcement of binaries, unlike their conjoined, hybrid state in air.
113
�Due to Gibreel’s paranoid schizophrenia (443) he believes himself to be the
angel Gabriel, and believes he “had come to transform” London. He hallucinates that he
is floating on a cloud over the city, attempting to “tropicalize” the city, making it into his
ideal space. Yet, after Gibreel commands London to change, he finds himself back in
reality, collapsed on Allie Cone’s doorstep in a moment of lucidity, realizing his mental
instability. As the boundaries between Gibreel’s dreams and waking hours become
increasingly more indistinct, the dream urban-space becomes conflated with London and
Gibreel cannot separate the two. Thus, Gibreel’s wish to remain an untranslated man with
an immutable, Indian essence is ultimately unattainable, for, as Parashkevova explains,
Gibreel “ultimately self-destructs in a failure to reconcile his schizophrenic multiplicity
of selves with the Ovidian immutable essence” (20). Overall, Gibreel’s hybridity and
multiple roles in the novel indicate that in fact the Lucretian model applies far better to
his condition than does the Ovidian.
Whether or not the characters accept their hybridity, their migrant condition
renders them hybrids, and Rushdie continually juxtaposes the ideal of hybridity with the
negative consequences that play out in the urban-space. From a postmodern standpoint,
hybridity can breed globalization which can result in a lack of dynamicism and
authenticity throughout the world. While Saladin is watching television, he points out
“hybrid tragedies — the useless mermen, the failures of plastic surgery, the Esperantolike vacuity of much modern art, the Coca-Colonization of the planet” (420). Yet, just
before this, Saladin found comfort in an image of an Indian tree growing in an English
garden, and he comes to believe that “If such a tree were possible, then so was he” (420).
Thus, Saladin as a creature of “selected discontinuities” (441) contrasted with the falsity
of self that hybridity can create leads the narrator to ponder whether or not Gibreel can be
considered good “by virtue of wishing to remain, for all his vicissitudes, at bottom an
untranslated man” (442). Yet again, directly following this assertion is a contradicting
assertion of hybridity: “Such distinctions, resting as they must on the idea of the self as
being (ideally) homogeneous, non-hybrid, ‘pure’,—an utterly fantastic notion!—cannot,
must not, suffice” (442). Though Gibreel attempts to assert agency, both his and
Saladin’s experiences in London demonstrate how migrants are subjected to global
political and economic systems of exclusion and exploitation (Kalliney 67).
Not only is hybridity in the urban space problematic in its conception and
application, but it also results in violence. The violence begins with the death of Dr.
Uhuru Simba, the man wrongfully accused of being the serial killer nicknamed the
“Granny Ripper,” while awaiting trial in police custody. Race riots break out, and the
conflict then erupts when there is a raid on Club Hot Wax; the club and the Shaandaar
114
�Café are both set on fire. Thus, violence is depicted as extreme and surreal, highlighting
the plight of the migrant. As the Shaandaar Café burns down, the tenants are doomed,
and “faceless persons stand at windows waving piteously for help, being unable (no
mouths) to scream” (478). These migrants, unlike Saladin and Gibreel, are defined only
within the urban-space and thus through this apocalyptic, “nightmarish” violence
(Kalliney 66) readers recognize that the migrants are rendered voiceless and powerless.
Indeed, as Parashkevova explains, the acts of violence, “foreground the impossibility of
undoing metropolitan power” (22).
For Gibreel and Saladin, who have been exposed to the potential of new, hybrid
identity, the riot becomes the pinnacle of their metamorphoses and sets up their return to
Bombay. Gibreel, now under the belief that he is the Islamic angel of death, Azreel,
becomes completely unstable. His dream vision once again overtakes reality, and he
envisions himself blowing fire through his trumpet in order to cleanse London through
flame and purge itself by burning it to the ground (476). The image of Gibreel walking
through flames creates a devilish image that seemingly upsets the angel-devil/GibreelSaladin binary maintained since their original fall from air-space. This switch in
characterization is emphasized by Saladin’s transformation back to his normal, human
state. Thus, it becomes clear that their angel-devil metamorphoses are “metaphors of the
migrant identity—compressed, dramatized analogues of how migrants change” (Gane
30). However, these changes occur not through self-definition but through the projection
of otherness. While in London the impossibility of maintaining an identity of multiplicity
and discontinuity becomes clear, and the climatic riot scene dramatically finalizes this
reality.
After the riot, both characters return to Bombay, and their experiences in
Bombay confirm their ultimate rejection of the Third Space. When Saladin’s father
becomes gravely ill, Saladin returns to Bombay to make amends. In doing so, he comes
to not only recognize and accept but even embrace his Indian heritage. Moreover,
Saladin begins to see the possibility of the Ovidian, essentialist identity, as the narrator
explains that during his time in Bombay, “Saladin felt hourly closer to many old, rejected
selves, many alternative Saladins—or rather Salahuddins—which had split off from
himself as he made various life choices, but which had apparently continued to exist…”
(538). Implied in the assumption that parts of himself “continued to exist” is the
implication of an essential essence of self; thus, the hybrid ideal of newness is rejected.
Indeed, Saladin embraces his “essential” identity as Salahuddin, wishing that “he could
have been this person all his life” (524). Preferring to revive his Indian roots over his
former English aspirations, Saladin makes a clear choice to abandon any other identity he
115
�may have had and hence rejects an ideal hybrid self. Pervez explains that “Saladin’s
acceptance of one side of his identity—his essence—can be seen as a refusal to be in
Bhabha’s privileged space” (161). Because of the demonization and hardships suffered in
the urban-space due to the resistance of hybridity as an ideal, as it upsets the social
hierarchies based on essentialist notions of inferiority, it becomes practical to accept an
essentialist identity.
Gibreel fares worse than Saladin, for his inability to reconcile his hybridity in
any way drives him to murder Allie and then commit suicide. Gibreel’s resistance to
hybridity places him in a paranoid state of limbo that plays out in his dream visions and
consequently leaks into his waking hours, making his reality a constant struggle. Driven
by unfounded jealousy and his schizophrenic state, Gibreel pushes Allie from the roof of
the same skyscraper from which Rekha Merchant had thrown herself and her children
(556). In Gibreel’s hallucinatory state, he claims that it was actually Rekha who pushed
Allie from the building (559). Interestingly, both Allie and Rekha, who long for the
ideal, hybrid air-space of newness, find their lives ended there due to Gibreel. Thus,
there is an inescapable, violent connotation to embracing air-space, as the novel presents
the only possible conclusions as death or accepting the binary structure of the real-world
metropolis.
Indeed, when Gibreel shows up in Saladin’s house in Bombay with a gun, the
reader is presented with multiple rejections of the postmodern, hybrid ideal: Saladin
exclaims, “how the universe had shrunk!” (560), implying the dangers of a postmodern
world in which everything is related and readily accessible. In addition, before Gibreel
puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger, he says to Saladin, “I told you a long time
back…that if I thought the sickness would never leave me, that it would always return, I
would not be able to bear it” (560). His “sickness,” while clearly referring to his
schizophrenia, also refers to his hybridity. As previously established, Gibreel’s inability
to reconcile his hybridity causes him to become mentally ill; thus, his “sickness” is his
hybridity that will never leave him, and he cannot cope with such a reality. Therefore,
the Third Space that Bhabha envisions and Rushdie plays with in the plane crash proves
to be unattainable for the migrant.
While Rushdie valorizes hybridity, the way in which hybridity plays out in the
text presents the hybrid versus essentialist debate as complex within a postmodern world.
Air-space serves as the ideal postmodern, Third Space hybrid location: a place of
discontinuity and metamorphosis. However, in London we see the hybrid nature of the
migrant demonized, and upon their return to Bombay both Saladin and Gibreel reject this
Third Space. Overall, it becomes clear that Bhabha’s vision of hybridity is too idealistic.
116
�Though the novel upholds the vision of new communities coming together in a global
city, the vision is complicated by cultural hierarchies, replicated in migrant communities,
that resist the acceptance of an ideal postmodern world where certainties dissolve into
thin air and change is inescapable.
Works Cited
Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodern. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996
Fugmann, Nicole. “Situating Postmodern Aesthetics: Salman Rushdie’s Spatial
Historiography.” REAL: The Yearbook of Research in English and American
Literature. 13 (1997): 333-45.
Gane, Gillian. “Migrancy, The Cosmopolitan Intellectual, and the Global City in The
Satanic Verses.” Modern Fiction Studies 48.1 (2002): 18-49.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1989.
Kalliney, Peter. “Globalization, Postcoloniality, and the Problem of Literary Studies in
The Satanic Verses.” Modern Fiction Studies 48.1 (2002): 50-84.
Parashkevova, Vassilena. “‘Turn Your Watch Upside Down in Bombay and You See the
Time in London’: Catoptric Urban Configurations in Salman Rushdie's The
Satanic Verses.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 42.3 (2007): 5-24.
Pervez, Summer. “‘Hybridity is Heresy’: Homi Bhabha and The Satanic Verses.” South
Asian Review 25.2 (2004): 153-64.
Rushdie, Salman. “In Good Faith.” Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 19811991. London: Granta Books, 1992.
Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York: Random House, 2008.
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Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research
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Volume 8, Number 2
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- 2 The Study of Chromosomal Aberrations in Vicia faba as a Result of Exposure to UVA and UVB Radiation / Ryan Patricia Rogers -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- 34 The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Academic Performance of Baccalaureate Nursing Students. / Raychel M. Ryan -- Section III: Critical Essays -- 44 Moving Beyond a Lesbian Feminism: The Role of Choice in Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch / Charisse Willis -- 50 Meursault’s Pursuit of Social Justice / James Messina -- 58 Robert Johnson: More Than The Crossroads / Jonathan Pigno -- 64 A Power and Masculinity Perspective on Domestic Violence / Mary Beth Somich -- 70 The Instability of Language: A Clockwork Orange / Jessica Verderosa -- 76 Speak Up, Women! Paul Would Encourage It! / Sarah Nehm -- 85 In Pursuit of Honor: The Balance between Widowhood and Motherhood in the Letters of Alessandra Strozzi / Cassandra Brewer -- 95 I Am Woman: An Impressionist Tale / Sophie Fonner -- 106 Air-Space vs. Urban-Space in Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses: The Ideals and Realities of Hybridity / Jenna Pocius
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Fall 2010
Volume IX, Number 1
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research was first published in the fall of 2002.
It came about in response to the substantial upsurge in student scholarship that had
occurred since the inception in 1997 of the Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts, a
revamped curriculum that focuses on interdisciplinary learning communities, practical
internships and service-learning projects tied directly to course curricula. Thanks to Lee
Manchester, Director of Media Relations, past issues are now available from the Wagner
College Press through its online storefront.
As many of you know this interdisciplinary journal is printed biannually. To enhance
readability it is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural Sciences, The
Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are limited to papers
and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental, theoretical and
empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on the scholarly
review and critical examination of previous works.
Manuscripts are reviewed with respect to their intellectual merit and scope of
contribution to a given field. They are first evaluated by the faculty member(s) who
supervised the research and then sent to an editorial board that makes recommendations
to a single editor-in-chief.
To date full-length articles from over 150 students representing every department on
campus have appeared. A similar number of abstracts and technical notes have also been
printed. For a complete listing of authors and the issues in which their work appears, go to
http://www.wagner.edu/news/sites/wagner.edu.news/files/Catalogue (author alpha).pdf.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Prof. Patricia Tooker, Nursing
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
Dr. Margarita Sánchez
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Paper
2
Inhibition of Very Long Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase 3 in U87 Malignant Glioma
Cells: A Potential Cancer Treatment
Kathryn M. Chepiga , Mayur Mody, Zhengtong Pei, and Dr. Paul A. Watkins
Section II: The Social Sciences
Full Length Paper
18 Grief of Caregivers Caring for Alzheimer’s Disease Patients
Megan Stolze
Section III: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
42 Exoticism and Escape in the Works of Gauguin and Baudelaire
Shauna Sorensen
52 La Polyphonie et le Féminisme Postcolonial: L'Enfant de sable de Tahar Ben Jelloun
et Persepolis de Marjane Satrapi
Kathryn Chaffee
64 Homemaker or Career Woman: Is There Even a Choice?
Kerry Quilty
74 “The Inky Lifeline of Survival”: The Discovery of Identity Through French Culture
and Standardization in School Days and Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress
Kaitlyn Belmont
81 Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: The Lives of Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig,
and Arnold Schoenberg
Prerna Bhatia
89 Behind Closed Doors
Anonymous
99 Terror In Algeria
Jonathan Azzara
Invited Full Length Paper
114 The Spotted Death-Smallpox and the Culture of Eighteenth Century America
Amanda Gland
��Section I:
The Natural Sciences
�Inhibition of Very Long Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase 3 in U87
Malignant Glioma Cells: A Potential Cancer Treatment
Kathryn M. Chepiga (Chemistry), Mayur Mody (Kennedy Krieger Institute), Zhengtong
Pei (Kennedy Krieger Institute), and Dr. Paul A. Watkins (Kennedy Krieger Institute)*
An enzyme involved in lipid metabolism called very long chain acyl-CoA synthetase 3
(ACSVL3) has been found in extremely elevated levels in malignant glioma cells. RNA
interference (RNAi) has been used to show that inhibition of this enzyme significantly
inhibits tumor cell growth while leaving normal cells unaffected. Thus, if a drug is found
to specifically inhibit ACSVL3, it could hypothetically be used as a form of treatment for
glioblastoma tumors. A drug bank of 28 compounds was tested for a specific drug
inhibitor of the enzyme ACSVL3 using an acyl-CoA synthetase assay to test for acylCoA inhibition. This specific drug bank tested was chosen based on the ability of these
drugs to inhibit a structurally related enzyme, ACSVL1. Also, various drug solubilization
techniques were tested. Pierce Protein Assays were conducted on a regular basis in order
to test the concentration of protein in U87 malignant glioma cell samples. Immunofluorescence was performed in order to confirm the knock-down of ACSVL3. Although
none of the drugs tested thus far have been found to fully inhibit ACSVL3, one drug
family seemed to show potential. This family specifically inhibited some but not all of
the ACSVL3 present in the U87 malignant glioma cells tested. Further research will be
conducted in order to test the effect of all drugs in this family on ACSVL3 enzyme
activity.
I. Introduction
Fatty acids are used in a variety of different metabolic processes including N-myristoylation;
palmitoylation; regulation of enzyme activity; remodeling and interconversion of fatty
alcohols and fatty aldehydes; α-,β-, and ω-oxidation; and synthesis of complex lipids
including eicosanoids, diglycerides, triglycerides, phospholipids, plasmalogens, sphingolipids,
glycolipids, cholesterol esters, and waxes. However, all of these processes, except for the
synthesis of eicosanoids, require that fatty acids first be converted into fatty acyl-CoAs. This
conversion of fatty acid to fatty acyl-CoA depends upon acyl-CoA synthetases to catalyze the
reaction.1
*
Written under the direction of Dr. Wendy deProphetis-Driscoll (Chemistry) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
2
�Acyl-CoA synthetases (ACS) are enzymes which activate fatty acids by thioesterification
to coenzyme A (CoA) derivatives so that they can be further metabolized. Formation of
acyl-CoA allows otherwise non-reactive fatty acids to participate in the biosynthetic or
catabolic pathways described previously. Activation of fatty acids is a fundamental
metabolic process that occurs in all organisms. This process, catalyzed by acyl-CoA
synthetase, is shown below.1
Fatty acid + ATP + Mg2+ → acyl-AMP + Mg2+ +
PPi Acyl-AMP + CoASH → acyl-CoA + AMP
To date 26 different acyl-CoA synthetase genes have been discovered and their
sequences determined. Of these 26 acyl-CoA synthetases, there are three short-chain
(ACSS 1-3), six medium-chain (ACSM 1-6), five long-chain (ACSL 1-5), six very longchain (ACSVL 1-6), two bubblegum (ACSBG 1-2), and four unclassified (ACSF 1-4)
acyl-CoA synthetases (Figure 1).2
Figure 1: Family Tree of Acyl-CoA Synthetases
3
�Due to their implications in various diseases, lipids and those enzymes
associated with lipids, such as acyl-CoA synthetases, have been the focus of much
research in recent years. DiRusso, C. et al. focused their research on searching for a drug
to treat dyslipidemia, a disease caused by a disruption in the amount of lipids in the
blood.3 Dyslipidemia can lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.4
DiRusso, C. et al. began their search for a drug by screening a standardized
small compound library consisting of 2,080 compounds with known biological activities
in order to identify a compound or a family of compounds able to inhibit fatty acid uptake
into cells by fatty acid transport protein 2 (FATP2), also known as very long chain acylCoA synthetase 1 (ACSVL1). Of the 2,080 compounds screened, 28 compounds were
selected as potential fatty acid uptake inhibitors. Four groups of structurally-related
compounds were found within this group of 28 potential inhibitors. The largest of these
groups had structural similarities to compounds from a family of tricyclic, phenothiazinederived drugs which are currently on the market for treatment of schizophrenia and other
related psychiatric disorders.4
Another very long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase, very long chain acyl-CoA
synthetase 3 (ACSVL3), which activates saturated fatty acids 16 to 24 carbons long, is
also being closely studied. ACSVL3, also known as fatty acid transport protein 3 (F
ATP3), is expressed in the testes, adrenal glands, ovaries, brain, lungs, and kidneys. The
aspect of ACSVL3 that has most interested Watkins, P. et al., however, is that this
enzyme has been found in extremely elevated levels in human glioma cells (Figure 2).
Glioma cells are the malignant phenotype of glial cells which collectively make up
different types of brain tumors including astrocytoma, oligodendro-glioma, anaplastic
astrocytoma, and glioblastoma multiforme tumors. Glioblastoma, which is the primary
focus of research conducted by Watkins, P. et al, is a type of cancer which begins in the
brain or the spine. The most common site for glioblastoma tumors to occur, however, is
the brain. Glioblastoma multiforme tumors are both the most common and the most
aggressive of the different glioma tumors.5
One possible explanation for this extreme elevation of ACSVL3 is the fact that
tumor cells which collectively make up brain tumors proliferate rapidly and require many
different enzymes, particularly acyl-CoA synthetases, in order to synthesize cell
membranes at a much faster rate than normal cells. If this process is blocked in tumor
cells through inhibition of ACSVL3, tumor growth will also be inhibited.5
Another reason why ACSVL3 may be elevated in malignant glioma cells as
compared to normal glial cells is that lipids also play key roles in second messenger
4
�pathways which are dysregulated in malignant cells. Elevations in specific lipid
messengers are associated with malignancy.5
Although the reason for this elevated level of ACSVL3 is not yet fully
understood, experimental analysis has shown that when RNA interference (RNAi) is used
to knockdown (KD) ACSVL3 in U87 cells, a human glioblastoma cell line, subcutaneous
xenografts were less tumorigenic and grew at a much slower rate than control tumors
expressing the gene encoding ACSVL3 (Figure 3). This finding has lead to the on-going
search for a drug inhibitor of the enzyme ACSVL3.5
A drug which can specifically inhibit the enzyme ACSVL3 could potentially be
used to stunt or completely inhibit the growth of gliobastoma tumors while leaving
normal cells unaffected. In order to search for a drug of this nature, Watkins, P. et al.
began by screening the library of 28 compounds found by DiRusso et al. to inhibit the
structurally similar enzyme, very long chain acyl¬CoA synthetase 1 (ACSVLl).4,5
Figure 2: Levels of ACSVL3 are Highly Elevated in Malignant Gliomas
Figure 3: Control and Knockdown Intracranial tumors
5
�II. Results and Discussion
Staining for ACSVL3 and ACSBG1 was performed on different malignant
glioma cell types. Specifically, staining was performed on astrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, anaplastic astrocytoma, and glioblastoma multiforme. Astrocytoma are glioma
that originate in astrocytes, which are star-shaped brain cells.6 Oligodendro-glioma are
brain tumors which originate from the oligodendrocytes of the brain, which work to
insulate axons.7 Anaplastic astrocytoma, as the name implies, are brain tumors which
arise due to a loss of structural and functional differentiation.8 Finally, glioblastoma
multiforme is the most common and sadly the most aggressive of the gliomas.
Glioblastoma multiforme arises from glial cells.9 After staining these four different types
of brain tumor tissue, for which brown coloration indicates the presence of ACSVL3, it
was apparent that expression of ACSVL3 is extremely elevated in all malignant glioma
cells as compared to cells making up normal brain tissue (Figure 2). The focus of the
research conducted by Watkins, P. et al., however, is on glioblastoma multiforme tumors.
Once it was found that ACSVL3 was present in extremely elevated levels in
glioblastoma multiforme, testing was performed in order to determine differences
between cells containing ACSVL3 and those lacking this enzyme. The next step taken by
the researchers Watkins, P. et al., therefore, was ACSVL3 knockdown by RNAi.
Immunofluorescence, a technique in which antibodies or antigens are labeled
with fluorescent dyes in order to visualize intracellular biomolecules, was used to
determine whether or not ACSVL3 knockdown was successfuI.10 After transfecting U87
cells with the ACSVL3+4 plasmid, it can be seen that cells had a decreased level of
ACSVL3 compared to control U87 cells. The results of immunofluorescent staining
shows ACSVL3 in red (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Immunofluorescent Staining for ACSVL3 in Control and KD U87 Cells
6
�Another procedure which was performed on the U87 control and knockdown
cells in order to ensure that RNAi was successful was the acyl-CoA synthetase assay.
Acyl-CoA synthetase assays measure the combined activity of all endogenous long- and
very long-chain ACSs capable of activating C16:0 by quantification of fatty acyl-CoAs.
The results of the acyl-CoA synthetase assay show that enzyme activity in U87 KD cells
is ~40% that of the control, meaning that ACSVL3 activity makes up 20% of all acylCoA synthetase activity in U87 cells. The remaining enzyme activity seen in U87
knockdown results is due to ACSs other than ACSVL3 (Table 1).
Table 1: Enzyme Activity of Control vs. Knockdown Cells
The next step taken by Watkins, P. et al. was testing drugs in the acyl-CoA
synthetase assay as possible specific inhibitors of ACSVL3. In order to modify the assay
to allow the addition of drugs, various drug solubilization techniques were tested. First,
β-cyclodextrin was tested as a drug delivery method to be used in the acyl-CoA
synthetase assay. The concentration of drug was varied while the amount of βcyclodextrin added was kept constant. These results showed that β-cyclodextrin was not
releasing the drug into the assay properly. Next, the amount of β-cyclodextrin added to
the assay was increased with increasing concentration of drug. Therefore, the amount of
16mM drug solubilized in β-cyclodextrin added to the assay was varied. The results of
these two assays showed that although β-cyclodextrin was an effective drug solvent, the
release of the drug into the assay was highly dependent upon the drug: β-cyclodextrin
molar ratio. The drug used in the assays testing β-cyclodextrin as a drug delivery system
was chlorpromazine (Table 2).
7
�Because β-cyclodextrin was not found to be an ideal method for drug
solubilization when using the acyl-CoA synthetase assay, other drug solvents, DMSO and
ethanol, were tested at various concentrations. First, DMSO and ethanol were added to
the ACS assay in order to see if any inhibition of ACSs occurred from the addition of the
solvent alone.
Table 2: Acyl Co-A Synthetase Enzyme Inhibition is Dependent Upon Drug: βCyclodextrin Molar Ratio
A total of 0.8% DMSO in PBS was shown to have a detrimental effect on ACS
enzyme activity. Specifically, 0.8% DMSO in PBS inhibited ACS activity from the
control (to which only water was added) by ~30%. The amount of DMSO added to the
assay was then decreased to a total of 0.1 % DMSO in PBS. The 0.1 % DMSO was also
8
�shown to inhibit ACS activity from the control by ~ 10%. A total of 0.5% ethanol diluted
in PBS was found to inhibit ACS activity by ~8%. 0.5% ethanol in PBS, therefore, had
the least inhibitory effect on enzyme activity of the different solvents at varying
concentrations tested (Table 3). For this reason, 0.5% ethanol was used to solubilize
drugs in subsequent assays.
Table 3: Testing for Other Drug Solvents
From the 28 compounds found by DiRusso C, et al. to inhibit ACSVLl, 11 were
chosen to be tested in the ACS assay to determine whether or not they showed potential
as a specific inhibitor of ACSVL3. These 11 compounds were chlorpromazine,
clomipramine, clozapine, embelin, emodin, mitoxantrone, perphenazine, pimozide
promethazine, thioridazine, and triflupromazine.
In the first assay conducted, only control U87 cells were used in order to
determine which drugs were able to show inhibition of any ACSs present in the cells. Of
the 11 compounds tested, only seven were able to inhibit ACS activity. The seven drugs
which inhibited control cell ACS activity were embelin, emodin, perphenazine, pimozide,
promethazine, thioridazine, and triflupromazine, (Table 4).
A second assay was then conducted using both control and KD U87 cells. In this
assay, the seven drugs which were shown to inhibit ACS activity in the previous assay
were re-tested in order to determine whether any of the seven specifically inhibited
ACSVL3 activity. The results of the assay showed that of these seven drugs, only one,
triflupromazine, was found to be a specific inhibitor of ACSVL3 (Table 5).
9
�Unfortunately, however, triflupromazine was only able to inhibit ~12% of the ACSVL3
present in the U87 cells tested.
Table 4: Testing for Possible Drug Inhibitors of ACSVL3 Using Control U87 Cells
To continue the search for a specific inhibitor of ACSVL3, Watkins et al. will be
testing the other 17 compounds found by DiRusso C, et al. to inhibit ACSVL1. Further
modification of the ACS assay is also needed. Although ethanol did not significantly
affect enzyme activity, there was considerable variability from experiment to experiment
when 0.5% ethanol in PBS was used. This variability in results suggests that 0.5%
ethanol in PBS might not be the optimal drug solvent. Further studies are being
conducted in order to determine the best way to introduce drugs to the ACS assay.
10
�III. Methods
Materials
The α-CD/10mM Tris pH 8.0 solution was prepared by combining 100mg αCD, 100µl 1M Tris pH 8.0, and 9.9mL H2O. The mix used in the acyl-CoA synthetase
assay was prepared by combining 120µl H2O, 10µl 1M Tris pH 8.0, 6µl 0.425M ATP,
6µl 0.425M MgCl2, 6µl 8mM CoA/DTT, and 2µl 1N KOH per test tube. The pH of the
Table 5: Comparing Inhibitory Effect of Drugs on Control vs. KD U87 Glioma Cells
mix was then adjusted to 7.5 using 1N KOH. The modified Dole's solution was prepared
by combining 800ml isopropanol, 200ml heptane, and 20ml 2NH2SO4 (a 40:10:1 ratio of
isopropanol: Heptane: 2NH2SO4).
11
�Control human U87 malignant glioma cells and U87 cells with stable
knockdown of ACSVL3 were used as the test system in all assays. Assays contained
15µg cell protein. All animal protocols were approved by Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine Animal Care and Use Committee.5
Cell Culture
Human U87 glioblastoma cell lines (American Type Culture Collection
Rockville, MD) were cultured. U87 cells stably expressing EGFRvIII (U87 KD cells) and
wildtype U87 (control U87) cell lines were obtained from Dr. Gregory Riggins, Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD).5
Transient ACSVL3 Knockdown (KD)
The pSilencer™ kit (Applied Biosystems/Ambion; Austin, TX) was used to
produce four different small interfering RNA (siRNA) constructs. These constructs were
used to target different regions of ACSVL3 mRNA. siPORT™ lipid reagent (Applied
Biosystems/ Ambion) was used to transfect U87 cells with each of the four siRNA
constructs. Three days after transfection took place, indirect immunofluorescence and
Western blot analysis were used to asses the cells for their expression of ACSVL3. It was
found that siRNA ACSVL3-3 and -4 were successful in significantly decreasing the
expression of ACSVL3 in the cells while siRNA ACSVL-1 and -2 were not. siRNA
ACSVL 3-3 (5'-CACGGCTCGCGGCGCTTTA-3') targets bp 394-412 of ACSVL3
mRNA and ACSVL3-4 (5'-CGTCTATGGAGTCACTGTG-3') targets bp 1861-1879.
Control cells were also transfected with siRNA, in order to ensure that no differences
between control and KD U87 cells occurred due to transfection. Control U87 received a
scrambled nucleotide sequence (Ambion).5
Production of Stable KD Cell Lines
For control U87, a pSilencer vector that expresses shRNA with a scrambled
sequence which does not express any protein in either human or mouse genomes
(Ambion) was used. For knockdown cell lines, short hairpin RNA (shRNA)-producing
vectors were constructed using ACSVL3-3 and -4 siRNA sequences seeing as siRNA
ACSVL3-3 and -4 were the most effective in decreasing ACSVL3 cellular levels as
discussed in the previous section. Nucleic acid polymers 5’-GATCCCACGGCTCGCG
12
�GCGTTTATTCAAGAGATAAAGCGCCGCGAGCCGTGAAA-3’ and 5’AGCTTTTCACGGCTCGCGGCGCTTTATCTCTTGAATAAAGCGCCGCGAGCCGT
GG-3' for ACSVL3-3 and 5'- GATCCCGTCTATGGAGTCACTGTGTTCAAGACAC
AGAGACTGACGGTTA-3' and 5'-AGCTTAACGTCTATGGAGTCACTGTGTCTCT
TGAACACAGTGACTCCATAGACGG-3' for ACSVL3-4 are oligonucleotides
(Integrated DNA Technologies; Coralville, IA) that were annealed and cloned into
linearized pSilencer™ 4.I-CMV hygro vectors (Applied Biosystems/ Ambion).
Underlined regions designate the targeted sequences. The BTX ECM 600 electroporator
was used to transfect U87 cells with control, ACSVL3¬3, ACSVL3-4, and ACSVL3-3
plus ACSVL3-4 (3+4) plasmids by electroporation. Hygromycin (200µg/ml) was added
to the culture medium 24 hours after electroporation and antibiotic-resistant clones were
selected and analyzed for ACSVL3 KD by immunofluorescence and Western blot.5
Immunofluorescence Analysis
Affinity-purified antibodies were used in order to perform immunofluorescence
analysis of ACSVL3 in control and KD U87 cell lines. Antibodies from BD Biosciences
(San Jose, CA) and Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA) were used to detect total
and phospho-Akt (ser473) respectively. Total and phospho-Akt (ser473) were quantified
using the LiCOR Odyssey dual wavelength infrared system.5
Western Blot Analysis
Western blots with SuperSignal West Pico chemiluminescent substrate (Pierce
Biotechnology, Rockford, IL) were used to detect relative amounts of ACSVL3 in cell
samples.5
Subcutaneous and Intracranial Xenograft Mouse Models
In vivo tumorigenesis of control and ACSVL3-3 knockdown of U87 cells was
assessed in 4-6 week-old female mice. For subcutaneous (s.c.) xenografts, NIH III
Xid/Beige/Nude mice (National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD) were injected in the
dorsal areas with 4x106 cells suspended in a 0.1 ml of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS).
Tumor growth was measured every 3-4 days by measuring the volume of the tumors
using calipers. The formula used to estimate tumor size was: volume = (length x
width2)/2. When tumor size reached ~300mm3 , the mice were randomly divided into
groups (n=6 per group). The first group was injected with the neutralizing anti-HGF mAb
L2G7. The second group was injected with control 5G8 monoclonal antibody (mAb).
13
�Both groups received 100 µg antibody/20g body weight in a volume of 0.1 ml PBS
intraperitoneally (i.p.) twice weekly.
105 cells in 5µl PBS were injected unilaterally into the caudate/putamen of C.B17 Scid/Beige mice (National Cancer Instute, Frederick, MD) under stereotactic control
for orthotopic xenografts. Mice were sacrificed 26 days post-injection. Brains were
perdusion-fixed and hematoxylin/eosin-stained cryostat sections were used. Tumor size
was calculated using computer-based morpometrics.5
Chemical Compound Library
The SpectrumPlus compound library, consisting of 2,080 compounds, was
obtained from MicroSource Discovery Systems, Inc. There are five subsets of
compounds within the library: Genesis Plus, Pure Natural Products Collection, Argo
Plate, Cancer Platem and Spectrum Plus Plate. The Genesis Plus is composed of 960
compounds that represent new and classical therapeutic agents, and experimental
inhibitors and receptor agonists. The Pure Natural Products Collection includes 720
diversified pure natural products and their derivatives, including simple and complex
oxygen heterocycles, alkaloids, sequiterpenes, diterpenes, pentercyclic triterpenes,
sterols, and many other diverse compounds. The Agro Plate is a group of 80 compounds
representing classical and experimental pesticides, herbicides, and purported endocrine
disruptors. The Cancer Plate consists of 80 cytotoxic agents, antiproliferative agents,
immune suppressants, and other experimental and therapeutic agents. Finally, the
Spectrum Plus Plate is a group containing 240 biologically active and structurally diverse
compounds. The 2,080 compounds are supplied as 10 mM in DMSO solutions. The
10mM solutions were then prepared for screening in yeast, by diluting the drug solution
in PBS to a final concentration of 80 mM. A Caliper RapidPlate 96/384 Dispenser
(Caliper Life Sciences, Hopkinton, MA) was used to screen the drugs in yeast.4
Acyl-CoA Synthetase Assays
14
Activation of [ C] palmitate (C16:0) (Moravek Biochemicals, Brea, CA) to its
CoA derivative was measured in frozen/thawed cell suspensions. 13x100mm disposable
tubes were set up in duplicates and then labeled. A radio-labeled C16:0 solution was
heated with gentle stirring in a hot water bath for 5 minutes, sonicated, and vortexed.
50µl of C16:0 was then added to each test tube. The solution was then dried down by
placing the tubes under N2 gas for approximately 5 minutes. The fatty acid was then
solubilized with 50µl α-CD/1OmM Tris pH 8.0. The tubes were sonicated for 2 minutes
14
�more and then incubated for 30 minutes in a 37oC moving water bath. A 25:50 ratio of
drug to cell suspension was used when creating samples. A 1:1 ratio of sample to STE
was added to each tube for a total volume of 50µl sample and STE. 150µl of mix
(described in the materials section) was immediately added to each test tube. The test
tubes were vortexed for approximately 5 seconds each and then incubated for 20 minutes
in a 37oC moving water bath. Once the 20 minutes was up, the reaction was stopped by
adding 1.25ml of modified Dole's solution to each tube. The solutions were then allowed
to sit for at least 20 minutes at room temperature before they were worked up.
The tubes were then centrifuged using a Beckman Model TJ-6 Centrifuge for 10 minutes.
Once complete, the supernant from each tube was transferred to new test tube. 0.75ml
Heptane and 0.5ml water were then added to each tube. The tubes were vortexed for 20
seconds each and the solution was allowed to separate into two layers. The radioactive
upper layer was then aspirated off. 0.75ml Heptane was added, the tube was vortexed for
20 seconds, and the upper layer was aspirated off. The previous step was repeated.
Finally, 0.75ml Heptane was added and the solution vortexed well. The contents of the
tubes were then centrifugated for 1 minute in the Beckman Model TJ-6 Centrifuge. Once
complete the upper layer was removed and the lower layer transferred to small counting
vials. 5ml of Budget Solve solution was added to each counting vial and the contents
were shaken thoroughly. The combined activity of all endogenous long- and very longchain ACSs capable of activating C16:0 was then measured using a Beckman LS 6500
Multi-Purpose Scintillation Counter.
Protein Quantitation
Two different protein quantitation assays were used. Amount of protein was
determined in some cell samples by method of Lowry et al.. For most samples, however,
the Pierce 660nm protein assay was used. 12x78 mm test tubes were obtained at the start
of the Pierce 660nm protein assay. To the blank, test tube 1, 49.2µl PBS 4.8 µl 10%
triton, and 6µl STE were added. The first standard solution (STDl) was prepared by
combining 47.7µl PBS, 4.8µl 10% triton, 6µl STE, and 1.5µl of 2mg/ml BSA. STD2 was
prepared by combining 46.2µl PBS, 4.8µl 10% triton, 6µl STE, 3µl 2mg/ml BSA. STD3
was prepared by combining 43.2µl PBS, 4.8µl 10% triton, 6µl STE, 6µl 2mg/ml BSA.
STD4 was prepared by combining 34.2µl PBS, 4.8µl 10% triton, 6µl STE, and 15µl
2mg/ml BSA. The concentrations of STDl, 2, 3, and 4 were 50 µg/ml, 100 µg/ml, 200
µg/ml, and 500 µg/ml respectively.
The remaining test tubes contained the samples in which protein quantity was
being measured. To these tubes, 49.2µl PBS, 4.8µl 10% triton, and 6µl sample was
15
�added. Once this was complete, 900µl of New Pierce 660nm protein assay reagent was
added to each tube. The tubes were allowed to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. The
protein concentration was measured at 600nm using a Beckman DU 640 UV/Visible
spectrophotometer.
IV. Acknowledgement
This work was supported by NIH grants NS037355 (PA W), NS043987 (JL). PS
was supported by a fellowship award from the American Brain Tumor Association.5 The
drugs tested by Watkins, P. et al. were chosen based on the research of DiRusso, C. et al..4
V. References
1.
Watkins, Paul A., 2008, J Bio. Chem., 283, 4, 1773-1777.
2.
Watkins, Paul A. et. al., 2007, J Lipid Research, 48, 2736-2750.
3.
Wikipedia: Dyslipidemia, Accessed on 04/13/2010 at 7:32 PM.
4.
http:// en. wikipedia.org/wikiJDyslipidemia (4) DiRusso, Concetta C. et aI., 2008, J
Lipid Research, 49, 230-244.
5.
Watkins, Paul A. et. aI., 2009, Cancer Res., 69 (24), 9175-9182.
6.
Wikipedia: Astrocytoma, Accessed on 04.13.2010 at 12:20 PM.
7.
Wikipedia: Oligodendroglioma, Accessed on 04/13/2010 at 12:37 PM.
8.
Children's Hospital Boston: Anaplastic Astrocytoma
http://www.childrenshospital.org/ az/Site5651 mainpageS565PO.html.
9.
Wikipedia: Glioblastoma multiforme, Accessed on 04/13/2010 at 1 :07 PM http://en.
10. Wikipedia: Immunofluorescence, Accessed on 4/13/2010 at 5:32 PM.
11. DiRusso, Concetta C. et aI., 2009, Immun., Endoc. & Metab. Agents in Med. Chem.,
9, 11-17.
12. Guo D. et aI., 2009, Science Signaling, 2 (101), ra82.
13. Wikipedia: Glioma, Accessed on 04/08/2010 at 11 :08 AM.
16
�Section II:
The Social Sciences
�Grief of Caregivers Caring for Alzheimer’s Disease Patients
Megan Stolze (Psychology)1
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia that consists of a gradual
decline in physical and mental functioning. Although there is suffering on the part of the
patient, caregivers also suffer from the stress, frustration, grief, and burden that
accompany caregiving. Grief, burden, and stress have been researched extensively since
the 1970s until present. The stages and similarities of grief have been pinpointed, but it
seems that the biggest predictor of burden is how the caregiver personally perceives the
situation. The issues throughout past research were observed during the author’s
internship at the Alzheimer’s Foundation. New conceptions for future research were
formulated during the experience.
I. Introduction
Alzheimer’s disease was first identified by Alois Alzheimer in 1906; however it
was not thoroughly researched until the 60s into the 70s (Alzheimer’s Association, 2009).
It is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 60-70 percent of dementia
patients (Basics of Alzheimer’s, 2009). Alzheimer’s disease progressively deteriorates
the nerve cells within the brain, resulting in a loss of physical and mental functioning.
The patient is unable to take care of themselves or make decisions; they are left in the
hands of their caregiver. During this time, caregivers have to give up a lot of their own
life in order to take care of the patient. Often some leave their job, lose friends and
family, and gain physical and mental illnesses that they did not have prior to caregiving.
Alzheimer’s disease affects every aspect of the caregiver’s and the patient’s life (Basics
of Alzheimer’s, 2009).
Each patient's decline is different from the next, so all that can be followed are
the similarities in the decline. This information provides caregivers with an idea of what
is to come during the course of the disease. If the caregivers are educated with the main
issues, less stress, grief, and better personal and patient care may result. Early education
about the decline of Alzheimer’s disease should be presented to them during the initial
diagnosis stage. Over the past few decades, research has tried to define Alzheimer’s
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth (Psychology) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
18
�disease, and an overview of similarities has been formed. This information will
hopefully help the caregiver with support, treatment, and education.
II. Literature Review
It was the year 1959 that community based treatment was encouraged for
psychiatric patients. The Mental Health Act was passed with an amendment that
encouraged not only support outside of a hospital setting, but treatment within the home.
This had huge implications on the treatment of patients with dementia. Grad and
Sainsbury (1968) did a two year follow up on the different treatment approaches of two
different hospitals; one was “extra-mural” and the other “hospital-oriented”. Both of the
hospitals sent a psychiatric social worker to measure the burden of the families as either
“some burden” or “severe burden”. One month after first being assessed, the families
with severe burden experienced similar relief in both hospitals. Although it was not
statistically significant, the “hospital-oriented” approach helped relieve the “some
burden” category of families better. After two years, these trends were still present; 52
percent of caregivers in the “extra-mural” group said that their patient had caused
problems during the past two years, whereas only 28 percent of caregivers from the
“hospital-oriented” group had problems. There was more caregiver burden when the
patient was at home than when they were in the hospital (Grad and Sainsbury, 1968).
The type of family burden that was experienced is very similar to current
research. The caregivers experienced emotional disturbances, insomnia, headaches,
irritability, and depression. On top of these, they had to give up or greatly restrict their
social activities and spent most of their time catering to their patient. The majority of
their time, energy, and money were spent caring for the patient. Grad and Sainsbury
(1968) concluded that it is important to provide proper support systems for families if
they are using community instead of clinical care. After assessing the enormous amount
of stress that goes into caregiving they made an important statement, “…we are obliged
to consider whether their continued presence in the home is leading to the production of
more mental illness in the community” (Grad & Sainsbury, 1968). This idea is why it is
so important to provide support for the caregiver along with the patient.
In 1981 through the present, families are attempting to keep the patient in the
comfort of their own home as long as possible. This attempt leaves the family with many
stressors that may cause physical and psychiatric problems. Every dementia patient is
different, their decline can be gradual or quick along with stable plateaus; therefore the
effect on the family is unique with every case. Eisdorfer and Cohen (1981) recognized
these differences and encouraged treatment that consisted of trying to maximize the
19
�functioning and quality of life for the patient and the caregiver. The different stressors
that occur can cause family problems, physical and psychiatric problems, substance
abuse, and maladaptive behaviors occurring mainly in children within the families of
dementia patients. When a patient is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia the
physician should make a conscious effort of educating the patient and family about the
disease, along with assisting them to community based programs for both people.
However, it seems that in 1981 it was not being implemented as strongly as was needed,
because the illness was misunderstood (Eisdorfer & Cohen, 1981).
Eisdorfer and Cohen (1981) felt it was important to be familiar with the changes
that occur during the decline of the patient. Being ready and informed about what is to
come can help prepare not only the patient but also the caregiver. The patient should be
evaluated during times of rapid deterioration because it may not be due to Alzheimer’s
disease, but instead from an infection or an unhealthy diet. The patient could possibly
recover from a decline that was not from the disease. Legal and financial issues should
be discussed before the patient deteriorates to an enabling state, that way nothing is
misunderstood when the time comes to make a decision. Home visits from physicians
and social workers can help to create a healthy environment for the patient that can give
them the optimum care and functioning. All of these aspects of care can help to decrease
the stress and concern that comes with caregiving and being a patient of Alzheimer’s
disease. Eisdorfer and Cohen (1981) were the pioneers of good care that included
therapy and close attention to the relationship between the family/caregiver and the
patient.
In 1981, support groups were already being used for caregivers of aphasic and
stroke patients; Barnes, Raskind, Scott, and Murphy (1981) thought support groups
would also be useful to families of Alzheimer patients. During the time of this study
more than 1 million people of the United States had Alzheimer’s disease, so the need for
some type of support was great. Barnes et al. (1981) started a support group made up of
spouses and adult children that met together biweekly for sixteen, 90 minute sessions,
and bonded very quickly. Each session was videotaped, so common problems were able
to be assessed, such as an inadequate explanation of the disease, irritability, physical
abuse, denial, guilt, hopelessness, and frustration. The group helped each of the
caregivers to vent and relate experiences with one another. The group leader helped to
keep the conversation comfortably flowing, along with give specific legal, medical, and
psychological support and advice, but the majority of the learning that took place was
actually between the individual caregivers (Barnes et al., 1981).
20
�The key to successful care is the ability to adjust to the constant deterioration
that the patient is going through; the family needs to change along with the patient,
because nothing else can be done. Since each patient was at different stages of
deterioration, the caregivers were able to share stories that helped others to prepare for
the future. The support group ended up being a great success, because it informed the
families about the disease and the legal issues that needed to be addressed before the
patient became unable to care for him/her self. It also helped to increase the morale and
well-being of the caregivers. Overall, the support group seemed to help; Barnes et al.
(1981) hoped that the concept would spread leading to better care for the patients and
caregivers.
The dying process of each Alzheimer individual is influenced by their
environment and the people that encompass it, their symptoms, and personality.
Although the patient is deteriorating, during the early to mid stage they are capable of
doing numerous things and making rational decisions. In order to make it a more positive
experience the caregiver must recognize the strengths of the patient and incorporate them
in the decision making. Cohen, Kennedy, and Eisdorfer (1984) interviewed a couple
hundred Alzheimer patients to see if there were any related ways to cope with the disease.
They thought if people were able to better understand how the patient copes, then the
caregivers could cope too and provide better care (Cohen et al., 1984).
The dying process is best described in 6 stages, starting with pre-diagnosis.
Recognition and concern usually take hold of the people around the patient, because the
patient is more likely to ignore or deny the subtle hints that occur. It starts off as being
human error and progresses to an inability to function well in society. The symptoms
may even cause serious social turmoil, resulting in the loss of a job, friendships, family,
and even substance abuse. Once it gets that serious, Cohen et al. (1984) suggested the
importance of receiving a medical diagnosis and social support; therefore there is not an
untrained misdiagnosis that results in increased stress. Once there is a medical diagnosis
of Alzheimer’s disease, a second phase occurs which is the reaction of the diagnosis,
denial. It is only understandable that someone would deny having Alzheimer’s, but it is
extremely important for their future to cope. Early diagnosis is most important so that the
patient is part of the decision making starting with their medications and views on life
support. Not having to cover-up the illness provides the caregiver and patient with great
relief; both are then able to communicate and attempt to adjust to the changes (Cohen et
al., 1984).
During the acceptance of the disease, feelings of anger, guilt, and sadness
usually occur. It is important for a medical professional to provide not only medical
21
�information about the disease, but help them make social support connections within the
community. Knowing about day care programs, legal opportunities, and even support
groups can make a huge difference in the treatment and progression of the disease. Once
the patient and caregiver are able to get through the next stage of coping completely, they
can take advantage of all the things they always wanted to do. The patient should be
treated and respected like usual, but live in a safe environment. Schedules of little jobs
can create less stress for the caregiver and give the patient a feeling of mastery. It is
difficult to be constantly deteriorating and try to maintain a normal lifestyle, which is
why the patient and caregiver must adjust and constantly redefine themselves (Cohen et
al., 1984).
The next phase of maturation consists of the new bond that occurs between the
patient and the caregiver. The ability to change with one another creates a new
relationship, and can be positive if the coping phase went well. A feeling of selfdetermination and accomplishment is encouraged because the patient can still function
and provide the world with their gifts. Once the disease goes into its final stages, there
occurs a separation from self. This is the hardest phase for both the caregiver and patient,
because they are no longer the “same” person. The caregiver is taking care of a person
who is completely different from whom they originally loved. Cohen et al. (1984) stated
that no patient has ever been able to actively explain this separation, because they have
extreme loss of functioning. Therefore, it is important to respect their later life decisions
that were made before the severe loss of functioning. These common phases among
Alzheimer’s patients can give a better understanding to the process of change that needs
to occur during the dying process. With the help of a medical professional and a
successful transition through the phases the best experience can be made of Alzheimer’s
disease; less stress and better care will result (Cohen et al., 1984).
When the loss of functioning becomes so severe and the stress of caregiving
becomes great, the desire to institutionalize the patient increases. Putting an Alzheimer
patient into a nursing home is usually the last step of care for the Alzheimer patient. The
caregiver can no longer give enough care by themselves or with the help of aids; a
nursing home provides 24 hour medical care for the patient. Morycz (1985) wanted to
understand what predicted the desire to institutionalize a patient and wondered if race or
gender had a factor. He conducted structured interviews and surveys to 80 families that
were directly caring for an Alzheimer patient. The functional incapacities, strength, and
behaviors were assessed of the patient and the caregiver, because often the caregiver is
older with medical problems too. Also, the degree of burden and the strain of caregiving
were measured to see how the caregivers subjectively viewed the experience.
22
�Overall, the burden caregivers received was similar across all races and gender.
Caregiver strain was the best predictor to institutionalize a patient. However, males and
African Americans were less desirous to institutionalize their Alzheimer patient, and
strain did not predict that desire. Even more interesting, the less social support the
caregivers had predicted more family strain and stress. The results of Morycz’s (1985)
study are important because it showed there was burden and strain with caregiving
despite gender and race. The desire to institutionalize was different depending on the
burden that was felt by caregivers, but African Americans and males were less likely to
put their patient in a nursing home. It also supported the notion that social support was
helpful for the care and burden on the caregiver. Morycz (1985) had great insight on the
burden and strain of caregiving.
Haley, Levine, Brown, and Bartolucci (1987) had less support that stress
predicted poor caregiver outcomes. 54 caregivers were interviewed and assessed on their
stressors, appraisal, coping responses, and the type of social support and activity they
were involved in. Surprising to Haley et al. (1987), the severity of caregiving stressors
had little prediction to caregiver outcomes, defined as their level of depression, life
satisfaction, and health. How the caregiver perceived their own stress rather than the
objective measure of stress was a better predictor of the depression felt by them. This
makes sense considering every person relates to struggles differently. The more social
support, like friends and family that are supportive of the disease the more satisfied
caretakers are with their life. Haley et al. (1987) mentioned the importance of coping
mechanisms along with social support and activity because they seemed to predict better
health outcomes. Better caregiver health outcome means more successful patient care.
An overview of the articles studying caregiver grief prior to 1990 was compiled
by Schulz, Visintainer, and Williamson (1990). They were specifically looking at
depression and other psychiatric illness rates in caregivers, because caregivers often
forget about their own health when taking care of their patient. The list of studies they
reviewed measured depression, overall emotional health, stress, immune response, and
health care utilization. Compared to non-caregivers, most of the studies had elevated
levels of depression, and the more impaired the patient the higher the depressive
symptoms in the caregiver. Females were found to have a greater chance of having
elevated levels of depression than men. Schulz et al. (1990) were most worried, because
some of the cases of depression could warrant a psychiatric diagnosis. They wondered if
caregiving was actually causing the psychiatric diagnosis of major depressive disorder,
and when treatment should be given. Throughout the studies reviewed, neither
institutionalization nor death resulted in a decrease of depressive symptoms. They
23
�hypothesized that if the depression continued for a length of time after the person died,
then they should be put on some medical treatment for the disorder. Physical health was
also being affected by either precipitating an illness or making a preexisting illness worse
(Schulz et al., 1990). If physical and mental health is being negatively affected by
caregiving, then support groups and medical attention needs to be given to the caregivers
specifically.
Grief occurs during the act of caregiving and after the patient dies. Jones and
Martinson (1992) interviewed 30 caregivers, 13 of which were continually contacted
during caregiving and after the death of the patient. 54 percent of the caregivers
interviewed said that the most intense sadness and grief was during caregiving. The long
goodbye during their physical and mental decline seemed to be a reason for their crying,
sadness, and depressive feelings. Most were ready to let go due to the quality of life their
patient was living in, however some still wanted to hold on as long as possible. Most of
the caregivers felt relief with the death of the patient but guilty about past decisions.
Some even started to resent the disease because of what it caused the family and the
patient. Interestingly, caregivers said they needed help and encouragement to go on with
their lives after having committed so much time to their patient. Some reported that they
tried to rekindle relationships that had been lost and gained new interests. The grief that
Jones and Martinson (1992) observed was not typical of anticipatory grief, but rather
acute and related to the loss of ability. They suggested it is a different phenomenon
called “dual dying”, which incorporated the declining mental capacity that affected
intelligence and social ability. It occurred early during caregiving and was at its peak
right before the death of the patient, and continues on a much less scale after the death. It
seemed the best time to provide support was during the caregiving period (Jones &
Martinson, 1992).
Throughout research, depression seemed to be a common ailment that occurred
during the caregiving process. Walker and Pomeroy (1996) recognized that depression
was present, however did not see it as severe as originally thought. They thought that
what was actually occurring was anticipatory grief, because the caregivers were
constantly experiencing different losses over an extended period of time. In order to
support their hypothesis of anticipatory grief, Walker and Pomeroy (1996) conducted a
study in which they interviewed 100 caregivers who had been part of an Alzheimer’s and
dementia support group. Numerous measures were used including the Grief Experience
Inventory, a bereavement scale, Despair scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory.
Caregivers scored higher than a control on the depression scale; however they were not
extreme levels of depression. The results from the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)
24
�showed that 63 percent of the variance accounted for grief; therefore Walker and
Pomeroy (1996) suggested that the depression was actually grief. Full scores on the BDI
strongly suggested that the patient was going through anticipatory grief. A social
desirability scale was also used; commonly those with low scores reported high levels of
depression and intense feelings of grief. However in this sample, only 8 percent of
caregivers reported low social desirability and 44 percent reported high desirability
(Walker & Pomeroy, 1996). The authors suggested the high scores are due to the
expectations that our society places on the treatment of the ill and caregiving. More
attention is needed on the subject of anticipatory grief; treatment could possibly be more
efficient if it accurately treated as anticipatory grief. Walker and Pomeroy (1996) urged
that more research should be attempted on the topic of anticipatory grief, because it could
be beneficial to the caregiver’s health and the quality of care for the patient.
Within the same year, Ponder and Pomeroy (1996) discussed the severity of
anticipatory grief. Caregivers were unable to mourn successfully while the patient was
alive, because they were too busy caregiving. In addition, the fact that the body was still
alive complicated feelings. The caregivers lived in long term anticipation of death and
were lost in a world of uncertainty and losses. In order to measure the extent of their
grief Ponder and Pomeroy (1996) conducted structured interviews of 100 caregivers. The
intensity, anticipatory grief behaviors, and the grief stage of which they are in, were
measured using the Stage of Grief Inventory, Despair Test, and the Grief Experience
Inventory. Caregivers were also asked to self report all of their grief behaviors exhibited
in the past two months. They had comparable levels of denial, over-involvement, anger,
and guilt, but with higher levels of acceptance and negative symptoms of guilt.
Surprisingly, 73 percent of the caregivers were in the last stage of guilt, acceptance
(Ponder & Pomeroy, 1996). Most importantly, as the Alzheimer patient’s symptoms got
worse, the anticipatory grief in the caregivers increased; verifying the hypothesis. They
also hypothesized that during the beginning of caregiving guilt would increase, then
decrease as death came near; however the results showed an initial decrease of grief, then
a rise towards the end. Ponder and Pomeroy (1996) were unable to predict that longer
duration of caregiving would end with caregivers reaching the stage of acceptance.
Rather, no matter what duration they were within, they had comparable levels of grief.
The results of the study were informative in the way caregiving impacted the lives of the
caregivers. Their grief and despair did not follow a path that prior research had expected,
Ponder and Pomeroy (1996) helped to expand the research on anticipatory grief.
The grieving process happens not only while caregiving, but also when the
patient dies. Murphy, Hanrahan, and Luchins (1997) thought it was important to explore
25
�how nursing homes handled grief and bereavement after the patient dies; therefore they
conducted a telephone survey to 121 long-term care facilities, of which only 111
participated. The call was directed to either a social worker or the Director of Nursing at
the facility, and asked six questions about their grief and bereavement services postdeath. The interviewer asked questions such as, are sympathy cards sent to families, are
families provided with grieving and bereavement information before or after death, are
they sent information about support groups, are they offered a referral for counseling,
does anyone from the facility attend the funeral, and does anyone contact the family
during the first 13 months of the death. Out of the 111 nursing homes 55 percent sent
sympathy cards, the rest expressed interest in the idea, and 98 percent of facilities did not
visit, call, or write to the families 13 months after the death of the patient. Surprisingly,
99 percent gave no information before or after death about grief and bereavement, mainly
explained that their work load inhibited them from doing so, and some even requested
packets from the interviewer to hand out. Also, 99 percent sent no information about
support groups locally or on-site, and 76 percent had not given referrals to a counselor or
psychiatrist. Lastly, 54 percent of the facilities had an employee attend the funeral of the
patient, however it was based on the case and the relationship formed between the
employee and patient (Murphy et al., 1997).
These percentages were alarming considering the significant amount of grief
caregivers go through after the death of a patient. Murphy, et al. (1997) stated that most
caregivers were not aware of the support that was available in their community, and it
was at the time a national policy that caregivers should receive at least 1 year of grief and
bereavement care. Caregivers reported positive outcomes of pre and post-death grief and
bereavement care; it seems more attention is needed to spread the word about these
resources.
In order to create the best therapeutic environment for caregivers, Meuser and
Marwit (2001) attempted to track the grief responses individually, between spouse and
adult-child caregivers depending on the severity of the Alzheimer’s patient. They
attempted to identify the characteristics of grief at each stage of Alzheimer’s disease, the
differences and similarities between spouse and adult-child caregivers, and the effects of
anticipatory grief. 87 caregivers were mailed a questionnaire which asked demographic
information and measured the level of functioning of the patient and grief of the
caregiver. After the questionnaires were received Meuser and Marwit (2001) placed the
caregivers into either spouse caregivers of mild, moderate, and severe patients or adultchild caregivers of mild, moderate, and severe patients. Overall, the spouses and adultchildren exhibited similar intensities of grief. The adult-children had significantly higher
26
�levels of jealousy towards non-caregivers, negativity, loss of interest in usual activities,
and questioned the meaning of life. The spouses showed greater levels of loneliness and
loss of sexual intimacy (Meuser & Marwit, 2001).
The significant differences between spouses and adult-children were
documented from the support groups which were video-taped and later reviewed. The
mild stage adult-child group seemed to overlook the early signs of dementia and
attributed them to aging. They were less likely to discuss the future and instead, focused
on the capacities of their patient. The spouse group was more open, accepted the disease,
and seemed realistic in their ideas. At this point the adult-children were self-focused on
their personal losses, whereas the spouses were other-focused and saw the loss as mutual
(Meuser & Marwit, 2001).
During the moderate stage of caregiving adult-children are hit with the reality of
the situation, they can no longer live in a world of denial. They tend to be angry and
frustrated because they have to take care of someone with Alzheimer’s disease, and then
feel guilt for feeling that way. Meuser and Marwit (2001) hypothesized that it was a
result of a role shift; children had to take care of their parents and had a hard time
accepting that role. Although stress added up in spouse caregivers, they tended to
understand it and embrace it rather than have negative feelings about the situation. They
exhibited little anger; instead they hoped to sustain dignity and affection (Meuser &
Marwit, 2001).
The last stage of severe caregiving is usually marked by putting the patient into
a nursing home. Adult-children tended to feel immense relief by releasing the anger,
frustration, and jealousy they attributed to caregiving. Their focus was changed from the
self to the patient and their relationship. On the other hand, spouses tended to have the
most intense grief at that point because it forced them to examine themselves. Often selfcare was threatened by caregiving, so they were left trying to build themselves back up,
but without their “other half” (Meuser & Marwit, 2001).
This study was a huge step forward in the quality of care for caregivers. Meuser
and Marwit (2001) were able to support that there were significant difference between the
grief felt by spouses and adult-children. Knowing these differences could make
treatment special to the individual caregiver, and improve coping mechanisms.
Now in 2009, researchers have attempted to characterize the grief that a
caregiver goes through. Diwan, Hougham, and Sachs (2009) attempted to explore grief
that occurs not only after death, but also during caregiving. Caregivers from two major
hospitals were contacted for an interview two to six months after the death of the
caregiver’s patient. The researchers attempted to see if there were any patterns in the
27
�grief of the relationship between patient and caregiver, and what issues precipitated grief.
Demographics were taken along with the patient’s symptoms during the end stage, also
whether the caregiver utilized hospice, was satisfied with patient care, and experienced
caregiver grief. There was one open-ended question that asked if they had ever grieved at
any other time than during the death of the patient. If they answered yes, then they were
asked at what times and to explain why they thought they grieved at that time. The
answers to these questions provided the most important information from the study. 62
out of 87 caregivers reported grieving at other times other than during the death of the
patient (Diwan, et al., 2009). Some of the issues that may have provoked the feelings
were the diagnosis, symptoms from the illness, decline in physical and mental health,
personal conflict, institutionalization, and the end stage of the patient.
The relationship that the caregiver had with the patient seemed to have had an
influence on the type of grieving they experienced. A smaller percentage of adult-sons,
compared to spouses and adult-daughters, reported grief before the death of the patient.
Only daughters seemed to have grieved because of some interpersonal conflicts they were
experiencing (Diwan, et al., 2009). These results of the differences among types of
caregivers are important to explore in further research.
Diwan, et al. (2009) stated an important insight into their own research, and said
that “grieving appears to vary by the nature and significance of the loss experienced by
the caregiver”. They stated the importance of not focusing on similarities of grief
between people; it was the caregiver’s personal life and reaction that had the biggest
influence on their grief. The only way to properly educate caregivers was by preparing
them for what to expect by sharing stories and coping strategies. That way they could
prepare themselves for what was to come in the future (Diwan, et al., 2009).
Throughout the research presented there were many common themes that were
also seen during my placement at the Alzheimer’s Foundation. Through my observations
I was able to further support what was studied in past research.
III. Observations
My placement was with the Alzheimer’s foundation sitting in on caregiver and
patient support groups; along with making calls to caregivers and providing them with
community resources and brief counseling. I was able to witness the benefits of support
groups and hear the stories of each caregiver. No caregiver or patient is alike, but they
are still able to learn a lot from one another.
28
�Week 1
While in the office, a caregiver called asking if we had a friendly visit program.
She reported that her mother is lonely and lacks the social contact and activities to keep
her busy. Advice was given about caregivers visiting the nursing home too often. Nurses
and nursing home staff told a caregiver to stay at home, in order to give the patient time
to settle into the new situation. A caregiver called to vent about her situation and
reported that her father is burning her out.
Week 2
During the caregiver support group, the caregivers reported the progressive
deterioration of the disease, and how they felt “hopeless” because the patient never gets
better. A caregiver, a school teacher, reported that in order to get her husband to move a
leg or go to bed she will say, “And we move the leg” as she moves the leg. She stated the
importance of sustaining dignity in the loved one, because “no one likes to be told what
to do”. A different caregiver reported having a difficult time with her husband acting
violent towards her and then running away. She had to call the police, but since he was
wearing an ID bracelet she stayed in the house instead of looking for him. She stated, “I
wasn’t scared at all, is that bad? I just figured the police would find him and I couldn’t
keep letting him hurt me.” Another caregiver spoke about losing her friends and no
longer being able to entertain like she wanted. The rest of the group reassured her and
said that once time passes, and the patient cannot move around as much, she would be
able to entertain again. The leader of the group continuously stated the importance of the
caregiver changing, since the patient cannot.
Week 3
In the caregiver support group a new caregiver attended the meeting. The
caregivers reacted with words of encouragement and positive yet direct information about
patient care. A caregiver brought up the topic of preventing other illnesses in a patient.
One patient was advised by the doctor to get a colonoscopy because of issues that were
persisting, thinking he might have colon cancer. The caregiver seemed hesitant to go
through with the procedure, because he stated the patient had not complained. The leader
interjected by saying that often a patient can have a negative reaction to anesthesia and
intense procedures. The caregiver’s other worry was the preparation for the colonoscopy
and the results afterwards. She reported that she may not be able to handle the clean up
from the colonoscopy. One caregiver stated in response, “If you find something
cancerous will you do something about it?” That appeared to make the caregiver think
29
�and helped to make the decision. Another caregiver asked if he should continue with
mammograms for his patient, since it is painful. They discussed the importance of
comfort in the caregiving of the patient.
When making phone calls, I spoke to a woman whose father has Alzheimer’s
disease and is the primary caregiver. She reported that her father was being “nasty”,
verbally and physically abusive to his wife. The caregiver stated that she yells back at
the patient, telling him to stop using his illness as an excuse. She stated when she shows
up at the house, her father behaves well.
Week 4
One caregiver stated that you can bring memory back in a patient by using a
skill they once used often. The patient did not know who was on the phone earlier in the
week; the caregiver who knew he was good with numbers, asked him a series of
questions that he was able to answer. “When did your son and wife get married?”
“When did they have their first son?” Then, she stated, he was able to figure out who
was on the phone and remember his name.
During the Alzheimer patient support group the patients joked and appeared
almost “normal”. Most of the patients stated that their main goal was to keep busy, do
things they are interested in, and not feel sorry for themselves. They were able to
remember old information, but when asked about recent events could not report anything.
Some of the patients had trouble keeping their train of thought, so when a question is
asked it took a while to respond.
Week 5
During the caregiver support group, a new caregiver expressed that she may not
want to know whether her husband has Alzheimer’s disease or not. She talked
continuously about her patient, and the rest of the group actively listened.
During the Alzheimer patient group five patients attended, at various levels of
dementia. One woman exhibited a more serious level. She had severe lack of
socialization and an intense gaze. While playing a game of bingo, the patients exhibited
a lack of concentration, yet still seemed to enjoy the game. Questions were asked about
United States history and the patients were able to answer with correct answers, however
exhibited trouble with piecing information together.
When calling caregivers, a lack of transportation was a continuous complaint.
Caregivers exhibited guilt about taking time out for themselves, and reported having little
30
�motivation to go out. One caregiver stated that she had given up on her self; all that
mattered was the patient.
Week 6
During the caregiver group the subject of traveling occurred. The leader stated
that when the patient’s surroundings change, they decline rapidly. A caregiver previously
made plans to go on a cruise with the patient and seemed to be nervous. She stated that
the people she would be with would help, but she was worried she would not be able to
relax. She assumed that he would stay in the room; however other caregivers interjected
and stated that he might try to leave and get confused. One caregiver suggested placing a
piece of paper over the door knob, creating the illusion that it is not there. The quality of
nursing homes was discussed and their prices. Money and the cost of everything seemed
to be a constant worry of the caregivers.
During the Alzheimer patient group, the patients exhibited frustration with the
power their caregivers had over them. They often said, “I do what the boss tells me”.
While making phone calls, a woman exhibited extreme anger towards the
Alzheimer’s foundation, stating “I never had help and never got it.”
Week 7
During the caregiver group the leader spoke of the importance of letting the
patients do their own things. One caregiver shared that her patient hand picks the leaves
off the lawn. One patient sings to herself, the caregiver stated it is sad to listen to. Most
of the caregivers reported that the patients ask repetitive questions.
During the Alzheimer group one patient exhibited untypical behavior. He could
not seem to focus on the game nor could understand the concept of the game and was not
social.
During a phone call, a woman reported receiving “no support” from the
Alzheimer’s foundation. She stated that she received wrong information about money
issues, the support group was for “stupid” people, and was upset about a nurse wanting to
come to the house.
Week 8
During the caregiver group, multiple people stated that when the patient dies
from Alzheimer’s disease, the person slowly moves into the fetal position. It starts with
the hands, and the fingers will curl until you cannot get them to uncurl. One caregiver
appeared to be tired. He stated he is taking care of his patient by himself and does not
31
�want help. Another caregiver had just undergone a serious surgery for a complication
that occurred, because he did not get the preventative treatment that was needed. He
stated it was because he was too busy caring for his loved one.
Week 9
During the caregiver group a caregiver updated about having to put his patient
into intensive care because she was no longer choosing to eat. The caregiver stated he
had some hesitation about doing so, but after speaking with his family he agreed. They
put a tube into her stomach so that food could be constantly put in, and she could mouth
feed. The patient is only 65 years old, so the caregiver said he could not just let her die
by not eating. He stated that his wife grabbed him and said she loved him and did not
want to die. The caregivers also discussed that they are affected physically by all the
stress that comes with the job. Numerous women caregivers reported thyroid problems
that probably stemmed from the stress of caregiving. A few caregivers also reported the
patience needed to get their loved one to swallow food because they often loose the
ability to swallow.
While sitting in on the second caregiver group a new woman came with a patient
who seemed to cause some disruption in the group. The woman who is the sole care
provider for the patient was not sure who the new woman was and why she arrived with
her patient to the group. She stated that the new woman disrupts his schedule and causes
added stress to his life. The main caregiver reported the idea that the new woman may be
stealing money from the patient. The caregiver seemed extremely frustrated and vented
throughout the entire meeting.
Week 10
While sitting with the group, caregivers talked about incontinence. One
caregiver stated that she thought she would never be able to clean up her patient, but now,
because she has no other choice, is forced to clean him up.
The following group, Medicare and Medicaid were discussed. The caregivers
stated that the middle class lose a lot of the benefits, because they make too much or too
little for either one. They stated that it is helpful to be more educated in order to reap the
best benefits. One patient stated that financial spousal refusal and divorce could be a
possible option, “It is only on paper, it does not mean you do not love the person”.
Hesitation toward this concept seemed to be central within the group. One caregiver
stated the importance of putting all of the assets of the person in the name of someone
they trusted, so it would not affect their benefits. One caregiver reported that her patient
32
�was insecure about wearing a care assist button necklace because he is very independent.
She stated that losing independence is one of the most frustrating things for both the
caregiver and the patient. Another caregiver stated it is “heartbreaking” watching the
patient forget to do things they used to do, like how to open an orange juice container. It
seems the caregiver gets used to the way things are going and when they see a decline in
ability it is really “sad”.
Week 11
During the caregiver group, caregivers talked about the frustration they had with
the dosages of medicine. The caregivers reported that Alzheimer’s medications make the
patient drowsy, and the patient ends up sleeping all day. The caregivers urged each other
to personally halve the dose to create less drowsiness. Quality of life is an important
factor for all of the caregivers.
Week 12
Upon observing the caregiver group, one caregiver stated that she was happy
that her family was able to see the “sick” side of her husband. She stated the frustration
she felt when people do not understand how the patient really acts, because patients often
put up a social front. Another caregiver said she hates visiting a relative who has endstage Alzheimer’s disease because it reminds her of what is to come with her patient.
More talk about money and the cost of medicine was brought up. That seemed to be a
serious stressor in all of the caregivers’ lives
Throughout the 12 weeks that I interned, many issues were continuously brought
up. Frustration could be seen every week, but with different aspects such as, loss of
independence, forgetfulness, loss of functioning, health care, social understanding,
quality of life, and financial issues. Caregivers also consistently had feelings of being
“burnt out” and tired. Many attributed those feelings to the reason they are sick. The
caregivers reported the stress in trying to make end-of-life decisions for the patient, and
the importance of early planning with the patient. Although caregivers had constant
feelings of hopelessness, they made a strong attempt to stay positive in their “heart
breaking” situations. Many caregivers personally reported a loss of independence, family
support, friends, hobbies, and personal identity. The issues reported were very similar to
what previous research has concluded. However these issues spark further discussion.
33
�IV. Discussion
Previous research, for the most part, has been able to pinpoint the main issues
surrounding caregiving. Caregiving and the decline of the Alzheimer’s disease patient
are unique to every case, which makes it difficult for researchers to narrow down any
specific similarities. What are more important are the differences and why/how they are
different. Understanding these differences has helped me to analyze past research with
my observations during my placement.
The hospital and extra-mural approach to an institutional setting has a
significant impact on the patient and the caregivers (Grad and Sainsbury, 1968). The
extra-mural, social support, which is given, provides caregivers with more resources to
get educated about Alzheimer’s disease and what to expect. While sitting in on the
support groups, the help was evident that the caregivers were experiencing. The whole
concept of the Alzheimer’s foundation is to help caregivers and patients receive social
services. The more people know about preparation and education, the better they seem to
cope with the disease. Caregivers continuously stated during support groups, how much
it helped with treatment to know what to expect in the future. They were able to plan
financially, legally, and medically. In an extra-mural setting caregivers and patients are
provided with the social resources to help them prepare for the future. Similar
experiences of emotional disturbances, insomnia, headaches, irritability, and depression
as in the research of Grad and Sainsbury (1968) were reported by the caregivers in the
support groups I attended. The caregivers reported feelings of depression and irritability
while their patient was declining in function and during their personal loss of
independence.
One of the main stressors during caregiving is the desire to keep the patient
living at home for as long as possible. As seen in my placement, caregivers attempted to
keep the patient at home by all costs. Most caregivers will attempt to personally care for
the patient until they physically can not do it or pay for around the clock hospice care.
This adds extra stress and burden in the caregivers’ life, because although they have
someone caring for the patient, they often feel like they should be there the whole time.
This same feeling also occurs when the caregiver decides to place the patient into a home.
During the support group, many caregivers stated that they go everyday for hours on end
to be with their patient. In their eyes, they are never there enough. In order to make
things easier I think it would be best if upon diagnosis the patient and caregiver discuss
the possibility of putting the person in a home. If the caregiver hears from the patient
their feelings on the placement during end-stage, then perhaps there would be less guilt
and hesitation to enter a patient into a home.
34
�Eisdorfer and Cohen (1981) brought up an interesting point of research, stating
the importance of a healthy diet and lifestyle throughout diagnosis, because other
illnesses that may precipitate could speed up the decline of the patient. Most of the
activities encouraged by the social workers and mediators of the support groups I
attended encouraged exercise and a balanced diet. Knowing that the patient is as healthy
as possible in other aspects of life, gives a sense of ease to the stress of caregiving.
However, as the patient deteriorates it gets harder to enforce these healthy habits. Some
of the caregivers I observed, let their patient eat whatever they want because they are
lucky if the patient eats anything. The patients seemed to love to eat the cake and cookies
that were supplied during the support groups. I just hope that it is not a daily habit.
The use of support groups as an education and therapy tool throughout research
has only been confirmed with my placement. The relationships that were formed were
blatantly present while sitting in on the support groups. Whether it was sharing stories,
tips, or ideas about certain caregiving topics, each were equally as valuable to the
caregivers. What was most important that I witnessed was the affirmation that they are
not alone in their caregiving journey. Other people are going through what they are
going through, and knowing that seems to give them a sense of calmness.
In order for there to be the most successful care, the caregiver must change
while the patient’s ability to function deteriorates. This was continuously stated in the
support group meetings and became sort of a motto for the caregivers to live by. I do see
the importance of changing with the patient because it helps the caregiver to cope better
with the loss of functioning. If the caregiver is not creating new expectations, then they
will be continuously disappointed as the patient can physically and mentally no longer
live up to their expectations. Stress and “heart break” can be reduced if the caregiver
learns to change with the patient.
Sustaining the independence of the patient for as long as possible is important
for the patient’s well being. One of the main things that lead to frustration, violence, and
anger is the loss of independence that a patient endures. It is important that caregivers
learn to let their patient be independent with as many things as possible, however they
must use judgment. For example, I have seen in support groups that at a certain point in
the deterioration certain freedoms like driving and going out alone need to be revoked.
This is not done easily, and many of the caregivers reported extreme resentment from the
patient. The resentment often leads to aggression and possible abusive acts toward the
caregiver. Through my observations I feel that the loss of independence is the biggest
reason why frustration occurs, because the loss is seen in both the patient and the
caregiver.
35
�The grieving process can be described in six stages as outlined by Cohen et al.
(1984); pre-diagnosis, denial, coping, acceptance, maturation, and separation from self.
Each of these stages I witnessed either in the support groups or while making phone calls
to caregivers. Many of the caregivers I spoke to on the phone seemed to still be in the
denial/coping phase. Some, caregivers whose patients had already died from
Alzheimer’s disease seemed to be in a sort of denial that anything occurred. The
caregivers in the support group, for the most part, were either in the coping or acceptance
stage. From their testimony, it sounds as if the support group enables them to talk about
their experiences and transition from one stage of grief to the next. I could distinctly tell
by talking to caregivers whether they were past the denial stage or not, because of the
content of their complaints. Most caregivers that are within the acceptance stage are able
to understand the loss of functioning and realize that it is not the patient wanting to do
things, but rather it is the disease making them.
Haley et al. (1987) made an important discovery when researching what
precipitates caregiver outcome. It is not so much the actual stressors that affect the
outcome, but rather how the caregiver perceives their own stress. What one caregiver
sees as difficult may not be what another one sees as difficult. For example, a caregiver
in the support group had no issues with helping the patient with their incontinence
problems, whereas another caregiver stated she could never do something like that.
People deal with things differently; therefore if a caregiver is presented with what is to
come, they may be able to utilize better coping mechanisms.
Caregivers tend to put their own health on the back burner while caring for their
patient. This often leads to serious physical and mental illnesses that are not noticed until
they are severe. Research has reported serious forms of depression; however I did not
witness that during my placement. During the twelve weeks that I was at my placement
two of the caregivers went through major surgeries for problems that were not caught in
time. One patient had to get his sphincter removed because of the late detection of his
colon cancer, and the other patient had to get her aortic valve replaced. The caregivers
actually stated that if they were not caregiving they may have been able to catch the
illnesses earlier. Other caregivers report specific thyroid problems and generally being
sick more often. Caregiver self-care is extremely important considering they are caring
for another person also. Throughout the support groups, the leaders encouraged
caregivers to take time out to care for their mental and physical health. Unfortunately, a
lot of caregivers do not realize the importance of rest until it is too late.
Anticipatory grief, grief that occurs during caregiving, was extremely apparent
while listening and talking to caregivers. The slow deterioration of the person causes the
36
�caregiver to grieve each loss. It is like the person is slowly slipping away before their
eyes. It was seen during the caregiver support group sessions, when caregivers would
discuss their feelings of “heart break” while watching their patient struggle to perform
certain tasks. The anticipation of death causes the grief that caregivers are continuously
experiencing. It was hypothesized by Ponder and Pomeroy (1996) that anticipatory grief
would dissipate after the death of the patient, when in fact the results of their study
showed that grief increases. Grief starts off low due to the usual denial of the disease,
increases as coping continues, declines during the acceptance phase, and then increases
once the patient dies. I think this occurs because of the ambivalent feelings the
caregivers have regarding the loss of their patient. Although they already lost the person
they once knew, they no longer have anything to hold on too. The caregiver also will
doubt the care they gave them, thinking that they could have done more, when in most
cases they did the best anyone could ever expect. Anticipatory grief is inevitable during
the course of Alzheimer’s disease.
Usually a caregiver is either a spouse or adult-child to the patient. This brings in
interesting aspects of role reversal within their relationship. The spouse seems to focus
all of their energy and attention with the loved one. The only thing that matters to the
spouse caregiver is what is going on with the patient, thus everything that affects the
patient is internalized within the spouse caregiver. Adult-children are affected
differently; they tend to worry about self related issues. They are more interested in how
the caregiving process is affecting them personally more than the spouse caregiver.
Adult-children see the personal losses that they endure as important and their grief and
issues stem from those thoughts. The important distinction is that spouse caregivers
know they will eventually be taking care of one another; however adult-children do not
expect to take care of their parents. It is difficult taking care of a parent after having been
taken care of your whole life. Many of caregivers state the heart break they have when
they see their mother or father suffering. The role reversal that occurs in spouse and
adult-child caregiving is a predictor in how caregivers perceive their stressors.
The last, but important point is the prevalence of grief and bereavement services
that are available to caregivers. There are social services in the community that can help
caregivers, but knowing about them and accessing them seem to be what stops people
from reaping their benefits. The benefit of the Alzheimer’s foundation is that they have
all the information about local services, so when I made calls I was able to help the
caregivers. I would call them and ask them if they needed help gaining any of the
resources that are available. Caregivers are willing to get help but often do not know
where to turn or do not have the motivation to try to search for help. Most of the
37
�caregivers I spoke to just needed someone to encourage them to get help. They felt
selfish for wanting to help themselves, in addition to helping their patient. I think most of
the effort needs to be in advertising the resources that are available because a lot of good
can come out of them.
My personal observations while at the Alzheimer’s foundation helped me to
better understand the research that has already been completed. The research seems to be
a good representation of what is actually occurring during the support groups and support
talks I have witnessed.
V. Conclusion
Alzheimer’s disease deteriorates a person physically and mentally.
Unfortunately, the caregiver endures the majority of the grief seen from the loss of
functioning. The patient will be able to notice differences up until a certain part of their
life, and then the patient becomes nothing more than a dying body. The caregiver is then
left with all major decisions pertaining to the patient. Once, a patient is diagnosed, the
caregiver and patient have to take steps together to get all legal and financial issues in
line. Early planning will take some stress off the caregiver, when they have to make
those important decisions. Keeping a normal and healthy life as long as possible helps
the patient to feel like they are worth something, which in return will create a better
relationship with the caregiver. The relationship between the caregiver and patient is
unique by race, gender, and whether the caregiver is a spouse or adult-child. The role
shift of taking on a responsibility that may have never been expected or is not as socially
acceptable creates tension and more stress on the caregiver. This influences how the
caregiver interprets different losses and problems that precipitate with the disease. Thus,
the grief, anticipatory grief, and stress they endure are all unique to their personal beliefs
and relationships. It is important to provide education about symptoms to come,
emphasize self help, and encourage a future for all caregivers at the initial diagnosis of
the patient. These keys can help to lessen the grief and stress endured by caregivers
caring for Alzheimer’s disease patients.
Future research would be beneficial, because any insight is better than none at
all. However, I feel that the study of the grieving process and the symptoms that
precipitate has been exhaustive. The main conflicts and issues have been outlined
thoroughly, now it is time to research what coping mechanisms work best for caregivers.
Since, we currently understand that caregiver grief and stressors are perceived differently
by each individual person, it is the preventative treatments that need to be studied.
Different ideas beyond support groups should be formulated and then tested by
38
�caregivers. Since, grief and stress is inevitable, more coping mechanisms need to be
formulated and taught to the caregivers. This research would be more beneficial to the
health of caregivers, and in return increase the quality of care for the patient. When these
new ideas are formulated and thoroughly tested, they need to be made readily available to
caregivers. Caregivers are often uneducated on the course of Alzheimer’s disease and
what there is to expect as a new caregiver. With more research on preventative coping
tools and more access and advertisement to the tools, caregivers will hopefully be able to
perceive stress and grief in a healthier way.
VI. References
Alzheimer’s Association. (2009). 2009 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Retrieved
from http://www.alz.org/national/documents/report_alzfactsfigures2009.pdf.
Alzheimer’s Association. (2009). Alz.org, Alzheimer’s association. Retrieved from
http://www.alz.org.
Barnes, R. F., Raskind M. A., Scott, M., and Murphy, C. (1981). Problems of families
caring for Alzheimer patients: Use of a Support Group. Journal of the American
Geriatrics Society, XXIX(2), 80-85.
Cohen, D., Kennedy, G., and Eisdorfer, D. (1984). Phases of change in the patient with
Alzheimer’s dementia: A conceptual dimension for defining health care management.
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 32(1), 11-15.
Diwan, S., Hougham, G.W., and Sachs, G.A. (2009). Chronological patterns and issues
precipitating grieving over the course of caregiving among family caregivers of persons
with dementia. Clinical Gerontologist, 32, 358-370.
Eisdorfer, C., and Cohen, D. (1981). Management of the patient and family coping with
dementing Illness. The Journal of Family Practice, 12(5), 831-837.
Grad, J. and Sainsbury, P. (1968). The effects that patients have on their families in a
community care and a control psychiatric service: A two year follow-up. British Journal
of Psychiatry, 114, 265-278.
Haley, W. E., Levine, E. G., Brown, S. L., and Bartolucci, A. A. (1987). Stress,
appraisal, coping, and social support as predictors of adaptational outcome among
dementia caregivers. Psychology and Aging, 2(4), 323-330.
39
�Holley, C. K. and Mast, B. T. (2009). The Impact of anticipatory grief on caregiver
burden in dementia caregivers. The Gerontologist, 49(3), 388-396.
Jones, P.S. and Martinson, I.A. (1992). The experience of bereavement in caregivers of
family members with Alzheimer’s disease. IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship,
24(3), 172-176.
Meuser, T. M. and Marwit, S. J. (2001). A comprehensive, stage-sensitive model of
grief in dementia caregiving. The Gerontologist, 41(5), 658-670.
Murphy, K., Hanrahan, P., and Luchins, D. (1997). A survey of grief and bereavement in
nursing homes: The importance of hospice grief and bereavement for the end-stage
Alzheimer’s disease patient and family. The American Geriatrics Society, 45, 11041107.
Ponder, R.J. and Pomeroy, E.C. (1996). The grief of caregivers: How pervasive is it?
Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 27(1/2), 3-21.
Schulz, R., Visintainer, P., and Williamson, G. M. (1990). Psychiatric and physical
morbidity effects of caregiving. Journal of Gerontology, 45(5), 181-191.
Walker, R.J. and Pomeroy, E.C. (1996). Depression or Grief? The experiences of
caregivers of persons with dementia. Health & Social Work, 21(4), 247-254.
40
�Section III:
Critical Essays
�Exoticism and Escape in the Works
of Gauguin and Baudelaire
Shauna Sorensen (Art)1
In Gauguin’s Skirt, Stephen Eisenman describes exoticism as a “preference for
difference combined with a more or less willful ignorance of historical and cultural
particulars” (29). Ideas about the exotic became popular at the turn of the century in
Paris, when many artists sought to return to a simpler time that they believed was more
pure. This caused an interest in and glorification of cultures that many artists constructed
in their minds as idyllic, primitive societies. Exoticism was a theme that pervaded the
arts in fin-de-siècle France, especially in the works of Gauguin and Baudelaire where the
“primitive” was seen as the ideal escape from modernity.
At the turn of the century, technology and modernity reigned. Cities and
cultures had changed, seemingly overnight, giving many people a feeling of anxiety, or
angst, towards the transformation that had occurred. The changes wrought in Paris
brought with them many problems – dirt, drugs and disease ran rampant in the city. The
City of Light became a city of decadence. There was believed to be a loss in morality
and an increase in corruption. Many lived in dingy, cramped apartments and often used
drugs and alcohol to create artificial paradises as an escape. Others looked back on the
past as a better time and wished for a return to it.
This looking back to the past, coupled with a desire to escape to somewhere
devoid of technology, manifested itself in an upsurge in exoticism. People looked at
foreign and exotic cultures as things that were untouched by time and purer, compared to
the corrupt newness of the technology in Paris. These places and peoples became
idealized in the minds of many artists and writers, such as Gauguin and Baudelaire.
Luckily for them, the technology they wanted to escape ironically provided a wide array
of travel options. This travel helped ideas to spread. However, ideas spread so rapidly
that many people began to fear “the spread of sameness,” which carried the implication
that the exotic was quickly disappearing and being overtaken by Europeans and European
ideas .(Forsdick 37) While this did create a kind of urgency to visit disappearing cultures
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Laura Morowitz (Art History) and Dr. Katica Urbanc
(Modern Languages) for the honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art in Turn of
Century Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Barcelona.
42
�that were truly “primitive,” it also created a “belief in the individual’s privileged status as
last observer.” (Forsdick 39)
Paul Gauguin is an artist who is well-known for his art that was created in
Brittany and Tahiti, two locations that he believed to be remnants of a forgotten age.
Gauguin first visited Pont-Aven in Brittany in 1886. He was attracted to what he saw as
the simple lives lived there by the religious, pre-industrial community. During his second
visit in 1888, he wrote: “I like Brittany, it is savage and primitive. The flat sound of my
wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my
paintings” (Eisenman 33). By his second visit, however, Gauguin began to realize that
Brittany was not bypassed by Modernity. He saw that many things, such as the clothes
worn by the local people, were modern and represented local kinship ties and ethnic
solidarity. This did not stop him from continuing to claim to friends and family that
Pont-Aven was a place filled with vestiges of a primitive community with a pagan past
(Eisenman 33-38).
It was in Brittany on this second visit that Gauguin created Vision After the
Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888) (Figure 1). In this painting, Gauguin
used simplified forms to represent the primitive culture he believed he was witnessing.
The lack of naturalistic scale and the red ground in the work make it difficult to read.
Characteristics like these are typical of the Symbolist artists, who did not want painting to
resemble a window to the real world, but as something obviously created by man that
reflected emotion and vague ideas that could be subjectively interpreted. Gauguin used
unrealistic, simplified forms and bold, unmuted colors along with points of view that
appears to be those of the peasants, showing his belief that these people saw things more
purely and associated them with “purer” thoughts and an ‘unsophisticated’ mode of
artistic expression” (Harrison et al. 19). The peasants look on to a scene that is visible
only to those who have not become so jaded by the modern that they can still see and
believe in it.
His view of the peasants being closer to religion and nature could be seen as a
good thing, but his veneration of this culture comes at a price. When Gauguin hails
something as “primitive” and more simple, he simultaneously affirms the superiority of
the Western world. Gauguin imagines for himself a “primitivist ideal” and applies it to
the culture he is looking at. By creating this, he fabricates the idea of a “universal human
essence prior to society’s corruption;” the Western world becomes better still than this
ideal because it represents “a civilization which is superior precisely because it is defined
by its difference from the primitive” (Knapp 369).
43
�Gauguin’s views of himself as sophisticated and superior are easily visible in
paintings like this where the aspects of the culture, which is seen as simple and primitive,
are glorified in a patronizing way. Gauguin chose specific aspects of the community to
use for his art that served his purpose and “saw himself as a direct communicator, a kind
of innate savage, for whom objects and stimulus within an unsophisticated culture enable
rather than simply inspire the expression of what is thought to be inherent in the artist”
(Harrison et al. 19). In Brittany, a theme emerged from his work that showed his
tendency to foist his love of the primitive onto cultures that he believed to be equally as
resistant to modernity as he was.
This theme is continued in works such as The Yellow Christ (1889) (Figure 2)
and The Green Christ (1889) (Figure 3).In these paintings, Breton women are shown at
the foot of images of Christ. In The Yellow Christ, the women appear to be kneeling
before a crucified Christ who has appeared to them. In The Green Christ, a woman sits
in front of a sculpture of a crucifixion scene. Both show Gauguin’s view of the women
of Brittany as a primitive people who are closer to their religion and so can experience
the spiritual more intensely. Religion is pervasive in the lives of the people who are a
part of the culture he constructed. It seems to be inextricable from nature in his paintings,
and best experienced by those who had escaped modernity.
To escape even further into the exotic, Gauguin decided to travel to Tahiti.
Tahiti became a French colony in 1881 and was a place that was provided many benefits
and privileges for colonists. It was advertised as having an abundance of cheap food and
“sensual native women” (Harrison et al. 28). In a letter to the artist Odilon Redon in
1890, Gauguin wrote: “Madagascar is still too close to the civilized world; I want to go
to Tahiti and finish my existence there. I believe that the art which you like so much
today is only the germ of what will be created down there, as I cultivate in myself a state
of primitiveness and savagery” (Eisenman 84). A year later he traveled to Tahiti,
prepared with only the small amount of knowledge gained from ethnic differentiation in
the cities in France, the knowledge of art in the museums and Salons and his personal
reading. Before leaving, he wrote a letter to his wife that described his expectations:
“There, in Tahiti, in the silence of the lovely tropical night, I can listen to the sweet
murmuring music of my heart, beating in amorous harmony with the mysterious beings
of my environment. Free at last, with no money troubles, and able to love, to sing and to
die” (Eisenman 53).
Gauguin arrived in a Tahiti in 1891 that had abandoned its pagan religion in
favor of Western Christianity and a people that wore Western clothing. This did not stop
him from depicting Tahiti as a primitive and pre-modern paradise in his work. Gauguin’s
44
�Tahiti was a colorful paradise populated by sensual, young native women. His paintings
from his time in Tahiti utilize a bright palette and put an emphasis on nature, as well as
exotic patterns in the costumes of the natives. The vast majority of people depicted in
these paintings are women, who are often nude. He also continued his use of flattened
planes of colors that are seen in his paintings from Brittany.
Gauguin’s views on Tahiti are easily visible in his painting Spirit of the Dead
Watching (1892) (Figure 4). In this painting, a nude Tahitian girl lays on her stomach on
a bed hiding her face partially with her hand. Behind her a figure dressed in black stands
in profile with a blank expression on its face. Gauguin used his typical bold palette,
depicting detailed, colorful patterns in the fabric. The general roughness of the painting,
the strong lines and the flatness help to add to the exotic feeling. The style mimics
“primitive” art that used more simplified forms and an obvious use of materials. This is
seen in this painting, which is obviously not a window, but paint placed on a flat canvas.
The materials used are not hidden or camouflaged, they are emphasized. There is,
however, a lack of nature in this painting compared to his other works. This causes the
contrast between Gauguin’s Tahiti to the Western world to become more pronounced.
The reclining nude on the white fabric with a figure in the background recalls Manet’s
Olympia (1863) (Figure 5). This girl, however, is more reserved than Olympia, hiding
her body in the fabric and her face in the pillow rather than displaying it. She also
appears to show an irrational fear of what Gauguin perceived to be primitive superstitions
(Harrison et al. 34)
The poet Charles Baudelaire, like Gauguin, venerated exoticism. Baudelaire’s
first experience with the exotic came when his stepfather sent him to India in 1841 when
he was twenty years old to rid him of his love of literature and bohemian tendencies. He
did not make it to India, but left the ship in Bourbon, Mauritius, a French island colony
off the coast of Africa, fully intending to catch the next ship back to Paris. Baudelaire
spent less than a year there, but the experience shaped his poetry throughout his lifetime
(Lionnet 66-68). It was here that Baudelaire wrote his poem, published in 1845 called “A
Une Dame Créole” (For a Creole Lady). In this poem, he uses language that emphasizes
the beauty of the woman and the foreign land, while also underlining the fact that they
are exotic. He describes Mauritius as a “perfumed land bathed gently by the sun” and the
woman as a “brown enchantress” and a “huntress” (Lionnet 70). This begins a theme in
Baudelaire’s poetry of using unusual and exotic-sounding words to not only highlight the
foreignness of what he is describing, but also the femininity, which gives a primitive
connotation. Baudelaire came from a tradition that often represented Africa as a
45
�“feminized void,” which is evident from his use of feminine forms of words, such as
“huntress” (Lionnet 73).
“A Une Dame Créole” also displays a tendency of Baudelaire to see blackness
as the epitome of the exotic. This is shown in many poems, such as “Head of Hair”
where he conflates Asia and Africa as “A whole world distant, vacant, nearly dead”
(Baudelaire and McGowen 51) that lives on only his dark-skinned mistress. Baudelaire
places the exotic women in his work in an imagined, generalized native Africa. The
women become figures that stand in for “generalized otherness” (Lionnet 79). His poems
after this showed a propensity to over-racialize the woman he described and to place an
intense focus on their dark skin. Like Gauguin, Baudelaire devoted his art to the exotic
woman and this fascination with the “primitive” females showed itself in the imagery of
the Black Venus. There were two women that came to represent Baudelaire’s Black
Venus: Dorothea, a black prostitute in Bourbon and his mulatto mistress Jeanne Duval.
“La belle Dorothée” (Dorothea the Beautiful) was a prose poem, published in
Paris Spleen (1869), written about experiences in Bourbon and, of course, Dorothea. In
this poem, the reader is treated to, first, a vision of a town with dazzling sand and a
glittering sea with the world sinking “cravenly into siesta” (Baudelaire and Waldrop 49).
In his description of her, he emphasizes her race, describing her “shadowy skin” and
“dark face,” she is a “dark shiny spot in the light” (Baudelaire and Waldrop 49). He also
emphasizes the fact that she is walking barefoot, drawing attention to her primitivity.
The fact that she is barefoot becomes a major point in the poem. She is a freed slave, but
still walks barefoot. There is still a divide between her and and everyone else and that
division is comprised of her blackness. Her skin color represents “the unabridgeable gap
between the colonized and the colonizer” (Sharpley-Whiting 69).
Baudelaire describes her conversation with an officer where she asks him about
France: “Without fail, she will beg him, simple creature that she is, to describe the Opera
Ball, ask him if it is possible to attend barefoot…and then again, if the belles of Paris are
really all more beautiful than she” (Baudelaire and Waldrop 50). Dorothea is represented
as naïve, and her childlike curiosity and primitive ways become part of her charm. It is
Dorothea’s question of whether the women in Paris are more beautiful than she is that
also helps to highlight the divide between Europe and the generalized exotic. Dorothea is
continually described as beautiful and every word in the poem seems to affirm her
effortless beauty, however, she is still measured against the Parisian women. On the
shore, she “proceeds, harmoniously, happy to be alive and smiling a bland smile, as if she
recognized in the distance a mirror reflecting her gait and beauty” (Baudelaire and
Waldrop 49). The mirror represents France, which “is not merely reflecting, it is
46
�validating, reassuring” her in mimicry of the Parisian women (Sharpley-Whiting 68).
Baudelaire certainly seems to prefer Dorothea, but makes the comparison and his
preference explicitly known. Her naivety and primitivity seem to represent the kind of
invented novelty that both Baudelaire and Gauguin appreciated.
Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire’s second “exotic” muse is associated with his poems
in Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) (1857). In these poems, Duval’s race is
constantly referenced, as is her connection to nature and the exotic, resembling his
treatment of Dorothea. Edward Ahearn describes Baudelaire’s Duval as “a black woman,
as one who embodies and who opens up to the poet another world – exotic, far removed
from nineteenth-century urban civilization, a world glimpsed through the literary
tradition and Baudelaire’s own brief travels” (Ahearn 215). As with Dorothea and
Gauguin’s Tahitians, constructed primitive women seem to be the key to the exotic, the
escape from modern society. Duval is not connected to any foreign lands, but because of
her race, Baudelaire sees her as an “exotic” other.
In the poem “The Jewels,” Duval is described much like Dorothea was, with an
emphasis on her skin color and with a cacophony of exotic-sounding words. The poem
begins with her wearing only jewelry that gives her “the attitude/ Of darling in the harem
of a Moor;” she is a “tiger tamed,” “undulant like a swan” and her waist contrasting with
“her haunches” (Baudelaire and McGowan 47-49). He insists on her non-European
qualities and emphasizes the traits that she shares with exotic peoples and animals. These
same characteristics also highlight her sexuality. His descriptions are consistent of
stereotypes of black sexuality that were prevalent in Europe, “an eroticism mingling
innocence, animality, and lubricity” (Ahearn 215-216).
Baudelaire utilizes similar imagery for many of the poems in Paris Spleen. In
“Exotic Perfume,” he describes “inviting shorelines” and an “idle isle” reminiscent of the
Mauritius of “Dorothea the Beautiful” (Baudelaire and McGowan 49). He gives this
island a sense of laziness and a kind of communal feeling – a simple, work-free,
collective lifestyle that both he and Gauguin dreamed of (Ahearn 217). Nature is an everpresent figure and the people are idealized. The men are “lean and vigorous and free”
and the women are sincere, their “frank eyes are astonishing” (Baudelaire and McGowan
49). It is the scent of Jeanne Duval that calls up these images for Baudelaire. It is she
that is able to connect him to happiness, to the exotic, to nature and to freedom from
modern Paris. He finds his idealized, exotic land only through her and can be united with
it in that way. He ends the poem: “verdant tamarind’s enchanting scent,/ filling my
nostrils, swirling to the brain,/ Blends in my spirit with the boatmen’s chant” (Baudelaire
47
�and McGowan 49). She is able to help him become a part of his invented paradise, by
conjuring up these sights, sounds and smells for him.
In “The Swan,” Baudelaire’s poem about exile in The Flowers of Evil, he
references the different exiles that many different people, both fictional and real, faced.
Duval’s exile is described in a stanza toward the end: “I think of a negress, thin and
tubercular,/ Treading in the mire, searching with haggard eye/ For palm trees she recalls
from splendid Africa,/ Somewhere behind a giant barrier of fog” (Baudelaire and
McGowan 177). Duval pines for an Africa that has been constructed for her by her lover.
She is trapped by “Western industrial reality” and “can no longer rediscover ‘la superbe
Afrique’ of her origins. She joins the poet in a condition of exile which is perhaps more
excruciating for her than for him” (Ahearn 220). Baudelaire projects his feeling of exile
from the modernized Paris onto Duval. It seems that he realizes in this poem that his
exotic escape is constructed and unreachable, even the embodiment of what he sees as the
exotic cannot help him, as she is trapped as well.
Both Gauguin and Baudelaire found their escape in lands that were mostly
constructed in their minds. It is also interesting that the places that both of them escaped
to were not places untouched by the Western world, but French island colonies.
Francoise Lionnet does not believe that this is an accident. According to Lionnet, islands
are mythical places that are generally seen as an escape because there is no “aura of
acquired knowledge or esoteric wisdom.” Islands, to the turn of the century traveler, did
not “appear to have any cultural integrity of their own, unlike older civilizations. They
[were] seen as the residues of Europe’s dream of empire, tabulae rasae, which need not
be taken very seriously” (Lionnet 65). Those artists that idolized the exotic took over the
islands in their mind, just as colonizers did in life. Many Symbolist artists and writers
projected their emotions and ideas upon nature; Gauguin and Baudelaire took that just
one step further and projected their dreams onto islands specifically.
At the turn of the century, brought on by the rapidly changing landscape and
climate of Paris, many turned to the exotic as an escape from modernity. For Gauguin,
the exotic manifested itself in Brittany and Tahiti, for Baudelaire in Mauritius and Jeanne
Duval. In both cases, it was imagined, constructed and applied to a culture bearing the
mark of colonialism. This did not stop the idealization of the “primitive” and the “other”
or the effect that exoticism had upon the artists that wanted to escape modern life.
48
�Works Cited
Baudelaire, Charles, and James McGowan. The Flowers of Evil. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.
Baudelaire, Charles, and Keith Waldrop. Paris Spleen: Little Poems in Prose.
Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 2009.
Callen, Anthea. “The Unvarnished Truth: Mattness, 'Primitivism' and Modernity in
French Painting, C.1870-1907”, The Burlington Magazine 136.1100 (1994): 738-46.
Eisenman, Stephen F. Gauguin's Skirt. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Forsdick, Charles. “Exoticism in the Fin De Siècle: Symptoms of Decline, Signs of
Recovery”, Romance Studies 18.1 (2000): 31-44.
Harrison, Charles, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction:
The Early Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.
Knapp, James F. “Primitivism and the Modern”, Boundary 2 15.1/2 (1986): 365-79.
Lionnet, Francoise. “Reframing Baudelaire: Literary History, Biography, Postcolonial
Theory, and Vernacular Languages.”, Diacritics 28.3 (1998): 63-85.
Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and
Primitive Narratives in French. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1999.
Figure 1: Paul Gauguin, The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel),
1888, Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm, National Gallery of Scotland.
49
�Figure 2: Paul Gauguin, The Yellow Christ,
1889, Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 73.4 cm,
Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
Figure 3: Paul Gauguin, The Green Christ
1889, Oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm,
Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.
Figure 4: Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892, 72.4 x 92.4 cm, AlbrightKnox Art Gallery.
50
�Figure 5: Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, Oil on canvas, 130.5 x 190 cm, Musée
d'Orsay.
51
�La Polyphonie et le Féminisme Postcolonial:
L'Enfant de sable de Tahar Ben Jelloun
et Persepolis de Marjane Satrapi
Kathryn Chaffee (French and Political Science)1
In her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Gayatri Spivak asserts that subaltern countries,
or countries that have been excluded from the hegemonic power struggle, have also been
excluded from the intellectual discourse of the Occident. Spivak also argues that these
exclusions create a binary relationship that represents East/West as self/other. The texts
L'enfant de sable by Tahar Ben Jelloun and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi work to undo
this binary opposition between the west and the subaltern through the incorporation of
both eastern and western traditions into the texts. Furthermore, they both rely on the use
of intertextuality, created through the use of multiple narrations. This intertextuality
deconstructs the binary relationship between the narrator and the reader in order to create
a discursive third space that Spivak suggests is the goal of post colonial literature. Spivak
also suggests that subaltern women are doubly marginalized, as they are excluded from
an intellectual feminist discourse that is only relevant in the context of the west. Both
L'enfant de sable and Persepolis address this goal of feminist post colonial literature
presented by Spivak, as the two texts present feminist examples that challenge traditional
representations of subaltern women.
Dans son essai «Can the Subaltern Speak?", Gayatri Spivak affirme que les pays
subalternes, ou des pays qui ont été exclus de la lutte pour le pouvoir hégémonique, ont
également été exclus du discours intellectuel de l'Occident. Par conséquent, selon
Spivak, les subalternes ne peuvent pas parler. En outre, Spivak montre aussi que ces
exclusions créent une relation binaire qui représente l'Occident et l'Orient comme le
soi/l'autre. Les textes de L'enfant de sable de Tahar Ben Jelloun et Persepolis de Marjane
Satrapi travaillent à annuler cette opposition binaire entre l'Occident et le subalterne par
l'incorporation de traditions orientales et occidentales dans les textes. Dans L'enfant de
sable, Ben Jelloun reprend les contes traditionnels du Maroc dans tout le texte par son
utilisation du «conteur», la structure de récit cadre, et l'utilisation des narrateurs multiples
tout au long du texte. Ben Jelloun intègre également le lecteur occidental dans son texte
1
Written under the direction of Natalie Edwards (Modern Languages) for FR400: French
Expository Writing.
52
�par une structure narrative qui déconstruit la relation traditionnelle entre le narrateur et le
lecteur. Dans Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi raconte l'histoire iranienne grâce à l'utilisation
des genres occidentaux de la bande dessinée et de l'autobiographie. En outre, ces deux
textes reposent sur l'utilisation de la polyphonie, créée par l'utilisation de narrations
multiples. Cette polyphonie déconstruit la relation binaire entre le narrateur et le lecteur
afin de créer un espace discursif qui, d'après Spivak, est le but de la littérature
postcoloniale. Tout au long de L'enfant de sable, Ben Jelloun crée l'intertextualité en
faisant référence aux Mille et une nuits, à travers de multiples versions et explications de
la même histoire. Quant à Marjane Satrapi, elle crée la polyphonie dans Persepolis à
travers le texte et des images dans son œuvre.
Un autre aspect important de l'étude de Gayatri Spivak de la littérature
postcoloniale est sa réinterprétation de la théorie féministe. Dans son étude de la
littérature postcoloniale, Spivak suggère que les femmes subalternes ont été doublement
marginalisées, car elles sont exclues de la lutte pour le pouvoir hégémonique avec les
subalternes, et aussi à travers un discours féministe qui n'est pertinent que dans le
contexte de l'Occident. Spivak affirme que la littérature postcoloniale féministe devrait
intégrer les femmes subalternes dans le discours féministe. Les textes de L'Enfant de
sable de Ben Jelloun et Persepolis de Marjane Satrapi essayent de représenter ce but de la
littérature postcoloniale féministe présentée par Spivak car ces textes présentent des
exemples féministes qui remettent en question les représentations traditionnelles des
femmes subalternes. Cependant, Spivak dit aussi que pour que les subalternes se fassent
entendre dans le discours occidental, elles doivent aussi apprendre à parler d'une manière
qui est entendue par l'Occident. La littérature postcoloniale devient aussi complice dans
le renforcement de la domination occidentale à cause de l'utilisation de la langue
française, la logique et la raison de l'Ouest. De cette façon, la notion de féminisme
postcoloniale renforce l'hégémonie occidentale, car la notion de féminisme est en soi un
concept occidental. Par conséquent, en plaçant les femmes subalternes dans un contexte
féministe, les subalternes commencent à être conformes à la logique de l'Occident. Les
textes de Ben Jelloun et Satrapi renforcent également ce concept car les éléments
féministes dans ces deux textes semblent présenter une vision occidentale du féminisme
qui ne parvient pas à représenter véritablement la voix des femmes subalternes.
La première façon dont Ben Jelloun essaie de donner une voix aux subalternes
dans L'Enfant de sable est par son utilisation des traditions narratives orales du Maroc
liées à l'histoire de Mille et une nuits comme base de la narration dans le roman. Au
début du roman, l'histoire d'Ahmed est présentée, ainsi que le conflit qu'il sent au sein de
son propre corps, et la dépression que ce conflit engendre. Le thème de la polyphonie est
53
�introduit pour la première fois, comme Ahmed décrit son propre journal, qui devient la
base pour des extraits de la narration dans le texte. Comme le premier chapitre se
termine, un autre changement se produit dans la narration, et un récit cadre est créé alors
même que le conteur devient un personnage dans le texte. Tout à coup, nous nous
rendons compte que l'histoire d'Ahmed est racontée à un groupe de personnes qui se sont
rassemblées sur la place de Marrakech. L'histoire est plus compliquée car nous
apprenons que le conteur lui-même est une connaissance d'Ahmed, comme il révèle que
l'histoire d'Ahmed lui a été racontée par Ahmed car le conteur indique: « il me l'avait
confié juste avant de mourir » (Ben Jelloun 12). En plus, le conteur, héros de son
histoire, et l'histoire elle-même semblent être connectés car il dit « je suis ce livre. Je
suis devenue le livre de secret: J'ai payé de ma vie pour le lire. Arrivé au bout, après des
mois d'insomnie, j'ai senti le livre s'incarner en moi, car tel est mon destin. » (13). Dans
ce passage, Ben Jelloun rend hommage aux traditions des contes du Maroc tout en
suggérant que le processus de la narration est beaucoup plus complexe que le récit des
événements, et l'histoire commence à avoir une vie propre dans l'histoire elle-même qui
est liée à la vie du conteur. En outre, le conteur commence à intégrer son public dans la
narration dans le passage suivant:
« Les autres peuvent s'en aller vers d'autres histoires, chez d'autres conteurs.
Moi, je ne conte pas des histoires pour passer le temps. Ce sont les histoires qui
viennent à moi, m'habitent et me transforment. J'ai besoin de mon corps pour
libérer des cases trop chargées et recevoir de nouvelles histoires. J'ai besoin de
vous. Je vous associe à mon entreprise. Je vous embarque sur le dos et le
navire. » (16)
Dans ce passage, il semble que le conteur ne parle pas seulement à son auditoire, mais
aussi pour le lecteur du texte.
Dans le chapitre intitulé «La porte du samedi», le narrateur cherche à nouveau
l'aide de son auditoire afin de raconter l'histoire d'Ahmed. À ce moment, Ahmed
commence à faire face aux conflits entre son corps biologique féminin et l'identité
masculine que son père a créée. Comme l'identité d’Ahmed devient ambiguë, cette
ambiguïté se reflète également dans le style de la narration car le conteur demande à son
auditoire de participer à la reconstitution de l'histoire d'Ahmed. À ce moment du texte, le
narrateur trouve des pages blanches dans le livre contenant l'histoire d'Ahmed, et le
conteur dit: « C'est une période que nous devons imaginer, et si vous êtes prêts à me
suivre, je vous demanderai de m'aider à reconstituer cette étape dans notre histoire. Dans
ce livre, c'est une espace blanc, des pages nues laissées ainsi en suspens, offertes à la
liberté du lecteur. A vous! » (42). Dans le reste du texte, l'interdépendance entre le
54
�conteur et le texte est renforcée par la fluidité de l'histoire elle-même, car l'histoire
change avec chaque récit. Contrairement à la littérature de l'Occident, le conte oriental
qui est référencé dans le texte est quelque chose qui est vivant et changeant à travers la
relation entre le conteur et le public.
Plus tard dans le texte, nous apprenons que le conteur est littéralement
dépendant de l'histoire qu'il dit, car « le conteur est mort de tristesse ». Lorsque la police
découvre le cadavre du conteur, elle trouve qu'il « serrait contre sa poitrine un livre, le
manuscrit trouvé à Marrakech et qui était le journal intime d'Ahmed-Zahra » (136). Un
autre changement dans la narration se produit après la mort du conteur original, comme
d'autres conteurs reprennent le récit de la narration. Après la mort du conteur primaire,
chaque conteur semble prendre l'histoire où l'autre finit, ce qui crée une narration
chronologique. En outre, la caractérisation du personnage semble changer en fonction de
chaque conteur. Nous nous rendons alors compte que l'identité d'Ahmed est dépendante
du narrateur. Cet aspect de la narration fait référence à des traditions marocaines, car il
montre que la reconstitution de l'histoire dépend du conteur, contrairement à un roman,
où l'histoire est fixée par le texte.
De plus, la polyphonie est représentée dans le texte de L'enfant de sable par la
création d'un récit cadre autour de l'action principale du roman car deux histoires sont
présentés: l'histoire du narrateur qui raconte son histoire au public, et l'histoire qui est
recréé par le conteur. Cet aspect du roman fait référence aussi à la tradition de Mille et
une nuits qui, comme L'enfant de sable utilise un récit cadre, celui de Shéhérazade.
Ensuite, le conteur implique son public dans sa narration de l'histoire d'Ahmed, en
supprimant les frontières traditionnelles entre le narrateur et le public. Ben Jelloun
montre aussi que l'histoire commence à prendre une vie propre, comme il montre que la
vie de la conteuse et la vie de l'histoire sont liées. Après la mort du conteur, l'utilisation
des narrateurs multiples dans tout le texte renforce également le lien à la tradition du
conte oral, comme chaque narrateur propose des réinterprétations différentes de l'histoire
d'Ahmed, et chaque conteur présente une fin ambiguë. Comme le roman progresse, le
narrateur change constamment, car les membres du public deviennent tout à coup
narrateurs eux-mêmes. Cette utilisation de plusieurs narrateurs crée des narrations
multiples, et renforce l'ambiguïté: la polyphonie déstabilise la structure traditionnelle de
la littérature occidentale, qui présente généralement une relation binaire entre le narrateur
et le lecteur, afin de donner une voix aux subalternes (Fayad 291). Dans le texte, cette
relation binaire qui est recréée par le changement dans la relation entre le narrateur /
lecteur peut se lire également en les changements qui surviennent dans la relation du soi /
autre. De cette façon, la destruction du binaire entre narrateur / lecteur commence à
55
�créer le type de «othered self» décrite par Spivak, qui est défini comme un lecteur
occidental qui est capable de s'identifier avec le subalterne.
De même, dans le texte de Persepolis, la polyphonie recrée la relation entre le
soi/autre car Satrapi change la relation entre le public et le conteur par la création de
narrations multiples et par son utilisation du genre de la bande dessinée. Dans
Persepolis, les narrations multiples sont créées de plusieurs façons : d'une part, les
images présentent une narration qui peut être considérée séparément du texte, d'autre part,
la polyphonie est créée dans le texte lui-même, avec le format de bande dessinée qui
permet d'utiliser non seulement la voix du narrateur/ protagoniste Marji, mais aussi la
voix des autres personnages tout au long du texte. Avec la première narration utilisée
dans Persepolis, les images elles-mêmes permettent de créer une universalité du texte par
l'attraction généralisée de la bande dessinée qui rend le texte accessible aux lecteurs.
Ensuite, ces images créent un lien entre le texte et le lecteur, comme le lecteur peut
s'identifier à la forme reconnaissable du visage humain, qui peut représenter des émotions
universelles comme la colère ou la tristesse. En outre, ces images peuvent être
interprétées sans l'utilisation du texte, ce qui crée une sorte de texte qui transcende les
barrières linguistiques. L'image suivante montre ces deux fonctions des illustrations:
Cette image permet au lecteur de s'identifier au personnage principal, où le dessin
représente l'émotion reconnaissable de la tristesse. En outre, cette image peut aussi être
interprétée sans l'utilisation du texte, car l'image montre clairement le conflit que Marji
ressent entre les influences orientales et occidentales (Naghibi 228). Si les images dans
Persepolis ajoutent un sentiment de familiarité, elles servent aussi à renforcer les
56
�différences culturelles entre l'Orient et l'Occident par le foulard présent et porté par la
narratrice dans le roman.
La manière dont Satrapi explore la polyphonie dans Persepolis passe par
l'utilisation de plusieurs voix dans la narration. L'utilisation du genre de la bande
dessinée permet de faire exister d'autres voix dans le texte, car d'autres personnages, y
compris la grand-mère de Marji, Dieu, et l'oncle de Marji parlent directement à travers
l'histoire qu'elle recrée. Grâce à cette utilisation de plusieurs voix, Satrapi montre que la
création de l'identité est discursive, car les conversations que Marji a avec les autres
membres de sa famille sont responsables de beaucoup de ses opinions politiques et
religieuses quand elle est enfant. Par exemple, les conversations de Marji avec sa grandmère renforcent ses convictions qu'elle deviendra un prophète quand sa grand-mère lui
dit: “je serai ta première disciple” (5).
Ensuite, l'utilisation de plusieurs voix dans les textes permet à Marji de non
seulement raconter sa propre biographie, mais aussi de devenir une voix racontant la
révolution islamique car elle alterne le dialogue entre elle et sa famille, et son propre récit
des événements. En outre, dans certaines parties du texte, ces deux récits se juxtaposent
dans le même cadre du texte. Dans le chapitre “ La cellule d'eau,” Satrapi commence par
les descriptions des manifestations où ses parents sont des participants: « Mes parents
manifestaient tous les jours. Ça commençait à dégénérer. L'armée leur tirait dessus, et
eux leur lançaient des pierres. Les soirs, à force de marcher et de lancer des pierres, ils
avaient des courbatures, même dans leur tête. » (16). Directement sous ce texte, Satrapi
recrée une conversation entre elle et ses parents qui semble être une conversation
d'enfance typique : « Hé maman, papa, on joue au Monopoly? ». Par cette juxtaposition
de la narration de la révolution iranienne et une expérience reconnaissable entre un enfant
et sa famille, Satrapi permet au lecteur de s'identifier à certains aspects du texte, afin de
rendre quelque chose d'aussi étranger que la révolution islamique accessible aux lecteurs
occidentaux, permettant « le soi » occidental d'identifier avec « l'autre » oriental.
Dans les deux textes de L'enfant de Sable et de Persepolis, la polyphonie est
utilisée afin de donner une voix aux subalternes d'une manière qui est accessible au
lecteur occidental. Cette polyphonie qui est utilisée dans les deux textes devient aussi
discursive par la création d'un dialogue non seulement entre l'auteur et le lecteur, mais
aussi entre l'Orient et l'Occident. De cette façon, les textes peuvent illustrer la théorie de
Françoise Lionnet car elle l'écrit: « Literature is a discursive practice that encodes and
transmits as well as creates ideology. It is a mediating force in society, since narrative
often structures our sense of the world, and stylistic conventions or plot resolutions serve
either to sanction and perpetuate cultural myths or to create new mythologies that allow
57
�the writer and the reader to engage in a constructive rewriting of their social contexts. »
(Lionnet 132). De plus, ces deux textes créent un dialogue entre l'Occident et l'Orient par
l'utilisation de la polyphonie, ainsi que par l’intégration des femmes subalternes dans ce
dialogue, ce qui répond aux objectifs du féminisme postcolonial à travers des exemples
de femmes du Moyen-Orient qui défient les stéréotypes traditionnels. Dans Persepolis,
Satrapi montre comment les changements de la révolution islamique touchent
particulièrement les femmes iraniennes. Ensuite, elle conteste également la perception
occidentale de la femme iranienne par le personnage de Marji qui rêve de devenir à la
fois un prophète et un révolutionnaire. Dans L'enfant de sable, Ben Jelloun débat
également des représentations traditionnelles des femmes du Moyen-Orient car il donne
des exemples des femmes marocaines dont certaines caractéristiques sont généralement
associées avec les hommes, ce qui suggère que le sexe est créé à la fois socialement et
biologiquement. Cependant, les exemples féministes utilisés dans les deux textes
semblent renforcer une notion occidentale du féminisme d'après Spivak, qui affirme que
les écrivains postcoloniaux se rendent complice de la domination de l'idéologie
occidentale.
Dans Persepolis, Satrapi travaille à intégrer les femmes subalternes dans le
dialogue intellectuel par sa bande dessinée autobiographique. Dans le texte, Satrapi
raconte sa propre expérience, ainsi que la manière dont les femmes sont particulièrement
influencées par les changements sociaux radicaux de la révolution islamique. Au début,
Marji met l'exemple le plus évident des changements pour les femmes pendant la
révolution dans le chapitre intitulé, « Le foulard ». Dans ce chapitre, Satrapi décrit la loi
qui oblige les femmes à porter le voile, ainsi que la ségrégation entre les sexes à son école
privée pendant la révolution. Bien que la nouvelle loi qui oblige les femmes à porter le
foulard soit prévue pour un renforcement de l'idée islamique que les femmes devraient
rester modestes, Satrapi montre que les jeunes filles qui portent le voile à l'école sont
incapables de comprendre la raison pour laquelle les voiles doivent être portés. Satrapi
écrit: « Nous n'aimions pas beaucoup porter le foulard, surtout qu'on ne savait pas
pourquoi. » (1). Pour ces jeunes filles, le port du foulard n'est pas une déclaration
politique, mais une gêne et une nouvelle source de divertissement de jeux car ils crient
« Huu! Je suis le monstre de ténèbres . . . rends mon foulard! » (1). De cette manière,
Satrapi montre que les lois régissant la pudeur féminine ne conduisent pas nécessairement
à des changements dans le comportement des femmes.
Bien que les autres filles de son école ne semblent pas conscientes de
l'importance du port du foulard, le refus de Marji (qui est cachée derrière le mur) de
58
�porter le foulard dans l'image suivante semble être une décision consciente qui reprend le
refus public de sa mère à porter le voile:
Dans les images suivantes du texte, Marji décrit l'implication de sa mère dans les
protestations contre le foulard. De plus, sa mère est photographiée sans le voile dans une
image qui est distribuée partout en Europe ainsi qu'en Iran. Grâce à cette déclaration
politique faite par sa mère, Marji regarde sa mère comme une héroïne, et le premier dans
la ligne des héros qu'elle admire tout au long du texte. Sa mère semble être aussi un
modèle pour la personnalité indépendante et intelligente de Marji, qui défie la perception
occidentale de la femme iranienne à travers le texte.
Marji continue à se définir comme un penseur intelligent et indépendant, car sa
propre représentation d'elle-même n'est pas affectée par les changements patriarcaux de la
révolution, y compris l'obligation de porter le voile. À l'âge de six ans, Marji croit qu'elle
est destinée à être « la dernière des prophètes », et cette idée mène à la relation
inhabituelle entre Marji et Dieu, avec qui elle a des conversations dans la baignoire (4).
Marji devient également un lecteur vorace de livres sur les révolutionnaires, y compris
Castro et Marx, l'amenant à croire qu'elle sera la prochaine héroïne de la révolution. Bien
que la caractérisation de Marji défie les stéréotypes occidentaux de la femme en Iran,
Satrapi flatte aux publics occidentaux à travers les genres populaires occidentaux de la
bande dessinée et l'autobiographie féminine, et en écrivant la bande dessinée en français
(le texte n'a pas été traduit en persan). Par conséquent, Satrapi est complice dans le
renforcement de l'idéologie occidentale suggéré par Spivak, car son personnage féminin
indépendant, Marji, semble commercialisé vers un public occidental, et n'est pas vraiment
59
�une représentation féministe de la femme iranienne. Toutefois, Satrapi réussit à intégrer
les femmes subalternes dans le discours intellectuel par le personnage de Marji dans le
texte (Malek 377).
Ben Jelloun intègre également les femmes subalternes dans le dialogue
intellectuel, ainsi que les idées du féminisme occidentalisé. La première manière dont
Ben Jelloun intègre les idées féministes dans le texte est quand il suggère que le sexe
n'est pas seulement biologique, mais aussi une création sociale. Cela est évident car
Ahmed semble plus à l'aise dans son identité construite socialement comme un homme
bien qu'il soit biologiquement féminin. Par exemple, comme un enfant, Ahmed préfère la
sphère sociale de son père car Ahmed décrit sa préférence pour aller au bain avec son
père, et de son aversion pour l'occasion sociale du bain de sa mère. Dans son journal
intime, il écrit « En vérité, je préférais aller au bain avec mon père. Il était rapide et il
m'évitait tout ce cérémonial interminable. Pour ma mère, c'était l'occasion de sortir, de
rencontre d'autres femmes et de bavarder tout en se lavant. Moi, je mourais d'ennui. »
(33). Ahmed se sent plus à l'aise dans l'espace masculin de la salle de bain des hommes
tout comme il préfère les activités réservées aux hommes au sein de la société
musulmane, croyant que la vie de femme serait insatisfaisante : « Et, pour toutes ces
femmes, la vie était plutôt réduite. C'était peu de chose: la cuisine, le ménage, l'attente et
une fois par semaine le repos dans le hammam. J'étais secrètement content de ne pas
faire partie de cet univers si limité. » (34). Quand Ahmed arrive à maturité, il est capable
de remplir toutes les fonctions sociales réservées aux hommes dans la société
musulmane. Il devient chef de sa famille, il s'isole de ses sœurs et sa mère, et reprend
avec succès le contrôle de l'entreprise de son père:
« Ahmed était devenu autoritaire. A la maison il se faisait servir par ses sœurs
ses déjeuners et ses diners. Il se cloitrait dans la chambre du haut. Il s'interdisait
toute tendresse avec sa mère qui le voyait rarement. A l'atelier il avait déjà
commencé à prendre les affaires en main. Efficace, moderne, cynique, il était
un excellent négociateur. Son père était dépassé. Il laissait faire. » (51)
Tout au long du texte, Ahmed, qui est biologiquement femme se sent à l'aise dans les
rôles sociaux traditionnellement assignés aux hommes. De cette façon, Ben Jelloun
montre que les traits de personnalité ne sont pas seulement déterminés par le sexe, et que
les femmes sont aussi capables de remplir les rôles réservés aux hommes dans une société
orientale.
Bien qu'Ahmed soit à l'aise dans la société des hommes, il se sent séparé de son
corps féminin. Toutefois, ses sentiments sont réprimés car Ahmed se rend compte de la
valeur intrinsèque d'être un homme : « Il a vite compris que cette société préfère les
60
�hommes aux femmes. » (42). Cet aspect du texte illustre le concept de la
« performativity » du sexe décrit par Judith Butler, car « Ahmed's persistence in his
masculine identity arises from his understanding of a binary sexual identity wherein the
masculine dominates the feminine. » (Gauch 184). En outre, Ben Jelloun montre que le
sexisme n'est pas le résultat de différences entre les sexes, mais qu'il est socialement créé
car Ahmed commence à montrer les tendances misogynes qui sont renforcées par son
père et par sa société. Cela devient évident quand Ahmed est critique des aspects
féminins de sa propre personnalité. Par exemple, lorsque Ahmed est attaqué dans la rue
après avoir assisté à la mosquée, il est gêné pour montrer son émotion : « Je rentrai à la
maison en pleurant. Mon père me donna une gifle dont je me souviens encore et me dit :
'Tu n'es pas une fille pour pleurer! Un homme ne pleure pas!' Il avait raison, les larmes,
c'est très féminin! » (39). Dans cet exemple, le père d'Ahmed renforce l'idée que les
émotions qui sont associées aux femmes sont négatives, et par cet exemple, Ahmed
forme une association négative des aspects féminins de lui-même et des femmes en
général. À cause du sexisme illustré par le caractère d'Ahmed et sa préférence pour son
identité masculine sur son corps féminin, Ben Jelloun montre les deux sexes et les
opinions négatives des femmes sont le résultat de la réitération des valeurs patriarcales
sociales, et ne sont pas le résultat des différences biologiques.
Ahmed persiste dans son identité d'homme, mais sa séparation avec sa la
biologie féminine l'amène à se retirer de la société car il décide de passer la majorité de
son temps dans la solitude, enfermé dans une chambre. Dans l'intimité de son domicile,
le journal intime d'Ahmed devient un moyen pour lui de résoudre son conflit qu'il sent
entre sa biologie et son identité extérieure masculine. Bien qu'Ahmed soit satisfait de la
situation sociale qu'il s'est donné en tant qu'homme, Ben Jelloun écrit qu'« il n'arrivait
plus à maitriser son corps » et « entre lui et son corps il y avait eu rupture, une espèce de
fracture » (10). Ahmed essaie de résoudre cette rupture qu'il éprouve et de trouver un
sens de soi et de l'identité à travers l'écriture, ce qui renforce l'idée de Cixous stipulant
que l'écriture est un lien à la sexualité, et que l'écriture du corps féminin est un moyen de
trouver une identité féminine. Dans le passage suivant, Ben Jelloun établit la fonction du
journal intime d'Ahmed comme un moyen de retourner à son identité féminine initiale:
« Il avait entendu dire un jour qu'un poète égyptien justifiât ainsi la tenue d'un
journal : 'De si loin que l'on revienne, ce n'est jamais que de soi-même. Un
journal est parfois nécessaire pour dire que l'on a cessé d'être.' Son destin était
exactement cela: dire ce qu'il avait cessé d'être. » (11-12).
61
�Tout au long du texte, le journal continue à être l'espace où Ahmed exprime sa relation à
son corps féminin et où il réfléchit sur la question qu'il lui pose à travers la narration,
« qui suis-je? ».
En outre, Ahmed commence à explorer sa sexualité dans son journal, car il
décrit son attirance physique pour sa femme, Fatima. Dans le journal, Ahmed écrit
qu'« Elle est blanche et je me cache les yeux. Mon corps lentement s'ouvre à mon désir »
(54). Cette attirance sexuelle qu'il éprouve à l'égard de Fatima semble lui ouvrir à une
exploration de sa propre identité sexuelle, quand il commence à décrire et à prendre
plaisir à son corps féminin nu: « Ma nudité est mon privilège sublime. Je suis le seul à la
contempler. Je suis le seul à la maudire. Je danse. Je tournoie. Je tape des mains. Je
frappe le sol avec mes pieds. » (56). Pendant qu'Ahmed écrit son rapport avec son corps
dans son journal, il cherche pour des autres moyennes d'écrire le conflit qu'il se sent en
lui-même. Les lettres qu'Ahmed écrit à un correspondant anonyme devient aussi un
moyen pour Ahmed pour décrire la séparation qu'il ressent de son corps, ainsi que la
solitude qui est créée par cette séparation. En outre, ces lettres révèlent la compréhension
d'Ahmed des valeurs sexistes de la société marocaine dans laquelle il vit, car il l'écrit
« Vous savez combien notre société est injuste avec les femmes, combien notre religion
favorise l'homme, vous savez que, pour vivre selon ses choix et ses désirs, il faut avoir
du pouvoir. » (87). Dans cette partie du texte, Ben Jelloun lie sa propre critique des
valeurs patriarcales de la société marocaine, et offre l'écriture comme un moyen pour les
femmes d'exprimer leur sexualité. Cependant, Ben Jelloun devient aussi complice dans le
renforcement d'une idée occidentalisée du féminisme, car Ahmed peut utiliser l'écriture
comme un moyen de formation de l'identité parce qu'il a été élevé comme un homme. De
cette façon, l'interprétation du féminisme donnée par Ben Jelloun n'est pertinente que
dans les sociétés où les femmes ont accès à l'éducation.
Enfin, les textes de L'enfant de sable et Persépolis utilisent avec succès la
polyphonie afin de donner une voix aux subalternes et déconstruisent le binaire du
soi/autre qui représente non seulement la relation entre le narrateur et le lecteur, mais
aussi la relation entre l'Orient et l'Occident. Dans L'enfant de sable, Ben Jelloun intègre
les traditions narratives de l'Orient liées au Mille et une nuits, et crée la polyphonie à
travers l'utilisation de narrations multiples tout au long du texte. Dans Persepolis,
Marjane Satrapi crée la polyphonie car le genre de la bande dessinée permet l'utilisation
de plusieurs narrateurs. Ensuite, les deux textes intègrent les femmes subalternes dans le
discours intellectuel par l'incorporation des représentations qui mettent en question les
stéréotypes des femmes marocaines et iranienne créées par l'occident. Toutefois, les
représentations des femmes dans les deux textes renforcent l’idéologie occidentale, et par
62
�conséquent, les deux textes ne montrent pas vraiment le but de la littérature postcoloniale
féministe selon Spivak, qui affirme que les écrivains postcoloniaux doivent trouver un
moyen pour intégrer les femmes subalternes dans le dialogue intellectuel d'une manière
qui est différente des représentations occidentales des femmes et du féminisme.
Works Cited
Ben, Jelloun Tahar. L'enfant De Sable Roman. Paris: Ed. Du Seuil, 1985.
Fayad, Marie. "Borges in Tahar Ben Jelloun's L'Enfant De Sable: Beyond
Intertextuality." The French Review 67.2 (1993): 291-99.
Gauch, Suzanne. "Telling the Tale of a Body Devoured by Narrative." Differences 11
(1999): 179-202.
Lionnet, Francoise. "Geographies of Pain: Captive Bodies and Violent Acts in the
Fictions of Myriam Warner-Vieyra, Gayl Jones, and Bessie Head." Callaloo 16.1 (1993):
132-52.
Malek, Amy. "Memoir as Iranian Exile Cultural Production: A Case Study of Marjane
Satrapi's Persepolis Series." Iranian Studies 39.3 (2006): 353-80.
Naghibi, Nima. "Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi's Persepolis."
English Studies in Canada 31.2-3 (2005): 223-48.
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Paris: L'Association, 2007.
Spivak, Gayatri. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture.
Urbana: University of Illinois, 1988.
63
�Homemaker or Career Woman:
Is There Even a Choice?
Kerry Quilty (Sociology)1
We’ve got a generation now who were born with semi-equality. They don’t
know how it was before, so they think, this isn’t too bad. We’re working. We
have our attaché cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the
younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting
there. They don’t realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get
worse before they join in fighting the battle.
–Erma Bombeck
At one time, women in the United States were expected to marry, bear children,
and stay home and tend to the household. Thanks to the Women’s Movement, women
have come a long way since this time. Now, it is expected that young women attend
college and pursue a career. Yet, on top of all of this, women are still expected to be the
dominant caretaker if they choose to be married and start a family. Have women fought
for so much that we have in fact only doubled our burdens and, in turn, distanced
ourselves further from the equality we wish to share with men?
The social pressures women face in this day and age may make them feel
shameful if they choose to “backtrack” and become a homemaker. These pressures are a
result of cultural gender ideals that have been engrained in our consciousness since at
least the “golden era” of the 1950s. During this time, the quintessential male worked from
nine to five; his counterpart, the quintessential wife, took care of the children, all of the
household chores, and assured her hardworking husband that dinner would be ready and
waiting for him when he arrived home. Male-breadwinning families were the norm, an
unspoken rule by which all were expected to abide. Although this is no longer necessarily
expected, the persistence of gender ideals, particularly those which tell us which
responsibilities are “feminine” or “masculine”, continue to bring about the same
undesired result. If economic and household labor can be equally shared between two
spouses, why are women made to feel guilty for choosing to follow the career path of
mother and caretaker?
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley (Sociology) for SO301:The Family.
64
�Growing up in a traditional Irish-Catholic family, I have witnessed the women
in my family balance a part-time career and tend to their families. If I were to be married
directly after college, and start a family not long after that, my family would support my
decision. However, my experience as a young woman in a liberal arts college has shaped
my feelings otherwise. Being around such strong-minded, driven women has made me
rethink the possibility of becoming “just a homemaker.” I cannot help but wonder why I
feel ashamed to consider this. Have not women come so far in the fight for equal
opportunity that we cannot, if we please, choose to pursue motherhood as a full-time
career? What does this say about the American society? It is becoming increasingly
apparent that the work of motherhood is not only undervalued but also of little
importance. Given that the strong-minded women who first stood up for women’s rights
were just that—the first—it is more than likely that their mothers did not work outside of
the home. It is interesting, then, to consider what might have been had they not been
raised with the love, patience, and care of hard-working mothers.
In “The Gendered Society”, Michael Kimmel (2004) leads us through a variety
of examples of gender in action, seen through his point of view: that gender is not just a
commonplace frame of reference for the sexes but is also the largest and most universal
source of inequality. Gender is everywhere. This complicates the women’s crusade
toward equality, for it has proven a great struggle to change beliefs many aren’t even
aware they hold. Or, as Kimmel (2004) puts it, “our adherence to gender ideologies that
no longer fit the world we live in has dramatic consequences for women and men, both at
work and at home” (pp. 184). Look around you, and surely you will be able to identify
our general social inability to break free of this cling.
Here I will show two very different portrayals of gender in action—one, a
traditional rural West African society that has changed significantly over the past century;
the other, in the form of a privileged English family around two hundred years ago. One
society colonized the other, and although both lived gender in ways distinct from our
contemporary mainstream United States culture, both influenced American gender norms
as they encountered the United States through immigration and the slave trade. Finally, I
will include modern perspectives of the roles—and limitations—gender implies.
Ifi Amadiume (1987) explores the gender ideals of and the sexual division of
labor in the Igbo society in Africa in her book Male Daughters, Female Husbands:
Gender and Sex in an African Society. These ideals and divisions are directly correlated.
Amadiume specifically focuses on the Nnobi people. Nnobi women had a more
prominent role in myths than did men. The society depended heavily on female labor—
and more than that of motherhood. Wealth for women came from crops, livestock, and
65
�either sons who would later become wealthy or daughters who would marry and, in doing
so, bring wealth. Men gained wealth by accumulating wives.
It is important to note that in her rich description of a society far from our own,
socially as well as geographically, Amadiume illustrates the separate spheres of sex and
gender. At the heart of her account is the notion that gender and sex are not intricately
linked, as they are in our society. In fact, sex and gender in the United States are so
cohesive that when a child is born, it is automatically dressed in blue or pink according to
its sex and is, from then on, expected to conform to the male or the female gender.
Sexuality relies heavily on the expectations set by these assigned genders, and a person
will be cast out if they step outside of their gender’s comfort zone, or the social norms for
that gender. In the Nnobi people’s society, a woman could become “male” or be
considered a “female husband.” Daughters could become male if they were first in line to
inherit their father’s wealth, because he had no sons. Once male, a daughter could, like
men, begin to accumulate wives. From that point on she is considered a female husband.
Amadiume claims these ideologies stem from the division of labor in the society, which
is shared differently by spouses than in the United States. Nnobi men could have multiple
wives. This resulted in multiple children and a broader division of labor. The lives of the
Nnobi people revolved around rituals and farming, whereas most families in the United
States are concerned with balancing economic stability with household responsibilities.
The sexual division of labor in the United States is not as severe as it was a few decades
ago. Men are still expected to be strong and work hard to provide for their family, as they
have been for the past century, at least. Women are still expected to be feminine and
maternal, except now that is combined with the pressure to be a driven career woman.
Women in the Nnobi society are virtually required to have children and maintain
farm work and sexual duties. This has not changed in the Nnobi society. In the United
States, things have changed a great deal over the past half of the century. Societal
expectations of women in the Nnobi society are similar to those of women in America in
that they are seen as producers. However, women in the United States can choose to
pursue a career and not have children, and this would be socially acceptable. For Nnobi
women, this is not an acceptable option. Another difference between the Nnobi women
and American women is that if a white, middle-class woman like myself chose to only
have children and not a career, there would most likely be criticism from those who
believe all women should seize the opportunity to be something more than a mother.
In Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, marriage was considered a social norm at a
much younger age than today. Life may have been simpler then; men worked and were
the breadwinners while women remained at home and tended to the duties of the
66
�household. Sir Thomas Bertram, who owned the estate at Mansfield Park, owned sugar
plantations and this was not a far-fetched concept at the time. His daughters, Maria and
Julia, are spoiled and unkind. I suppose I cannot blame them, for they were raised under
the assumption that it was okay to look down upon those less fortunate and seek a man to
marry for wealth and not love. Sir Thomas and his wife also have two sons, Thomas and
Edmund. Thomas is to inherit his father’s estate and Edmund is to become a clergyman.
Mary and Henry Crawford come to live at Mansfield Park after being brought up by an
aunt and uncle. After spending some time with Edmund, Mary realizes he is kind and
gentle-hearted man. She finds herself falling for him, but since he is set to be a
clergyman, she has to bury her desire. Once again, one must not jump to conclusions
about these seemingly heartless women. Mary was raised to believe, as most if not all
women were at the time, that a desirable husband was one that was wealthy and provided
for her. Mary even puts Edmund down to hide how she truly feels (Austen, 1964).
Before the events of the women’s movement, women were brought up to believe
that a woman’s place is in the home, and a man’s job is to provide for the family
financially. In the ‘90s, when I was growing up, it was already expected that women have
at least a part-time career, in addition to caring for the family. The societal expectations
of women have changed drastically since the era of Mansfield Park, from women being
the sole caretaker and men the sole breadwinner to both men and women having careers
and a family if they choose. This drastic change, however, was in one direction. The
woman most likely still receives the bulk of childcare and housework.
I can imagine how one might make the general assumption that by choosing to
“retreat” back to homemaking, women are backtracking. The belief commonly held by
those who argue against a woman’s decision to be only a “stay-at-home mom” is that this
choice will negate how hard women have fought for a woman’s place in an otherwise
male-dominated realm: the workplace. But it is because women have fought for and
gained the freedom to choose their destinies that this idea of backtracking is simply false.
It is not so much backtracking on the part of women as it is a failure to move forward by
men, as well as the general society’s beliefs. I can understand some feminists’ fear that if
women do choose the dual career of mother and homemaker and no longer strive to work
alongside men outside of the home, all that women have fought for, and all that women
have achieved, will diminish. However, what is not acknowledged is what men can do to
alleviate some of the burden. If we can alter cultural understandings of the roles men
should assume, perhaps the goal of equality will not seem quite so out of reach.
In the article, “Home-to-Work Conflict, Work Qualities, and Emotional
Distress,” Schieman, McBrier and Van Gundy discuss the stressful consequences of both
67
�men’s and women’s household responsibilities pouring over into and affecting their
career roles. One point argues that the increase of women in the workforce creates stress
about balancing the roles of parent and employee. This point also argues that the
individual’s ability to handle this stress reflects their ability to organize their daily life.
The authors also found that amongst parents with careers, one role unfortunately takes
precedent over the other, therefore making the other role suffer. This article concentrates
on the affects of home life on career life, as opposed to vice versa (Schieman et al.,
2003).
One study discussed by Schieman et al. observed that women experience more
stress than men when dealing with home-to-work conflict. I would not doubt this because
although women are encouraged and often expected to lead successful careers,
simultaneously they are expected to be the primary caretaker of the children. Discussed is
a study in which the authors assumed that staying at home would be more beneficial for
women, and that occupying roles as an employee would be more beneficial to men
(Schieman et al., 2003).
Schieman et al. introduce “The Double Disadvantage Hypothesis,” which
“predicts that individuals are most vulnerable to symptoms of depression and anxiety
when such work qualities combine with conditions of high home-to-work conflict”
(Schieman et al., 2003, pp. 140). Given the state of the American economy, I can
understand why one would assume that it is necessary for women to work outside of the
home. Many are lucky to hold onto a job in these difficult economic times. If this is the
case, both spouses should create a system of balance so that neither should have to do
more work than the other. However, if a woman has the means to lead her life as a fulltime mother, she and her spouse most likely have an equal balance of economic and
household support. The woman can stay home and raise her children and complete her
household-related responsibilities, and her spouse can, for the most part, be responsible
for the family’s income. There is no reason, then, for society to pressure a woman to
work for a wage, or to feel guilty if she fails to succumb to such pressure. The authors
refer to a view that expresses that women may face more stress from the home-to-work
conflict than men because career work is simply added on to preexisting household
duties. I could not agree more with this point. Our society virtually forces women to
pursue a career because women have worked hard and gained so much since the
beginning of the feminist/women’s movement. Yet our society has not advanced nearly
as far in terms of its perceptions of gender roles. Women are still expected to be the
primary caretaker of children and although men have become more active in the
household, the numbers simply do not add up. It should appear backward, then, that
68
�women should be expected to do double the work that men do. After all, have not women
been working towards equality? The studies conducted by Schieman et al. show that there
is clearly not an equal division of labor in the American household (Schieman et al.,
2003).
Similar to Schieman et al, “Housework and Wages”, by Joni Hersch and Leslie
Stratton (2002), focuses on the effects of domestic work on paid work. The negative
effect of housework on wages was significantly more for women than men, and
noticeably more for married women than unmarried women. This finding suggests that
there is interplay between marriage and housework. In their studies, Hersch and Stratton
(2002) determined the amount of work performed regularly by women and men based on
their participation in household responsibilities that were typically “female” or typically
“male”. Typically female duties included preparing meals, doing the dishes, general
cleaning, shopping and laundry. Responsibilities that were typically male were outdoor
housework and maintenance, and auto repair. Housework that was considered neutral was
paying bills and driving others, which stood for driving someone other than oneself. Not
only are there more categories of female work than male work, but female work, for the
most part, needed to be tended to daily. Male work, such as outdoor maintenance, could
generally be postponed if paid work required more attention. Married men in the studies
spent less time on responsibilities that seemed to have the greatest effect on wage. It can
be assumed—or in the case of the Hersch and Stratton (2002) study, proven—that
maintaining two jobs on a regular basis will negatively affect at least one of them. In this
case, the focus is on the effect on women’s wages. Hersch and Stratton (2002) compared
this phenomenon to a continuation of the 1950s.
On the other hand, Gretchen Webber and Christine Williams (2008) observed
the effect of part-time work on housework. They argue that women are influenced to
work part-time because of the incompatible demands of motherhood and paid work. This
experience is tightly linked to gendered division of labor within the household. Webber
and Williams (2008) argue that our society devalues unpaid work, like motherhood, and
overvalues paid work (pp. 17). Not long ago this was referred to as a “mommy track”—a
path that led women to fewer job opportunities (pp. 16). Employers assume, naturally,
that a woman with children will need time to care for them. Therefore, acting off of this
assumption, they will forgo offering women opportunities or promotions for fear that
they may not be able to fully commit. Kimmel (2004) refers to this as “the glass ceiling”,
holding women down in the work world.
In Webber and Williams’ study, women generally moved from full-time to parttime work as a means to lessen their overall workload; they felt they did the bulk of the
69
�housework while also working full-time outside of the home. But instead of having more
time to relax, women ended up doing more housework with their newfound “off” time.
Webber and Williams (2008) argue that women are put in an “untenable double bind” by
two competing ideals—the hegemonic cultural ideal that women should make
motherhood their top priority and the employer’s ideal that their best worker is one that
exhibits the most loyalty to their company. It is impossible for both of these ideals to be
fully achieved. Needless to say, one job will suffer.
In Julie Brines’ article, “Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of
Labor at Home,” she examines the link between housework and the transfer of earnings
and how it complies with the rules of economic exchange. According to Brines (1994),
economic dependency compels wives to work at home to make up for the work that her
husband does. She hypothesizes the “dependency model”, which claims, “the rules
governing housework are tied to relations of economic support and dependency” (Brines,
1994, pp. 653). According to this model, housework and economic dependency are
mainly assigned to a specific gender: the first reinforcing femininity and the latter,
masculinity. Brines’ study aims to correct the basis of the dependency model, that is, that
household labor is performed as a return favor for economic dependency. My beliefs
parallel Brines’ findings; I believe homemaking is a career in and of itself. When a
woman chooses to raise a family, instead of, say, choosing a career with a wage, she does
not desire to tend to household responsibilities because she feels her husband does the
bulk of the work, or because she feels she needs to contribute something in return for her
husband’s earnings. For a successful division of labor in the household, there needs to be
an understanding of equality and balance between homemaking duties and economic
stability.
Brines’ also theorizes that the women’s “revolution” has either stalled or was
never quite completed. She claims “housework remains primarily ‘women’s work’
despite substantial changes in women’s employment patterns and in attitudes once
thought to undergird the sexual division of labor” (Brines, 1994, pp. 652). In other words,
what was meant to completely change society’s views of women was only half
successful. Or, as some believe, it has done nothing more than double women’s
workloads. Women are now expected to work on basically the same level as men, but the
same is not true for society’s expectations of men and housework. These expectations
have barely changed in comparison to the change we have seen in women.
Nowhere in my research is the belief that women have only doubled their
burden more evident than in the article “How Long Is the Second (Plus First) Shift?
Gender Differences in Paid, Unpaid, and Total Work Time in Australia and the United
70
�States” by Sayer, England, Bittman, and Bianchi (2009). Sayer et al. (2009) argue that
“men adjust little to their wives’ employment” (pp. 538). This lack of adjustment is
coined “asymmetry of gendered change” (Sayer et al., 2009, pp. 538). That is, women
have doubled their workload by entering the paid workforce because men have neither
increased their domestic work nor decreased their paid work time away from home. Sayer
et al. (2009) note that children increase the unpaid workload for women more so than
men, because, again, women remain the primary caretaker. As a result, women resort to
swapping personal leisure time with childcare. Men, on the other hand, “do not appear to
make similar tradeoffs” (Sayer et al., 2009, pp. 541). Finally, Sayer et al. (2009) touch on
a component of this argument that I find to be of utmost importance: “how gendered
cultural understandings and work structures keep men from taking on traditionally female
responsibilities” (pp. 541). This element must be brought into the limelight, considering
that the female endeavor to attain equality, which has long been the focus, has been onesided and has proven inadequate.
In the article, “Homemaker or Career Woman: Life Course Factors and Racial
Influences among Middle Class American,” Janet Zollinger Giele observes the change
from traditionally patriarchal marriage to today’s more egalitarian state of marriage.
Giele (2008) states that “women constitute the majority of university students around the
world, and their participation in national economies is correlated with economic growth”
(pp. 393). I would have guessed this was the case: many of the colleges I was interested
in were composed of no less than 60% women, many with a student body that contained
more than 70% women. Women are clearly more than ever interested in participating in
the financial support of themselves or their family. Giele later speaks of studies in Great
Britain and the United States that challenge this newly egalitarian marriage ideal. Giele
(2008) claims, “recent books and popular magazines in the U.S. have addressed the
unexpected number of economically successful and well-educated mothers who have left
their careers for full-time homemaking and motherhood” (pp. 393). This study proves
that although gender ideals have changed in the workplace, those in the home have not.
This supports my theory that women are still expected to be the primary caretaker of
children and household responsibilities while maintaining a career and contributing to the
family financially. It also contributes to the observation that men have not been as present
in the household as women have been in the workplace over the past several decades.
This makes me, as a young woman, nervous for my future. I feel pressured by my
surrounding college society to pursue a full-time career. If I am successful on whatever
career path I choose, I fear that I will have to leave what I have worked so hard for if I
choose to have children. And the same is true for the opposite; I fear that if I choose to
71
�only work within my home as a mother, I will be judged for not taking advantage of the
opportunities I have been given. Giele’s article reinforces this imbalance of household
labor duties between women and their spouses. What ever happened to seizing the
opportunity biology has graced us with—to carry and bring into the world a human life?
Seeing as this process carries with it a lifetime of responsibility, love, and hard work, it
seems preposterous to ridicule women for not pursuing a career on top of the one to
which they are already fully committed. Should a married woman decide to bear and rear
children and pursue another career, it goes without saying that she should be pardoned of
the pressure to do the bulk of the housework.
As a young woman in 2009, I cannot help but feel pressured by society to
choose a different path than the one that I may desire: to be a wife, mother, and full-time
homemaker. Seeing as I am only 21 years old, I change my decisions about my future
daily. However, I think it is unfair and unnecessary to feel guilty should I choose not to
pursue a full-time career that contributes to my family financially. The books and articles
previously referred to display several different ideals for gender and the roles of men and
women in the workplace and the home. It is evident through the studies shown in these
articles that something has to change in order for women to be recognized as the hard
workers they truly are. Society must alter its expectations of women and men to achieve a
balance that allows for less pressure on men to work outside of the home and on women
to maintain a satisfactory household as well as workplace duties. In other words, what
will be achieved is an equal division of labor. If women are not given some slack from
the social pressure to work, they (or we?) should, at the very least, be given more of a
helping hand in the home.
Works Cited
Amadiume, I. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African
Society. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Zen Books Ltd.
Austen, J. (1964). Mansfield Park. New York: Penguin Books.
Brines, J. (1994). “Economic Dependency, Gender, and the Division of Labor at Home”,
American Journal of Sociology, 100(3), 652-688.
Giele, J. Z. (2008). “Homemaker or Career Woman: Life Course Factors and Racial
Influences among Middle Class Americans”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies,
39(3), 393-411.
72
�Kimmel, M. (2004). The Gendered Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sayer, L.C., England, P., Bittman, M., Bianchi, S.M. (2009). “How Long is the Second
(Plus First) Shift? Gender differences in Paid, Unpaid, and Total Work Time in Australia
and the United States”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 40(4), 523-545.
Schieman, S., McBrier, D.B., & Van Gundy, K. (2003). “Home-to-Work Conflict, Work
Qualities, and Emotional Distress”, Sociological Forum, 18(1), 137-164
Webber, G. & Williams, C. (2008). “Part-Time Work and the Gender Division of Labor”,
Qualitative Sociolo.
73
�“The Inky Lifeline of Survival”: The Discovery of Identity
Through French Culture and Standardization in School
Days and Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress
Kaitlyn Belmont (English)1
Being educated and going to school is an experience that is universal; at some
point in a person’s life, they must go to school, and discover all that comes along with
gaining knowledge and socially interacting with peers. For the protagonists in School
Days (1994) by Patrick Chamoiseau and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)
by Dai Sijie, education is a part of their lives that shapes and changes their identities.
Through their different types of education, the characters discover themselves and begin
to understand the world around them. For the protagonist in School Days, the little black
boy, education is something that is at first revered and then quickly transformed into that
which produces fear and humiliation. As a boy growing up in Martinique, he must go
through the French schooling system because of its status as a colony, where he learns
much about France but is separated from his Creole culture. The narrator in Balzac and
the Little Chinese Seamstress, however, must go through the process of “re-education” as
part of the Cultural Revolution of China in the 1960s; he is completely separated from his
known way of life in the city. During his time in re-education, he discovers a novel by
Balzac which opens his eyes to all that is Western. The two main characters are at once
separated from their cultures and brought closer to a discovery of their identities through
standardization. Though both are “re-educated”, the little black boy is brought closer to
his own culture through recognizing the differences, while Sijie’s narrator is pulled
further from his own culture. However their identity is realized, French culture deeply
affects the two characters.
“The little black boy”, or the main character in Chamoiseau’s School Days
illustrates a typical Martinican child as he begins with his schooling in the French
education system. Martinique was colonized by the French in the 17th century, and
eventually became a départment d’outre mer, or a French overseas department in 1946
(Hillman 95). This meant that although Martinique is no longer a colony of France, it is
still recognized as a part of France that has elected representation in the government as
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Christopher Hogarth (English) for EN229: Comparative
Literature.
74
�well as French legislature (Hillman 95). For the little black boy growing up in Martinique
in the 1960s, he is required to enroll in a school system designed by the French and based
on the idea of Standardization; all of the lessons are taught in French and based on
concepts of French culture. This presents many problems for the boy, who has grown up
speaking the native language, Creole, and suddenly finds himself learning in a language
unfamiliar to him, about subjects which he has never seen or heard of.
He begins the novel by expressing his envy towards his siblings, who “started
going off somewhere each morning” while he is left at home, waiting for them to return
after “vanishing over the horizon carrying strange bags,” (Chamoiseau 13-14). After
being informed that he will also be going to school soon, he is speechless and excited; he
then attends a preschool with Mam Salinière. For the little black boy, school with Mam
Salinière represents a comforting, weaning time which eases him into the concept of
schooling. It is during these preschool days when the little black boy, as well as the other
students, begin to feel as though they are agents of their own educations: “He felt as
though he were teaching her things; he could amaze her by drawing a letter, by
caterwauling Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol…by mixing two colors together to make a new
one…Everything he did was lovely, clever and brave,” (Chamoiseau 28). This early
education begins to shape the little black boy as he begins to take education as a step
towards interacting with other students, his siblings, and his family. Through the child
narration, however, it is difficult and almost impossible to see that even in preschool he is
beginning to be pushed into the French thought; he draws her “a witch, a fir tree, an apple
tree, a snowflake”, and other objects that are not associated with Martinique (Chamoiseau
28). However, because he is not integrated into the French school system at this time, he
is still in the “comfort zone” of his Creole background; at this point, he still does not
recognize the “ethnic and cultural boundaries of identity” which will eventually shape
him and change his perspective on his Creole heritage, though they are faintly present in
his preschool education (Murdoch 25).
It is only when the little black boy begins to attend French school, the École
Perrinon, that he begins to understand the concept of standardization and his separation
from Creole culture. Even upon arrival at the school, he feels that “the atmosphere was
frightening, severe, echoing, anonymous…Nothing and nobody would coddle him there,”
(Chamoiseau 35). The teacher instantly begins speaking in French as he welcomes the
class, and insulting the boys for not being able to pronounce the letter “r” during role call.
Almost immediately, the little boy and his classmates become alienated by their own
culture’s language; they begin to live in fear that if caught speaking Creole, they will not
only be ridiculed by the Teacher and possibly other students, but will be punished
75
�(Murdoch 31). The division of language occurs when the little boy realizes that the
teacher is not speaking Creole: “The division of speech had never struck the little boy
before. French (to which he didn’t even attach a name) was some object fetched when
needed from a kind of shelf, outside oneself,” (Chamoiseau 47). It is in this moment that
the colonial presence is identified in the novel; though the reader is aware that the
teachers are different, this “division” of language separates the boy from the authoritative
positions of the teacher and Monsieur le Director. This separation, according to Murdoch,
is an emphasis on “the ineluctable fact that the Creole language possesses both a logic
and histoirco-cultural tapestry that will forever separate it from French,” (31). In other
words, as the boy becomes further disconnected with Creole, he sees that his lessons also
draw him further away from his environment.
The characters of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, however,
experience standardization in a much different way. Under the Mao communist
government in China in 1965, Mao himself urged party leaders to begin what he called a
“cultural revolution” after deciding that novels and literature had dominated the party
through its “bourgeois ideology” which had been producing capitalist thinking (Meisner
311). In order to rejuvenate socialist thinking throughout the country through proletariat
ideology the masses would transform themselves and ultimately their country to be more
pro-communist (Meisner 312). This “revolution” lead to the mobilization of Red Guards
to burn any books that promoted “bourgeois ideology”, and the cleansing of bourgeois
society. Many young intellectuals were forced to leave their homes and work in remote
villages in order to understand the proletariat struggle, and to be punished for their
rebellion (Yongyi 330). Sijie’s two main protagonists find themselves in just this
situation; separated from their families, they must move to a mountain village to work
and connect with the poor people.
The narrator of the story (who is never named) and his best friend Luo are sent
to Phoenix of the Sky in order to pay for the crimes of their reactionary parents. Unlike
the little black boy, these two characters are not taught a brand new culture that is foreign
to them; they are, in fact, completely separated from any type of culture they know from
growing up in the city of Chengdu, and are forced to work extremely arduous jobs like
digging for coal in a collapsing mine. Fortunately for the two characters, they begin their
self-revelation after the discovery of a secret trunk of “reactionary” bourgeois literature
belonging to another boy separated from his family. Though all books that promoted
“reactionary” or “revolutionary” thought were banned by the government, many
underground reading groups sprang up throughout the country, and “represented a new
height of awakening for the younger generation of the Cultural Revolution,” (Yongyi
76
�331). Four-eyes, the character who owns the trunk, belongs to the underground
movement which eventually leads to the self-discovery of Luo and the narrator.
In the secret trunk, they read and discover the world of Honoré de Balzac, and
become enthralled by the forbidden reading materials of the West. Through Balzac’s
description of real human emotions in Ursule Mirouet, the boys become awakened to
their own emotions and adolescent desires:
Picture, if you will, a boy of nineteen, still slumbering in the limbo of
adolescence, having heard nothing but revolutionary blather about patriotism,
Communism, ideology and propaganda all this life, falling headlong into a story
of awakening desire, passion, impulsive action, love, of all the subjects that had,
until then, been hidden from me, (Sijie 57).
They learn about themselves, as well as sexuality, through the banned Western book; in
opposition to the little black boy who becomes separated from his own culture through
education, Luo and the narrator are already separated from their culture by education, and
therefore begin to discover their identities through inward reflection based off of the
French literature they immerse themselves in.
The narrator and Luo, through their own personal “re-education”, begin to better
understand the world around them after reading the texts kept hidden from them by the
government. First, the narrator sees and recognizes the differences between his own
Communist society and that of 19th century bourgeois France, and subsequently, the
West. Through the novel Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland, the narrator understands
the concept of individuality, something completely foreign to his communist upbringing:
“But Jean-Christophe, with his fierce individualism utterly untainted by malice, was a
salutary revelation. Without him I would never have understood the splendor of taking
free and independent action as an individual,” (Sijie 110). He desires to be an individual
amongst a country full of sameness, which leads to his yearning to own the book
personally, rather than sharing it with Luo (McCall 163). This individuality also leads to
the discovery that all literature can be interpreted and experienced differently by each
individual who reads it. For example, the narrator and Luo must house the village tailor
in their room and the narrator decides to indulge in the retelling of The Count of Monte
Cristo from memory. The tailor, to both boys’ surprise, not only enjoys the story greatly
despite the foreign words and images, but “some of the details he picked up from the
French story started to have a discreet influence on the clothes he was making for the
villagers,” (Sijie 127). The narrator realizes that literature can affect anyone as positively
or surprisingly as it has affected himself.
77
�The two characters also make it their mission to “civilize” the little seamstress
through their new knowledge of the West. Luo believes that now he is cultured, and that
by reading Balzac to the seamstress, “’That would have made her more refined, more
cultured, I’m quite sure,’” (Sijie 61). Along with recounting the stories for the little
seamstress, Luo falls in love with her, and they begin to have an affair as they discover
their blossoming sexuality. Through this notion of educating themselves through ideas
and concepts that are foreign to them, yet nonetheless represent the West, the characters
recognize the power that literature has to “transform, infiltrate, and civilize the wider
societies they penetrate,” (McCall 166). They also understand that although they may not
be able to picture 18th century France (just like the students in the Martinican classroom),
they are impacted it by it nonetheless; the forbidden literature undermines the
oppressiveness of the communist country because through it they discover their truest
selves.
French culture, as it is represented in both the novels, impacts the different
protagonists in many different ways. For Chamoiseau’s little black boy, his experience
with French culture is that which serves to further point out the differences between his
own Creole heritage and the French colonial presence. After realizing that his teacher is
no longer speaking Creole and has been using French in the classroom, he realizes that
words “seemed to come from a distant horizon and no longer had any affinity with
Creole. The Teacher’s images, examples, and references did not spring from their native
country anymore,” (Chamoiseau 47). The education system, because of the colonial
French power, is focused on a standard French education, which entails learning about
French elements of culture that do not exist in Martinique. For example, they must do
math problems using apples and apple trees and reference points, and are constantly
reminded of the “blue-eyed Gaul with hair as yellow as wheat” as their ancestors
(Chamoiseau 121). For the little black boy, French culture is something which alienates
and isolates the boy from his Creole heritage, forcing him to recognize the differences
between himself and the French, as well as the superiority of French over Creole.
On the other hand, Sijie’s characters see French culture as the ultimate ideal of
Western living; the idolization of French society and ways of life in the novels illustrate
that for the boys, French culture is superior to the oppressive Chinese society they are a
part of. As McCall notes, the two characters do not analyze the literature as much as they
revere all of the other aspects, like spacial settings, characters, and portrayals of society
(163). The narrator even imitates “a sense of courtesy and respect for womanhood that I
had learned from Balzac” when interacting with the seamstress, and declares passionately
that he finally grasps the “notion of one man standing up against the whole world,” (Sijie
78
�151, 110). French culture, though just as far away and separated from the narrator and
Luo as it is for the little black boy, affects the way in which the characters see themselves
and their own community; their interaction with French culture through literature is
positive and aids them in their journey to self-discovery.
The effects of re-education are also different for each character, though both
types of education shape the identities of the characters. Chamoiseau’s little black boy
becomes more aware of his own culture through French standardization and how he is
excluded from it, and perhaps how he will always be excluded from his native Martinique
(Murdoch 28). He is not “awakened” like the other characters because of education, but
does recognize the effects of colonialism in his own personal ideology. For example,
Creole becomes the language of the playground, used by the children out of earshot of the
strict, no-Creole teachers: Degraded to contraband, it grew callous from its freight of
insults, dirty words, hatreds, violence, and tales of catastrophe. Creole wasn’t used
anymore to say nice things. Or loving things, either…The little boy’s linguistic
equilibrium was turned topsy-turvy. Forever,” (Chamoiseau 66). His own language
becomes the lesser language, as well as the lesser culture, as the children are told that
without their French education, they would be back in the sugar cane fields. French
culture represents the opposition to the little black boy’s native heritage, which slowly
becomes more separate as his own mentality becomes divided.
Sijie’s narrator and Luo, however, ascertain more about the West through their
re-education rather than their own culture during the Cultural Revolution. France
becomes the utopia that they long for, because it represents the land of individualism and
passion, where desire and sexuality are not taboo. Nevertheless, the ending suggests that
perhaps this type of self education is as corrupting as Chairman Mao claims it to be; the
little seamstress, now fully “cultured” by the two boys, leaves to be a modern woman
(which is suggested to mean a prostitute). She claims to have left the village because of
the inspiration of Balzac that “a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price,” and in
response, the narrator and Luo burn their treasured, secret books (Sijie 184). The ending
suggests that perhaps Westernization is corrupting, but that perhaps it is translation
which corrupts; Balzac’s stories have only been told to the little seamstress through the
boys, rather than through her own reading of it (McCall 166). In this sense, education
must be something personal for each individual in order to understand and determine
their identities.
In the end, the little black boy and the narrator do discover and form their own
identities despite their strange educations. In School Days, the little black boy gains from
education a more clear sense of self, though divided between and across two cultures; he
79
�sees his Creole self amidst his French education. While in Balzac and the Little Chinese
Seamstress, identity is formed through an experience with culture that is foreign to them,
yet idolized and revered as being superior to their current society and culture. French
culture becomes all that is good and right in their world. Interestingly enough, both texts
present French ideology as the basis of the characters’ re-education, and it is interpreted
and illustrated as both a positive and a negative element. Through education, the little
black boy and the narrator realize their identities despite a split from their own native
cultures.
Works Cited
Chamoiseau, Patrick. School Days. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press,
1994.
Flambard-Weisbart, Véronique. “’Ba-er-za-ke’ ou imaginaire chinois en français”,
Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. 11.3 (2007), 427-34.
Hillman, Richard S. and D’Agostino, Thomas J. Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2003.
Knepper, Wendy. “Colonization, Creolization, and Globalization: The Art and Ruses of
Bricolage”, Small Axe 21. (2006), 70-86.
McCall, Ian. “French Literature and Film in the USSR and Mao’s China: Intertexts in
Makine’s Au Temps du Fleuve and Dai Sijie’s Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise”.
Romance Studies. 24.2 (2006), 159-68.
Meisner, Maurice. Mao’s China: A History of the People’s Republic. New York, New
York: The Free Press, 1979.
Murdoch, H. Adlai. “Autobiography and Departmenaltization in Chamoiseau’s Chemin
d’école: Representational Strategies and the Martinican Memoir”, Research in African
Literatures. 40.2 (2009), 16-40.
Sijie, Dai. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. New York, New York: Anchor
Books, 2000.
Yongyi, Song. “A Glance at the Underground Reading Movement during the Cultural
Revolution”, Journal of Contemporary China. 16.51 (2007), 325-33.
80
�Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: The Lives of
Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and Arnold Schoenberg
Prerna Bhatia (Arts Administration)1
Turn-of-the-century, or “fin-de-siècle” Vienna was a place of tremendous
artistic and intellectual opportunity, and for this reason the city attracted many different
nationalities and ethnicities. Among these were the Jews, who started to arrive towards
the end of the eighteenth century. By the early twentieth century, there were nearly three
million Jews living in the city of Vienna. During the fin-de-siècle in Europe, fields such
as psychology, philosophy, law, music, literature, and art flourished with Jews as their
main contributors. Some renowned Jewish intellectuals included Gustav Mahler, Victor
Adler, Arthur Schnitzler, and Marcel Proust, but this essay will focus on the lives and
works of three figures in particular—Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and Arnold
Schoenberg.
It is ironic that Vienna attracted so many Jews because even before both world
wars, it was one of the European cities with an anti-Semitic party as a major
governmental influence. Subsequently, as the progression of History suggests, it became
unsafe for Jews to reside in Vienna. When Austria-Hungary became Austria-Germany,
Jewish identity in Vienna stood out as a prevalent issue. Ultimately, there was a shift
from a three-part Austrian-German-Jewish identity to the singular notion of a Jewish
ethnicity. Some believed in full assimilation of the Jewish people into German culture.
Others struggled with fully submitting to one identity due to societal pressures.
Subsequently, rising political forces drove Jews to question their identity; the
classification of a Jewish ethnicity, the idea of full assimilation, and the need for exile
can characterize Jewish identity in fin-de-siècle Vienna. Each can be exemplified
through the life and works of Viennese intellectuals Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and
Arnold Schoenberg.
It is important to understand the complexity of Jewish identity in Vienna as a
whole. Prior to the end of World War I, Jews had a three-part identity. Pre-World War I
Jews in Vienna saw themselves as Austrian by political affiliation, German by cultural
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Laura Morowitz (Art History) and Dr. Katica Urbanc
(Modern Languages) for the honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art in Turn of
Century Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Barcelona.
81
�affiliation, and Jewish by ethnic affiliation (Rozenblit 136). Before the rise of antiSemitism, Jews took great pride in assimilating to German culture. They participated in
the educational system through German universities, gained professional experience, and
expressed themselves artistically as Germans. Steven Beller explains that, “The
identification of German as the culture of the assimilated Jews meant that in places where
Jews were, so was German culture, even if there were hardly any Germans. Jews came to
be the pioneers for German culture in certain districts of the Monarchy, as with the
Jewish schools in various parts of Bohemia” (“Vienna and the Jews” 147). As many
world thinkers and artists were culturally German, the Jews wanting to be a part of this
intellectual community became engrossed in it and did not see themselves as anything but
German. In this sense there was no separation between German culture, Austrian
nationality and Jewish ethnicity.
Nationally, Jews lived in Austria and felt great pride towards this country.
Because there was no designated land for Jews to live on as one community, those who
arrived to Austria became Austrian and upheld the values of Austrian citizens. When the
world began to self-destruct, Jews stood by their country. With the emergence of World
War I there were rising anti-Semitic tensions, but Jews looked passed these and fought in
the war with, “… the naive hope…that the war would end anti-Semitic animosity”
(Rozenblit 137). Unfortunately, the political change after the war from Austria-Hungary
to Austria-Germany would only fuel more anti-Semitism. The Jews’ devotion to their
nation was ultimately destroyed, leaving them with German culture and Jewish Ethnicity
as their identity. As time passed, Jews were unable to rise professionally and were
unemployed due to anti-Semitism. Their association with German culture through the arts
was also stripped away through severe governmental restrictions placed on Jews in the
professional world. Though Jews continued to view the city of Vienna with nostalgia as a
place for them to flourish intellectually and artistically, the rising Nazi party slowly drove
them towards a sense of identity independent of their Austrian nationality and German
heritage. (Beller, “World of Yesterday” 42). Ultimately, they were left with a one-part
identity which bound them as a community: Jewish Ethnicity.
An important figure in fin-de-siècle Vienna who learned to accept and
ultimately take pride in Jewish ethnicity is Sigmund Freud. Throughout his life, Freud
went through different stages of identifying himself as a Jew. In his formative years, he
did not recognize “Jew” and “German” as two separate entities. With the rise of antiSemitism, however, he considered his religion to be a burden and a threat. He eventually
took pride in his Jewish identity and assumed it as an ethnicity, rather than a religion.
Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish parents, but like many Jews of the time, they identified
82
�themselves as Germans. After 1887, Freud’s career in medicine and psychology began to
suffer with the rise of anti-Semitism. Carl E. Shorske writes, “Freud needed no
specifically political commitment to make him feel the lash of resurgent anti-Semitism; it
affected him where he was already hurting—in his professional life. Academic
promotions of Jews in the medical faculty became more difficult in the crisis years…”
(185). Freud was unable to progress in the field he loved most. Subsequently, he became
distraught, withdrew from society and started questioning his identity. He quickly
recognized that his Jewish background was a burden to his professional growth.
Uncertain about his future, in 1897 he joined the “B’nai B’rith”, a Jewish fraternal
organization (Gresser 266). There, he felt at ease and took refuge among other Jewish
intellectuals who accepted and helped promote his work. As he started to question his
identity, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). In this revolutionary text,
there are many references to Judaism and the questioning of his identity as well as the
identity of Jews as a whole. For example, in discussing one of the dreams represented in
this text, Schorske writes, “…its analysis showed Freud the unseemly moral
consequences ensuing from the thwarting of his professional ambition by politics. His
dream-wish was for the power that might remove his professional frustration…the dream
also revealed a disguised wish…not to be Jewish…” (187). Through the subconscious
dream world, Freud experiences both professional frustration and an identity crisis. The
writing of this work and its acceptance by the “B’nai B’rith” allowed Freud to consider
his identity and ultimately accept his Jewish ethnicity.
Like most Jews of the time, Freud was stripped from his national and cultural
identity, but became more comfortable with his Jewish ethnicity. He becomes a humanist
Jew and took pride in the aspects of Jewish religion that valued Jewish history. Judaism
is the history of the survival of the Jews and their ability to prevail through all of God’s
obstacles. They are God’s sacrificial people and will persevere through mankind’s ill
treatment of them. (Smith, 181) Freud, through the study of his religion, recognized that
Jews were an oppressed people who had experienced persecution. Through his studies,
Freud came to terms with his ethnicity and related it to his field of study. Critic Gresser
suggests that, “…Freud identifies so deeply with Jewish tradition and the history of his
people, that he sees his own life and work as its extension. It is through the spiritual
values contained in ideas that the Jews have survived, and psychoanalysis will survive in
the same way…[he] identifies his own underlying purpose and ultimate survival with that
of the Jewish tradition” (230). Freud ultimately took full ownership of his ethnicity when
he related it back to his self and his passion: psychoanalysis. Freud entered the third
stage of his Jewish identity when he became a Zionist Jew. He ultimately “moves from
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�naïve identification, through ambivalent questioning and distance, to a proud
commitment to a Jewishness that expressed humanitarian ideals through a particular
Jewish alliance defined both in ethnic and intellectual terms.” (226)
Once he had come to terms with his identity as a Jew, Freud began to view the
anti-Semitic movement as yet another struggle for Jews to overcome. He now felt that
being a Jew was an advantageous opportunity as Jews were enlightened and the Nazis
were regressive. (230) This view is exemplified in a letter to his friend Max Graf, in
which he advises Mr. Graf on how to raise his child. Freud writes “…he will have to
struggle as a Jew and you ought to develop in him all the energy he will need for
struggle. Do not deprive him of this advantage” (234). Freud insists at length on the fact
that his friend should raise his son as a proud Jew. His views are also clearly confirmed
when he states, “…I consider myself no longer German. I prefer to call myself a Jew”
(235). As a new Zionist, Freud began to feel unsafe in Vienna. Deprived of his national
and cultural identity, in 1938 he left Vienna for London, where he lived in exile until his
death a year later.
Another Viennese Jew of the period, author Stefan Zweig, did not relate to the
notion of Jewish identity, but rather believed strongly in full assimilation of the Jews to
German culture. Zweig was born in 1881 into an assimilated Jewish family, and he
wanted to uphold this tradition. "My mother and father were Jewish only through
accident of birth", he once said in an interview. He believed in the ideal of a European
and ultimately, human identity that did not classify people into distinct categories.
Zweig’s social and political ideals are clearly perceived through his autobiography, The
World of Yesterday (1943). He writes, “If I were to choose a phrase which would sum up
the time before the First World War in which I grew up, the most suitable would be to
say that it was the golden age of safety. Everything in our almost thousand-year-old
Austrian Monarchy appeared founded on permanence, and the state itself was the highest
guarantor of this stability” (Beller “World of Yesterday” 38). Here the author is referring
to an old Vienna which benefited from the comforts of having a stable government who
upheld notions of peace. Furthermore, for Zweig old Vienna represented a time of
freedom in which the notion of Jewish identity per se did not exist. He felt strongly that
any form of religious classification was irrelevant because it did not contribute to the
overall moral progression and betterment of Europe. In a sense, Zweig opposed the
notion of a Jewish ethnicity because he did not see it as being relevant to the overall well
being of mankind.
Like Freud, Stefan Zweig identified himself mostly through his role as an
intellectual. Through his writings, Zweig reconnected with the traditions and values of
84
�old Vienna while distancing himself from the world around him. As a novelist, he used
literary fiction as a tool to recreate the Vienna of his youth that did not require him to
identify with anything other than literature itself. His short story Buchmendel (1929)
exemplifies this idea. Critic Frieden discusses the creation of the main character, Mendel.
He writes, “…the narrator situations Mendel’s tragedy elsewhere, at a safe distance from
the situation of Viennese Jewry and of Zweig himself… the narrator seems to place the
responsibility for Mendel’s demise on this man’s own one-sidedness and lack of a secular
education” (3). First, the author situates the story in Vienna’s XIX century, a time period
in which the protagonist does not have to face the struggles of Judaism. He does,
however, portray Mendel as a religious person, but passionately illustrates that
worldliness is more important than religion. For Zweig, identity revolves around
secularism and the betterment of humanity as a whole.
Unfortunately, Stefan Zweig could not fully detach himself from the political
activities taking place in Vienna at the dawn of the XX century. Because of his Jewish
origins, the Nazis sanctioned his works and deemed them to be “degenerate”. In 1934,
Zweig’s personal collection of books was burned by the Nazis and he came to terms that
regardless of his intellect or his profession as a writer, he was still Jewish. Critic
Roshwald agrees that, “The history of Europe, which engulfed Zweig along with his
contemporaries, awakened him from this illusory reality” (372). Zweig began to
understand that being Jewish is a transcendent position. As Roshwald states,
…First, he experienced the public burning of the ‘forbidden’ books, which
included the German publications of Jewish writers. All of a sudden he felt cut
off from his German readers. Then came the annexation of Austria, accompanies
by acts of public humiliation of Jews in Vienna, which he describes in painful
detail in The World of Yesterday. While Zwieg could make his escape to
England…he would witness in horror the plight of the Jewish refugees
desperately looking for a country which would admit them. The human
degradation was insufferable (373).
Zweig viewed the brutal treatment of Jews in Vienna with pain and horror. Despite his
hopes for a united Europe, he soon came to realize that if Jews could not prevail, there
was no chance for humanity as a whole either. Zweig and his wife Lotte ultimately fled
Austria in 1934. After living in England and the United States, they fled to Brazil in
1941. Distraught over the horrors of the Nazi regime in Europe, the couple committed
suicide together in 1942.
Zweig and Freud’s exile was not uncommon for most Viennese Jewish
intellectuals at the time. Austrian Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg also met this fate.
85
�Like Freud, Schoenberg identified with his Jewish roots during certain points of his life,
but he also went through various stages before accepting his true identity. He, too,
recognized the oppression of the Jewish people and identified with the fact that they
underwent “social rejection and self-sacrifice” (Hooper 267). As a composer, Schoenberg
defied tradition in every sense and was harshly judged and misunderstood by the society
of his time. Opposing Vienna’s traditional musical tradition, Schoenberg introduced
notions such as “dissonance”, “atonality”, and ultimately developed a “twelve tone
technique” in order to delve into a deeper understanding of music. Hooper explains that,
“According to Schoenberg, the Idea… can be described as ‘Music for Music’s sake…
conventional compositional practices obscured the purity of the Idea Schoenberg sought
to express in each piece. His theory of twelve-tones, however, offered limitless
possibilities within a defined set of rules. (268) Schoenberg aimed to defy theory in order
to exemplify the true existence of music for the sole purpose of music itself. Schoenberg
clearly had a revolutionary approach to music, although it was poorly received by the
Viennese. Besides the fact that his music defied what people expected and loved about
music, another reason for his rejection as an artist can be traced to his religious roots.
Schoenberg struggled with his Jewish identity through most of his adult life. He
was born an Orthodox Jew, became a Lutheran Christian, then an atheist, and finally
returned to Judaism. In a sense, Schoenberg defied religion in the same way that he
defied musical tradition. As musical critic Hooper states, “…Schoenberg questioned his
belief system, exploring one after another without fully committing to any” (270). He
opposes Judaism for the sake of intellectual and spiritual exploration, because the
structure of this religion had been engrained in him from a young age. As he began his
professional career as a composer, Schoenberg believed that he would gain public
acceptance if people accepted his religion. The fact that critics continued to condemn his
music because he was of Jewish origin affected him deeply. In fin-de-siècle Vienna, he
was unable to escape his Jewish identity despite his conversion to Christianity. Critics
continued to recognize him as a Jew and he “…had to come face to face with a society
where all they say is: ‘He is a Jew’” (Tugendhaft 1). Having accepted this, Schoenberg
ultimately accepted his faith and his identity as a Jew in Viennese society. At the same
time, he decided to fully commit to his theories on music despite public disapproval. His
passion for music thus became closely linked to his spirituality.
Schoenberg’s religious and political resistance can be exemplified through his
opera Moses und Aron (1933). Written in the early 1930s after his re-conversion back to
Judaism, Schoenberg uses this opera as a way to make deep religious and political
statements. He bases the work on the Jewish bible and creates parallel characters, two
86
�opposing leaders—Moses and Aron. While struggling to find a sense of Jewish identity,
Schoenberg made a conscious decision, similarly to Freud, to embrace Judaism and
ultimately provide security for Jews as a whole. His idea that Jews are God’s chosen
people are strongly exemplified throughout this opera. Critic Tugendhaft correctly
suggests,
Schoenberg’s main point lies in the relationship between Moses and Aaron, and
the question of which one of these two is better suited to leading the Jewish
people to their ultimate goal…He has more on his mind than just figuring out
what took place in the wilderness four-thousand years earlier; he wants to see
how the text applies to his own time. Schoenberg has chosen this biblical story
to operate as a vehicle for his exploration of the role and the future of the Jewish
people in the modern world (1).
Schoenberg skillfully connects biblical characters and contemporary preoccupations
through Moses and Aron, while he explores the struggle of the Jewish people as a whole.
He condemns secular Jews who have fully assimilated to Austrian nationality and
German culture because they have lost their purpose and their ideals. When the character
Aron ultimately fails in the opera, Schoenberg suggests that the secular Jews who believe
in full assimilation will also fail.
If Schoenberg fully accepted his identity as an untraditional musician and a Jew,
he was also aware of the consequences that this entailed. In a letter to fellow Austrian
composer Alban Berg, he writes, “…I’m constantly obliged to consider the question
whether and, if so, to what extent I am doing the right thing in regarding myself as
belonging here or there, and whether it is forced upon me…Today I am proud to call
myself a Jew; but I know the difficulties of really being one” (Hooper 270). Like so
many of his contemporaries, Schoenberg was forced into exile after Hitler’s rise to
power. He viewed this exile as an intellectual voyage because he could not fully express
himself as a Jew and as a musician in Vienna anymore. He also writes, “… I knew I had
to fulfill a task: I had to express what was necessary to be expressed and I knew I had the
duty of developing my ideas for the sake of progress in music, whether I liked it or not;
but I also had to realize that the great majority of the public did not like it” (272).
Schoenberg left Europe for the United States, where his music and his religion were
accepted in public spheres. Ironically, after having left Vienna, he began to compose
more structured pieces as he assimilated into American culture during the final stages of
his life. He died in Los Angeles in 1951.
The election of Adolf Hitler in 1933 led many Jews to flee Vienna almost as
quickly as they had arrived to the city at the turn of the century. Sigmund Freud, Stefan
87
�Zweig, and Arnold Schoenberg were ultimately driven out of Austria because they were
Jewish. Freud, who viewed Judaism as an advantage, was forced to leave as he was
unable to progress in the fields of medicine and psychology. Zweig, who had been a
pacifist his entire life, was labeled a decadent writer by the Nazis and ended his own life,
unable to face Europe’s tragic destiny. Schoenberg, who finally came to terms with his
Jewish identity, left a country that shunned his artistic and religious values. These three
thinkers recognized that life in Vienna under the Nazi regime was no longer possible.
Unfortunately, many others did not escape in time, and the Nazis would eventually kill
over six million Jews by the end of the war. Jewish identity at the turn of the century was
complex and difficult to grasp for many. Tragically, even for those who finally came to
terms with their identity as Jews, their new sense of awareness was short lived.
Works Cited
Beller, Steven. “The World of Yesterday Revisted: Nostalgia, Memory, and the Jews
of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna.” Jewish Social Studies 6 (1997): 37-53.
--- Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938; A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.
Gresser, Moshe. “Sigmund Freud's Jewish Identity: Evidence from His Correspondence.”
Modern Judaism May (1991): 225-40.
Hooper, Lisa. “Themes of Exile in the Music and Public Writings of Arnold Schoenberg.”
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Neueren Germanistik (2009): 265-79.
Kaplan, Robert. “Soaring on the Wings of the Wind: Freud, Jews and Judaism.”
Australasian Psychiatry (2009): 318-25.
Ken, Frieden. “The Displacement of Jewish Identity in Stefan Zweig's `Buchmendel'.”
Symposium (1999): 232-39.
Roshwald, Mordecai. “Stefan Zweig and Franz Kafka: A Study in Contrast.” Modern Age (
2005): 371-75.
Rozenblit, Marsha L. “Jewish Ethnicity in a New Nation-State.” In Search of Jewish
Community. Ed. Michael Brenner and Derek J. Penslar. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1998.
134-54.
Schorske, Carl E. Fin de Siècle Vienna- Politics and Culture. New York: Vintage Books,
1980.
Smith, Huston. The Illustrated World’s Religions. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
88
�Behind Closed Doors
Anonymous1
Early on in life, I was raised to believe that boys were superior to girls. My
father made sure he taught my sister and me this lesson, while teaching my brother what
it means to “be a man.” To my father, being a man entailed having control and
demanding respect from his wife and daughters. Creating a home environment
entrenched in patriarchy, my father held all of the power in our household. According to
de Chesnay, Marshall, and Clements (1988), a natural father that creates a patriarchal
household predicts severe abusive behavior toward family members. A father is also
more likely to be controlling toward his daughter than his son, demanding respect and
obedience (Nelson & Oliver, 1988). This gendered behavior can set the foundation for a
father to sexually abuse his daughter, further reinforcing that the daughter’s role is to
serve her father (Nelson & Oliver, 1988). When growing up, my sister and I were treated
like we were born for the sole purpose of bowing to my father’s power, while my brother
was highly entitled to have any of his needs and desires met. In patriarchal families, girls
are allowed to be abused because they are seen as possessions, while men are taught that
their needs and desires are priority (Nelson & Oliver, 1988). We eventually learned that
this was unfair, but for most of our childhood this behavior was simply understood and
accepted without defiance.
I grew up in a traditional Italian Catholic household. My mother stayed at home
to take care of the house and her three children while my father worked all day as a police
officer. My siblings and I went to a small, Catholic, predominantly white, middle class
elementary school. My mother and father were involved in the parents’ guild, and were
active members in our parish. We dressed up and went to church every Sunday morning
as a family. To the naked eye we were a “picture perfect” family; if only people looked
more closely. The inside of our house represented the patriarchal and abusive ideology
that drove my father to familial power; every door knob was infected by his touch, and
the walls were bleeding with violence. My father created a battle zone, physically and
verbally abusing our family, and instilling in us a sense of tremulous fear that could only
be reduced by instinct. de Chesnay, Marshall, and Clements (1988) found that families
living in the same house and neighborhood for the duration of the abuse are found to
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Amy Eshleman (Psychology).
89
�endure more severe abuse for a longer period of time. When the neighborhood is
comfortable and seemingly knowledgeable about the families that live there, it is easier to
hide family dysfunction. My mother and father clearly concealed our battlefield home life
through their involvement in our school and parish, teaching my siblings and me to
follow suit. I like to argue that people only see what they want to see, and this was
certainly the case in my family’s situation.
My father was the master at “saving face” in public. For example, when I was
twelve years old I can remember a particular Sunday morning that my sister, who was
seven years old, was being difficult about going to church. Instead of rationally telling
her that she needed to attend Mass with the family, my father decided to choke her until
her face turned purple. He did not stop choking her until my mother pried his hands off of
my sister’s neck. My father was able to physically abuse my sister without any
consequences, mainly because no one in my family reported the abuse; we rarely even
talked about it amongst ourselves. Priebe and Svedin (2008) found that victims of sexual
abuse are not likely to report the abuse to authority figures. When evaluating disclosure
patterns to authority figures, these results can also be applied to my sister’s experience
being physically abused. Priebe and Svedin (2008) concluded that the people reporting
abuse are usually victims of more severe cases. This conclusion can be challenged in my
family’s experience. The abuse was not reported to authority figures because my father
was an authority figure, not because it could be considered a less severe case. His
occupation as a police officer prevented us from reporting this abuse, especially because
he threatened to shoot us with his gun if anyone in our family ever said anything.
After choking my sister at home, my father made it his priority to show our
community that he was a caring father when we arrived at Mass. He even sat next to my
sister and rubbed her back. His behavior illustrates that abusers tend to be low in
conscientiousness because they do not think about how their actions will affect others
(Dennison, Stough, & Birgden, 2001). My father was protecting the illusion that we were
an active and healthy family in the parish; no one wants to be that family in the center of
the ooos and ahhs of gossip in the front of the church after Mass is over.
My father always made me feel like being a girl was a belittling role. When I
was eight years old and my brother was six years old, we were quarreling, as most
siblings commonly do, over a Nickelodeon magazine. The magazine belonged to me, and
while I was reading a story, my brother grabbed it out of my hands. We started fighting
over it, trying to grab it out of each other’s hands and yelling back and forth at each other.
I finally took the magazine back, and my brother started crying. My father ripped the
magazine out of my hands, tore it into pieces, and threw the ripped pieces of paper in my
90
�face. As if that was not punishment enough, he went on to say that reading was a
privilege for girls, and my misbehavior deemed me unworthy of that privilege for the rest
of the night. My six year old brother laughed and said, “That is what you get for being
mean to boys.” Through this situation, male dominance was being reinforced. Family
violence was occurring and there was no communication between other family members
that this behavior was not acceptable (Alaggia & Kirshenbaum, 2005). We were taught to
keep our abusive home life a secret; therefore none of these issues were ever addressed.
This further isolates the victim of this abuse because there is no one to talk to or connect
with, and the victim will feel as though he/she does not fit in with the family (Alaggia &
Kirshenbaum, 2005).
At the time, I did not realize the important lesson about gender that my father
was teaching me in this moment. Apparently, my gender required permission to read. I
was being trained to fit his definition of my gender’s roles and expectations. This further
reinforces that in patriarchal households, women’s lives are subjected to men’s power
(Whealin et al., 2002). Men feel that they have the right to take privileges away from
women because women’s lives should be focused on men’s needs (Nelson & Oliver,
1998). In patriarchal households, needs and desires are interchangeable terms for the man
holding the power. A desire was perceived as being just as necessary as a need, and it did
not matter if they were appropriate. Attending to needs and desires were mandatory acts
of service, and their necessity or appropriateness were never questioned. My father
believed that my purpose in life would be to serve him until I was married, and then I
would serve my husband. I wish that I was aware of his definition of service, maybe I
would have been more prepared for how our relationship would unfold. Perkins (2001)
found that girls labeling their fathers as seductive felt as though their fathers did not
understand their emotions and needs. My father did not take into consideration the
possibility that I even had needs of my own, and even if he recognized my needs he did
not deem them important. He knew that this idea was not commonly accepted by society
anymore, which is why he liked to hide these prejudiced thoughts from the public and
only discriminate against me at home.
I always wondered why my father developed these sexist thoughts. Thinking
back now, I can understand that his family played a major role in the development of this
mentality. When I was younger, my family occasionally made trips to visit my father’s
parents for Sunday dinner. I remember a particular visit quite well. I was ten years old,
my brother was eight, and my sister was five. My grandfather was asking my brother
about his favorite subject in school, and his future aspirations. I foolishly decided to join
in on the conversation and say that I wanted to be a scientist. My grandparents laughed,
91
�and my grandmother told me “Don’t be silly, you’re going to be a Las Vegas Showgirl,
serve those men!” At ten years old I did not know what a Las Vegas Showgirl was, but I
knew that it was nowhere near being a scientist. I also saw the way it bothered my mother
whenever my grandmother made those comments. Patriarchal families allow girls to be
seen as sex objects (Whealin et al., 2002). Nelson and Oliver (1998) found that when
women are forced to use their sexuality as a way to serve men, people believe that the
women are being passive and weak. Contrary to this finding, my family saw a woman’s
sexuality as a strong way to serve men. This patriarchal mentality is a predictor of
incestuous relationships between adult family members and children (Whealin et al.,
2002).
My father was one of five boys in his family. He and his siblings grew up
watching their father physically and verbally abuse their mother. My father was
acclimated to this lifestyle while growing up; he did not know any other way to interact
with family members. Parker and Parker (1986) found that family life during childhood
does not have a significant relationship in predicting the abusive behavior that the abuser
exhibits as a parent. This research was collected from a sample of abusive fathers
(compared to a sample of fathers without a history of abuse); therefore these results can
be criticized because abusers may not perceive their childhood lives as being abusive.
This is especially true if an abusive father grew up in a patriarchal household (Whealin et
al., 2002). My grandfather showed his sons that a woman’s job is to serve her husband,
and my grandmother tolerated the abuse. I would even argue that she let him brainwash
her into believing that mentality, especially because she was encouraging her
granddaughter to do the same. My mother did not want to become my father’s mother;
she did not want to further the cycle of abuse, and she especially did not want to teach her
daughters that they needed to be servants to the men in their lives. She still needed to find
the strength to break that cycle.
Living with my father became exponentially harder with time. My mother and
father were constantly fighting, my brother was constantly being pampered, and my sister
was constantly acting as my father’s human punching bag. Where did I fit into this
dysfunctional family dynamic? I did not know how to define my relationship with my
father; I guess I was confused about how we were supposed to interact. He had a
collection of about twenty pictures of me displayed on a dresser in his bedroom. I was the
only one of my siblings that was represented in this manner, and I was the only person in
every picture. This shrine of my pictures was rather discomforting, especially when it
was my brother that he seemed to favor. He started to become obsessed with going on
“trips” with me, even if it was just to the mall to buy me a movie. I would receive cards
92
�from him; love cards that someone would give to his significant other. On a particular
night that my mother was not in the house, my father asked me to spend some time with
him in his bedroom. We were sitting on his bed watching television when he began to
stroke my leg with his hand. His hand inched further and further to my upper thigh; I
looked at him and he eerily smiled back at me. I wanted so much to get up and run away
as far as I could, but I was too scared. He always told me “I have a gun in my closet and I
am not afraid to use it.” As he ran his hands up my shirt, he said “I will always love you.”
He kissed me repeatedly on my cheek and neck, and as I began to cry he told me to go to
bed. He decided to further terrorize me later that night; I still have the image of him
standing over my bed, staring at me while I was sleeping.
A sexual relationship between a father and daughter is detrimental to the
daughter’s identity formation (Whealin et al., 2002). In this patriarchal setting, my father
was teaching me that it is socially acceptable to be a sex object in order to fulfill my
father’s desires (Whealin et al., 2002). Dennison, Stough, and Birgden (2001) describe a
sexual abuser as having low openness to values, while being conservative and closeminded. They also describe sexual abusers as seeming humble and shy, having low selfesteem, and feeling inadequate in their lives. These findings can be challenged because
the participants in this research were sexual abusers. They may describe their
personalities in ways that hide their true characteristics. After being sexually abused by
my father, these research findings are offensive because they create empathy for the
abuser. The morning after this interaction with my father, I woke up and went to school
as if nothing happened. I would never tell anyone about the creepy, sick, and disgusting
event that occurred in the place I was supposed to call home, with a man I was supposed
to call daddy. Non-disclosure about sexual abuse is commonly found in more severe
and/or frequent occurrences of the abuse, and also results from the type of relationship
between the abuser and victim (Priebe & Svedin, 2008). I knew that this behavior
between a father and daughter was not considered normal in our society, and I was not
going to let anyone know that maybe my life was not considered normal.
I went to an all girls’ Catholic academy, consisting of girls from mainly middle
and upper class families. When I started high school, I learned some new definitions of
the word “daddy.” I noticed that many of the girls were considered “daddy’s little girl.”
Their daddies would drive them to school, or pick them up from swimming practice at
night. I was almost shocked that a father could dote on his daughter in that way. I guess it
hurt when all of my friends were going to the Father Daughter Dance with their daddies,
and I did not have a daddy. I distinguish between father and daddy because “father” is a
biological/genetic definition of our relationship, but “daddy” is a role that he did not fill
93
�for me nor is it a label that he deserved. According to a biological definition explaining
parent-child bonding, a daughter is more likely to be sexually abused by her father if this
bonding does not occur early in the child’s life (Parker & Parker, 1986). Bonding was
operationally defined as a father physically caring for his daughter by dressing and
feeding her, caring for her when she was sick, and showing her appropriate affection as
an infant (Parker & Parker, 1986). My father did not participate in these activities when I
was an infant, and continued this pattern for as long as he was involved in my life. It can
be argued that this bonding is a branch of the definition of love. In my high school, I was
surrounded by girls with fathers that loved them. I always wanted to know how that felt.
All through high school I felt stigmatized, even though no one knew anything
about my life. I always felt like people were looking at me differently, or judging me. I
felt trapped inside my own body. It was as if I was drowning in an ocean of my own
emotions; turbulent waves of extreme pain were pushing me into a rip tide and I had no
way to escape. I was searching for answers to unanswerable questions. Why? Why me?
Why now? What did I do wrong? When a victim blames him/herself for the abuse, he/she
is more likely to feel stigmatized for the abuse (Peters & Range, 1996). This feeling of
shame can lead to social withdrawal, creating a low support level and predicting a
victim’s lower self-esteem (Griffing et al., 2006). I was constantly paranoid that people
would find out, and if they did I knew they would immediately judge me. Davies and
Rogers (2009) found that when reporting abuse, people believe younger victims more
than they believe older victims. People may assume that an older child is lying about
being sexually abused, especially if the abuser is the child’s father. This ideology
provides support for the abusive father, because he is not considered guilty for the abuse
if it is possible that the child is lying. The participants making these judgments in this
research study were members of the general public, without any experience with sexual
abuse. This research methodology supports that it is easier to avert disclosure to others
about being sexually abused, especially when people that have not experienced sexual
abuse can be critical judges. If I told any of my peers about my experience, they would
think that I was gross and weird, and probably would not want to be associated with me.
Besides, I knew that no one would understand, so it remained my secret.
The way my father abused me is easy to hide because he did not leave any
physical marks on my body, but as the physical marks on my sister’s body increased, my
mother gained the strength to divorce my father. I was fifteen years old when my mother
filed for a divorce, and my father was no longer allowed to live in our house. My mother
does not know about what happened between me and my father, and I thought I would be
strong enough to keep my own secret. In Hunter’s (2009) research, victims of sexual
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�abuse that did not disclose their experience to family members report that they did not
experience impairment in their functioning. Hunter’s (2009) research was based on
victims’ self-reports about their experiences with abuse. These results can be challenged
because the victims may have disclosed their experiences to others that do not include
family members. Also, the results might be flawed if the victims reporting their
experiences did not want to share that they experienced impairment in functioning.
Contrary to Hunter’s (2009) findings, I found being silent to be extremely difficult
throughout high school. It was already bad enough that most of my friends’ parents were
married and mine were in the middle of a rather brutal trial to be divorced, but what made
it worse was that a life changing experience of mine was being stifled inside my fifteen
year old body. I needed to find an outlet to release the intense emotion that was numbing
my body and making life seem like a blurry twilight zone.
As a victim of child sexual abuse, there was a higher chance that I could become
depressed or anxious, develop a conduct disorder, or turn to substance abuse (Hunter,
2009). Instead, I chose the swimming pool as my outlet. I learned to separate myself from
the frustration and shame that I was feeling as a victim of sexual abuse (Hunter, 2009). I
was also choosing to express my feelings through a sport, rather than speaking about it
with others. Victims of sexual abuse are more likely to detach themselves from
relationships with others, becoming withdrawn in social situations (Griffing et al., 2006).
When interacting with others, I felt as though my personality was tied to a leash; I could
only reach a certain length of expression before I would be harshly pulled back by the
history I had with my father. I knew that I could be my true self and the swimming pool
would not judge me. I would not be labeled as weak, broken, or scarred. I would not be
stereotyped as a “guidance girl” at school because I had “issues.” Guidance girls were
labeled as such because they were mandated to see the guidance counselors once a week
at school. This was a stigmatizing event because these girls were labeled as weak, weird,
attention-getters, and broken. I certainly did not want those labels applied to myself from
peers at school. Furthermore, I would not need to worry that people were being fake
when they were being nice to me or that friends just felt bad for me. The swimming pool
would not feel inclined to try to cheer me up; it is as if it already knew that only makes it
worse.
Before I could consider how this experience shaped my identity, I first needed to
take an important step. I needed to realize that I had an identity. I grew up being taught
that I was my father’s object. I did not know that I could be, or had the right to be,
anything more than his property. Victims of sexual abuse want to be seen as people rather
than be associated with their childhood maltreatment (Hunter, 2009). I defined myself by
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�the act taken upon me because I saw myself as the abused, not as the person being
abused. I could not separate myself from the abuse, mainly because I was taught that I
was an object of male’s sexual desires (Nelson & Oliver, 1998). I felt stigmatized
because my life circumstances made me vastly different from my peers. When growing
up in an atmosphere that promoted male dominance and power, I did not know how to
make sense of what happened to me in the context of my gender and the norms in my
culture. At home I was taught to serve my father; at school I was surrounded by “daddy’s
little girls’”; and according to society, my father would have been seen as an abuser.
After I lost contact with my father, I was able to process my experiences and
learn more about myself as a person and the role this experience has played in shaping
my identity. I first had to understand that gender is learned, and that my father was not a
good teacher. He taught me that my gender determined my role in life, which included
attending to his wants and needs. In patriarchal abusive households, a girl’s gender is
defined by the abuse, teaching girls that they are possessions and objects (Whealin et al.,
2002). When I was no longer living as his human object, I was able to construct my own
definition of gender. Gender does not dictate the roles that a person plays in life, but
rather it describes how the person fulfills those roles. I was then able to realize that my
gender was not the reason that I was abused; he was the reason that I was abused.
By making these vital distinctions, I was also able to minimize the control that
stigma had over my life. Victims of sexual abuse report feeling alienated and
misunderstood by their fathers (Perkins, 2001). I felt stigmatized mainly because I always
felt inferior. My father never made me feel like I was good enough, and when he abused
me I felt like I deserved it because I was not living according to his standards. When
victims of sexual abuse blame themselves for the abuse, they are more likely to be
suicidal, to experience depression, and to engage in self-mutilating behaviors (Peters &
Range, 1996). I thought people saw me the same way I saw myself, as a weak,
incompetent, and bad person. By thinking this way, I was allowing stigma to control my
thoughts and my relationships with others. When victims engage in emotion-focused
thinking, it interferes with their ability to process information (Griffing et al., 2006). This
could affect the way victims interpret social cues, especially if they feel they are being
judged. Victims also feel ashamed for even being involved with the abuse, which
prevents them from disclosing their experience with others (Hunter, 2009).
When I no longer lived at my father’s command, I could let some of that
stigmatized feeling subside and live life for myself. I will not say that I have a very strong
sense of self and that I have fully “recovered” from the way that I have been treated.
There are still times that I do not feel “good enough,” and I center my life on pleasing
96
�others before myself because their needs are more important. My sense of self feels
masked because this experience is vital to the person I have become, but it will always be
hidden from others. I feel more affected by keeping this experience a secret from others,
and might not be able to function as efficiently as Hunter’s (2009) silent participants
described. I still feel stigmatized for being abused, mainly because I blame myself for
what happened between my father and me. There has to be something that I did to elicit
this type of abuse, but I have not figured that out at this current time. Peters and Range
(1996) found that sexually abused victims that blame themselves for the abuse had
weaker coping beliefs. Maybe I blame myself for the abuse because it is the only way
that I know how to cope; it is the only explanation that seems plausible right now. I know
that I am not the person I would have been if this did not happen to me, but I can come to
terms with that because it makes me feel stronger knowing that I could still live a
functioning life despite my father’s wishes.
Works Cited
Alaggia, R., & Kirshenbaum, S. (2005). Speaking the unspeakable: Exploring the impact
of family dynamics on child sexual abuse disclosures. Families in Society, 86, 227-234.
Davies, M., & Rogers, P. (2009). Perceptions of blame and credibility toward victims of
childhood sexual abuse: Differences across victim age, victim-perpetrator relationship,
and respondent gender in a depicted case. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 18, 78-92.
de Chesnay, M., Marshall, E., & Clements, C. (1988). Family structure, marital power,
maternal distance, and paternal alcohol consumption in father-daughter incest. Family
Systems Medicine, 6, 453-462.
Dennison, S. M., Stough, C., & Birgden, A. (2001). The big 5 dimensional personality
approach to understanding sex offenders. Psychology, Crime & Law, 7, 243-261.
Griffing, S., Lewis, C. S., Chu, M., Sage, R., Jospitre, T., Madry, L., et al. (2006). The
process of coping with domestic violence in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 15, 23-41.
Hunter, S.V. (2009). Beyond surviving: Gender differences in response to early sexual
experiences with adults. Journal of Family Issues, 30, 391-412.
97
�Nelson, A., & Oliver, P. (1998). Gender and the construction of consent in child-adult
sexual contact: Beyond gender neutrality and male monopoly. Gender & Society, 12,
554-577.
Parker, H., & Parker, S. (1986). Father–daughter sexual abuse: An emerging perspective.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 56, 531-549.
Perkins, R. M. (2001). The father-daughter relationship: Familial interactions that impact
a daughter's style of life. College Student Journal, 35, 616-626.
Peters, D. K., & Range, L. M. (1996). Self-blame and self-destruction in women sexually
abused as children. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 5, 19-33.
Priebe, G., & Svedin, C. G. (2008). Child sexual abuse is largely hidden from the adult
society: An epidemiological study of adolescents' disclosures. Child Abuse & Neglect,
32, 1095-1108.
Whealin, J. M., Davies, S., Shaffer, A., Jackson, J. L., & Love, L. C. (2002). Family
context and childhood adjustment associated with intrafamilial unwanted sexual
attention. Journal of Family Violence, 17, 151-165.
98
�Terror In Algeria
Jonathan Azzara (Philosophy and Political Science)1
The Algerian War (1954-1962) was one of the most gruesome wars that took
place during the twentieth century. It was characterized by an Algerian terrorist group
called the FLN (National Liberation Front) committing terrorist acts against their French
occupiers. The terrorism by the FLN occurred because they were trying to make Algeria
an independent country thus breaking free from French rule. France still wanted to hold
onto Algeria and used torture to gain intelligence to stop those attacks. By analyzing
three specific cases of terrorism and torture in the Algerian War, we can examine the
problems that plagued France’s counter-terrorism strategies and show how France
became like the FLN.
In the early to middle 1800s, France became increasingly interested in acquiring
Algeria. “In 1830 Algeria was suffering from acute political instability internally and
therefore presented a feeble exterior to the world outside” (Horne 29). It was clear to
European countries and to the United States that Algeria was headed toward collapse.
Many of the leaders in the country met violent ends and the overall political system was
failing. Something needed to be done to help Algeria before the government collapsed
and chaos ensued.
There were two significant reasons why France wanted to acquire Algeria. A
representative called Bugeaud points out the first one. In an 1840 address to the National
Assembly in France, Bugeaud said, “wherever there is fresh water and fertile land, there
one must locate colons, without concerning oneself to whom these lands belong” (Horne
30). The French wanted to gain fertile land to plant crops, which would increase trade
around the Mediterranean Sea. This would hopefully grow and strengthen France’s
economy. As Bugeaud said, it doesn’t matter who’s land the French are taking in
Algeria, as long as it is fertile.
The second reason why France acquired Algeria is because the French wanted to
‘civilize’ the Algerian people. Napoleon III passed a law in 1863 “aimed at ‘reconciling
an intelligent, proud warlike and agrarian race’” (Horne 31). In this second reason,
France wanted to ‘civilize’ the Algerians to make them intelligent and proud. After many
French people began to support the idea of acquiring Algeria, the French military went to
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Steve Snow (Government & Politics) for GOV593:
The French In Algeria.
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�fight the Algerian resistance and in 1848, Algeria became a part of France. In addition,
some French citizens began to move to Algeria and treated it like a second home.
The FLN wanted Algeria back to the independent country it was before France
intervened in 1830. To do this, they organized and carried out terrorist attacks in the
hopes that the French would leave. The first terrorist attack by the FLN occurred on All
Saints’ Day, November 1, 1954. This day became known as Red All Saints’ Day because
of all the bloodshed that took place. The FLN decided to make their first attack on this
day because it held the most significance. “Striking on a night when the staunchly
Catholic pieds noirs were celebrating so important a festival would, it was argued, find
police vigilance at its minimum; while the choice of such a date would carry with it the
maximum propaganda impact” (Horne 83). It was believed that security would be at a
minimum because everyone would be celebrating the holy day of All Saints. In addition
to the lack of security, organizing a terrorist attack on this sacred day would make a
larger symbolic impact than attacking on a regular day. All Saints’ Day is a day of peace
used to celebrate the lives and works of saints. Committing an act of terrorism on a holy
day, especially in an area so heavily populated by French Catholics, would send a strong
message that the FLN was dedicated to the removal of the French in Algeria.
Although the attack on All Saints’ Day was somewhat of a shock to the French,
it was not a total surprise. The French were somewhat aware of what might happen on
that day. “In Algiers, a steady flow of disquieting intelligence was reaching the
competent director of the Sûreté, Jean Vaujour, including a list of camps inside Libya
where Algerian guerrillas were being trained” (Horne 85-86). Ironically, the French
authorities in Algeria knew that an attack might occur on All Saints’ Day because they
had local intelligence informing them about it. Unfortunately the French were unaware
of the exact time and place of the probable attack.
Because France knew that some kind of attack was going to occur, they began to
take precautionary measures. An ethnologist named Jean Servier, who was living in the
Aurès (a mountain range in eastern Algeria) at the time, received a warning from an
official that the attack would happen on All Saints’ Day. Because of this warning, “all
French schoolteachers were also ordered out of Aurès” (Horne 88). Since the French
thought that ‘liberal’ schoolteachers might be a target of the attacks, all schoolteachers
were told to leave the Aurès. Only two teachers could not be reached about the news, the
Monnerot’s. Guy Monnerot and his wife were returning from their honeymoon and did
not receive the message to stay out of the Aurès. The result of them not receiving this
information proved to be fatal.
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�Probably the most tragic episode of killings on All Saints’ Day occurred when
the FLN hijacked a bus carrying innocent people including Guy Monnerot and his wife.
Also on the bus was a loyal caid Hadj Sadok, “who had the previous day received a roneo
copy of the F.L.N.’s proclamation - which he had thrown away in contempt” (Horne 91).
The driver of the bus was told by the FLN to stop the bus at a certain place and he did.
Once stopped, Chihani (a member of the FLN) leapt onto the bus and told Sadok and the
Monnerots to go outside. Chihani wanted to know what Sadok thought about the
proposal the FLN sent him (i.e., which side he was joining, France’s or the FLNs).
Angered by the entire incident, Sadok told them he refused to speak to bandits.
This response did not sit well with Chihani. “It then seems that the caid (Sadok)
made a move to reach a pistol under his cloak. Sbaihi fired a burst with his Sten,
mortally wounding Sadok and also hitting Guy Monnerot in the chest, his wife in the
side” (Horne 92). After the shooting subsided, Sadok was taken to the town of Arris and
the Monnerots were left on the roadside. “Guy Monnerot had already bled to death;
miraculously his wife was still alive...in view of the pattern that the war was to assume,
there was something tragically symbolic in the fact that among the seven to die on that
first day would be a loyal caid and a ‘liberal’ French teacher” (Horne 92). This attack
was symbolic because the FLN, from that point onward, would kill and injure many
‘liberal’ people by the way of cafe bombings.
France’s response to the All Saints’ Day massacre was similar in nature to the
horrific actions of the FLN. The French government in Algeria was caught ‘sleeping on
the job’ so to speak and sought to redeem itself quickly. “First comes the mass
indiscriminate round-up of suspects, most of them innocent but converted into ardent
militants by the fact of their imprisonment; then the setting of faces against liberal
reforms...followed, finally, when too late, by a new, progressive policy of liberalization”
(Horne 96). Essentially, the French rounded up 'the usual suspects,' many of whom were
innocent. These people included past criminals but also people that the French police
thought might act against the government, e.g., Algerians who were anti-France. Next,
they rounded up the Algerians who were completely anti-liberalization, i.e., against
France and the Western world. Finally, France instituted a new policy of reformed
liberalization that was designed to spread the idea of liberalization more positively
throughout Algeria.
To the public, France was just making arbitrary arrests searching for the
planners of the All Saints’ Day massacre. However, behind the scenes, France was doing
something much more horrific. “Paul Teitgen, secretary-general of the préfecture in
Algiers...resigned when he finally realized that the army had used his house arrest orders
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�of suspects as a prelude to summary killings: out of 24,000 arrest warrants signed by him,
3,024 persons had disappeared”(Beigbeder 112). France was arresting suspects and
killing some of them after they were interrogated. This is a specific example of how the
French were starting to become like the FLN. The FLN attacked the Monnerots, whom
were innocent teachers. They killed Guy Monnerot and seriously wounded his wife.
Similarly, the French randomly arrested 24,000 people and out of the 24,000 arrested,
3,024 of them were killed.
France’s use of arbitrary arrests was its first counter-terrorism strategy. The
main problem with this use of counter-terrorism was that it led to summary killings.
After the French arrested thousands of mostly innocent Algerians, they questioned them
and usually killed them. "Only rarely were the prisoners we had questioned during the
night still alive the next morning. Whether they had talked or not they generally had
been neutralized. It was impossible to send them back to the court system, there were too
many of them and the machine of justice would have become clogged with cases and
stopped working altogether" (Aussaresses 126). Originally, France’s goal was to arrest
thousands of people to try and find the planners of the All Saints’ Day massacre. Even if
most of them were innocent, eventually they believed they would find some guilty
people. Once they found the guilty people, they could let the innocent ones go.
However, this never happened because random arrests turned into mass killings so all the
prisoners would not clog the court system.
Hypothetically, even if France allowed all the prisoners to go through the justice
system, there was another problem. “Sending prisoners who had committed murder to
wait in camps for the judiciary to hear their cases was also impossible because many
would have escaped during transfers with the help of the FLN” (Aussaresses 127). In
essence, if the French had prisoners who were guilty or perceived to be guilty, they could
not send them to trial. This is because if the prisoners were given a trial, the FLN would
have helped them escape while they were on route to a holding facility. Ergo, France felt
that the summary executions were justified because it was the only way to keep Algeria
under control.
France however did not feel the need to make summary executions public.
“Summary executions were therefore an inseparable part of the tasks associated with
keeping law and order...counter-terrorism had been instituted, but obviously only
unofficially” (Aussaresses 127). France clearly said that summary executions were
necessary to keep the court system from getting clogged and to prevent prisoners from
escaping. Although this counter-terrorism consisting of random arrests and summary
executions had been in effect, it was in effect unofficially, i.e., the French government
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�never had a press conference about it. This is because France could not have the word
get out that they were killing most of the people they arrested, regardless if they were
innocent. This would surely push all the Algerians that supported France toward
supporting the FLN.
Despite its horrific nature, the All Saints’ Day massacre did not achieve the
ultimate goal of removing the French from Algeria. Because of this, the FLN decided
that they needed to orchestrate another set of terrorist attacks. This second set of attacks
was part of the Battle of Algiers, which took place in 1956 and 1957. Although the
French were victorious in this battle, the FLN carried out hundreds of bombings and
shootings every month. The first and the most talked about attacks were organized by
Saadi Yacef, a military commander in the FLN. “On September 30, 1956, a Sunday, the
first bombs were ready, nine-inch-long cylinders with heavy cast-iron casings. Yacef
summoned Drif, Lakhdari, and Bouhired, all French-speaking and wearing European
clothes, and carrying beach bags” (Morgan 110). Yacef got these young women who
were dressed in European clothing to carry these bombs in beach bags. It was summer in
Algeria and they would blend in with the general population extremely well.
The decision to use young Arab girls to carry the bombs was a crucial one.
“Moslem women were kept in such a subversive state that they did not arouse suspicion
and could move in and out of the Casbah without being searched” (Morgan 108). If the
women did arouse suspicion, they would probably be arrested and would never be able to
place their bombs. Ergo, these women were crucial to Yacef’s plan and without them,
the bombing missions might not have succeeded.
Each of the girls was assigned a target to leave their beach bags in. “The
Cafeteria, and the Milk Bar, both near the university and popular with students, and the
Air France terminal” (Morgan 110). Because these targets were popular with younger
people, Lakhdari questioned Yacef about it. “But in those places“, Samia Lakhdari said,
“it’s not just soldiers, it’s women and children”(Morgan 110). Lakhdari might have
seemed concerned but a swift word from Yacef and she went along with the bombing.
“Look at it this way”, Yacef said, “the French have killed tens of thousands of our
women and children, through famine and disease”(Morgan 110). In the end, Lakhdari
takes her mother and goes along with the bombing.
After each woman left her bomb in a relatively simple place (e.g., under a chair
or table) she left. “Zohora Drif arrived at the Milk Bar...ordered a sherbert, and paid as
soon as she was served. When the clock on the wall said 6:15, she pushed her bag under
a chair and left” (Morgan 110). This type of attack was simple and easy to execute. Drif
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�ordered some sherbert, dropped her bag under a chair and left. Sometime later the bomb
blew and killed many people in the Milk Bar.
The bombs placed in the Cafeteria and at the Air France counter in the
Mauritania building were done similarly to the bomb placed in the Milk Bar.
In a breach of security, Samia Lakhdari brought her mother with her (to the
Cafeteria) for comfort. They sat near the jukebox to the right of the entrance
and stuck the bag between the jukebox and the wall. At the Air France counter
in the Mauritania building, Djamilah Bouhired asked for a flight schedule, sat
across the waiting room in an armchair, and placed her bag beneath it (Morgan
110).
Although the Air France bomb failed to go off because of a faulty timer, the
results from the bombs in the Milk bar and Cafeteria were devastating. “The carnage was
particularly appalling in the Milk-Bar, where the heavy glass covering the walls was
shattered into lethal splinters. Altogether there were three deaths and over fifty injured,
including a dozen with amputated limbs, among them several children” (Horne 186). It’s
hard to fathom that these three young women, only eighteen years of age, could carry out
these horrifying attacks against innocent people. None of them even had any serious
doubts about their actions.
France’s response to the Battle of Algiers was even more dreadful than their
response to the All Saints’ Day massacre. This is because the French used electrotorture
as a counter-terrorism method. In France, this period of time simply became known as la
torture. In an effort to gain control of Algiers, the French used torture to try and gain
information about the people responsible for the attacks, how to stop current attacks and
information about future attacks. General Massu, of the French military, was perhaps the
foremost proponent of torture. Massu claimed that there was no “other option in the
circumstances then prevailing in Algiers but to apply techniques of torture” (Horne 196).
Basically, Massu argued that French victory in Algiers was absolutely necessary and
therefore, the use of torture had to be utilized.
Jacques Massu also said “in the majority of cases, the French military men
obliged to use it to vanquish terrorism were, fortunately, choir boys compared to the use
to which it was put by the rebels. The latter’s extreme savagery led us to some ferocity, it
is certain, but we remained within the law of eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Kaufman 2).
Massu felt that the use of torture was justified because the Algerians were committing
equally vicious acts and therefore, he adopted the view an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.
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�France’s response to the Battle of Algiers was similar to how they responded to
the All Saints’ Day massacre. First, they rounded up 'the usual suspects', including past
criminals and anti-France supporters. Like the people taken in the All Saints’ Day
massacre, the ones taken during the Battle of Algiers were taken without any warrants or
official charges. Nevertheless, “between thirty and forty per cent of the entire male
population of the Casbah were arrested at some point or other during the course of the
Battle of Algiers” (Horne 199). Rounding up ‘the usual suspects’ was usually done at
night so they had virtually no warning and could not flee. The suspects (many of whom
were innocent) then arrived at a French facility for interrogation and if they did not give
any useful information, they were generally tortured.
The most common type of torture used against the suspects during the Battle of
Algiers was called the gégène. The gégène was carried out by using a “magneto
(electrically charged magnets) from which electrodes could be fastened to various parts
of the human body - notably the penis. It was simple and left no traces” (Horne 199).
This type of torture was tested and said to be fine by Massu himself. However, he did not
test it to any extent, e.g., Massu attached one electrode and got shocked once and that was
the entire test. He also knew he was not going to be shocked again so he, unlike the
torture victims, had complete knowledge regarding the torture session.
Despite Massu’s light hearted response to the gégène, the real reaction to the
technique could be described vividly by Henri Alleg. Alleg was the communist editor of
the Alger Républicain and was tortured while under interrogation during the Battle of
Algiers. He was rounded up like the other suspects and tortured by the gégène technique
three times, with each time more intense than the previous one. The first time there were
small electrodes attached to an ear and a finger, the second time there was a larger
magneto used and the third time the electrodes were placed in his mouth.
(Alleg’s response to the first time) A flash of lightning exploded next to my ear
and I felt my heart racing in my breast. (Alleg’s response to the second time)
Instead of the sharp and rapid spasms that seemed to tear my body in two, it was
now a greater pain that took possession of all my muscles and tightened them in
longer spasms. (Alleg’s response to the third time) My jaws were soldered to
the electrode by the current, and it was impossible for me to unlock my teeth, no
matter what effort I made. My eyes, under their spasmed lids, were crossed with
images of fire, and geometric luminous patterns flashed in front of them (Horne
200).
There was clearly a major problem with using electrotorture as a counterterrorism tactic; it could not be controlled. The French military officers were told that a
105
�particular type of electrotorture was allowed in order to gain information about future
attacks. This meant that the French could use small electrodes to shock their victims as
an attempt to get the information they desired. However, Alleg was originally shocked
using small electrodes attached to one ear and a finger. Since he did not tell the French
what they wanted to hear, they took a larger magneto to shock him for the second time.
Alleg once again did not tell the French what they wanted to hear, so they took the
electrodes off of his finger and ear and placed them in his mouth. The military personnel
were instructed to torture a prisoner a specific way by using small electrodes attached to
an ear and a finger. It escalated quickly because Alleg was not telling the French what
they wanted to hear. In the end, electrodes were connected to a larger magneto and Alleg
was electrocuted through his mouth.
If the torture left marks on the victim or if the victim did not give the
information the French wanted to hear, the French “had to imprison those tortured long
enough 'for the marks to clear up'...or they had to kill them surreptitiously” (Rejali 164).
Essentially, if the electrotorture left marks or if the victim did not talk and give the ‘right’
information, the French could not let the victim go back into the public. This is because
the victim would probably tell everyone that the French were torturing their prisoners.
Also, if they had marks from being tortured, those marks would tell the story alone.
Ergo, the victims either had to be held in prison until the wounds healed or had to be
secretly killed.
The way the French disposed of the bodies of their victims was gruesome.
“Courrière writes of bodies dropped out in the sea by helicopter, and of a mass grave
between Koléa and Zéralda” (Horne 201). Although the validity of the mass grave is still
in question, the bodies dropped from helicopters does not seem to be debated. The
reason why the French had to make the bodies 'disappear' is because they could not allow
the Algerians to see what was happening. Everything had to be kept a secret because if
word got out that the French were killing and then secretly burying the bodies of guilty
and innocent people alike, the French would lose support for the war. Subsequently, the
FLN would gain tremendous support.
The French won the Battle of Algiers thus suppressing the FLNs constant
attacks. As a result of France’s victory, the FLN became even more enraged and carried
out its final terrorist attack called the Oran Massacre. This was the last time that violence
would take place between the French and Algerians. Technically there was a cease-fire
during the Oran Massacre but nevertheless, on July 5, 1962 violence erupted once again.
“According to the figures given by Doctor Mostefa Naїt, director of the hospital complex
in Oran, 95 people, including 20 Europeans, were killed (13 were stabbed to death). In
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�addition, 161 were wounded” (Stora 105). (It is important to note that some estimates
exceed 1,000 casualties; 95 was specific to the hospital complex that Doctor Mostefa Naїt
worked in). The events that took place in Oran were obviously horrific and it all
happened after a supposed cease-fire.
At about eleven in the morning, Muslims went into Oran (mainly a European
city) and began shooting people and committing their own form of ethnic cleansing. “In
the suddenly empty streets, the hunt for Europeans was on. On boulevard du Front de
Mer, there were several dead bodies...shots were fired at motorists, one of whom was hit
and collapsed at the wheel as his car crashed into a wall...Near the 'Rex' cinema, one of
the victims of that massacre could be seen hanging from a meat hook” (Stora 105).
Europeans were being killed in their cars, in their homes and in the most gruesome ways.
Despite this horrific violence, French and Algerian authorities did little to nothing to stop
it. At five o’clock the gunfire began to subside. Nevertheless, hundreds, if not thousands
of innocent civilians were either injured or killed.
It is important to note that the FLN not only killed French and Europeans, but
they also killed their own Moslem countrymen who supported the French. “F.L.N.
gunmen herded more than 300 peasants into the village of Kasba Mechta, and, when
darkness fell, passed among them shooting and stabbing until all were dead” (Time 7).
This type of mass murder was common among the FLN as they felt they needed to
silence all support for France. Once it was dark outside, the FLN went to the Moslem
villages where there was the most outspoken support for France. Once they arrived, they
gathered the supporters up in a group, like in Kasba Mechta and shot or stabbed them
until they were all dead. By murdering as many supporters for the French as possible, the
FLN assumed that there would be no support left for France.
If the FLN did not kill certain Moslems, they would be “found alive but minus
ears, noses or tongues” (Time 7). This created fear within the Moslem population in
Algeria. The theory was that if the Moslems saw their fellow people being killed or
severely disfigured because they supported the French, then they might be less likely to
publicly support France. Essentially, the Moslems who were disfigured could give the
message back to the other Moslems that if they supported France, they too would be
killed or disfigured.
Similar to France’s response to the Battle of Algiers, the French used electric
torture during the Oran Massacre. However, in addition to electrotorture, the French also
instituted water torture and eventually genital torture. There were various forms of water
torture that were used but all were horrific techniques designed to make the person feel as
if they were drowning. “Heads thrust repeatedly into water troughs until the victim was
107
�half-drowned; bellies and lungs filled with cold water from a hose placed in the mouth,
with the nose stopped up” (Horne 200). The victim could not hold their breath for long
and they eventually gave in. This was the ultimate goal of water torture and then the
torturers would stop once they realized the victim would talk.
A specific instance of torture in the Algerian War that went public in the New
York Times in 2002 talks about the accusation that Jean-Marie Le Pen water tortured and
electroshock tortured a man named Ammour. Mr. Ammour was forced to lie naked on
the floor with his hands bound and the French men connected electrodes all over his
body. “I was screaming. They took dirty water from the toilets and made me swallow it
through a floor cloth held over my face. Le Pen was sitting on me. He held the cloth
while someone else poured the water” (Cowell). This was the standard type of water
torture. A cloth was placed over the victims face and then water was poured into their
mouth to simulate the feeling of drowning.
The other type of torture instituted by the French was genital torture. Although
this was less common than electric and water torture, it was still used on suspects.
“Bottles thrust into the vaginas of young Muslim women; high pressure hoses inserted in
the rectum, sometimes causing permanent damage through internal lesions” (Horne 200).
This type of torture, especially if it was followed by the killing of the tortured person,
displayed how the French became as gruesome as the FLN.
Despite the widespread torture committed by France, there were some people
who objected to it and firmly believed that it was not necessary. “Yves Godard, Massu’s
chief lieutenant, had insisted there was no need to torture. He suggested having the
informant network identify operatives and then subject them to a simple draconian
choice: Talk or die”(Rejali). Godard argued that some sort of informant network would
have produced the same results as torture without the damage that torture causes.
Essentially, this type of counterespionage would mean that France would infiltrate the
FLNs network and use its own spies and informants to gather information about its next
target.
The British used precisely this type of counter-terrorism during World War II
against German spies. “British counterespionage managed to identify almost every
German spy without using torture -- not just the 100 who hid among the 7,000 to 9,000
refugees coming to England to join their armies in exile each year...but also the 70
sleeper cells that were in place before 1940” (Rejali). By using its own covert agents,
Britain managed to expose German spies hiding within its own country.
Most of the time when the German spies were discovered and apprehended, the
British would make them double agents. “Only three agents eluded detection; five others
108
�refused to confess. Many Germans chose to become double agents rather than be tried
and shot. They radioed incorrect coordinates for German V missiles, which landed
harmlessly in farmers’ fields” (Rejali). Basically, once these German spies were
captured, they agreed to become double agents in lieu of being tried or killed. As double
agents, they would provide incorrect intelligence to Germany thus saving British lives.
Yves Godard believed that this type of counterespionage would have been
successful in Algeria and should have been instituted instead of torture. French spies
could have infiltrated the FLN and maybe even gained informants who were already in
the FLN. Subsequently, the spies and informants would gain reliable intelligence as to
the whereabouts of the next attacks or possible targets, similar to the British in World
War II. However, France felt that torture was a faster way to gain intelligence and that
was the counter-terrorism tactic that they instituted.
Despite the mass murder and widespread torture in Algeria, the United States
took no direct role in the war but instead acted behind the scenes, to some extent. It was
only around ten years since the end of World War II, and because of this, the United
States was not terribly anxious to get involved in another long war. In addition, the U.S.
would soon be involved in the Korean War and then shortly thereafter, the Vietnam War.
As a result, the U.S. took a behind the scenes role in the Algerian War. Ironically, the
same time the United States was pressuring France to regain control of Algeria, it was
being somewhat sympathetic toward the Algerians because of their strive for
independence.
After World War II, the United States was not in complete support of French
colonialism, but it felt that it was the best thing for Northern Africa. “After the war the
Americans concluded that preserving French hegemony in the region was the best way to
guarantee North African security” (Wall 12). The United States wanted security in an
unstable region and for the time being, France could be that security. And in a way to
help the French, the CIA warned them in 1952 that the situation in Algeria would
probably be a large problem in the near future. This is because the native Muslim
majority’s demands were being unrecognized thus causing upheaval within the country.
Obviously the CIA was correct because the Algerian War began two years after their
warning.
Although the U.S. warned the French and pressured them, it took no direct role
in the war. There were two possible reasons why the United States did not directly
intervene with the Algerian War. First, Algeria was covered by the NATO alliance of
1949 because of the insistence of France. Second, Algeria was populated with over one
million Europeans who dominated the politics and economy of the country. "For these
109
�reasons Washington understood that any American attempt to influence French policy in
Algeria would inevitably raise charges by the French of direct interference in their
internal affairs" (Wall 12). If the United States were to directly intervene with the
Algerian War, the French would say it was a direct intervention of internal affairs. This
is because Algeria was essentially part of France and a direct intervention by another
country in Algeria would be like an intervention in France itself.
But perhaps the most compelling argument why the United States did not
intervene militarily, like it did with Korea and Vietnam, was because Algeria was a
revolution it could accept. “Algeria was a clear case of a Third World revolution that
Washington believed it could accept; it appeared to have the capability of producing a
noncommunist, if not a democratic, regime” (Wall 15). The United States did not use its
military to intervene because it was able to accept the possible outcome of a
noncommunist and possibly democratic Algeria. Algeria was significantly different
when compared to Korea and Vietnam. The United States was not concerned with
Algeria becoming a communist country because there were no communist country’s
backing the FLN. As a result, Algeria could possibly become a democratic nation, if it
broke from French rule.
Throughout the Algerian War, the United States "attempted the almost
impossible task of continuing constructive dialogue throughout the crisis with both
parties to an intractable dispute, the French government and the rebel Algerian National
Liberation Front" (Wall 15). In order not to break ties with France or the rebels in
Algeria, the United States talked with and supported both sides in the war. The U.S.
seemed somewhat flummoxed because it did not want to just support France because then
the rebels in Algeria would be abandoned. Yet at the same time, the U.S. did not want to
just support the rebels, because then it would lose its long time ally France.
In the end, the United States gained the confidence of the French and the FLN.
As a drawback to supporting both sides, the United States could not intervene with its
military. If that occurred, the U.S. would have to publicly choose which side to support
and fight for. And if the United States knew of the widespread killings and torture, it was
most likely ignored. Without using its military, the United States only had limited
influence in the Algerian War. This was especially true because of “the chronic state of
chaos that seemed to characterize internal French politics. Government instability in
Paris allowed cabinets to come and go and policy to remain paralyzed” (Wall 15). Since
the leaders in the French government were constantly changing due to the growing
disapproval for the Algerian War, it was extremely difficult for the U.S. to have a large
political influence over France. In addition, since France was trying to capture or kill
110
�leaders in the FLN, the United States found it difficult to have a significant political
influence over the FLN. As a result, most of the bombings and torture committed by the
FLN and France were publicly ignored by the United States.
The counter-terrorism that the French used in the Algerian War led to various
brutal forms of torture. Their main justification for using torture as a counter-terrorism
tactic was to prevent near-future terrorist attacks. This idea is quite similar to the ‘ticking
time bomb’ scenario which is sometimes used as a justification for torture. The ticking
time bomb scenario is a useful tool for counter-terrorism and in the most extreme
situations it can be instituted. However, if it is abused it can be a tremendous problem.
The scenario is extremely appealing and seductive. “Blanket condemnations of
torture are often countered with a hypothetical situation in which a captive knows where
a time bomb has been hidden and refuses to divulge the information. In such a case, the
argument goes, torture would be necessary in order to save many innocent lives and thus
be justified” (Pfiffner 134). Essentially, in this scenario a person knows information
about the whereabouts of a bomb but will not tell anyone where it is. Ergo, torture would
be justified in this case because the person knows where the bomb is but will not tell
anyone else so they can disarm it. This is a typical example for the ticking time bomb
scenario.
This scenario is popularized by television’s critically acclaimed show 24.
“...intrepid terror fighter Jack Bauer foils fictional attempts to kill Americans with deadly
weapons. Often he is forced to resort to extreme measures (and the torture is usually
graphically depicted) to get the bad guy to answer his questions, which sometimes leads
to saving innocent lives in the nick of time. Bauer is portrayed as the patriotic hero, and
his brutal means are necessary to save the day” (Pfiffner 134). In essence, Jack Bauer
captures a terrorist who knows where a bomb is but the terrorist does not talk. Because
the terrorist is not talking, Bauer tortures him and eventually he talks. Hopefully the
bomb can be reached in time thus saving innocent lives.
The ticking time bomb scenario that is sometimes portrayed on 24 is so
seductive that “the Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, lent the prestige of
his office to the message of the TV program by visiting the actors when they were
filming an episode in Washington, D.C” (Pfiffner 134). Even the Secretary of Homeland
Security is moved and persuaded by it. The ticking time bomb scenario is seductive
because it tells people that torture can be justified under the right circumstances, e.g., to
save innocent lives.
Of course there are concerns with this scenario as there is with everything. In
order for a ticking time bomb scenario to be genuine there are some requirements that
111
�should be met. “There must be a planned attack (the bomb is still ticking), the
interrogators must capture the right person, the captive must know about the planned
attack, torture must be the only way to obtain the information, the captive must provide
accurate information... ” (Pfiffner 135). These conditions and others are essential in
identifying a situation as a ticking time bomb one.
Even if all these conditions are met for the ticking time bomb scenario, there
still might be some problems. “There may be no attack planned, the captive may not
know of the attack, torture may cause unintended death; thus potential information will
be lost...” (Pfiffner 135). The reason why the ticking time bomb scenario is so complex
is because multiple conditions must be met in order for it to be considered a genuine
ticking time bomb scenario. After that, different conditions must be met in order for
torture to even work. Say, for example, the US captures a terrorist and questions him
about a bomb. However, say that terrorist does not know anything about that specific
bomb. Ergo, it might be that no amount of torture will get credible information because
he really knows nothing of the bomb. Because of this possible outcome, it is imperative
that all the conditions be met for the ticking time bomb scenario before authorities start
treating an incident like one.
In a genuine ticking time bomb scenario, "torture might be justified to obtain
specific information that would almost certainly save innocent lives. But if the
preconditions for the ticking time bomb situation mentioned above are not rigorously
adhered to, any tactical situation could lead to torture" (Pfiffner 136). If the
preconditions are not followed to the strictest standards, any situation can be perceived as
a ticking time bomb one, e.g., France’s perception of Algeria. France treated every
situation like a ticking time bomb one and because of that, widespread torture ensued.
The Algerian War showed how France’s counter-terrorism techniques evolved
to become just as horrific as the FLNs terrorist attacks. Both killed and tortured innocent
people to try and achieve their own goals. In an effort to prevent horrific terrorist attacks
by the FLN, the French used gruesome torture techniques that escalated in severity as the
war progressed. By treating every situation like a ticking time bomb scenario, France
ended up torturing and killing thousands of innocent people. The Algerian War displayed
how horrific terrorism can be and also how counter-terrorism can become a form of
terrorism itself.
112
�Works Cited
“ALGERIA: The Reluctant Rebel”, Time 13 Oct. 1958.
Aussaresses, Paul. “The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in
Algeria 1955-1957”, Enigma, 2006.
Beigbeder, Yves. Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International
Criminal Tribunals and Commissions (1940-2005). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2006.
Cowell, Alan. “Le Pen Accused of Torturing Prisoners During Algerian War”, The New
York Times. The New York Times, 4 June 2002.
Horne, Alistair. “A Savage War Of Peace”, The New York Review Of Books, 1977.
Kaufman, Michael T. “The World: Film Studies; What Does the Pentagon See in 'Battle
of Algiers'?”, The New York Times. The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2003.
Mahan, Sue. Terrorism in Perspective. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications,, 2008.
Morgan, Ted. My Battle Of Algiers. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Pfiffner, James P. Power Play: The Bush presidency And The Constitution. Washington,
D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2008.
Rejali, Darius. Torture and Democracy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.
Rejali, Darius. "Does Torture Work?" Salon.com. 21 June 2004.
Stora, Benjamin. Algeria, 1830-2000: A Short History. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001.
Wall, Irwin M. France, the United States, and the Algerian War. Berkeley: University of
California, 2001.
113
�The Spotted Death: Smallpox and the Culture
of Eighteenth Century America
Amanda Gland (History)1
Smallpox was once considered one of the world’s deadliest diseases, but today
can only be found in the freezers of science. It was once able to wipe out unsuspecting
populations such as Native Americans, though now it is almost extinct. Most nations do
not offer the vaccination today, the World Health Organization (WHO), however,
declares it as a problem and a source of biological warfare, and therefore a potential
problem. Smallpox is as old as human civilization and has wreaked havoc on human
populations. The Columbian exchange assisted in the exchange of people, plants, and
most importantly, disease. This was the primary reason for the spread of smallpox from
Europe to the rest of the world, while also being responsible for the initial wave of death
among the native populations. The following thesis attempts to map out the history of
smallpox, and more specifically, the history of inoculation. Smallpox had many social
and cultural implications in the American colonies, especially at the start of the
eighteenth century. Several major outbreaks in the cities of Boston, Charleston, and in
New York State caused panic among citizens, and subsequent outbreaks throughout the
years led to a mandated inoculation program at the time of the Revolutionary War. By
the start of the nineteenth century, the invention of vaccination helped to substantially
lower the instance of the disease, and proved a safer way to confer immunity. Smallpox
was once the scourge of the human race, but thanks to the work of the colonial doctors
and preachers, it was the first illness to receive an effective treatment.
Initially, smallpox is hard to distinguish from other illnesses. Some of the first
symptoms include fever, malaise, head and body aches, and in some cases, vomiting.
The fever is usually high, in the range of 101 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit2. A few days
later, a rash emerges first as small red spots on the tongue and in the mouth. These spots
develop into sores that break open and spread large amounts of the virus into the mouth
and throat. At this point in the succession of the disease, the person is most contagious.
Around this time, a rash appears on the skin, starting on the face, the arms and legs and
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Chinnaiah Jangam (History) in partial fulfillment of
the Senior Program requirements.
2
“CDC Smallpox | Smallpox Overview,”
http://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/overview/disease-facts.asp
114
�then spreads to the hands and feet. In most cases, the rash spreads to all parts of the body
within 24 hours. This rash develops into a series of raised bumps, and then they fill with
a thick, opaque fluid. Often times, the rash has a depression in the center that looks like a
bellybutton. This bellybutton appearance is considered the major distinguishing
characteristic of smallpox3. Once full of fluid, the bumps become pustules, which are
sharply raised, and usually round and firm to the touch4. These pustules begin to form a
crust and then scab, covering the body about two weeks after the onset of the rash5 where
the pustules had been. The scabs then begin to fall off, leaving marks on the skin that
eventually become pitted scars that remain with the person for the rest of their life. Until
all of the scabs have fallen off, the person is still considered contagious and should be
kept away from other human contact. The full duration of the disease is anywhere from
three to four weeks6. In many instances, there are also several other complications that
can result, such as sterility, hair loss, and blindness in one or both eyes.
The Origin of Smallpox
The origin of the disease has been sought after for many years. It is believed to
have appeared around 10,000 BC, at the time of the first agricultural settlements in
northeastern Africa. It is possible that it spread from there to India by means of ancient
Egyptian merchants who traded there. The earliest evidence of skin lesions resembling
those of smallpox can be found on the faces of mummies from the time of the 18th and
20th Egyptian Dynasties (1570–1085 BC)7. Even with this evidence, it is still within
human nature to blame a scapegoat in the population. Many nineteenth and twentieth
century discourses count China as the original source of smallpox8. Missionaries had
been observing the disease in China since the 10th century9, lending support to it being the
original location of the illness. Cibot was a missionary sent to China in the fourteenth
century, and he frequently wrote back to Europe. One of the main topics of discussion in
these letters was the practice of inoculation and other elements of Chinese medicine10.
Cibot certainly helped to prolong the idea that the Chinese were responsible for smallpox
3
Ibid.
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
“Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination,” Baylor University
Medical Center, January 2005, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/
8
Larissa. Heinrich, “How China Became the "Cradle of Smallpox": Transformations in
Discourse, 1726-2002,” positions: east Asia cultures critique 15, no. 1 (2007): 10.
9
Ibid, 22.
10
Ibid, 18.
4
115
�by mentioning “only a few words about the origin and cause of smallpox, but it is
remarkable that the letters insist that smallpox was unknown in high antiquity, and that it
did not begin in China until the Middle Ages, in other words, under the Zhou dynasty
which began 1122 years BC”11. Part of the reason for reporting back to the homeland
was that “the knowledge about foreign practices such as inoculation could prove useful in
Europe12,” although most of the time they were not accepted. However, the missionaries
had trouble convincing even themselves of the usefulness of procedures when many of
the Chinese doctors would not even perform them on their patients13. The Chinese held
religious beliefs that prevented the use of these procedures in many cases. Generally, the
Chinese believed in the concept of taidu, or fetal toxin: a heat toxin that could be passed
to the infant by either parent before it is born, or activated through the mother’s milk
afterwards14. The toxin lurked in the formed fetus and acted up when prompted. Most
considered it an inevitable part of life15. The missionaries were fascinated by the
similarities between taidu and original sin, which was something that all humans were
born with according to the Christian church16. The known presence of smallpox in China
lead many people to believe it lacked modernity17 and were therefore correct in their
assumptions about the origin of the disease. If China was still a major stronghold of the
disease, then the general consensus was that this had to be the original location of
smallpox.
In modern times, the idea of China as the original location of the disease has
since been proven incorrect due to the presence of much older samples. Egyptologists
have found that Pharaoh Ramses V died from smallpox in 1157 B.C.18 because of the
pockmarks found on his face, a characteristic of the disease. These discoveries lead to
the belief that Egypt was actually ground zero of the smallpox virus, or at least the
earliest area with evidence of an endemic19. With this new source, it is interesting that
the disease is absent from both the Bible and the literature of the Greeks and Romans. It
would seem unlikely that such a major disease would have escaped the attention of the
11
Ibid, 18.
Ibid, 10-11.
13
Ibid, 10-11.
14
Ibid, 20.
15
Ibid, 20.
16
Ibid, 20.
17
Ibid, 9.
18
http://www.microbiologybytes.com/virology/Poxviruses.html
19
Yu Li et al., “On the origin of smallpox: Correlating variola phylogenics with historical
smallpox records,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 40
(October 2, 2007): 15787-15792, doi:10.1073/pnas.0609268104
12
116
�Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC),20 so it can be assumed that no major
outbreaks occurred during this time. The disease was seen in medical writing from
ancient China and India, around 1122 B.C. and 1500 B.C. respectively,21 dating the
disease older than Hippocrates. Writings from the Roman period mention the arrival of
bubonic plague and smallpox from the east22, and a major epidemic of the smallpox from
AD 165 is said to have killed 2000 people a day for 15 years,23 which is after
Hippocrates, leaving an interesting gap in information. It is thought that the disease
reached Europe in 710 A.D.24 via trade routes. In the 9th century the Persian physician
Rhazes (865-923 AD), provided one of the most definitive observations of smallpox. He
was also the first person to differentiate smallpox from measles and chickenpox in his
Kitab fi al-jadari wa-al-hasbah (The Book of Smallpox and Measles)25, but it also appears
as though he obtained a great deal of this information from Aaron, a native of Alexandria
who lived around AD 62226. It has also been speculated that Egyptian traders brought
smallpox to India during the 1st millennium BC, where it remained as an endemic for at
least 2000 years. Unmistakable descriptions of smallpox first appeared in the 4th century
AD in China and the 7th century in India. Smallpox was likely introduced in China
during the 1st century AD from the southwest, and in the 6th century was carried from
China to Japan27. Upon reaching Europe, it was then thought to have been transferred to
America by Hernando Cortez in 1520, causing the death of 3.5 million Aztecs over the
following 2 years. In the cities of 18th century Europe, smallpox reached epidemic
proportions, as well as the death of five reigning European monarchs28 from the disease.
The middle Ages saw a huge increase in the number of cases during the Crusades, thanks
in most part to the movement of large numbers of people and the establishment of large
20
Ibid.
Ibid.
22
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, First Edition.
(W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 330.
23
Barry Zimmerman and David Zimmerman, Killer Germs, 1st ed. (McGraw-Hill,
2002), 223.
24
http://www.microbiologybytes.com/virology/Poxviruses.html
25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#cite_note-68. Please see the citations that are
available on this page for reference.
26
Ola Elizabeth Winslow, A destroying angel: The conquest of smallpox in colonial
Boston (Houghton-Mifflin, 1974), 36.
27
Katherine Bourzac, “Smallpox: Historical Review of a Potential Bioterrorist Tool,”
Journal of Young Investigators, 6 (2002):
http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume6/issue3/features/bourzac.html
28
http://www.microbiologybytes.com/virology/Poxviruses.html
21
117
�cities and towns29. Regardless of where the origin of the disease is determined to be, it
caused serious problems from the first case. For this reason, many civilizations began to
experiment with ways of preventing the disease. This included the relatively new idea of
inoculation.
Inoculation was allegedly first practiced in India as early as 1000 BC, and
involved either nasal inhalation of powdered smallpox scabs, or scratching material from
a smallpox lesion into the skin. Recently, this idea has been challenged as few of the
ancient Sanskrit medical texts of India described the process of inoculation. Accounts of
inoculation against smallpox in China can be found as early as the late 10th century, and
the procedure was widely practiced in the 16th century, during the Ming Dynasty. If
successful, inoculation produced lasting immunity to smallpox30. In the eighteenth
century, inoculation was being performed as close to Europe as Constantinople, Turkey,
where the technique was used and supported by Lady Mary Wortley Montague31. Having
known about the procedure previously through word of mouth, and knowing that it was
forbidden in England, she decided to have her children inoculated at the first available
location32. As the wife of an Ambassador to Turkey, she was in a position of power upon
returning to England, which enabled her to share her experiences of the procedure with
the royal court. Eventually, the procedure was brought to the American colonies, but
from a different source. Puritan minister Cotton Mather was to play an important role in
the history of this disease as well.
England and the Story of Smallpox
In 1716, two Greek physicians practicing in Constantinople wrote to the Royal
Society of London about the advantages of inoculation in preventing smallpox and
recommended it for use in England33. Dr. Emanuel Timonius had degrees in medicine
29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#cite_note-68
Ibid.
31
Shirley Roberts, “Lady Mary Wortley Montague and the Reverend Cotton Mather:
Their Campaigns for Smallpox Inoculation,” Journal of Medical Biography 4, no. 3
(1996): 132.
32
Mary Wortley Montague, Letters of the Right Honorable Lady M--y W---y M----e
:written, during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, to persons of distinction, men of
letters, &c. in different parts of Europe: which contain, among other curious relations,
accounts of the policy and manners of the Turks: drawn from sources that have been
inaccessible to other travelers. (London: T. Becket and P.A. De Hondt, 1763). Written
in 1724.
33
Maxine Van De Wetering, “A Reconsideration of the Inoculation Controversy,” The
New England Quarterly 58, no. 1 (March 1985): 48.
30
118
�from both Oxford and Padua, a medical school in Italy. At the time, he was living and
working in Constantinople, where he had witnessed the procedure of inoculation34. Dr.
Jacobus Pylarinum was also in Constantinople at this time, witnessed the procedure, and
helped to write the article for the Royal Society in conjunction with Dr. Timnoius35.
This article is very likely the source of Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s information on
inoculation, and would explain her total support of having it performed on her young son.
Lady Mary Wortley Montague was born on May 26, 1689 and was a member of
prominent families from both her mother and father. She was also a very beautiful
woman that had a strong personality to match36. Mary married Edward Wortley
Montague in 1712 by elopement as her father would not give permission for the
marriage. Their first son was born in 1713, and was also named Edward. After the
marriage, Mary and Edward spent a lot of time at the Royal Court, where Mary was a
favored companion of the Princess of Wales37. Tragedy struck shortly after the marriage
when her brother William died of smallpox in 1713. Mary herself would contract the
disease two years later, and was left with severe scarring on her face and the inability to
grow eyelashes38. Despite these side effects, life continued in much the same way for
her. In 1716, her husband was appointed ambassador to Turkey, and after a journey of
about a year, they arrived in Constantinople39. In a letter home to a friend regarding
inoculation, Lady Mary states that “You may believe that I am very well satisfied of the
safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son”40. In February
1718 she gave birth to a daughter, and in March of that year, she had her son Edward
inoculated, supervised by Dr. Maitland. Little Edward made it through the illness
perfectly, increasing his mother’s support of the procedure. In another letter to her
friend, she states that “I cannot engraft (inoculate) the girl, as her nurse has not had the
smallpox.” In the meantime, relations with Turkey were not going well, and her husband
was called back to England. They arrived back into London in October of 1718. Upon
returning to the Royal Court, where she immediately regained her position, she suggested
inoculation to the Princess of Wales. She agreed as long as it could be tested beforehand.
34
Winslow, A destroying angel, 33.
Benjamin Scheindlin, “A Revolutionary in the Smallpox War when Dr. Zabdiel
Boylston Introduced Smallpox Inoculations in Boston Nearly 300 Years Ago,” Boston
Globe, May 11, 2003.
36
Roberts, “Lady Mary Wortley Montague and the Reverend Cotton Mather,” 129-130.
37
Ibid, 130.
38
Ibid, 131.
39
Ibid, 131.
40
Ibid, 131.
35
119
�Six Newgate prisoners were chosen and inoculated before she would allow her own
daughters to undergo the procedure41. The method being used in Turkey at the time was
performed by making a gash in the arm of the patient, then administering a large amount
of smallpox matter into it42. Since this how Lady Mary had seen it performed, this was
also the procedure that was used subsequently in England.
Across the pond, Cotton Mather managed to obtain a copy of the Royal
Society’s publication of the Timonius and Pylarinus letter and decided to try and
encourage use of inoculation among Boston physicians43. Interestingly enough, when he
decided to support inoculation, he had never actually seen the procedure performed
himself and instead relied entirely upon the descriptions that accompanied the article. On
June 16, 1721, Cotton Mather, citing the letters by Timonius and Pylarinus that had
appeared in The Royal Societies “Philosophical Transactions”, recommended inoculation
to the Boston physicians44. Despite his authoritative position among the colonists,
convincing the citizens proved to be a difficult task. One of the few doctors that
responded to the plea was a man by the name of Zabdiel Boylston.
Early Inoculation in the American Colonies
Medicine in the American colonies was not very advanced by modern standards,
nor was it anywhere else in the world. At the time, the popular belief about the human
body was that it had four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, which were
all responsible for the overall health of the body. In order for a body to be in good health,
all of these had to be in the proper proportions45. Another theory that had gained a lot of
support was the idea that pathology, or illness, occurred in the body as a consequence of
the decay of natural solids in the environment46. This decay generated disease vapors,
which then spread throughout the human body when it became exposed to them47.
However, most American colonists attributed illness to an act of God rather than actual
problems with the body, and the community would act together to pacify God and get rid
of the illness48. Due to this belief, the connection between medicine and religion was
41
Ibid, 132.
Ibid, 132.
43
Ibid, 134.
44
Wetering, “A Reconsideration of the Inoculation Controversy,” 48.
45
Winslow, A destroying angel, 7.
46
James P. Morris, “Smallpox Inoculation in the American Colonies 1763-1783,”
Maryland Historian 8, no. 1 (1977): 53-54.
47
Ibid, 53-54.
48
John D. Burton, “The Awful Judgments of God Upon the Land: Smallpox in Colonial
Cambridge, Massachusetts,” New England Quarterly 74, no. 3 (2001): 495-506.
42
120
�strengthened, as Pastors were usually the only people in certain areas that had done any
reading on the subject. Generally, most pastors would have been considered capable in
medicine if he had simply “read medicine, and through this reading has gained some
knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and some acquaintance with drugs, but usually no
knowledge whatsoever about their preparation and use”49. Thankfully, none of the drugs
that were being used at the time would have caused any serious reactions. Most
medicines in colonial America were botanical in nature and mostly herbs, except for the
occasional treatment involving mercury. Some of the popular concoctions in New
England were sumac, elderberry, saffron, and snake root, which were used for snakebites,
measles and chicken pox, as well as sassafras and witch hazel, which were used for
bruises and sprains50. The problem with many of these drugs was the possibility of an
overdose, which could have been caused by the rudimentary measuring techniques, as
well as a lack of knowledge about the poisonous nature of some plants. Interestingly, the
first “wonder drug” was not a product of the native landscape and instead came from
India and Java. This was cinchona bark, also called Peruvian bark, and it was used
mostly on fevers51. It can be inferred from the label of “wonder drug” that it worked well
or it would not have been held in such high esteem.
In general, the treatment of illnesses was largely directed toward moving
excessive or corrupted blood or juices from the interior of the body to the exterior via
phlebotomy (blood removal), emesis (vomiting), defecation, urination, blistering, or
sweating52. These were all used in an attempt to bring the four bodily juices into balance.
One recorded case states that William Johnson was "blistered, purged, and twice Bled"
for "a violent Inflammation53". The practice of inserting smallpox matter, therefore,
mimicked no familiar healing practice and would have been met with a large amount of
skepticism54. Most of the medical knowledge that the colonists practiced was shared by
the Europeans, and was therefore brought to the colonies by both colonists and visitors
alike. Europeans largely followed the advice of the Persian physician Rhazes: they kept
smallpox sufferers warm with fires and blankets in closely shut-up rooms and gave them
49
Winslow, A destroying angel, 13.
Ibid, 9-10.
51
Ibid, 10.
52
Sara Stidstone. Gronim, “Imagining Inoculation: Smallpox, the Body, and Social
Relations of Healing in the Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80,
no. 2 (2006): 255.
53
Ibid, 255.
54
Ibid, 255.
50
121
�alcoholic drinks to keep the pores of the body open55. In the seventeenth century, the
English physician Thomas Sydenham argued for a cooling regimen instead and
encouraged open windows, fresh air, and a light diet with non-alcoholic drinks56. Yet a
third method, so-called "dreckapotheke," promoted the ingestion of noxious substances
that would encourage the venting of the disease through the skin57. Many Native
American practices were a combination of both methods, although they were often
practices that had been in use long before the arrival of the European settlers. Now they
were modified for use against smallpox. General ideas for treatment of the human body
lead to different theories on how patients should be prepared for inoculation. In many
cases, inoculates underwent several weeks of purging, bleeding, and a limited diet, all
intended to rid the body of excessive or corrupted humors before smallpox was
introduced. Moreover, such preparation could be tailored to each person's constitution
depending on underlying conditions58.
Outbreaks in the History of the American Colonies
Smallpox was not something that was originally endemic to the North American
colonies, and outbreaks generally only occurred after something, or someone, carried the
disease to a specific area. One of the major causative agents of outbreaks in the
American colonies was ships coming in from the West Indies that were infected with
smallpox59. While in most cases this was true, smallpox did not always come from the
West Indies. Originally, ships that were coming from all over Europe could be
responsible for outbreaks. Francis Higginson wrote in her diary that she lost a child
aboard a ship to the American colonies60. A smallpox infection broke out on the ship, but
many of the adults had immunity from being infected when they were children and were
subsequently not affected. The children, however, were at a much greater risk since they
most likely were not immune at the time of the outbreak. Luckily, Francis was the only
parent to lose a child on the trip61. While ships bearing new settlers were common, so
were the ships that were bringing both slaves and goods for trade. In 1634, a Dutch ship
brought smallpox up the Connecticut River, where it came into contact with the local
55
Ibid, 256.
Ibid, 256.
57
Ibid, 256.
58
Ibid, 257.
59
Winslow, A destroying angel, 24.
60
Ibid, 25.
61
Ibid, 25.
56
122
�Native American populations62. The Native Americans were not held in high regard by
the colonists, so the appearance of such an awful ailment would not have been something
they concerned themselves with. In fact, many people who witnessed the infection
thought that God had sent the smallpox in order to eliminate the enemy63. In contrast to
God’s supposed hatred of the natives, it was always the colonists that received smallpox
first and subsequently spread it to the Indians. In 1689-1690, an infection of smallpox in
the Boston area was so severe that it eventually extended from Canada to New York64.
This was followed by an outbreak in 1702 which contained a combination of both
smallpox and scarlet fever, eventually causing the death of three of Cotton Mather’s
children65 and a large population loss among younger children. In general, a new
outbreak would appear about every twenty years, just long enough for those that had
survived the previous one to have children. The outbreak would cause the death of many
children since they were not immune, but those that survived would be safe for the rest of
their lives.
The colonists had a very slight understanding of immunity and the results if you
survived a terrible illness. Although they were not sure why, the colonists knew that
once you had a disease and survived, you could not have the same disease again.
Expectedly, when inoculation was introduced to the colonists, they were very suspicious.
Undergoing inoculation meant purposely infecting yourself with one of the deadliest
disease known at the time. Many people did not initially support the idea. Dr. Zabdiel
Boylston became the first doctor to have performed inoculation in the American colonies.
This was done on his six year old son Thomas in 172166.
Zabdiel Boylston was a third generation American, born on March 6, 166967.
As a member of one of the oldest families in the Boston area, he was well known. He
was also the son of Dr. Thomas Boylston, a local surgeon, and often accompanied his
father on visits to his patients68. He was the only child of twelve that showed any interest
in the medical profession69. Due to the nature of medical education, along with the
amount of time that he spent with his father, Boylston had 15 years of experience when
62
Ibid, 25.
Ibid, 26.
64
Ibid, 27.
65
Ibid, 27.
66
Benjamin Scheindlin, “A Revolutionary in the Smallpox War.”
67
Winslow, A destroying angel, 40-41.
68
Ibid, 40-41.
69
Ibid, 41.
63
123
�smallpox hit Boston in 172170. He had worked both as a surgeon in the army and as an
apprentice to a prominent Boston physician before moving back into the countryside to
practice71. He had been born in Muddy River, Massachusetts and chose to raise his
family there as well, despite his promising future in medicine and the request of his
services in Boston. He knew that good doctors were hard to find outside of the city, so he
chose to remain in his hometown. It was around 1721 that Boylston became familiar
with the Timonius and Pylarinus letters, as well as Cotton Mather’s support of the topic.
Mather had been attempting to use the influence he had among the educated elite of
Boston to encourage the practice of inoculation. The only person that would initially
respond would be Zabdiel Boylston.
On June 26, 1721, Zabdiel Boylston changed the face of colonial medicine when
he inoculated his son Thomas, age 6, a serving man named Jack, age 36, and his son
Jackie, age 2½72. Having never seen the procedure performed, Zabdiel simply followed
the instructions within the infamous article and hoped for the best. He put much the same
faith in the procedure as Lady Mary Wortley Montague, trusting simply that the process
worked because other doctor’s said that it did. Zabdiel performed the procedure the same
as it was being done in Constantinople, which makes sense because this was the original
location of the procedure. This process involved making incisions in the skin and placing
smallpox matter into the opening, which was then covered in plaster73. Theoretically, the
patient would then get a less severe version of the illness, leaving them immune once
they recovered. The first experiment proved to be success, and on July 13, Zabdiel
inoculated his other son John, age 1374.
After the initial success that experienced from his first trials, Zabdiel felt
comfortable enough to now perform the procedure outside of his house and decided to
keeps records of all patients he inoculated. He later published his findings in a book
entitled An Historical Account of the Small-pox Inoculated in New England, Upon all
70
Ibid, 42.
Ibid, 42.
72
Zabdiel Boylston, An historical account of the small-pox inoculated in New England,
upon all sorts of persons, whites, blacks, and of all ages and constitutions :with some
account of the nature of the infection in the natural and inoculated way, and their
different effects on human bodies : with some short directions to the unexperienced in this
method of practice (London : Printed for S. Chandler, at the Cross-Keys in the Poultry,
MDCCXXVI [1726] ; [Boston in N.E.] : Re-printed at Boston in N.E. for S. Gerrish in
Cornhil, and T. Hancock at the Bible and Three Crowns in Annstreet, MDCCXXX
[1730]), 15. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/8290362?n=1
73
Ibid, 22.
74
Ibid, 22.
71
124
�Sorts of Persons, Whites, Blacks, and of all Ages and Constitutions: With Some Account
of the Nature of the Infection in the Natural and Inoculated Way, and Their Different
Effects on Human Bodies: With Some Short Directions to the Unexperienced in This
Method of Practice. Originally, inoculation was met with fierce opposition from the
other doctors in Boston because they were worried that the practice might start an
epidemic or cause more infection than would have happened naturally75. Truthfully, this
was a legitimate concern considering how contagious the disease can be. Many people
were even worried that to be inoculated would cause a man to turn into a woman76. Even
after the publication of the book, some physicians were still skeptical about the procedure
and chose to ruin his reputation instead. Despite these attempts to discredit Boylston,
they could not hide the facts published in the book, and people were truly surprised by
what they had found.
Of the 286 people that Zabdiel had inoculated, only 5 died. In Boston, 5,759
contracted smallpox in the natural way and 844 died77. A much smaller portion of the
population died of the disease, showing a substantial difference, leading to much praise
from Zabdiel and gaining his full support. According to his experiments, all of the
patients must be in good health going into the procedure in order to have the best chance
of surviving the disease. Sick persons must be “purged, vomited, bled and repeated until
the person is settled and the humors are even again78”. It is quite possible that this made
a person weaker when they received the virus, but nothing has been proved to support
this notion. Boylston was also able to come up with a standard process when performing
the procedure. He writes “take a fine cut sharp tooth pick and open the pock on one side
and press the boil, scooping the matter into your quill79.” This is then to be kept in a keep
in a cool place until it is needed. The matter is then inserted via an incision on either the
outside of the arm above the elbow, or the inside of the leg in the rear, or “in the place
where issues are commonly made.” Two incisions were considered sufficient for one
patient, each opening about a quarter of an inch long. Usually, a drop of matter was then
added and covered with a sort of bandage to contain the matter80. The actual rash-like
appearance of the disease did not appear until about the 9th day after inoculation had been
performed81. One of the most common side effects of inoculation was usually a fever.
75
Benjamin Scheindlin, “A Revolutionary in the Smallpox War."
Boylston, An historical account of the small-pox inoculated in New England, 20.
77
Ibid, 50-51.
78
Ibid, 60.
79
Ibid, 63.
80
Ibid, 63.
81
Ibid, 63.
76
125
�For this malady, a treatment of 2 or 3 ounces of oil of sweet almonds and syrup of marsh
mallows82 would be prescribed.
Occasionally, a patient would not receive enough of the smallpox matter to
cause a substantial infection. These people were either unaware of a previous infection
or were forced to under go the procedure again. After inoculation, if the reaction was not
judged to have produced a significant enough number of pustules, the person was reinoculated until the proper amount of pox appeared83. Once the process proved safe
enough, Boylston attempted inoculation on sicker members of the population. For
example, two days after giving birth, he had his wife inoculated. By doing the process in
this way, the majority of the infection was able to coincide with her laying in period so
that she would not infect other people84. This also gave the child a chance to be exposed
early in life. The hope was that they would go through the illness together and survive,
now immune to the dreaded disease. It is certainly hard to understand why most of the
original cases were performed on members of his own family, and the likelihood of
something going wrong would have affected him greatly. It was a surprising choice that
he would inoculate his wife when he had previously discovered, through
experimentation, that women who had their period at the same time as the smallpox often
had a higher mortality rate. One woman was recorded as dying from the combination of
the two conditions85.
Zabdiel Boylston was truly interested in the adaptation of this process into the
medical practices of colonial America. He was also deeply concerned about the health of
his patients, as well as the general community. “I must inoculate all, without exception,
they being in danger of having the distemper in the natural way86” and the natural
smallpox was something that he wanted to avoid at all costs. With his full support of
inoculation, the general acceptance of the procedure worked well enough that it backfired
on his original intentions. He became so busy that he had to send smallpox matter out
with instructions to other doctors and responsible patients rather than travelling to these
people himself. He could not physically travel to all of the patients that requested his
services,87 and in many cases did not get a chance to see all of the patients at least once88.
He was proud once inoculation became more accepted, but was never thrilled with the
82
Ibid, 65.
Ibid, 26.
84
Ibid, 33.
85
Ibid, 28.
86
Ibid, 12.
87
Ibid, 40.
88
Ibid, 43.
83
126
�little time he had left to see patients. This was one of his main concerns when originally
deciding where he wanted to practice. Despite the large number of patients having the
procedure performed, he was still having high success rates. The patients that he listed as
having died from inoculation were also listed as being in poor health at the beginning of
the process, having secondary infections, or as elderly89. Although these numbers and
conditions cannot be proven, it does appear that these are legitimate concerns that should
be considered before voluntarily undergoing such a serious disease. When the outbreak
in Boston finally came to a close, his final thoughts on inoculation were “with the
smallpox now leaving, inoculation is ceased and when it shall please Providence to send
and spread that distemper amongst us again, may inoculation revive, be better received
and continue a blessing, in preserving many more from misery, corruption and death90.”
Cotton Mather, as mentioned before, was one of the original proponents of
inoculation in the American colonies. He had received the Royal Society’s printing of
the Timonius and Pylarinum letter, but it also appears as though he had heard of
inoculation before ever reading it. Cotton Mather owned a slave by the name of
Onesimus and when asked if he had ever contracted the smallpox, his response was to
roll up his sleeve and show the smallpox scars on his arm91. The scars were also
accompanied by scars on the arms, which were left over as a result of inoculation that had
been performed on him in Africa before he became a slave. Regardless of the original
source of the information, Mather soon became a strong supporter of the practice and
attempted to get more physicians to perform the procedure. In his own writings, Mather
knew that the custom of preparation in Constantinople was to abstain from both flesh and
broth for 20 days or more. Physicians would also choose to perform the operation in the
beginning of winter or spring92 rather than year round. This meant that the disease would
run its course during the most favorable weather, and also would usually help to keep the
patient indoors. Many inoculation procedures of the time would make two or more cuts
in the skin, usually in arms, and allow drops of blood to appear. The smallpox matter
was then mixed into wound, and covered in a half walnut shell, which was then covered
in a bandage to contain the matter93. It is unsure as to why a walnut shell was used, but in
practice it probably helped to localize the virus to the cut area. After seeing the positive
89
Ibid, 13.
Ibid, 50.
91
Winslow, A destroying angel, 32.
92
Cotton Mather, Some account of what is said of inoculating or transplanting the
smallpox, (Boston: sold by S. Gerrish at his shop in Corn-hill, 1721), 13.
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7910093
93
Ibid, 13.
90
127
�effects in Dr. Boylston’s patients, Mather became an even bigger supporter of
inoculation. He saw that the operation had been performed “on persons of all ages, both
sexes, differing temperatures and even in the worst constitution of the air; and none that
have used it ever died of the smallpox94.” Armed with this argument, he went to face his
skeptical congregation in hopes of winning them over.
This proved very difficult. His congregation of staunch Puritans was not
impressed by inoculation. They remained unconvinced of the procedure, even after
positive reports were made by several different doctors. Cotton Mather, however,
remained convinced of the importance of inoculation, and decided to turn to God for
support. “Almighty God in his great mercy to mankind, has taught us a remedy to be
used when the dangers of the smallpox distresses us” he exclaimed to his congregation
one Sunday, “Humbly give thanks to God for his good providence”95. Not even an
argument involving God, however, could sway the Puritan’s, and they remained firmly
against inoculation. In an attempt to reconcile, Mather’s support soon moved out of the
public eye as he had son inoculated in secret and wrote in his journal that the antiinoculation faction had “Satan remarkably filling their hearts and their tongues” in not
allowing the procedure to be performed in Massachusetts96. He had already upset too
many people, however, and on the morning of November 14, 1721 a crude grenade made
of black powder and turpentine was thrown into the house at around three in the morning.
It sailed through a window of the guest room but failed to explode, thus sparing the life of
his nephew who had been asleep97. The attempted bombing was the most lurid episode in
a campaign of intimidation aimed at Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston, whom ropetoting mobs had threatened to hang98. Despite the fact that smallpox inoculation actually
worked, it remained a controversial topic for many years following the 1721 outbreak.
The 1721 outbreak not only caused major problems within families, it was
responsible for the disruption of life outside the home as well. Once a household became
infected, the inhabitants were put under quarantine and forced to remain inside.
Hopefully these families had someone to help them replenish foodstuffs and maintain
businesses, otherwise these families would have a hard time. Businesses were forced to
close when some of the employees came down with the illness, and in many cases, new
people had to be found to fill vacant positions. Harvard College, located in Cambridge,
94
Ibid, 11-12.
Ibid, 24-25.
96
Benjamin Scheindlin, “A Revolutionary in the Smallpox War.”
97
Frederic D Schwarz, “The Inoculation Controversy,” American Heritage 47, no. 7
(November 1996), 157.
98
Ibid.
95
128
�Massachusetts, became deeply affected by the outbreak when students began coming
down with smallpox. Many students felt threatened by the presence of the disease and
decided they wanted to be inoculated. They sought out Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to perform
the procedure as he was closely located. Once they had the procedure, they foolishly
returned to the school. Interestingly, it is known that many students underwent
inoculation, but none of the college records show the same students as having taken
extended leaves of absences,99 which should have occurred with a smallpox infection.
With the large number of students, it was soon realized that the situation was getting out
of control and the whole town was at risk. Special hospitals were set up in neighboring
communities that could hold the patients while they recovered. One was called Spectacle
Island100, and it was intended to keep the healthy students from being infected, as well as
the surrounding community members. Even with this attempt at protection, a problem
arose when students would make a day trip to go and visit friends who were patients, and
then return to the college on the same day. This only helped to spread the infection
further. In retaliation, a rule was soon started that students were no longer permitted to
visit others at the inoculation hospital and then return to the school, nor were those that
had undergone the procedure allowed to return for a week after they were over the
disease101. Harvard was also quick to notice that many students were missing large
portions of the semester. While the school never officially closed, it reduced the quarter
bills to half tuition due to the large amounts of absences102. Harvard even broke one of
its own cardinal rules by allowing the graduates to accept their degree without being
present at the graduation ceremony103. Normally, you were required to be present to
accept the diploma. However, the school thought it best to avoid large gatherings of
people in an attempt to avoid possibly spreading the disease.
Slowly, inoculation became more and more accepted throughout the colonies. It
appears as though the colony of New York did not take a strong stance on the practice.
They also tended to remain detached from arguments between colonies. No actual
printed material from the colony has been found to mention inoculation, but references to
the procedure were made in some articles. It can therefore be assumed that it was not a
completely foreign idea104, but, at the same time was not something that was in constant
debate. Through ads found in the local New York papers, it appears as though
99
Burton, “The Awful Judgment of God Upon the Land,” 497.
Ibid, 498.
101
Ibid, 498.
102
Ibid, 500.
103
Ibid, 504.
104
Gronim, “Imagining Inoculation,” 251.
100
129
�inoculation was something that was accepted by the majority of New Yorkers. There
were many ads for those that could perform the procedure. The situation was ideal for
widespread acceptance of the new technology: an urgent threat, a set of clear directions,
and the concrete local experience of its efficacy”105. There were many doctors offering to
perform inoculation for certain fees, with reports coming from all over the large colony.
Outbreaks in 1738 and again in 1746 were causes for concern among New Yorkers as the
younger population was once again in the primary risk group. In both instances, New
Yorkers tried to curtail the effects of smallpox by dramatically cutting back on the
circulation of people and goods106, in some cases closing off the movement of goods all
together. While in some cases this embargo did help to restrict the spread of the disease,
most areas experienced minimal changes in the number that were infected.
Those that Supported the Process of Inoculation
In 1722, Isaac Greenwood published A Friendly Debate which attacked both
sides of the smallpox debate. He criticized Cotton Mather because he “presented a
treatise in Latin which his neighbors didn’t understand107”, and yet he could not denounce
it entirely because he knew the implications of such a procedure. The Harvard Telltale
also contributed to the debate when it published the debates of Dr. Hurry and Dr.
Waitfort. Dr. Hurry was in support of inoculation, while Dr. Waitfort was against. They
wrote back and forth to each other asking questions such as; Is inoculation a sin? Is
inoculation self-induced illness? Is refusing to be inoculated against God’s reason? If
bleeding is acceptable, why not inoculation?108 For those that read the debate, it is quite
possible that they aided the colonists in which side to choose.
There were many prominent men in favor of inoculation, not including Cotton
Mather and Zabdiel Boylston. Some of these men included Increase Mather, Benjamin
Colman, Thomas Prince, John Webb, and William Copper, who were all ministers in
favor of the practice of inoculation109. Many times, they, like Cotton before, had
attempted to argue for God’s support of inoculation in order to convince the local
population. These men believed in a discovery of something that would protect citizens
from such an awful disease. They believed inoculation was a gift from God and should
105
Ibid, 252.
Ibid, 252.
107
Burton, “The Awful Judgment of God Upon the Land," 499.
108
Ibid. 496.
109
Roger P. Zelt, “Smallpox Inoculations in Boston, 1721-1722,” Synthesis: The
University Journal in the History & Philosophy of Science 4, no. 1 (1977), 7.
106
130
�be used and seen as such110. Usually, those that were in favor of inoculation were highly
educated, politically conservative, religiously orthodox, and members of the upper
portion of the Boston socioeconomic strata111. If Cotton Mather was indeed writing his
arguments in Latin, these educated men would have been the only members of society
that could have read it. The position of these men also proved to be important for
convincing the rest of the community, as these were the people that were in places of
power. One other important person that became a strong supporter of inoculation was
Benjamin Franklin. After losing a son to the illness, he wrote a preface to a pamphlet
published on the topic and distributing it free to the poor of Philadelphia112. He proved to
be an important character to have on the pro-inoculation side of the argument, as he had a
lot of power of conviction.
Dr. Hurry, the same man who wrote for the Harvard Telltale, argued that
inoculation improved the chances for survival and should be encouraged despite the antireligious sentiment113 surrounding it. In New Jersey, the Reverend Colin Campbell
created a commotion in 1759 by inoculating his own family in order to demonstrate to the
community the benefits of inoculation114. Another supporter was Thomas Robie, who
was on staff at Harvard, and was also a member of the Royal Society. He had himself
inoculated, and in so doing, helped the process of inoculation by reporting back to the
Society in London115. He had many favorable reports which were then shared with the
colonies once they were published. It was important that these prominent men be
involved in the positive feedback of inoculation because many of the colonists believed
that those “who made the claim that something was true was often as important as what
the claim was116.” A regular person certainly would not have paid the same amount of
attention to Onesimus as Cotton Mather did.
Those that Did Not Support the Use of Inoculation
Just as God was used as a reason to accept the practice of inoculation, God was
also used to discredit it. The general belief at the time was that God controlled whether a
person became sick or not. Those that got an illness were sick because they had made
110
Ibid.7.
Ibid, 12.
112
Morris, “Smallpox Inoculation in the American Colonies 1763-1783.” 48.
113
Burton, “The Awful Judgments of God Upon the Land," 496.
114
Larry R. Gerlach, “Smallpox Inoculation in Colonial New Jersey: A Contemporary
Account,” Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries 31, no. 1 (1967), 22.
115
Winslow, A destroying angel, 43.
116
Gronim, “Imagining Inoculation,” 249.
111
131
�God angry and were facing his wrath117. For this reason, religion would prove to be the
hardest factor to overcome in the attempt to gain support for inoculation. Puritans
thought that the procedure was a sin because it was performed by a healthy person118.
The person that performed the inoculation was then responsible for infecting a person
with smallpox, the worst disease known at the time. The Puritans also thought it was a
sin of pride to get inoculated because that person was attempting to put themselves above
God’s will119. Dr. Waitfort rejected inoculation for the very same reason. He felt that
illness was a punishment sent by God and he questioned the appropriateness of the
precautionary measure120. If God caused a person to obtain an illness, certainly they had
done something that deserved a punishment. By making someone immune to a
punishment, God’s wrath could not be felt and people would not remain fearful. James
Franklin, who was Ben Franklin’s father and owned one of the best printing shops in
Boston, was one of the staunchest anti-inoculation supporters in the colonies. He started
the ‘Hell Fire Club’ in the New England Courant which appealed to those that were
dissatisfied with the Anglican and Puritan orthodoxy. He was helped in this endeavor by
John Checkley121. He proved an interesting comparison to his son, Benjamin, who fully
supported the procedure. Along with Franklin, there were other’s that argued
inoculation, with its roots in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, was a heathen practice not
suitable for Christians122. It was especially discarded in the colonies because it originated
in un-Christian lands and had no bearing in the Christian religion on which they based
their lives.
William Douglass was twelve years younger than Boylston when smallpox
broke out among the citizens of Boston in 1721. He was Scottish by birth and had
attended Universities all over Europe123. In his mind, you could not learn outside of the
classroom, and you were not an actual doctor unless you had a degree from a
University124. Since many of the physicians in the American colonies would have not
met this criterion, many of his objections stemmed from this belief125. He states
117
Zelt, “Smallpox Inoculations in Boston, 1721-1722,” 6.
Ibid, 6.
119
Ibid, 6.
120
Burton, “'The Awful Judgments of God Upon the Land,” 496.
121
Zelt, “Smallpox Inoculations in Boston, 1721-1722,” 12.
122
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/smallpox.html. Although citations are not
available for this particular source, it does come from the Harvard library website.
123
Winslow, A destroying angel, 42.
124
Ibid, 42.
125
Ibid, 42.
118
132
�frequently in his writings that “simply reading books does not make someone qualified to
practice medicine”126. In an interesting twist of fate, Douglass was the person that
originally gave the Timonius letter to Cotton Mather127. In essence, it was this action that
started the inoculation controversy that occurred in the first place. If the two men were
friends before the controversy, they certainly were not now, as Douglass publically
declared that the church “ought to deliver him over to Satan [Cotton Mather]128.” He was
not alone, however, as a printer he refused to print something of Mather’s because he
claimed that Mather was “rash in his proceedings of inoculation129.” Douglass also
considered the procedure rash and once said that he would never support such a
procedure, especially “that detestable wickedness of spreading infection130.” With his
support firmly rooted among the anti-inoculation faction, he was also happy to observe
that “all of Boston knows that several towns have declared against inoculation until
further light on the practice131.” By waiting to decide if inoculation was something that
could be approved, some of the surrounding towns began to agree with Douglass’s ideas.
Samuel Grainger was also a strong opponent of inoculation. He, however, came
strictly from the religious side of the argument rather than the medical. In his pamphlet
The Imposition of Inoculation as a Duty Religiously Considered in a Letter to a
Gentleman in the Country Inclined to Admit it, he writes to a friend of his who is also a
supporter of inoculation. “I know you to be a great admirer of this new practice; and with
many inclin’d to believe it lawful” he states on the opening page132. He attempts to
explain why the process should not be allowed. He firmly believed that the introduction
of inoculation into society meant God’s wrath would not be effective any longer133.
126
William Douglass, The abuses and scandals of some late pamphlets in favour of
inoculation of the small pox, modestly obviated, and inoculation further consider'd in a
letter to A- S- M.D. & F.R.S. in London (Boston: printed and sold by J. Franklin, at his
printing-house in Queen-Street, over against Mr. Sheaf's school, 1722), 20. A.S. refers to
Alexander Stuart in London.
127
Ibid.
128
Douglass, The abuses and scandals of some late pamphlets in favour of inoculation of
the smallpox, 17.
129
Ibid, 17.
130
Ibid, 20.
131
Ibid, 11.
132
Samuel Grainger, The imposition of inoculation as a duty religiously considered in a
letter to a gentleman in the country inclined to admit it (Boston: Printed for Nicholas
Boone at the sign of the bible in Cornhill and John Edwards, at his shop at the head of
King Street, 1721) 11. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7910094
133
Ibid, 18.
133
�Generally, the harsher the infection, the more sins a person had134, but the introduction of
inoculation meant a person might not have to undergo any illness at all. Grainger also
took the bible very literally, as any good Puritan would have done. In Leviticus 19:18,
God says that everyman should love thy neighbor as thyself. According to this law from
God, as well as the commandment which states “thou shall not kill”, Douglass believed
that death by inoculation would be cause for a physician to be hanged135. For this reason,
he also did not approve of inoculation because there was the possibility of it causing an
outbreak of smallpox. This could have affected other people in a harmful manner in such
a way that the bible would not have approved136. He was also uncomfortable with the
information that the practice had first been performed and “practiced by present enemies
of the cross of Christ, and infidels, who sacrifice their fellow creatures as a peace offering
to the devil137.” In a final statement, he says “is not the practice of inoculation a wall of
untempered mortar…doth it not strengthen the hands of the wicked…and do not you
promise him life to declare that none ever died under inoculation138.” In promising that
the procedure was completely safe, it went against the idea that God used illness as a
form of punishment. In terms of religion, inoculation became a controversial issue.
Many prominent colonists were against inoculation as well, and they helped to
pass laws which made the procedure illegal. William Nelson, a colonial leader stated that
“if I had the power, I would hang up everyman that would inoculate even in his own
house139.” The threat of spreading smallpox from the inoculated individuals was
considered too great even when performed in a controlled environment. Some colonies
felt that sanctions and laws were necessary in order to prevent inoculations from being
performed and therefore preventing spread of smallpox. Outright prohibition or strict
control of the procedure was enacted in New York, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Maryland and Virginia140. These would remain laws in these colonies for many years
after they were put into place.
134
Ibid, 18.
Morris, “Smallpox Inoculation in the American Colonies 1763-1783,” 48.
136
Douglass, The Abuses and Scandals of some Late Pamphlets in Favor of Inoculation
of the Smallpox, 27-28.
137
Ibid, 36.
138
Ibid, 21.
139
Philip Ranlet, “The British, Slaves, and Smallpox in Revolutionary Virginia,” The
Journal of Negro History 84, no. 3 (Summer 1999), 218.
140
Ann M. Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army: Strategic Implications of the
Disease During the American Revolutionary War,” The Journal of Military History 68,
no. 2 (2004), 387-388.
135
134
�Smallpox in the Colonies
As mentioned previously, one of the greatest sources bringing smallpox into the
colonies was ships from all over the world. Trade ships were not usually the original
source of the disease, but it did contribute in some areas. The main source was usually
slave ships. Often, these ships would come straight from the continent of Africa, making
no stops in between. Once the colonists were able to determine that these ships were the
contributing factor, they began to stop them from entering the harbors. Often, these ships
were held in limbo regardless of evidence of smallpox. In most cases, smallpox was
indeed present, having come from Africa with the captured slaves. In 1758, Henry
Laurens, a southern property owner, stated that “40 slaves were lying in Quarantine on
account of the smallpox aboard a ship and the Matilda of Bristol arrived from Callabar, a
port on Niger River, with 170 slaves infected with smallpox and must be quarantined as
well141.” However, as one of the land owning elite, Laurens realized the problem of
holding all these slaves in the harbor. Quarantine caused many slaves to die of both
smallpox and living conditions. At the time, they also were needed to man the warships
in the harbor142 and were instead going to waste in the harbor. This was also a problem
because no one from these ships was allowed to come onto land until all the cases of
smallpox had run their course onboard the ship143. Essentially, ships were stuck floating
in the middle of the harbor for a minimum of 30 days while those that had contracted
smallpox were cured. The guarantee of slave ships soon became a bigger problem when
it was discovered that smallpox was ravaging the Gambia (Niger) River, which is where
the majority of slaves originated at the time144. The American slave trade was greatly
affected because many of the ships were quarantined and the cargo could not go to the
slave market to be sold. The traders that dealt in slaves were losing a lot of money as
slaves died, and needed an alternative option. A solution was soon discovered that the
ships could stop in the West Indies first to unload cargo rather than undergo Quarantine
in the colonies145. This attempted boycott of the American colonies greatly affected the
slave market since most of the business had moved to a different location. While the
theory behind the quarantine of these ships was a great idea, in practice, it was not
successful and smallpox made it into the settlements anyway.
141
Philip M. Hamer, ed., The Papers of Henry Laurens Volume I (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1968) 250-251.
142
Ibid, 252.
143
Ibid, 264.
144
Ibid, 275.
145
Ibid, 289.
135
�With the oncoming threat of smallpox from all locations, “thousands of persons
resorted to inoculation as the lesser of two evils146” in an attempt to avoid the disease in
its natural form. By attempting to protect themselves and their families, those that chose
to inoculate became enemies of their neighbors. The ever present threat of spreading
smallpox from the inoculation process made the population extremely fearful of the
procedure. On January 23, 1764 Boston passed laws which forbid inoculation unless an
epidemic was declared147. Despite the creation of this law the first inoculation hospital
was authorized on February 8, 1764 outside of Boston at Point Shirley148. It was
approved by the town council for specific instances. Boston was the first to enact a law
such as this, and the city was soon followed by other colonies and towns. On January 19,
1763 Governor James Wright issued a proclamation that imposed a strict quarantine
around Charleston, South Carolina149. Citizens were not allowed to leave the house if
someone was infected with smallpox, nor were ships allowed to come into the harbor. In
Virginia, citizens believed that inoculation created more cases of smallpox than it cured.
They were vindicated when, in 1768, it was charged that inoculation has caused an
epidemic in Williamsburg, the capital of the colony150.
The process of inoculation caused a great deal of fear, and for this reason, the
procedure caused many social problems. Norfolk, Virginia was the location of riots
involving inoculation. In June 1768 and again in May 1769, confrontations in Norfolk
between pro-inoculation and anti-inoculation factions resulted in riots following the early
release of some patients from a smallpox hospital151. Citizens that lived near both the
hospital and the homes of the released patients were fearful that the area would become
contaminated with smallpox and cause an outbreak. In 1768, the riot grew out of the
desire for Dr. Archibald Campbell and some of his Norfolk friends to have their wives
and children inoculated152. He wanted to have all the members of his family inoculated at
the same time, allowing for the whole family to experience disease simultaneously.
When several concerned citizens discovered that the illegal procedure had been
performed, rioters went to the house and demanded the movement of patients to the pest
house, which was a location where extremely sick individuals were taken to be removed
146
Morris, “Smallpox Inoculation in the American Colonies 1763-1783,” 48.
Ibid, 48.
148
Ibid, 48.
149
Ibid, 52.
150
Ibid, 50-51.
151
Frank L. Dewey, “Thomas Jefferson's Law Practice: The Norfolk Anti-Inoculation
Riots,” Virginia Magazine of History & Biography 91, no. 1 (1983), 40.
152
Ibid, 41.
147
136
�from public153. To pacify the rioters, it was agreed that the patients would indeed be
moved to the pest house when they were in the proper condition to do so. The following
night, a mob came and “drove the patients to the pest house” in foul weather154, making
their condition worse. Without thinking of the effects on the surrounding population, this
movement caused large numbers of people to be exposed to the deadly illness. These
patients countered by bringing a suit against the rioters. Before going to court, the case
was then grouped with some that Thomas Jefferson was defending155. Jefferson became
involved in the cases in April of 1770, about the same time the patient’s case was brought
before the General Court156 of Virginia. On May 1, Jefferson was employed by Dr.
Campbell, one of the plaintiff’s, to assist in the prosecution of the rioters. By October,
Jefferson was leading counsel for the pro-inoculation side of the case157, which was also
the side of the argument that he heartedly supported. Due to the results of the case, 1769
brought a proposal to the House of Burgesses. It requested that the practice of
inoculation be banned all together. In 1770, an official act was passed into law with a
fine of 1,000 pounds for anyone who willfully imported any smallpox material158.
Strangely, the law also stated that anyone exposed to smallpox could apply for a license
to be inoculated in defense159. In 1777, this law was amended so that anyone might be
inoculated after obtaining written consent of the majority of the house keepers within a
two mile radius160. Thomas Jefferson was actually a member of the legislative committee
which enacted the law and had his own children inoculated under the same law in
1782161.
Despite Virginia’s wholehearted distrust of inoculation in the beginning, some
colonies were not so suspicious. Charlestown, South Carolina, was one of these areas.
They decided to allow inoculation, but not without stipulations. When the citizens
thought that the disease had lingered longer than it should, they pressed the general
assembly to outlaw inoculation. They asked that anyone found guilty of receiving and
153
Ibid, 41.
Ibid, 41.
155
Ibid, 42-43.
156
Ibid, 46.
157
Ibid, 48-49.
158
Morris, “Smallpox Inoculation in the American Colonies 1763-1783,” 51.
159
Ibid, 51.
160
Ibid, 52.
161
Dewey, “Thomas Jefferson's Law Practice,” 52-53.
154
137
�communicating the disease would be fined 500 pounds162. The General Assembly
listened but decided to enact rules that were slightly different. After June 15, 1760,
anyone who performed inoculations, or caused infection in anyone within two miles of
Charlestown, was subjected to a fine of 100 pounds. Anyone inoculating slaves, or
whose slave came down with the disease, might suffer three months imprisonment unless
they swore the offense took place without their knowledge163. It had become a serious
offense to consider being inoculated. Despite the laws that prohibited the process of
inoculation, they seemed to have had little effect on the public practice164. Many citizens
continued to inoculate themselves and their families in an effort to prevent them from
getting smallpox in the natural way.
One important citizen who decided to undergo inoculation was John Adams. He
was the grandson of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston,165 who had performed the first inoculation in
the American colonies. In an effort to not catch smallpox in the natural way, he decided
to have himself inoculated. Under the care of Dr. Nathaniel Perkins and Dr. Joseph
Warren, he and his brother were inoculated in the winter of 1764166. The procedure was
performed in Boston, enabling him to remain close to home, and to Abigail. The two
men were given the preparation as done in the original style. This involved the
consumption of milk and mercury for two weeks prior to the addition of the smallpox
matter. In a letter to a friend, Adams states that “every tooth in my head became so loose
that I believe I could have pulled them all with my thumb and finger167,” a serious side
effect of mercury consumption. Having had a very mild experience with the smallpox,
Adams lives to tell about the time he spent in confinement. In a letter dated April 26,
1764, Adams joins his eventual wife Abigail in sadness that she was not inoculated at the
same time168. For the purpose of her safety, he hoped that a smallpox hospital would be
opened in Germantown, near enough to her so that she might undergo the procedure. He
162
Suzanne Krebsbach, “The Great Charlestown Smallpox Epidemic of 1760,” South
Carolina Historical Magazine 97, no. 1 (1996), 31.
163
Ibid, 36.
164
Ibid, 37.
165
John Adams, Autobiography (through 1776) Adams Family Papers: An electronic
archive. Massachusetts Historical Society [hereafter called MHS].
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/, 2.
166
Ibid, 9.
167
Ibid, 9.
168
John Adams, Autobiography (through 1776) Journal entry page from April 26, 1764,
Adams Family Papers: An electronic archive. Massachusetts Historical Society
[hereafter called MHS]. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
138
�even wrote that he would go anywhere to nurse her in her time of illness169 since he
would already be immune to smallpox.
Smallpox and the American Indians
The American colonists had legitimate concerns with regards to catching
smallpox, but, the group that should have been the most fearful were the American
Indians. Smallpox had been decimating Native American populations since it had first
appeared on the North American continent. They were a fresh population for many
illnesses that the Europeans brought with them. Europeans had built up immunity
towards certain illnesses long before, and individuals in Europe had been exposed since
birth. On first contact with Europeans, the Indians had never been exposed to any of
these diseases, and even the simplest of illness could kill off large portions of the
population. Those that survived were then responsible to find a cure for future infections.
Charles Wolley, who spent two years in the American colonies in the 1690s, considered
the Native Americans use of sweat houses, followed by a plunge in a river as generally
effective170. He was quick to point out that this "proved Epidemical in Small-pox” since
the cold river water hindered the emergence of the pox171. In addition to their use of
sweat houses, Native Americans' also had a habit of smearing themselves with animal fat,
which closed their pores and attempted to hold the pustules in the body, preventing their
emergence on the outer surface of the skin172. It is unknown how effective this treatment
actually was, but it did remain the chosen method of prevention among the Native
Americans.
One of the major events that brought Native Americans into contact with
European settlers was the French and Indian War, which took place from 1754 to 1764.
In this series of battles, many Indian tribes chose to fight on the side of the French173,
who they felt had treated them better than the British. The war brought with it the
emergence of smallpox as people began to move around, and many of the tribes had
never been exposed to smallpox. This was especially true for those that were from
western tribes174. Smallpox feeds on populations that were involved in war because they
169
Ibid.
Gronim, “Imagining Inoculation,” 259.
171
Ibid, 259.
172
Ibid, 259.
173
D. Peter MacLeod, “Microbes and Muskets: Smallpox and the Participation of the
Amerindian Allies of New France in the Seven Years' War,” Ethnohistory 39, no. 1
(Winter 1992), 43.
174
Ibid, 47.
170
139
�moved around a lot, exposing new groups frequently. The native populations were a
perfect area to begin an epidemic. In the fall of 1757, word reached Canada of an
outbreak of smallpox among the western ally tribes, who had carried smallpox back to
their tribes and ended up paying a terrible price for their support of the French175. Here,
smallpox made astonishing progress by infecting large numbers of people as causing
mass causalities. The leaders of these tribes were well aware that they had contracted the
illness during their sojourn in the central theater176, which ended up causing the Indians to
turn against the French and threaten a war against them177. This was short lived,
however, as the French felt terrible for their part in the destruction and offered many gifts
in an attempt at appeasement. On November 28, 1760, with the war finally over, the
Hurons, Weas, Potawatomis, and Ottawas of Detroit informed the departing French
commandant, in the presence of British officers, that the French surrender did not apply
to them and that "they would never recognize the King of England as their Father and
leader178.”
Smallpox also affected the Indian population in other areas as well. Smallpox
hit Fort Pitt in 1763 and again in 1764, both of which are thought to have been caused by
the evacuation of people from Pittsburg when smallpox hit that area. The evacuation of
Pittsburg was called for on May 30, and citizens were to go to Fort Pitt179. However, the
Indians that had survived the first bought of the illness in 1763 would have then been
immune to the second wave of 1764. Their immunity would have been a small comfort
to the decimated population of these tribes that actually remained. William Trent, an
Indian trader at Fort Pitt, wrote in his diary on June 24, 1763 that “out of our regard to
them, we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital180.”
Native American populations were still hated by many of the colonists, even those that
worked closely with them. It was always a hope that smallpox would wipe out an entire
tribe, allowing free access to the land that they had previously inhabited. Infecting local
tribes with smallpox purposely was an idea mentioned in journals of local men. The date
of June 24, 1763 was mentioned as being the date of infection, and the idea was to give
Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox. However, it is believed that the
exchange never actually took place, or if it did, it did not work. This can be concluded
175
Ibid, 49.
Ibid, 49.
177
Ibid, 51.
178
Ibid, 53.
179
Philip Ranlet, “The British, the Indians, and Smallpox: What Actually Happened at
Fort Pitt in 1763?” Pennsylvania History 67, no. 3 (2000), 435.
180
Ibid, 428.
176
140
�because Native Americans that were targeted were mentioned a month later as being in
attendance at a meeting with some of the settlers181. If they had truly been infected with
smallpox, the meeting would have been around the time of full progression of the disease.
In order to test the effectiveness of the smallpox blanket idea, a scientific experiment was
performed to determine whether it could have worked. The experiment determined that
infected clothing, stored in a wooden box, could remain contagious for as long as 66
days182. The same experiment also concluded that “when clothing was spread out on a
bed and exposed to indirect light” the smallpox virus on the clothing was dead “after 7
days”183. It does appear as though the attack could have worked if done properly, but
evidence suggests that the plan was never acted upon.
Another problem that occurred among the native population was the large death
rate associated with the disease. Very few people remained to continue a traditional
lifestyle. In one case, South Carolina’s Indian allies were decimated by a smallpox
outbreak. King Hagler of the Catawbaw was unable to maintain the defensive position
his tribe held against the Cherokee because he had only sixty men remaining to fight,
instead of the usual hundreds184. This lack of males not only affected the populations in
time of war, but in everyday life as well. Smallpox killed off the hunters, those that
worked the fields, mothers, fathers, and town elders, just to name a few. Tribes were
faced with the performance of many death rites, and a change in the traditions of tribes.
Smallpox and the American Revolution
The Americans
At the start of the American Revolution, colonies were still struggling to stay
atop smallpox and the effects that it caused. In an attempt to combat the disease,
smallpox hospitals were set up in inconspicuous locations in most colonies. Having
gotten over the fear of inoculation in many locations, it now became an approved method
of prevention. In 1771, The New London Gazette announced the partnership of Dr. John
Ely and Dr. William Tallman of New York in opening a smallpox hospital, which as to
be located on Duck Island outside of Saybrook, Connecticut185. After a successful
opening, Dr. Ely purchased the island outright in 1775186. The town selectman could then
181
Ibid, 428.
Ibid, 434.
183
Ibid, 434.
184
Krebsbach, “The Great Charlestown Smallpox Epidemic of 1760,” 33.
185
Newton C. Brainard, “Smallpox Hospitals in Saybrook,” Connecticut Historical
Society Bulletin 29, no. 2 (1964), 57.
186
Ibid, 57.
182
141
�annually grant permission to perform inoculation on the island, which could
accommodate 30 or 40 patients at a time187. Many felt as though this was a step in the
right direction, as it did allow inoculation to be performed in some manner.
The variola virus, or smallpox, loves the conditions that are present during a
war. It spreads most virulently in unsanitary and crowded conditions, and the disease
especially flourished when large groups of previously unexposed populations converged,
as they did in army camps during the Revolutionary War188. Ever since the beginning of
the war and the gathering of troops, smallpox joined in the fight as well. George
Washington assumed command of the Rebel forces in Boston. The year was 1775, and
smallpox was on the rampage among the troops189. Boston had been under siege for 9
months by the Americans after the British captured the city190. During the siege,
Washington had restricted camp access, checked refugees, and isolated his troops from
the contagion to avoid the spread of disease191. At this time, inoculation was illegal in the
army. Washington did want to risk infecting healthy members of his troops, and the most
likely cause of smallpox in the field was from soldiers who had attempted to inoculate
themselves and ended up infecting other people. In a direct order from General
Washington, officers were to examine troops and prevent inoculation among them. For
any soldier caught being inoculated, there would be a severe punishment: any officer
caught would be discharged with his name published in the papers as a traitor and enemy
to the country192. A General Order, which was sent to the entirety of the American
forces, stated that “no person belonging to the army is to be inoculated for smallpox, and
those currently in the process or that come down with the infection are to be removed to
Montresor Island and any violations will be punished193”. The desire of the soldiers to
protect themselves from smallpox severely curtailed Benedict Arnold's ability to sustain
an effective army in the field. Having seen the fatal consequences of smallpox taken the
natural way, American prisoners and soldiers in Canada insisted on self-inoculation194.
Arnold even went as far as to forbid the procedure in orders dated February 11 and March
187
Ibid, 57.
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 389.
189
Ibid, 393.
190
Ibid, 393.
191
Ibid, 397.
192
George Washington and United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission.,
The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799
(Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1931), volume 7, 82-83.
193
Ibid, volume 5, 63.
194
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army.”
188
142
�15, but the smallpox danger was so real to the soldiers that they refused to stop. Though
inoculation was punishable by death at that time, Charles Cushing acknowledged that "it
was practiced secretly, as they were willing to run any hazard rather than take smallpox
the natural way195.” Hoping to curtail the effect of the disease, Arnold wrote to the
congressional commission charged with monitoring the condition of the Northern Army
on May 15th: "I should be glad to know your sentiments in regards to inoculation as early
as possible. Will it not be best, considering the impossibility of preventing the spreading
of smallpox, to inoculate five hundred or a thousand men immediately, and send them to
Montreal…which will prevent our army being distressed hereafter." The next day, with
the commission's acquiescence, Arnold instituted a short-lived policy permitting the
procedure196. It was not only the soldiers that could be infected, but the officers as well.
The Canadian campaign was abandoned after the death of Major General John Thomas of
smallpox. Without their leader, the Northern Army struggled to even retreat197. On July
29, 1776, Washington received word from General Horatio Gates on the Canadian
campaign.
“Everything about this army is infected with the pestilence; the clothes, the
blankets, the air, and the ground the troops walk on. To put this evil from us, a
general hospital is established at Fort George, where there are now between two
and three thousand sick, and where every infected person is immediately sent.
But this care and caution have not effectually destroyed the disease here; it is
not withstanding continually breaking out198.”
The Revolution hung in the balance of the fight against smallpox. Unfortunately, in the
beginning smallpox was winning.
One of the first things that the British did upon entering the colonies was to take
over the town of Boston. This was one of the most important cities at the time, and the
capture was a serious blow to the rebel cause. As if in an act of redemption for the
colonists, as soon as Boston had been captured, smallpox began its attack. Not only were
the British soldiers at risk, but those citizens that had remained behind in Boston were
also in the warpath. In July 1776, General Ward refused to permit non-immune troops to
enter Boston in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease. This was especially
enforced in the case of New England troops who were careful to avoid exposure to
195
Ibid, 414-415.
Ibid, 415-416.
197
Ibid, 419.
198
Ibid, 420.
196
143
�smallpox due to their high susceptibility199. Most New Englanders had never been in
contact with the disease during their lifetime since the majority of recent outbreaks had
been in the southern colonies. Charles Cushing, a soldier in the Continental Army, wrote
to his brother from Canada that "The New England forces had begun to be very uneasy
about the small-pox spreading among them, as but few of them have had it200.” To make
matters worse, Washington experienced difficulty arranging for the inoculation of his
soldiers. He found it necessary to work with local authorities in New England to request
their permission to inoculate his troops201 because so many had laws against it.
During the capture of Boston by the British, many inhabitants became sick with
the smallpox virus. In an attempt to rid the city of disease, the British began to send the
infected citizens out of the city on ships and send them down the river or into the harbor.
In one instance, a ship of 300 Boston inhabitants arrived off Point Shirley. Shortly
afterwards, some of the passengers started dying of smallpox and the ship was not
allowed to enter Cambridge202. In an effort to stop the spread of smallpox, anyone who
left camp to go to Boston was not allowed back once they returned to camp203. When the
British finally abandoned Boston, Washington blamed them for spreading the smallpox
virus and was afraid of further spread. Despite the absence of the British, soldiers were
required to have expressed orders to leave Cambridge or to enter Boston204. In many
cases, those that had already acquired immunity to smallpox were allowed into Boston,
but were required to undergo a form of decontamination before returning to the American
camps.
George Washington himself was a strong supporter of inoculation. As a young
man, he had acquired smallpox the natural way. In 1751, Washington traveled to
Barbados with his brother Lawrence, who was suffering from tuberculosis, with the hope
that the climate would be beneficial to Lawrence's health. Washington contracted
smallpox during the trip, which ended up leaving his face slightly scarred, but gave him
199
Ibid, 403.
Ibid, 403.
201
Ibid. 388.
202
Washington and United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission., The
writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799,
volume 4, 118.
203
Ibid, 122.
204
Ibid, 389.
200
144
�immunity to the dreaded disease in the future205. He knew that inoculation was not
widely supported, however, and chose to keep his views on the subject quiet during the
heated debates. During the Revolution, Washington’s stepson Jack was inoculated in
1771 in Baltimore, while Martha was inoculated in Philadelphia on May 31, 1776. He
wrote in his journal that “Mrs. Washington is now under inoculation, has very few
pustules, and is not allowed to write for fear of conveyance206.” But, smallpox continued
to attack the vulnerable troops, leaving many soldiers out of commission and leaving an
even smaller number of soldiers available to fight at any given time. In January 1777,
however, Washington instituted a new military strategy to protect his troops and sustain
the Revolution: systematic troop inoculation207. In a letter to Dr. William Shippen, Jr.
dated January 6, 1777, Washington makes the first declaration of his decision. “I have
determined that the troops shall be inoculated,” he wrote, knowing that he could then
control the number that had the disease, and the lessened effects that occur after
inoculation would have been better than a full scale infection208. For this reason, he
wanted to begin systemic inoculation as soon as possible. At the time of his declaration,
Philadelphia was in the midst of a smallpox outbreak. This caused Washington to forbid
the Southern troops from entering Philadelphia. He told them instead to remain in
Germantown, just outside the city209. Many of the southern troops had never been
exposed to smallpox because cities in the southern colonies were so spread out.
Washington actually took a great military risk by instituting mass inoculation. The
preventive measures needed to eliminate smallpox induced the disease, which thereby
effectively removed large numbers of soldiers from active duty. This affected his ability
to function militarily210. It also proved difficult because the need for secrecy was great,
as the British would have had a significant advantage if had they known of the debilitated
condition of the American troops as they recovered from smallpox211. Washington knew
205
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_early_life The citations for
this information can be found on the website, but they all come from biographies and
writings on George Washington.
206
Ibid, volume 5, 93.
207
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 390.
208
Washington and United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission., The
writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799,
volume 4, 473.
209
Ibid, volume 7, 72-73.
210
Ibid, 129.
211
Ibid, 129.
145
�that the war was slowly starting to unravel, and made inoculation “of greatest
importance212.”
Despite the addition of inoculation to the military program, it was slow to
become beneficial. In theory, inoculation was a great idea, but in actual practice, each
inoculated soldier was out of commission for about a month until they recovered from the
disease. Washington was certainly mindful of numbers at this point in the game. Many
soldiers were already either sick or about to be dismissed once their enlistments were up,
and, to make matters worse, recruitment was not going well. “The general backwardness
of the recruiting service, to which must be added the necessary delay of inoculation,
makes me fearful that the enemy will be enabled to take the field before we can collect a
force any ways adequate to making proper opposition213” he wrote one day, conveying
his frustrations. The dire situation meant that Washington had to start making some
choices. On May 7, 1777, a general order was served to the troops which stated that
invalids were to remain behind once the rest of the battalion moved on. They were to
guard the stores of ammunitions while they recovered from smallpox214. By using these
sick soldiers in an effective way, Washington could increase the number of active troops.
This increased the amount of the population which was working in the battles and helped
to lower the amount of soldiers needed through recruited. Although the program was
slow to be implemented and slow to take effect, Washington was still in full support of
the venture. In June 1777, he claims that the practice of inoculation is safe with only a
few steps required to make the patient comfortable215. He also wanted to discourage the
Impolitic Act of Virginia, which would allow every child to be inoculated in an attempt
to prevent smallpox, and failure to do so would result in penalties for the parents216.
Clearly, Washington was a strong supporter of inoculation, evident by his push to make
inoculation mandatory. Finally, a general order issued on April 18, 1778 called for the
recruited soldiers to be sent to their regiments, and then to receive inoculation once they
had arrived in the field. This meant that the new recruits had to avoid infected towns
along the way to their regiment so that they were not infected in the natural way217. Even
by changing the process to inoculate in the field, he still had a hard time getting all the
regiments to participate. In some cases, his orders were ignored and special letters had to
212
Ibid, 129.
Ibid, volume 7, 314.
214
Ibid, volume 8, 28.
215
Ibid, 158.
216
Ibid, 158.
217
Ibid, volume 11, 143.
213
146
�be sent to some regiments, especially in the North. They had been told to inoculate all
soldiers who had not had the disease, and not to wait until smallpox appeared218.
One of the main reasons for Washington’s concern in the spread of disease
involved the British using smallpox against the Continental army in several locations as a
form of bio-warfare. Lord Jeffery Amherst had been accused of using smallpox against
the Native Americans in the French and Indian War. While there is strong evidence that
argues this never happened, there is sufficient evidence that he used smallpox against the
Continental troops in the American Revolution. In January of 1775, a gentleman in
Boston asserted that British “soldiers try all they can to spread the smallpox but I hope
they will be disappointed219.” Seth Pomperoy, who knew General Gates from the French
and Indian War said “if it is in General Gates power I expect he will send ye smallpox
into ye army220.” However, George Washington was not suspicious until an informant
told him that "our enemies in that place had laid several schemes for communicating the
infection of the small-pox, to the Continental Army, when they get out of town221”. This
refers directly to the evacuation of Boston by the British. Before they left, the British
attempted to leave items infected with smallpox behind for the Continentals to find.
However, they did try and use bio-warfare first. In 1775, 150 inhabitants of Boston were
released from behind the city walls222. While this seemed like a nice gesture in releasing
prisoners, it was in fact an attempt at bio-warfare. Some of the colonists who were
released had been infected with smallpox and now ran the risk of infecting the rest of the
surrounding troops223. On December 3, 1775, Robert H. Harrison, the aide-de-camp in
Boston, states that “four British deserters have just arrived at headquarters giving account
that several persons are to be sent out of Boston. They have lately been inoculated with
the smallpox, with the design, probably, to spread the infection to distress us as much as
possible224.” However, his was not the only report coming from Boston. Around the
same time as Robert Harrison, Washington himself writes that “a sailor said that a
number of people coming out of Boston have been inoculated with design of spreading
218
Ibid, volume 14, 23.
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 399.
220
Ibid, 399.
221
Ibid, 402.
222
Washington and United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission., The
writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799,
volume 4, 162.
223
Ibid, 162.
224
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 400.
219
147
�smallpox through country and camp225.” This would have caused a major problem as
most of the troops in the Continental Army were stationed near Boston at the time. On
December 4, 1775, Washington informed the President of Congress that the British were
releasing Boston civilians contagious with smallpox out of the city to make room for
military reinforcements: "By recent information…General Howe is going to send out a
number of the Inhabitants226.” At the time of this development, the fledgling country was
being controlled by the Second Continental Congress and President Peyton Randolph227.
They had been meeting since May of 1775, and had been the governing body that
originally appointed Washington to the post of Commander in Chief228. The information
on the action of the British could have been used to increase the patriotism of members of
the community. There has been evidence that bio-warfare was used outside of Boston as
well. It has been found that Sir Guy Carleton, the military governor of Canada, ordered
or condoned sending contagious victims of smallpox into enemy lines with the intention
of infecting the American forces229. It is not known whether this order was acted upon,
as it would have been an easy way to eliminate enemies.
An avid writer, John Adams was in constant contact with his wife Abigail
throughout his life. He hated to be away from her and their children. During a good
portion of the war, he was in Philadelphia while she remained home in Massachusetts
with the rest of the family. Through him, accounts of smallpox in the American forces
began to make their way to Boston. Writing at a time when inoculation was still not legal
in many parts of New England, Adams wrote to Abigail about his hopes for the people of
Massachusetts. “I hope that measures will be taken to cleanse the army at Crown Point
from the smallpox, and that other measures will be taken in New England, by tolerating
and encouraging inoculation, to render the distemper less terrible230.” He knew that the
troops arriving from New England had most likely not been exposed to the illness, and
were therefore more susceptible. By encouraging inoculation, he hoped to remedy at
least some of the cases within regiments. As the war progressed, however, the tone of the
225
Washington and United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission., The
writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799 volume
4, 145.
226
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 402.
227
http://www.history.org/almanack/people/bios/biorapey.cfm The official Colonial
Williamsburg biography.
228
Betty Burnett, The Continental Congress (The Rosen Publishing Group, 2004)
229
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 408.
230
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 7 July 1776 [electronic edition]. Adams
Family Papers: An electronic archive, MHS. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
148
�letters changed. “The smallpox is so thick in the country that there is no chance of
escaping it in the natural way. General Washington has been obliged to inoculate his
whole army. We are inoculating here (Baltimore) and at Philadelphia231.” By inoculating
at home or before they joined their group in the field, the hope was to raise a much more
capable army that had already had the disease, even if it was a less severe version. With
this information being spread throughout the colonies, Abigail wrote to John to let him
know that “the fatal effects of the smallpox in Boston have led almost every person to
consent to hospitals in every town. In many towns already around Boston the selectmen
have granted liberty for inoculation232.” However, this statement does not include the
town of Boston itself, which would not rescind the law until most everyone had already
done so. Despite the restriction placed on members of the Boston community, Abigail
wanted to take action. Without discussing it with John, but knowing that he would
approve, she had herself and the children inoculated in the summer of 1776. Knowing
that her husband would be worried, she writes to him about the condition of the children.
“Nabby had been very ill, but the eruption begins to make its appearance upon her, and
upon Johnny,” she writes a few days after the procedure. “Tommy is so well that the
Doctor inoculated him again today fearing it had not taken. Charlie has not complained
yet, tho his arm has been very sore233” at the incision site. Despite known causes of the
disease via contact with others, Abigail mentions the day after she had been inoculated,
she attended meeting in town234. This was exactly the reason why the procedure was
banned from Boston in the first place. The fear of spreading the disease was much too
great when people did not follow protocol. Nabby did almost die from smallpox, but
managed to pull through, as did the rest of the family. Even with the fear that came from
the procedure, John was very proud of her decision to have the children protected.
Conversely, the mandatory inoculations of the army were not going as well. Many of the
procedures were failing and the doctors could not understand the reason. “The Doctor’s
cannot account for the numerous failures of inoculation. I can. No physician has either
head or hands enough to attend a thousand patients. He can neither see that the matter is
good, nor that the thread is properly covered with it, nor that the incision is properly
231
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 February 1777 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An electronic archive, MHS.
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
232
Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 14 July 1776 [electronic edition], Adams
Family Papers: An electronic archive, MHS. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
233
Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 21 July 1776 [electronic edition], Adams
Family Papers: An electronic archive, MHS. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
234
Ibid.
149
�made, nor anything else235.” From information available, this would appear to be the case
as so many men required the procedure and so few could perform it. The doctors were
overwhelmed.
The end of war brought many changes in some areas, but few in others. Many
more people accepted use of inoculation, but still a large number remained weary. When
John and Abigail Adams travelled to France in 1785, Abigail wished to have some of
their servants inoculated. Just in case something was to happen, she wanted to make sure
that they were protected from the dreaded disease. On the first attempt, still in the United
States, the procedure was refused to her due to the oncoming trip. “Dr. Clark would have
inoculated her [the servant] upon her first coming but I knew not whether we should stay
here until she got through it,236” which was an intelligent move on his part. After being
inoculated, getting onboard a ship would have run the risk of infecting everyone on
board. Five months later, and safely in Paris, Abigail attempted to be inoculated again.
Unfortunately, she was informed by the physicians that “the practice is not permitted in
Paris237.”
Another population that felt the wrath of smallpox were the free black people
and slaves. Usually, the ones that were the most affected were the ones that ran away
from their plantation to be a soldier in the British army. As slaves, they were told that if
they joined the British army, at the end of the war, they would be free. Although the
British soldiers had all been inoculated or survived smallpox in their youth, they did not
take into account the non-immune slaves that were now joining their camps. Due to the
station of the blacks in the colonies at the time, they were extremely susceptible to the
illness. Once smallpox reached a new slave population, or a new collection of people
from all over the colonies that had never had the disease, it spread quickly. The situation
with infected slaves became so problematic, especially around British bases, that the only
people that would actually venture over the lines were the runaway slaves238. Regular
citizens were refusing to even bring grains and other foods to the British soldiers. These
runaway slaves could have been useful to the British forces, but instead they were usually
put into minimal jobs. Once the low level positions were full, the British were at a loss
with what to do with the remaining slaves. In many cases, they simply followed the
235
Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 20 August 1776 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An electronic archive, MHS.
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.
236
Richard Allen Ryerson, Adams Family Correspondence Volume 5(Cambridge:
Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1993) 409.
237
Ibid, volume 6, 8.
238
Ranlet, “The British, Slaves, and Smallpox in Revolutionary Virginia,” 219.
150
�troops wherever they went and had no actual job to do. Those that followed the troops in
this manner were usually the first infected with smallpox. British General Alexander
Leslie, in an attempt to lessen the strain on British forces, attempted to relinquish sick
slaves onto the unsuspecting plantation owners once they were effectively useless239.
This idea ended up working nicely since every slave owner was clamoring to get their
property returned, even if that slave was infected with smallpox240. The promises the
British made cost these men a lot of money in slave holdings. It seems very likely that
Leslie did distribute at least some ill slaves among the rebel plantations as he told
Cornwallis he would do, but there is also no evidence that germ warfare was the intent241.
It seems as though he simply wanted to remove the extra strain on British resources that
was caused by the sick slaves. However, I am sure the infection of the enemy with
smallpox was not something that he lamented. As the colonists saw it, the British forces
were followed by a wave of dying and sick free blacks and slaves. Patriot Colonel Josiah
Parker wrote “a number of negroes are left dead and dying with the smallpox in both the
country and city242.” It appears as though the British were simply abandoning those that
were too sick instead of wasting resources. This can truly be counted as a low point in
warfare. The slaves had run away because the British had promised to take care of them.
Now they were being left for dead on the side of the road. October 1781 brought official
orders from Lord Cornwallis to force sick blacks to leave British camps in order to lessen
the strain on British provisions. One patriot stated that “Negroes lie about, sick and
dying, in every stage of the smallpox243.” Those that were witness to the atrocities were
horrified by the conditions of the slaves. They also ended up being the victims.
Virginias are thought to have lost up to 30,000 slaves in 1781244, all of whom attempted
to join the British forces in a chance to fight their freedom, a large majority of who were
probably abandoned without achieving that promise.
The British
At the start of the American Revolution, the British had a distinct advantage.
England had periodic outbreaks of smallpox, allowing most people to have been exposed
during their lifetime. The British even considered smallpox a childhood illness.
However, for those that had not developed immunity, the British army routinely practiced
239
Ibid, 219.
Ibid, 219.
241
Ibid, 220.
242
Ibid, 221.
243
Ibid, 223.
244
Ibid, 224.
240
151
�inoculation245. They attempted to have the procedure done before they left for the
colonies, but in many cases, soldiers had to be inoculated in the field. One of the main
locations was Boston during the siege of 1775. The British instituted a voluntary
inoculation program during the siege and quarantined soldiers who refused to
participate246 to keep them from contracting the illness. It was done to prevent an
outbreak. By instituting the inoculation program, it protected the remainder of the British
army, and it also prevented an American attack. Washington was certainly not going to
risk that health of his soldiers to attack ailing British troops,247 especially when he had so
few able bodied men. In a way, a stalemate was created where neither side wanted to
attack for fear of catching the dreaded illness. Towards the end of the war, the soldiers
that had undergone inoculation were now immune to the disease, which proved helpful in
combat. This did not account for those that refused the procedure, however. An
inoculated person had to be kept isolated for a span of about four weeks, which would
have endangered the number of available soldiers. For this reason, the British decided
not to start an inoculation program in the field for blacks248. They believed the risk was
too great for those that had not succumbed to the illness yet.
During the British capture of Boston, inoculation took place among the army.
This was thanks in some part to Dr. John Jefferies. Jefferies was born into a well to-do
family in Boston in 1744, and graduated from Harvard in 1763. After graduation, he
studied under Boston’s best doctor, Dr. James Lloyd249. As both a prominent doctor and
citizen, Jefferies chose the loyalist side and decided to remain in Boston after it was
captured. Since he was still in Boston, he decided to not only maintain his private
practice, but he also acted as a medical advisor to both General Gage and General
Howe250. He also treated both British and American prisoners and inoculated soldiers
and civilians against the smallpox251 which was rampant through the town at the time.
Despite his best efforts, Boston had an alarming number of smallpox cases by November,
1775. This prompted General Howe to issue a mandate requiring the troops to be
245
Becker, “Smallpox in Washington's Army,” 389.
Ibid, 395.
247
Ibid, 399.
248
Ranlet, “The British, Slaves, and Smallpox in Revolutionary Virginia,” 222.
249
Philip Cash and Carol Pine, “John Jeffries and the Struggle Against Smallpox in
Boston (1775-1776) and Nova Scotia (1776-1779),” Bulletin of the History of Medicine
57, no. 1 (1983), 93.
250
Ibid, 94.
251
Ibid, 94.
246
152
�inoculated against the disease252. In the end, this proved to be beneficial as the number of
cases decreased among the troops. Due to his outstanding skills as a physician, Jefferies
was appointed director of one of the local smallpox hospitals. It is not really known why,
but on September 27, 1775, General Gage removed Jefferies from his position253.
General Howe, who took over command of the area two weeks later, reinstated him as
the director. He begins to make entries in the hospital records after this date. Eventually,
Jefferies is relocated to Nova Scotia by the British officers and given command of one of
the smallpox hospitals there. Overall, the British were relatively lucky during the
Revolution with regards to smallpox. Fewer British soldiers died from smallpox than the
Americans, but the Americans would be victorious in the end.
Edward Jenner and the Advent of Vaccination
Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and he
was the son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, vicar of Berkeley. Edward was orphaned at age
5 and went to live with his older brother. During his early school years, Edward
developed a strong interest in science and nature that continued throughout his life. At
age 13 he was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary in Sodbury, near
Bristol254. In 1764, Jenner began another apprenticeship with George Harwicke, one of
the best physicians in England at the time. During these years, he acquired a sound
knowledge of surgical and medical practices. Upon completion of this apprenticeship at
the age of 21, Jenner went to London and became a student of John Hunter, who was on
the staff of St. George's Hospital in London. Hunter was not only one of the most famous
surgeons in England, but he was also a well-respected biologist, anatomist, and
experimental scientist255. Jenner was married in 1788, and he and his wife had four
children. The Jenner family lived in the Chantry House, which became the Jenner
Museum in 1985256. Even though he was a physician, he also had a strong interest in the
world around him. In May of 1796, Edward Jenner found a young dairymaid, Sarah
Nelms, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hands and arms. She had received the
disease from milking a cow named Blossom257, who was also infected with the disease.
252
Ibid, 95.
Ibid, 96.
254
“Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination,”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/
255
Ibid.
256
Ibid.
257
Andrea Rusnock, “Catching Cowpox: The Early Spread of Smallpox Vaccination,
1798–1810,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83, no. 1 (2009): 17-36.
253
153
�When she told him that the cowpox made her incapable of getting smallpox, Jenner
decided to try an experiment. On May 14, 1796, using matter from Nelms' lesions, he
inoculated an 8-year-old boy named James Phipps258. In July of 1796, Jenner inoculated
the boy again, this time with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. With the success of
this experiment, he attempted the same procedure on volunteers. After several more
trials contributed to the information from the original, Jenner was set to publish his
findings. In 1798, he published a small booklet entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and
Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties
of England, Particularly Gloucestershire and Known by the Name of Cow Pox259. This
experiment was the beginning of vaccination, the process of which Jenner named after
the smallpox virus. The publication of his pamphlet was also the beginning of support
for vaccination, which shortly gained prominence all over the Europe and the United
States. After his discovery, Jenner built a one-room hut in his garden, which he called
the “Temple of Vaccinia”, where he vaccinated the poor for free260 in order to share his
discovery with as many people as possible. In 1800, Dr. John Haygarth of Bath,
Somerset received some cowpox lymph from Edward Jenner and sent some of the
material to Benjamin Waterhouse, professor of physics at Harvard University.
Waterhouse proved instrumental in the introduction of vaccination to New England, and
then persuaded Thomas Jefferson to attempt the practice in Virginia261.
Even with all the credit given to Edward Jenner, he was not the original person
to discover vaccination. He was, however, the first person to confer scientific status on
the procedure and to pursue its scientific investigation262. Recently, more attention has
been paid to Benjamin Jesty (1737–1816) as the first to vaccinate against smallpox.
When smallpox was present in Jesty's locality in 1774, he was determined to protect the
life of his family. Jesty decided to use material from udders of cattle that he knew had
cowpox. He did this by transferring the material with a small lancet to the arms of his
wife and two boys. After the procedure was performed, the trio of family members
remained free of smallpox, although they were exposed to the illness on numerous
occasions in later life263.
The discovery of vaccination would make huge strides in the field of medicine,
but there were problems. The practice depended heavily on transmitting not only
258
“Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination.”
Ibid.
260
Ibid.
261
Ibid.
262
Ibid.
263
Ibid.
259
154
�knowledge of the technique but, more importantly, on the availability of cowpox itself.
Because the natural occurrence of cowpox was sporadic and geographically specific,
most would-be vaccinators depended on a foreign source of cowpox lymph264. In many
cases, this was England. But, this did present another problem. The cowpox lymph now
had to make it across the ocean while remaining viable. Cowpox was transported in three
ways: in a dried state, in a fluid state, and by vaccinated individuals. The first method to
be tried was taken directly from the practice of inoculation, and it involved sending a
thread that had been soaked in cowpox lymph and then dried265. George Pearson, an
Edinburgh-trained physician to Saint George's Hospital in London, was one of the first
vaccinators to try the method using dried cowpox lymph. In 1799, he sent 200 soaked
threads taken from vaccinated patients in the London Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital,
which he then gave to medical men throughout Britain, continental Europe, and spread
among physicians266. Cowpox presented a problem in itself. Samples that had been
preserved on a Lancet had to be used within two to three days; otherwise, the lancet
rusted267. To avoid rusting, expensive lancets of gold, silver, or platinum had to be
specially made. Vaccinators also developed less costly quills and ivory points, "shaped
like the tooth of a comb" in Jenner's words, on which lymph could be collected and
transported268. The point was dipped into the lesion, and the fluid was allowed to dry.
The precious lancets and points were then stored in larger quills or wrapped in paper to
protect the cowpox matter269. James Smith, in Baltimore, also faced the "almost
insuperable difficulty of keeping the matter active" during the steamy months of July and
August. In 1803, Smith started to preserve cowpox scabs, which he would later moisten
with a drop of water prior to insertion270. This method allowed Smith to maintain a ready
supply of cowpox and also helped to avoid the difficulties associated with transportation.
It is not clear why this method was not widely adopted271. One of the most important
techniques for the maintenance of cowpox was arm to arm transfer. Once a person had
received cowpox and shows visible symptoms, the lesions could be opened and
transferred directly to another person. This remained the most popular technique until
264
Andrea Rusnock, “Catching Cowpox.” 21-22.
Ibid, 24.
266
Ibid, 24.
267
Ibid, 25.
268
Ibid, 25.
269
Ibid, 25.
270
Ibid, 26-27.
271
Ibid, 26-27.
265
155
�harvesting lymph directly from calves and heifers was developed in the 1850s and
1860s272.
Benjamin Waterhouse was born a Quaker in the American colonies. Despite the
religion of his family, he was not a practicing Quaker. When he turned 16, he was
apprenticed to a local doctor and started to participate in the medical profession. A few
years later, he moved to England so he could study medicine at the Universities located
there. By the end of the Revolution, he had made the decision to move back to the
American colonies, now the fledgling United States of America. By the time of
Waterhouse’s arrival in Boston in 1782, the city’s policy of isolation, quarantine, and
controlled inoculation was meeting with some success in reducing the number of
smallpox cases. Boston’s average death rate from this disease fell from around 300 per
100,000 before 1764 to about 100 per 100,000 in the 1790s273. He was quickly elected a
professor of medicine at Harvard University where he continued to practice. In his
wisdom, Waterhouse maintained that the smallpox miasma, under the right conditions,
could remain contagious in fresh air up to 1500 feet and possibly quite further274. He felt
this was indeed the case, and the theory would explain why the illness spread so quickly
among people in close quarters. In an attempt to combat the disease, Waterhouse wanted
to introduce the practice of vaccination to the American colonies. With the full support
of newly elected President Thomas Jefferson, Waterhouse made a strenuous effort to
obtain cowpox matter from his friends in England. After several failed attempts, he
finally received a one and a half inch piece of thread soaked with cowpox lymph and
placed tightly in a stoppered glass vial275. As he had never seen the procedure performed,
Waterhouse needed to choose a test subject. Much like Zabdiel Boylston before him, the
test subjects ended up being members of his own family. His five year old son, Daniel
Oliver, was chosen for his first vaccination, followed by his younger son Benjamin, who
was done by arm to arm transfer276. When the boys came down with a mild case of
cowpox, he considered the procedure a success and began to add more patients. In an
effort to prove the effectiveness of vaccination, Waterhouse wanted to have some of his
patients inoculated with smallpox. Although he had much to lose, Dr. William
Aspinwall, proprietor of a local inoculation hospital, generously agreed to inoculate some
of Waterhouse’s cowpox patients with smallpox. He was also present for the entirety of
272
Ibid, 29.
Philip Cash, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse: A Life in Medicine and Public Service, 1st ed.
(Science History Publications/USA, 2006), 113.
274
Ibid, 119.
275
Ibid, 124.
276
Ibid, 124.
273
156
�the illness, which gave him enough time to compare the lesions277 between the two
illnesses. He determined that they were in fact very similar. Meanwhile, problems were
still occurring with the transportation of the material, especially across the ocean, and
Waterhouse was forced to perform arm to arm transfer of the virus. In late December of
1801, he publically confessed that his vaccine’s potency had steadily grown weaker
through arm-to-arm transfer and he speculated that “the kine pox (another name for a
cow) matter became milder as it recedes from the cow, and in that process of time it gets
worn out and needs to be renewed278. This discovery had the potential to be very
damaging to the case for vaccination versus inoculation when the supply of smallpox was
fresh. Despite all the work that Waterhouse put into vaccination, it has recently become
known that he may not deserve all the credit given to him. Although he was the first to
vaccinate successfully in the United States, he was not the first to do so in the Americas.
That honor seems to belong to John Clinch of Newfoundland, a long time friend of
Jenner, who was sent cowpox matter in 1798 and began to vaccinate his children and the
surrounding community members279.
Upon learning of the procedure, Thomas Jefferson wanted to implement it on his
plantation. Cowpox matter sent by Ben Waterhouse arrived at Monticello on the 6th and
13th of August, 1801280. With the initial shipments, Jefferson was able to begin the
process of vaccinating not just his immediate family members, but his slaves and workers
as well. In a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, dated August 8, 1801, Jefferson thanks him
for the shipment of cowpox matter and states that “Dr. Wardlaw inserted six persons of
my own family281.” In reference to a question asked by Waterhouse concerning the
legality of performing the procedure, Jefferson writes that “our laws indeed have
permitted inoculation of smallpox, but under such conditions of consent of the
neighborhood282.” Several weeks later, keeping Waterhouse abreast of the developments
from his plantation, Jefferson writes that “most, however, experience no inconvenience
and have nothing but the inoculated pustule, well defined, moderately filled with matter
and hollow in the center283.” He appears to have strong preferences to this procedure
over inoculation as he continues to vaccinate his entire plantation. In September of 1801,
277
Ibid, 125.
Ibid, 137.
279
Ibid, 127-128.
280
Barbara B. Oberg, ed., Papers of Thomas Jefferson Volume 35 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2008), 34-35.
281
Ibid, 47.
282
Ibid, 47.
283
Ibid, 120.
278
157
�Jefferson receives a latter from Edward Grant, an acquaintance who had also been using
the vaccination method. He informs Jefferson of the method he used to keep the matter
fresh. “I had made use of the virus from the arms of those inoculated and found it did not
fail in a single instance284,” thereby convincing Jefferson to use arm-to-arm transfer. By
lessening the dependence on Waterhouse and England, Grant helped make vaccination a
more viable option in the United States, rather than an elite procedure involving a lot of
money. Despite the success, many people still refused to look favorably upon
vaccination, especially in Boston,285 and much like inoculation, they required sound
evidence of its abilities. Even after all the years, Boston still remained weary if having
emerging medical practices. On the other hand, Jefferson believed in the process of
vaccination so strongly that he gave some cowpox lymph to Meriwether Lewis and
William Clark to take on their explorations west of the Mississippi River. Antoine
Saugrain, the only practicing physician in St. Louis when Louisiana was purchased by the
United States from France in 1803, received some cowpox lymph from Lewis and Clark
and began to vaccinate individuals free of charge, including Native Americans286. As
President, Jefferson would start to encourage the practice as far his influence would carry
and convince many of the importance of the procedure.
Outside of both England and the United States, cowpox vaccination was also
becoming popular, thanks in most part to English physicians who decided to travel
around Europe and Asia. The first successful vaccination performed outside of England
was by Jean de Carro. In 1799, shortly after Jenner discovered vaccination, Carro
brought it to the Austro-Hungarian Empire287 and attempted to gain support of the upper
class there. He managed to be successful among the people there, as some very
influential people in Constantinople took up the cause and encouraged the practice288.
Within a year, 1000 children had been vaccinated289 and protected from the dreaded
smallpox. Joseph A. Marshall and John Walker were two English practitioners that
decided to bring the practice to the Mediterranean. After learning the procedure and
gathering the necessary materials, they began to travel290. Writing back to friends still in
England they state “it was not unusual to see, in the mornings of public inoculation at the
284
Ibid, 231.
Ibid, 680-681.
286
Andrea Rusnock, “Catching Cowpox,” 34.
287
John Z. Bowers, “The Odessey of Smallpox Vaccination,” Bulletin of the History of
Medicine 55, no. 1 (1981), 18.
288
Ibid, 18.
289
Ibid, 19.
290
Ibid, 19.
285
158
�hospital, a procession of men, women, and children conducted through the streets by a
priest carrying a cross, come to be inoculated. The common people were certain that
vaccination was a blessing sent from heaven, though discovered by one heretic and
practiced by another291.” Regardless, they were able to overlook this one minor flaw and
vaccinate themselves, conferring immunity against smallpox. In another instance, Dr.
Aubert was given the task of learning how to vaccinate in London, and then bring the
procedure back to France and Paris292. A mandate from the government to learn the
procedure would mean that more people would have access to it. The use of vaccination
would soon become one of the most important developments in the field of public health,
and it would also begin to influence entirely new areas of medicine.
Smallpox in Modern Times
Even in modern times, smallpox is still considered one of the deadliest and most
painful diseases known to mankind. For this reason, the World Health Organization
enacted a worldwide vaccination program in an attempt to eradicate smallpox from the
Earth. By May 8, 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that the world was free
of smallpox and recommended that all countries cease vaccination293. The United States
stopped vaccination in 1970, leaving almost 40 years worth of people open to contracting
the virus294. The only remaining samples of the virus are kept in at the Center for Disease
Control in Atlanta, Georgia and Vector in Siberia295. Despite public outcry, these
samples were kept so they could be studied by scientists. They are also available in the
event that more vaccine ever needed to be made. Many people feel as though these
samples should be destroyed, and the evidence against their existence is starting to
mount. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Russia was secretly working on bioterrorism
weapons involving smallpox. At a lab entitled Biopreparat, scientists were attempting to
combine smallpox with some of the worst diseases found on Earth, including Ebola and
Bubonic Plague296. As of 2002, the United States had only 15 million doses of vaccine
available, and many have probably been compromised in some way due to age and
moisture297. This leaves the human race in a very precarious position. Smallpox cases
are not a normal occurrence like they were in the eightieth century and certainly the
291
Ibid, 19.
Ibid, 19.
293
“Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination.”
294
Zimmerman and Zimmerman, Killer Germs, 226.
295
Ibid, 228.
296
Ibid, 226-227.
297
Ibid, 226-227.
292
159
�increased population would be open to devastating effects if something were to ever
happen. It is safe to say that a bio-terror attack with such an illness would cripple
nations, both economically and medically. It is also amazing to think that in the
technological world that we live in, a disease as old as smallpox can still bring about so
much fear.
Medicine and public health have certainly come a long way in the past 300
years. With the discovery of inoculation, and, eventually vaccination, the human race
was finally able to fight back against one of the worst diseases known to inhabit the
Earth. This was not without its problems, however. Religion often forbade tampering
with God’s plans, and public officials felt as though it was better to not risk exposure to
the illness in the first place. Riots occurred, laws were passing, and a war was fought, all
the while the true victor was smallpox. It is thanks to several men who were able to open
their minds to the unknown that mass inoculation and vaccination programs began.
These men can be charged with saving millions of lives over three centuries, and it still
continues today. To conquer this illness was to truly conquer one of God’s worst
creations, and for the time being, the human race is content not having to ever witness a
smallpox outbreak in their lives. It is a disease that affected all aspects of early American
lives, and was the first to have large scale public health actions taken against it. For this
reason, smallpox can easily be considered the first major medical triumph.
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���
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 2 Inhibition of Very Long Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase 3 in U87 Malignant Glioma Cells: A Potential Cancer Treatment / Kathryn M. Chepiga , Mayur Mody, Zhengtong Pei, and Dr. Paul A. Watkins -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 18 Grief of Caregivers Caring for Alzheimer’s Disease Patients / Megan Stolze -- Section III: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 42 Exoticism and Escape in the Works of Gauguin and Baudelaire / Shauna Sorensen -- 52 La Polyphonie et le Féminisme Postcolonial: L'Enfant de sable de Tahar Ben Jelloun et Persepolis de Marjane Satrapi / Kathryn Chaffee -- 64 Homemaker or Career Woman: Is There Even a Choice? / Kerry Quilty -- 74 “The Inky Lifeline of Survival”: The Discovery of Identity Through French Culture and Standardization in School Days and Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress / Kaitlyn Belmont -- 81 Jewish Identity in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: The Lives of Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, and Arnold Schoenberg / Prerna Bhatia -- 89 Behind Closed Doors / Anonymous -- 99 Terror In Algeria / Jonathan Azzara -- Invited Full Length Paper -- 114 The Spotted Death-Smallpox and the Culture of Eighteenth Century America / Amanda Gland
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Spring 2011
Volume IX, Number 2
Wagner College Press
Staten Island, New York City
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. The journal is
typically subdivided into three sections to enhance readability.
This issue is a special edition devoted entirely to the First Year Program. All papers are
representative of work performed in the 2010 Freshman Learning Communities and
Honors Seminars. They show the enthusiasm of our students and the effectiveness of
connecting courses around a central theme. This interdisciplinary approach combined
with fieldwork prepares students to address real world issues and greatly enhances their
educational experience.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Prof. Patricia Tooker, Nursing
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
Dr. Margarita Sánchez
��Table of Contents
1
Whose Life, Whose Choice? - Doctor and Patient Relations
Christina Parello
8
Martin Luther King and the Shadow Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement
Stephen Galazzo
14 Heterosexual Male Transvestites in America
Lauren M. Wagner
21 Lightness and Weight Paradox in The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
Radislav Meylikh
28 The Port Richmond Farmers’ Market Proposal
Andrew Burt
40 A Home Run for Civil Rights
Matt Cangro
47 The Moral Obligation to People in a Learning Environment
Julia Zenker
54 The Punishments of The Bacchaeans
Caroline Geling
60 The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Nothingness: Utilizing the Philosophy of
Jean-Paul Sartre to Better Understand Kundera’s Novel
Zachary Weinsteiger
66 Here, There, and Everywhere
Morgan Grubbs
70 Dissident Voices Against the Injustices of the School Experience
of the LGBT Community
Elle Brigida
79 Extracting the Spider Webs of a Subway Lost in History
Klevi Tomcini
95 The Effects of Hubris
Brenna Dean
��Whose Life, Whose Choice? - Doctor and Patient Relations
Christina Parello1
In the world of medicine and patient care, many controversial and challenging
situations often arise that concern themselves with doctor and patient relations. One issue
that has been debated and discussed for decades with no conclusion or end in sight is that
of physician assisted dying. Each person who is questioned about the moral aspects
surrounding this topic has a different opinion. Because physician-assisted dying is
usually separated into the three different types (active euthanasia, passive euthanasia, and
assisted suicide), this issue gives rise to more problems and challenges than meets the
eye. Most doctors are opposed to euthanasia because they see it as going against the
main goal of their profession and what the Hippocratic Oath calls upon them to live by.
On the other hand, patients living with terminal illnesses or excruciating pain may request
death because they believe their life is no longer worth living. However, the biggest
dilemma that stems from this issue is the question of who can ultimately make the
decisions concerning the lives of patients, the doctors or the patients themselves? Is it
permissible for doctors to deny their patients their one last wish because of the
physician’s own moral beliefs and medical knowledge?
Many works of literature are centered on this issue of euthanasia, but none
attempt to answer this question quite like the play entitled Whose Life is it Anyway?. The
author, Brian Clark, divulges his answer in the plot line and conclusion of this play. He
presents the point of view of the patient in the character of Ken Harrison, the traditional
view of the physician opposed to euthanasia in the character of Dr. Emerson, and the
view of the sympathetic doctor in that of Dr. Scott. Through the course of the story the
readers are able to take all these clashing beliefs and decide for themselves whose side
they are truly on. With the ending of the play, Clark makes it apparent that he agrees
with Ken, Dr. Scott, and Judge Millhouse in believing that the ultimate decision should
be left in the hands of the patient.
Ken Harrison was paralyzed from the neck down after a horrific car accident six
months prior to the setting of the story. Before this event, Ken was a celebrated sculptor,
engaged to be married to the love of his life, and living happily and successfully.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. John Danisi (Philosophy) for LC 9: Minds, Machines,
and Human Beings.
1
�However, in losing the use of such a large percentage of his body, Ken also lost this life
and everything that made him who he was as a person. Upon realizing that his life would
never be the same, Ken also realized that he would never truly be happy again. He would
never be able to make love with his future wife; he would never be able to have a family
with her; and, probably the worst thing yet, he would never be able to sculpt again. To
Ken, sculpting was everything, his livelihood and personhood revolved around
expressing his ideas and thoughts through his hands.
The play begins with a dialogue between Ken Harrison and his nurses, through
which one immediately recognizes Ken as being a very flirtatious and unreserved man
who says anything that comes into his head. With a number of Ken’s lines in the play,
the reader not only immediately picks up on the unique personality of this character but
also realizes how much his accident and his current position are affecting him: “Ken:
Hello, I was just practicing lying here” and “Dr. Emerson: How are you this morning?
/Ken: As you see, racing around all over the place” (Clark, 15). With these quotes, it is
apparent that Ken handles his situation with humor and sarcasm, but it is obvious that he
is truly beginning to realize the gravity of his situation. Indeed, he is depressed and
admits it.
Having been a patient at the hospital for such an extended period of time, Ken is
very friendly with many of the nurses, doctors, and other workers there. However, he
does not seem to get along with his primary physician, Doctor Emerson; they both have
different views on the way in which Mr. Harrison’s bodily condition should be dealt with
and who should make the decisions concerning his treatment. Dr. Emerson says to Dr.
Scott: “Dr Emerson: No Clare, a doctor cannot accept the choice for death; he’s
committed to life. I haven’t the time for doubts. I get in there; do whatever I can to save
life. I’m a doctor, not a judge” (51). Here we see the high standards Dr. Emerson lives by
and the ways in which he believes he is supposed to act as a doctor.
Believing that it is his duty to protect the life of his patients at all costs, Dr.
Emerson goes as far as forcefully injecting Ken with Valium, despite his objections:
“Ken: Don’t stick that damn thing in me! /Dr. Emerson: There… It’s over now. /Ken:
Doctor, I didn’t give you permission to stick that needle in me. Why did you do it? /Dr.
Emerson: It was necessary…” (27). From this excerpt, it is obvious that Dr. Emerson is
the type of physician who would go to any length in order to do what he believes to be
the right thing for his patients, regardless of their requests, wishes, and rights. He
believes in following the Hippocratic oath to a tee and saving lives no matter what the
circumstances may be.
However, Ken holds a completely opposite view. Having been lying completely
2
�paralyzed in the same hospital, room, and bed for over six months, he comes to the
conclusion that he no longer desires to live the rest of his life in this way. He believes
that his life is over, that he is already dead, and that, as time went on, staying as he is
would drive him into a deeper depression and could only lead to increased misery.
Ken: Of course I want to live but as far as I am concerned, I’m dead already. I
merely require the doctors to recognize the fact… Look at me here. I can do
nothing, not even the basic primitive functions. I cannot even urinate; I have a
permanent catheter attached to me. Only my brain functions unimpaired but
even that is futile because I can’t act on any conclusions it comes to” (78 and
79).
For these reasons, and some others, Ken Harrison decides he wants to be discharged from
the hospital, an action that would bring about his death. This decision brought to light the
question of whether or not it is morally acceptable for the hospital, and the doctors in it,
to grant Ken his wish.
In this situation one must remember two very important facts: every person has
a right to bodily self-determination and every patient is also a person—a person with
rights. These facts are what Ken believes doctors do not understand, and they are the
reasons for his animosity toward Dr. Emerson. Ken also believes that all health
professionals carry a certain view that leads them to overlook their patients as human
beings. While talking to one of his nurses, Ken describes that belief in more detail: “Ken:
Of course you have upset me. You and the doctors with your appalling so-called
professionalism, which is nothing more than a series of verbal tricks to prevent you
[from] relating to your patients as human beings.” With this comment, Ken makes clear
that the doctors and others in the hospital cannot see him as a person, but rather only look
upon him as their work and a patient under their control.
What Ken Harrison calls the “so- called professionalism” of those around
him can also be called the on-looker or detached point of view (Danisi). Because of the
nature of their work dealing with the patient’s body, many doctors and other healthcare
professionals work within this view in order to distance themselves from the sick or
dying patients they are faced with every day.
Mrs. Boyle: You’re very upset. /Ken: Christ Almighty, you’re doing it again.
Listen to yourself woman. I say something offensive about you and you turn
your professional cheek. If you were human if you were treating me as a human
you’d tell me to bugger off. Can’t you see that this is why I’ve decided that life
isn’t worth living? I am not human and I’m even more convinced of that by your
visit than I was before, so how does that grab you? The very exercise of your so-
3
�called professionalism makes me want to die (34).
With this excerpt, and in the circumstances found in the plot line of this play, it is
apparent that Mrs. Boyle, a medical social worker, does not view Ken in the same light as
she would a healthy, mobile person. Ken’s world and self has been covered up in the
mind of this woman, who does not find a need to consider the life Ken once lived.
According to Ken, all healthcare professionals do not strive to look past the “body” and
consider the human characteristics of the patient, but rather find it easier to view them as
nothing more than their patients. They forget the autonomy, personality, individuality,
hopes, dreams, and thoughts of each of their patients; and, as such, they make their
patients seem less like themselves (Danisi). These professionals see Ken’s personhood
confined to his body, and not in those things and people that make him who he is.
This detached way of caring for one’s patients is also apparent in the way Dr.
Scott, another doctor working on Ken Harrison’s case, handles herself when in Ken’s
presence. Ken realized that Dr. Scott never feels uncomfortable leaning over him or
touching him in any way, and confronts her about this to make his point. “Ken: I watch
you walking in the room, bending over me, tucking in your sweater. It’s surprising how
relaxed a woman can become when she is not in the presence of a man” (38). In bringing
this up, Ken attempts to show to Dr. Scott that he may not be able to act on his thoughts,
but that these thoughts still flash through his mind: “Ken: You haven’t provoked me as
you put it, but you are a woman and even though I’ve only a piece of knotted string
between my legs, I still have a man’s mind” (38). Ken is not the same man he used to be,
but nevertheless, he still has a man’s mind.
The main reason for Ken’s personhood being overlooked by the medical
community is the existing relationship between the patient and his doctors, a relationship
that can be viewed as one between unequals. What the doctors see in their patients is
seriously ill beings overcome by symptoms and diseases that need to be cured. Because
of their vast knowledge with this type of information, physicians do not take patient
opinion into consideration and believe their ideas and intelligence is key. This power
relationship revolves around the healthy and knowledgeable person presiding over that of
the diseased and ill, making physicians believe that their unilateral decisions are
necessary decisions to keep their patients alive.
The choices and decisions physicians make when dealing with their patients are
based on clinical practices and medical knowledge. They are objective decisions, whereas
the ones made by patients are subjective. These subjective decisions concern themselves
with deeper feelings and emotions, those “abstract things” that doctors many times
cannot see. Doctors don’t believe such things should be taken into account in diagnostic
4
�matters because they just hinder the care needed to keep patients alive. This is clearly
what happens in the mind of Dr. Emerson, and is displayed by the author in a dialogue
between Dr. Emerson and Dr. Scott.
Dr. Emerson: But in spite of two qualified opinions, you accept the decisions of
someone completely unqualified to make it. /Dr. Scott: He may be unqualified,
but he is the one affected. /Dr. Emerson: Ours was an objective, his a subjective
decision. /Dr. Scott: But isn’t this a case where a subjective decision may be
more valid? After all, you’re both working in the same subject- his body. Only
he knows more about how he feels. (24)
Dr. Scott is beginning to realize that they should not be going against Ken’s wishes
because it is his life and that it is his world that is being compromised. He is the one
living with this debilitating bodily condition, not the doctors. However, Dr. Emerson will
not consider anything other than what he believes and stays true to what he has always
followed: “Dr. Emerson: But he doesn’t know about the drugs and their effects. /Dr.
Scott: He can feel their effects directly. /Dr. Emerson: Makes no difference. His
knowledge isn’t based on experience of a hundred cases. He can’t know enough to
challenge our clinical decisions” (24).
The detached point of view cannot grasp Ken’s paralysis as a human reality and
how it pervades his life and world. The actions of physicians and other health
professionals are taught to adopt that point of view, which they have learned to follow
since they first started as students in medical school. What they do not seem to realize is
the fact that Ken’s personhood is not solely located in his body. His personhood consists
of his relationships, his interests, his career, his likes, his dislikes, the people cared and
loved, etc. The reality is that the paralysis is spread across his world and is not only
affecting his spinal cord. The physical ailment that he suffers from has a greater
influence on the intangible aspects of his life and his person. The reality of his paralysis
is what the physicians seem to overlook when dealing with him and other patients; they
concentrate only on those tangible things that they can perceive as licensed professionals
(Danisi).
Therefore, with this work of literature, one cannot simply look at the issue of
physician- assisted dying, but must turn to the relationship between doctors and patients.
The latter brings the question of the patient’s personhood into view. Doctors and
healthcare professionals have become accustomed to viewing those they are caring for
from the on-looker point of view, the professional view; and, as such, they diminish the
subjectivities of their patients. Ken Harrison sees that this is happening with his own
case and feels imprisoned by that view.
5
�More than anyone, Dr. Emerson does not understand that Ken views his life as
over and no longer wants to live as a paralyzed man who cannot take care of himself. In
losing the use of his body and its relationship to other people and things, Ken has lost his
life. He can no longer do those things that he had always dreamed of and made him
happy: marrying his fiancée, starting a family, and sculpting. Without these people and
things, and the fact that he cannot be with them as well as take care of himself, Ken
believes he is already dead.
However, Dr. Emerson does not take any of these things into account; he only
looks at Ken’s physical body when making the decisions to keep him alive. For this
reason, he denies Ken his wish to be discharged from the hospital. He says that it would
be against everything doctors work for if he allowed him to be discharged. Because he
refuses to view Ken as a person with a past, a person with feelings and rights, Dr.
Emerson does not believe Ken can make the decision to choose to die. Ken believes that
it is his life, and it is his privilege to make his own decisions: indeed, as a person he
possesses the right of bodily self-determination.
By way of the struggles between Ken and the doctors, this play explores the
great and disputed issue of doctor and patient relations from two different viewpoints:
that of the patient making the decisions concerning his own life and that of the doctor
wanting to uphold the Hippocratic Oath to save a human life. Seeing both sides of the
argument helps all to further understand Dr. Emerson’s and Ken Harrison’s views on the
issue. The reader learns why Ken feels his life is completed; she can sympathize with his
hardships knowing that living the rest of one’s life in a hospital bed is not satisfying
whatsoever. On the other hand, she can comprehend the doctor’s standpoint in wanting
nothing more than to live the Hippocratic Oath and to save his patient by doing
everything in his power to keep him alive.
However, the ultimate point to be made in this argument is that healthcare
professionals have a life of their own, and do not have the power to control the lives of
their patients. In Whose Life is it Anyway? that point is made obvious by Justice
Millhouse’s ruling at the conclusion of the play. Millhouse deemed Ken mentally
capable of choosing the path he wanted his future to follow, even though Ken’s choice to
be discharged would lead to a dead end. Millhouse states:
However, I am satisfied that Mr. Harrison is a brave and cool man who is in
complete control of his mental faculties and I shall therefore make an order for
him to be set free.
6
�In the end, Dr. Emerson has no authority over Ken, nor authority to overrule Justice
Millhouse’s decision. Dr. Emerson is forced to recognize Ken’s subjectivity and
autonomy as well as to grant Ken’s wish to be discharged.
Works Cited
Clark, Brian. Whose Life Is It Anyway? Woodstock, Illinois: Dramatic, 1979. Print.
Danisi, John. Class Lecture Notes – Medical Ethics, Fall Semester, 2010.
7
�Martin Luther King and the Shadow
Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement
Stephen Galazzo1
The name Martin Luther King, Jr. is synonymous with the civil rights
movement. It is almost impossible to decouple the man from the movement. When
Americans speak about the civil rights movement they invariably summon images of
massive demonstrations led by Dr. King. This universal image has been implanted in our
collective conscious so deeply that one would swear that the civil rights movement
sprang upon the American landscape fully formed in the early 1960’s. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The movement actually had very deep roots dating back as far as
the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Years before King ever entered the battle, poor
men and women taking great personal risks shaped the civil rights movement. The hero
worship that was directed at King infuriated some because they felt that many of Dr.
King's victories were the result of the hard work of those who had gone before him, and
those who fought in the trenches without the benefit of headlines and television cameras.
One of the shadow dwellers was Bayard Rustin. (Anderson, 262) Although he was one of
the principal architects of King's strategy of nonviolent protest and the main organizer of
the 1963 March on Washington his sexual, political, and religious orientation made it
impossible for him to assume a leadership position within the movement. Others, such as
Malcolm X were eager to challenge King’s leadership with opposing ideologies.
Malcolm X categorically rejected almost all of King’s principles from desegregation to
non-violent protest. Malcolm X himself said,
"The goal has always been the same, with the approaches to it as different as
mine and Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent marching, that dramatizes the
brutality and the evil of the white man against defenseless blacks. And in the
racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the
"extremes" in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a
fatal catastrophe first -- "non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called "violent" me."
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Lori Weintrob (History) and Dr. Stephen Preskill
(Education) for LC20 entitled From Violence to Nonviolence:The Quest for Justice.
8
�Despite an abundance of capable leaders, it was the charismatic King with his powerful
oratory skills, photogenic countenance, and dedication to non-violent protest that
emerged as the icon of the civil rights movement.
A number of historic moments in the civil rights struggle have been used to
illustrate why Martin Luther King, Jr. became the dominant force in the civil rights
movement. However, the most generally recognized is the Montgomery bus boycott in
1955. Rosa Parks triggered the Montgomery bus boycott when she refused to obey a
white bus driver who demanded she give up her seat to a white man. When police
arrested Parks for refusing to move, activist JoAnn Robinson, of the Women’s Political
Council, and E.D. Nixon, President of the local branch of the NAACP, persuaded a group
of black ministers to launch a bus boycott. (Metcalf ,274-277) The idea being that the
black people in Montgomery should refuse to use the buses until passengers were
completely integrated. Young Martin Luther King, who had recently become pastor at the
local Baptist Church, played a key role in organizing the boycott. King was joined by
other campaigners for civil rights, including Ralph David Abernathy and perhaps most
significantly, Bayard Rustin. Rustin appreciated the boycott's significance and King's
potential. (Cone, 76) He immediately traveled to Montgomery to meet King and offered
his assistance. (Emilio, 226)
Unlike King, Rustin was no novice when it came to organizing protests. On
April 9, 1947, Bayard Rustin and the Committee on Racial Equality (CORE) decided to
try to force the South to comply with the 1946 Supreme Court decision in Irene Morgan
v. Virginia. The ruling prohibited segregation as it related to interstate transportation.
(Cone, 40) Rustin, along with an integrated group of passengers, boarded buses in
protest; black protesters took the front seats and white protesters sat in the rear. The
protesters were arrested and jailed, and some were even sentenced to hard labor in chain
gangs. These actions, collectively called "The Journey of Reconciliation," provided a
blueprint for the Montgomery bus boycott as well as a model for the Freedom Riders of
the 1960’s.
During the Montgomery bus boycott, King was arrested and his house was
firebombed. Other leaders involved in the boycott also suffered from harassment and
intimidation, but the protest continued. For over a year, the black population of
Montgomery, Alabama walked to work or obtained rides via a meticulously coordinated
ride-sharing system. Eventually, lost revenue and a November 13, 1956 Supreme Court
ruling forced the Montgomery Bus Company to accept integration. The following month
the buses in Montgomery were desegregated.
9
�King was a quick study, and his success with the bus boycott encouraged him to
become more active in the civil rights movement. By 1957, Rustin had become one of
King’s key speechwriters and advisers. He urged King to capitalize on the boycott's
success by creating a new organization dedicated to advancing the cause of human rights
in the South through mass activism. Rustin drafted the founding documents of what
would become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to fight
segregation and achieve civil rights. Although Rustin would have liked to administer the
SCLC or otherwise serve in an ongoing open basis, that possibility was precluded by his
homosexuality. More precisely, objections to his homosexuality and fears that scandal
would fall on King and the new organization prevented Rustin from being a more visible
force for change. Instead, Rustin generated publicity in positive ways. He was the ideal
organizer, he wrote speeches and pamphlets, organized car pools, ran effective meetings
and even composed songs about the movement
Confronting the ongoing sexual bias from within the movement was difficult for
Bayard Rustin. Although he suffered harsh discrimination because of his sexual
orientation, he continued to fight the biases during the Civil Rights Movement using what
he had learned from Gandhi. He fought back, peacefully. It was Rustin who advised
Martin Luther King, Jr. on Gandhian tactics.
When King began the Montgomery bus boycott, he had not personally
committed himself to the principles of non-violence. During the boycott, white violence
became increasingly focused on King personally and armed guards surrounded his home.
In an effort to protect himself and his family King had gone so far as to apply for a permit
to carry a gun. When Rustin nearly sat on a loaded gun that King also kept in his house,
Rustin quickly persuaded the boycott leaders to adopt complete nonviolence as a tactic.
Rustin advised King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence.
In 1959, King went on a month long visit to India. Upon his return King wrote,
“I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance is the most potent
weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” From that point on
King embraced non-violence as a “total commitment” and a way of life. King came to
believe that nonviolence was love expressed politically, and that love was the most
powerful force in the world. Because many people believed that non-violence was the
same as doing nothing King repeatedly stressed the active dimensions of nonviolence.
Non-violence was only passive in that it refused to inflict physical harm on others.
Nonviolence was not a method for cowards. It could only be employed by people
unafraid to suffer for the cause of justice. Nonviolence resists evil but it refuses to
commit evil; it eliminates hate from the hearts of those who are committed to it. King
10
�was convinced that non-violence was the only way blacks would ever achieve justice in
America. Nonviolence bestows courage and self-respect to oppressed people who were
once consumed by fear and low self-esteem. Violence he claimed would only get black
people killed and give whites a justification for violent retaliation. Of course, it was much
easier to advocate nonviolence when there were concrete victories and few serious
challenges to its practice. One critic of both King and non-violence as a strategy who
himself became a powerful and influential leader was none other than Malcolm X.
During the 1960’s the issue of violence and nonviolence was hotly debated in
the African-American community. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X respectively
were the poster children for the debate. Too often, their respective views were reduced to
caricature with King’s supporters misrepresenting Malcolm X as the “messiah of hate.”
In turn, Malcolm X’s followers often referred to King as an Uncle Tom pacifist.
Malcolm X was infuriated when whites urged blacks to follow Martin Luther
King, embrace nonviolence, and reject violence in any form.(Metcalf, 335-336) Malcolm
could hardly contain his rage as he pointed out the contradictions between what whites
advised blacks to do and what they did themselves. He claimed that whites did not apply
to themselves the same moral logic they urged upon blacks. Malcolm regarded them as
the worst hypocrites on the planet. Malcolm did not advocate violence; he advocated selfdefense. He believed that the right of self-defense was essential if blacks were ever to get
their freedom in America. Malcolm saw nonviolence as an absurd philosophy, one that
whites would never adopt for themselves. He never understood why King embraced it.
How could blacks be regarded as human beings if they could not defend themselves?
Malcolm said, "Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend
himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."
It is ironic that the Birmingham, Alabama campaign, considered by historians as
one of Martin Luther King’s greatest successes, was the perfect illustration of Malcolm‘s
criticism. In the spring of 1963, King and the SCLC planned a series of peaceful direct
action marches through the city of Birmingham. While King cautioned the demonstrators
to practice non-violence, he knew that "Bull" Connor, the head of the police, was a
notorious racist and a hothead to boot. King counted on Connor reacting with force
against the peaceful protestors thus bringing attention to the movement and forcing
federal intervention. King succeeded beyond his wildest expectation when Connor turned
police dogs and fire hoses on peacefully protesting children. The images of bleeding and
battered children were splashed across newspapers and televisions nationwide bringing
the sympathy of the nation to Birmingham. (Auerbach, 2)
11
�Encouraged by the success in Birmingham a massive March on Washington was
planned for the summer of 1963. Rustin one of the principal architects said, “credit for
organizing the March on Washington should go to "Bull Connor, his police dogs, and his
fire hoses." On August 28, 1963 250,000 people marched peacefully down Constitution
and Independence Avenues and stopped in front of the Lincoln Memorial for songs,
prayer, and speeches. The event was broadcast live to an audience of millions, and the
huge crowd was held spellbound as Martin Luther King stepped to the microphone to
deliver his incomparable “I Have a Dream" speech. (Cone, 113)
Far larger than previous demonstrations for any cause, the march became the high
point of the Civil Rights Movement. It had an obvious impact, on the passage of civil
rights legislation and on nationwide public opinion. President Kennedy was initially
against the march believing it would trigger violence and ultimately do more harm than
good. However, at the end of the day Kennedy met with all the organizers of the march
and proclaimed the march a great success.
Besides the SCLC, the older, more conservative NAACP and the NUL
sanctioned the march. In addition, white supporters such as labor leader Walter
Reuther and Jewish, Catholic, and Presbyterian officials attended. Also, in attendance
as an uninvited observer was Malcolm X. Following the march, Malcolm said that, in
terms of the excitement and degree of good feelings gained, he could not understand
why blacks were so excited about a demonstration “run by whites in front of a statue
of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like us when he
was alive.”
Despite criticism of militants like Malcolm X, the March on Washington was a
major milestone in the fight for freedom and the biggest event of the civil rights
movement. The march was instrumental in gathering support for the Kennedy
Administration’s proposed civil rights bill. Unfortunately, Kennedy was assassinated
before the bill was passed. Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president, was able to get the
legislation passed and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law. The March on
Washington helped to make this monumental legislation possible.
People recognized King as the symbolic icon of the civil rights movement because
of his extraordinary leadership abilities and great personal appeal. King was able to
successfully communicate his ideals in such a way that many other activists before him
could not. By sharing his ideologies with others through speeches and writings such as
“Letters from a Birmingham Jail” King’s powerful words and calming demeanor sparked
the collective conscience. Those who heard him were inspired to trust in King’s methods
to create reform through non-violent means. Despite many years worth of prior
12
�experience in social activism Bayard Rustin was not a universally appealing leader for
the civil rights movement. Ironically his religious, political, and sexual orientation would
prove a handicap in developing support for a movement based on equality. Rustin was
well aware that his personal choices would negatively impact the advancement of the
movement so he unselfishly stepped into the shadows and allowed King to emerge into
the spotlight. (Emilio, 226) Malcolm X was also an unsatisfactory candidate for the
leader of the movement. He was a very polarizing figure and was unable to bridge the
divide that existed through out the country. His philosophy was by its very nature
divisive and unlike King’s philosophy failed to garner wide spread support. All these
aspects allowed King to outshine his contemporaries and emerge as the embodiment of
civil rights in the 1960s.
Works Cited
Anderson, Jervis. Bayard Rustin. Troubles I've Seen: A Biography. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1998. Print.
Auerbach, Jerold S. “Means and Ends in the 1960s”, Society 42, No. 6
(September2005): 9-13.
Cone, James H. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991. Print.
Emilio, John. Lost prophet: The life and times of Bayard Rustin. Chicago: University Of
Chicago Press, 2004. Print.
Metcalf, George, R. Black Profiles. McGraw-Hill Book Company. New York, 1968
13
�Heterosexual Male Transvestites in America
Lauren M. Wagner1
Transvestism is a commonly misunderstood behavior in the United States. Transvestism,
or cross-dressing, is the behavior in which a heterosexual man dresses as a woman for
brief periods of time, commonly for a feeling of sexual satisfaction. In the past,
transvestism was thought to be a psychological problem, but it is a behavior that a large
number of heterosexual men posses. This behavior is not widely accepted, mostly because
it is not fully understood. The act of cross-dressing is most frequently associated with
homosexuality and transgenderism, when in reality, it is a completely different behavior
and has no relation to those genders. There are two general reasons for why
heterosexual men may feel the desire to cross-dress; the feminine clothing is sexually
arousing to the man, or the man is aroused by the idea of being portrayed as a woman.
Because transvestism is so misunderstood, many men who cross-dress feel they do not fit
into their society and lead troublesome lives.
Each individual human being possesses his or her own unique personality and
set of behaviors. Many personality and behavioral traits may be found among a large
number of people. However, there are also behavioral traits that are seen as uncommon.
Although there may be a significant portion of the human population that takes part in a
specific behavior, the behavior may be viewed as strange or unusual. An example of a
commonly misunderstood behavior is transvestism. Transvestism can be defined as the
condition in which a person has the fetishism to cross-dress to confirm his or her belief of
being both feminine and masculine (Beatrice, 1985). More specifically, male crossdressing is a misunderstood behavior found amongst heterosexual men in the United
States. In the past, research studies were done, the continuous desire to repeatedly dress
up as the opposite sex was seen as a psychological disorder. However, transvestism is not
a disorder. Transvestism is a behavior that is largely misunderstood, and transvestites
often have a problematic time being accepted.
Transvestism is not fully accepted into society because it is not an understood
behavior. The confusion between gender and sex is the reason the act of cross-dressing is
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Steve Jenkins (Psychology) for LC16 entitled Mind,
Body and Culture.
14
�so difficult for people to understand (Garber, 1992). A transvestite, or cross-dresser, is
specifically referred to as a heterosexual man who persistently dresses in women’s
clothing (Blanchard, Racansky, & Steiner, 1986). Transvestism differs significantly from
other gender related terms, such as homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual (Prince, 2005).
Very few males that cross-dress are homosexual or bisexual. The majority of transvestites
are strictly heterosexual (Kholos, 1993). One of the many distinctions that a transvestite
has from being homosexual or bisexual is that cross-dressing actually interferes with sex
life (Garber, 1992). As a heterosexual man, dressing as a women does not attract the
heterosexual woman that the man desires. Therefore, transvestites eventually need to
“unmask” themselves, whereas a bisexual or homosexual would be attracting their
desired partner by cross-dressing (Garber, 1992). According to Prince (2005), many case
studies of cross-dressing frequently fail to show that transvestites desire to engage in any
sort of male-with-male sexual activity. However, people still tend to view transvestism as
“masked” or “latent” homosexuals, despite the fact that transvestites are fully aware that
they are heterosexual. Transvestism is characterized by the one simple wish to dress in
clothing of the opposite sex; it has no particular association with homosexuality, and does
not create a lasting desire to belong to the opposite sex (Gosselin, 1980).
Transvestites are most commonly confused with the transsexual. A transsexual
is a person who cross-dresses as the opposite sex, but lives as the other sex permanently
(Prince, 2005). Unlike transsexuals, a transvestite does not feel more natural as a woman
than a man, or vice versa (Gosselin, 1980). Transsexuals may or may not have gone
through operative stages, but they differ tremendously from transvestites for this reason.
Transvestites have no desire to change sex physicality (Gosselin, 1980). Prince (2005)
states that transsexuals are considered homosexual because they are attracted to the same
sex that they biologically are. A very important distinction between transsexuals and
transvestites is that transsexuals wish to have their genitalia changed, while transvestites
do not. According to Beatrice (1985), transvestites do not wish to have sex reassignment
surgery. Transvestites value having their male genitalia and do still engage in sexual
activity when not cross-dressing; they do not want their genitalia removed (Prince, 2005).
The fact that cross-dressers have no desire to change their bodies is also reiterated by
Garber (1992). Another distinction between transvestites and transsexuals is that
transvestites only act feminine at times of cross-dressing (Stroller, 1971). Transsexuals
act as the opposite sex the majority of the time, while transvestites for the majority of the
time “go back” to their masculine ways. Also, the desire for cross-dressing for
transvestites comes from a sexual attraction to women’s clothing. The desire to crossdress for transsexuals comes from the fact that they feel that they are more of a woman
15
�than they are a man; they feel they were born the wrong sex (Stroller, 1971). Stroller
(1971) states that just because of the common desire to cross-dress, transvestites and
transsexuals are wrongly mistaken for each other and extremely misunderstood. The
differences between transvestites and transsexuals are found behaviorally,
psychologically, and must be studied as two completely separate behaviors. Overall, the
biggest factor that separates transvestites from transsexuals is that transvestites only want
to seem, not actually be.
Then what exactly is a transvestite? According to Gosselin (1980), a “true”
transvestite is a heterosexual male that is confident about his masculinity, although he
may feel that he does not have as much as a non-cross-dressing heterosexual. “True”
transvestites cross-dress frequently and may wear women’s attire underneath their male
clothing. Transvestites feel the need to be accepted as women, but do not actually wish to
become so. Cross-dressing is used as a relaxation mechanism, relief of gender
discomfort, or sexual arousal. Most importantly, a “true” transvestite must be
heterosexual in orientation (Prince, 2005). In addition, both Garber (1992) and Prince
(2005) suggest that a transvestite is more concerned with the social aspect of being a
woman rather than the physical attributes. According to Prince (2005), there are three
types of women: the sexual woman, the psychological woman, and the social woman.
The sexual woman is the type of woman that is physically and physiologically different
from a man. Her sexual behavior differs from heterosexual men and homosexual women
and men. The psychological woman refers to women’s “special” attitudes and capabilities
of the mind that differ from men. Prince gives examples such as sensitivity, emotional
nature, virtues of tenderness, love of children, changeableness, intuition, consideration,
helpfulness, lack of aggression, and more. The psychological woman represents the
mental and emotional attitudes that an individual feels. The social woman deals with
attitudes and relations with other females or males, and also with the attitudes and
relations in the society towards women. Prince states that homosexuals choose to act as
both the psychological woman and the social woman. Transsexuals have the desire to be
all three women. However, transvestites only have the desire to be the social woman. A
transvestite desires to dress, act, and go out in public as a woman and to be accepted by
society as a woman. According to Prince, a “true” transvestite only wishes to be the
social woman because to him, cross-dressing and behaving socially is as far as he could
go. If he wished to act as anything other than the social woman, he would be considered
either homosexual or transsexual.
Why cross-dress? Cross-dressing can be erotically arousing to many
transvestites (Blanchard, Racansky, & Steiner, 1986). Therefore, cross-dressing can also
16
�be defined as a behavior due to fetishism. Blanchard, Racansky, and Steiner (1986)
performed an experiment in which they measured penile blood volumes of heterosexual
males, some cross-dressers and some not, during which the researchers described crossdressing and other neutral sexual activities. Results indicated that heterosexual male
transvestites tended to respond with penile blood volumes higher than non-transvestites
when discussing cross-dressing. These results suggests that there must be some level of
arousal for transvestites when cross-dressing. Blanchard, Racansky, and Steiner also
found evidence that the feeling of arousal decreases with age. However, they believe that
the feeling of arousal does not decrease, but becomes subconscious. The results had also
indicated that some of the transvestites were unaware of the arousal they were
experiencing when discussing cross-dressing. A cross-dresser’s strong desire to see
himself and have others see him as a woman may cause the feeling of arousal to become
subconscious. This leads to the belief that awareness of arousal may ruin a transvestite’s
self-image of being a woman (Blanchard, Racansky, & Steiner, 1986). In contrast to this
study, Blanchard, Clemmensen, and Steiner (1987) found evidence to believe that the
majorities of heterosexual transvestites have been able to acknowledge the presence of
some type of erotic arousal related to cross-dressing. They found that the incidence of
fetishistic arousal was most likely underestimated by the cross-dressers, and possibly
ignored in order to maintain the self-image of being a woman (Blanchard, Clemmensen,
& Steiner, 1987). Garber (1992) also suggests the idea that transvestites often ignore the
unconscious eroticism of their “self-transformations”. In addition, Thomas J. Ryan
(2005) believes that there are two different types of transvestites, or reasons for crossdressing. The first typically begins with trying on one or two pieces of women’s clothing
at an adolescent age. The type of men that start off this way tend to begin cross-dressing
because they feel sexually excited by women’s clothing. As they get older, the arousal
begins to wear off, but the desire to cross-dress still continues. Now the reason for crossdressing is to be able to completely pass as a woman. The other type of transvestite, as
Ryan states, is the intermittent cross-dresser, a man who thinks of himself as a phallic
woman, or a woman with male genitalia. An intermittent cross-dresser is still sexually
aroused by women’s clothing, but always considers himself to be a man, no matter what
type of clothing he is wearing.
Transvestism can also be viewed as a sexual fetish. Traditionally, fetishism
occurs when the “sexual goal” is a body part, fabric, or inanimate object, as opposed to
the human being (Gosselin, 1980). A “fabric fetishist”, or cross-dresser, will dress as
completely as possible in his favorite female clothing, often multi-layering, until he is at
the stage in which the material turns him on (Gosselin, 1980). Gosselin (1980) also states
17
�that fetishistic practices such as cross-dressing are more frequently done by people who
live alone because they are free to do what pleases them as much as they want. The crossdresser’s fetishism is not just the women’s clothing or material, but seeing themselves
dressed in the clothing (Gosselin, 1980). A pioneer of the study of sexuality, Magnus
Hirschfeld, argued that transvestites’ dominant sexual urges were focused on themselves
dressed in women’s clothing, not on another person, no matter their sex (Bullough,
1993). In summary, according to Gosselin (1980), a fetishistic transvestite dresses
periodically in female clothing; the clothing acts as a fetishistic object and produces
feelings of sexual arousal. The transvestite does not wish to completely be a woman, but
has a fair desire to act as one in certain instances. The transvestite may be mimicking a
particular type of woman depending upon his chosen attire, such as the desire to be
adored, to be sexually attracted to, or just noticed. According to Prince (2005), how a
man is raised influences what type of woman he chooses to mimic. A young male may
develop the desire to behave as a particular female in his life at an early age. For
example, a cross-dresser may be influenced by his mother, sister, aunt, a neighbor, or
someone in the public eye, like a celebrity. This relates to Prince’s theory of the three
different types of women; whomever becomes a man’s “role model” deciphers which
type of woman he becomes or will behave like, ultimately determining what kind of
sexual identity he gives himself. Transvestites still feel masculine, live as men, and
generally reject any ideas of sex changes. However, many have guilty feelings about
cross-dressing and those feelings may build up and begin to cause trouble.
Because transvestism is such a misunderstood behavior, many transvestites are
forced to lead “double lives.” Because lifestyles of cross-dressing are not typical, they are
not generally acceptable. Therefore, phobias and discomfort of cross-dressers exist
(Lance, 2002). Many cross-dressers become self-conscious about their gender behaviors
because of the society’s reactions towards them (Beatrice, 1985). Research evaluated by
Beatrice (1985) showed that heterosexual transvestites, along with pre and post-operative
transsexuals, had a very low psychological idea of self-acceptance for themselves.
Because transvestites feel that it is difficult for them to be accepted into society as
women, one of the ultimate goals of cross-dressing is to be able to “pass” in public
(Kholos, 1993). Going out in public means something different for each transvestite. For
some, passing in public is going to a restaurant and being treated like a woman. For
others, it may only mean walking around the block at three o’clock in the morning in
women’s clothing for fear of being seen and rejected (Kholos, 1993).
Reasons for cross-dressing did not begin because of a psychological disorder,
but transvestism may result in psychological issues due to degradation from society.
18
�Many transvestites develop psychological issues because they feel they have “reared off
course” from what society accepts as acceptable gender behavior (Kholos, 1993). Kholos,
who interviewed many transvestites and their female spouses, discusses that crossdressers tend to feel guilty and confused because they know that the activities they enjoy
partaking in are not acceptable male behaviors to society. Many heterosexual
transvestites are, or have been, married (Beatrice, 1985). According to Kholos (1993),
some transvestites who are happily married never tell their wives about their fetish. On
the contrary, in some cases, wives were so supportive of their husbands’ behaviors that
the secret bonded them closer together (Garber, 1992). Despite some success stories,
cross-dressers let very few people know about their cross-dressing choices, or they do not
let anyone know at all. In addition, Kholos states that many transvestites agree that the
desired woman would be one who will become acknowledged to and respect crossdressing and would believe in the marriage without reservation. A large number of
transvestites have had the desire to cross-dress for a long time, but felt forced to keep it a
personal secret (Blanchard, Clemmensen, & Steiner, 1987). In the data analyzed by
Blanchard, Clemmensen, and Steiner (1987), heterosexual males would begin to crossdress in secrecy as soon as they felt the desire to cross-dress, as opposed to homosexual
males who were very open about cross-dressing. Many transvestites feel that they are
forced to live with the idea that they are living a double life and must keep it a secret.
Although transvestism is not an extremely uncommon behavior, it is
misunderstood among the American population. Transvestism, differing immensely from
homosexuality or transgenderism, is the act of dressing as the opposite sex. Whether the
act of cross-dressing is meant for relaxation, anxiety relief, or sexual arousal, the
heterosexual men that cross-dress value their masculinity and femininity. Unfortunately,
because of the lack of knowledge of transvestism, many cross-dressers are forced to keep
their behaviors secret in fear of being discouraged by society. Therefore, many
transvestites are forced to lead a double life. Transvestism is not a psychological disorder,
but a behavior that is largely misunderstood.
Works Cited
Beatrice, J. (1985). A psychological comparison of heterosexuals, transvestites,
preoperative transsexuals, and postoperative transsexuals. The Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease, 173, 358-365.
Blanchard, R., Clemmensen, L. H., Steiner, B. W. (1987). Heterosexual and homosexual
gender dysphoria. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 16, 139-152.
19
�Blanchard, R., Racansky, I. G., Steiner, B. W. (1986). Phallometric detection of
fetishistic arousal in heterosexual male cross-dressers. The Journal of Sex Research, 22,
452-462.
Bullough, V., Bullough, B. (1993). Cross dressing, sex, and gender. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Garber, M. B. (1992). Vested interests; cross-dressing & cultural anxiety. New York &
London: Routledge.
Gosselin, C., Wilson, G. (1980). Sexual variations; fetishism, sadomasochism, and
transvestism. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Kholos, D. (1993). Construction of masculinity: a look into the lives of heterosexual male
transvestites. Feminism & Psychology, 3, 374-380.
Lance, L. M. (2002). Acceptance of diversity in human sexuality: will the strategy
reducing homophobia also reduce discomfort of cross-dressing? College Student Journal,
36(4), 598-602.
Prince, C. V. (2005). Homosexuality, transvestism, and transsexuality: reflections on
their etiology and differentiation. International Journal of Transgenderism, 8, 17-20.
Ryan, T. J. (2005). Clothes maketh the man: transvestism, masculinity, and
homosexuality. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 22, 57-69.
Stroller, R. J. (1971). Transsexualism and transvestism. Psychiatric Annals, 1, 60-72.
20
�Lightness and Weight Paradox in The Unbearable
Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Radislav Meylikh1
Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is often read as a philosophical
account through which Kundera explores how his characters struggle to find out the true
meaning of life in the face of “unbearable lightness.” Kundera uses philosophers, such as
Parmenides and Nietzsche to pose an argument of lightness versus weight. He effectively
associates each of his characters with either lightness or weight. He compares Tomas and
Sabina to light, while Franz and Tereza are compared to weight. By using the recurring
theme of lightness and weight, Kundera is able to show how each of his characters
struggles to find the meaning of life. Initially, Tomas is a light character, but becomes
heavier as he accepts the burdens of Tereza. Likewise, Franz who saw his whole life as
heavy, joined the Grand March in hope of finding the meaning of his life, but is instead
brought to an early death, which made him become light. Clearly none of the four
characters in the book are able to find a true meaning of life. Therefore, lightness and
weight can be seen as a dichotomy as each character fails to find his/her true meaning of
life.
Nietzsche was a German philosopher who claimed that everything that occurs
does so not only once, but infinitely many times (Small 585). In one of his works, The
Gay Science he develops an existential idea called the “eternal return”: “This life as you
now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times
more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought
and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you,
all in the same succession,” he wrote in a section of The Gay Science called the Greatest
Weight (Ridley 19). Through this idea of eternal return, Nietzsche asserts that the world
is a recurring cycle that repeats “ad infinitum” (Kundera 1). The world will continue to
move in a circle as every person relives his/her life over and over again.
If the world recurs infinite amount of times, then the weight of unbearable
responsibility lies heavy on every move we make (Kundera 5). Nietzsche calls his idea of
eternal return the heaviest of burdens because a life that repeats itself has meaning and
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley (English) for EN291: Freshman Honors
Literature Seminar.
21
�significance. Nietzsche compares eternal return to a burden because the past can be seen
as weight, “a stone” (Ridley 22). You cannot change anything that is already done in the
past. In the words of Rideley, “You cannot roll away the stone. But you can at least bring
that stone aboard as something you have chosen” (22). Therefore, eternal return can be
compared to weight because every action that is done is considered to be critical.
Kundera wrote “The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's
most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth,
the more real and truthful they become” (5). Thus, if life is considered to be heavy then
the heavier someone’s life is the more meaning there is to it.
Conversely, Kundera disagrees with Nietzsche. Instead, he believes that men
have only one opportunity in life. He argues that, “Human time does not turn in a circle;
it runs ahead in a straight line” (Kundera 298). If a person’s life only occurs once, then
there is no responsibility or meaning in life. In fact, life can even be seen as being
pointless because what happens but once might as well not have happened at all (Kundera
8). People will not be able to judge whether what they did in their lives was the right
choice or take any responsibility for their actions. Therefore, according to Kundera “the
absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, to
take leave of the earth and its earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as
free as they are insignificant” (5). Unlike weight, every action in a light person has no
meaning or significance because their lives only occur once and never repeat again.
Therefore, a light person is lighter than air because they do not search for weight or
importance in anything they do. They simply soar into the heights without any weight
pulling them back down to the ground.
Evidently, Kundera does not agree with Nietzsche and the idea of eternal return,
but instead poses his own opinion that men live only once. He argues that life is lightness
and lightness is in fact unbearable. Therefore, someone’s actions have no effect on their
life since that person will only live once. However, which one is true, weight or
lightness? Parmenides, a Greek philosopher, posed this question in the sixth century. He
responded in saying that lightness is positive and weight is negative (Kundera 5).
Nevertheless, it still remains unclear as to which is true. Kundera, however, exemplifies
the concept of lightness and weight to life through the lives of his own characters. He
tries to explore the answer to the philosophical ambiguity by associating each of his
characters with either lightness or weight. The light characters live without imposing any
kind of weight on their lives in order to find the meaning of life. Meanwhile, the heavy
characters search for a specific meaning, significance, and weight to the things they
consider important in their lives.
22
�Tomas was born from the saying “Einmal ist Keinmal” which means once
doesn’t count (Kundera 39). Clearly, he is a character of lightness. He enjoys having
freedom and not to having to carry anyone’s strain. Tomas does not want to be attached
to anyone, especially Tereza. Even though Tomas loves Tereza he does not want
commitment as much as Tereza does. He wants to enjoy his life by having fun and
sleeping with random women and mistresses. He considers sex and love as two unrelated
things. His love towards Tereza is separate from his infidelities. He loves Tereza
undeniably, however his infidelities is what defines his lightness. A character of lightness
such as Tomas does not have any burdens. He does not seek to find importance in his life
because he is content with being light.
Tereza, on the other hand, is the true opposite of Tomas. She is seen as a heavy
person. Tereza is a weak and powerless character. She is a faithful person who wants love
and commitment from Tomas. She is very insecure of herself as she resents her own body
mainly because of her mother. Her mother had a profound influence on her as she would
march around naked in the house. Tereza, as a result, does not want her own body to be
compared with any other women which is mainly the reason why Tomas’s infidelities put
so much weight on her. Kundera wrote,
She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies
were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But
he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed
them all alike, stroked them alike, made no, absolutely no distinction between
Tereza's body and the other bodies. He had sent her back into the world she tried
to escape, sent her to march naked with the other naked women (58).
Thus, Tereza feared that Tomas only saw her as another woman who he just slept with.
Tereza thought that she can escape that world where all the bodies were equal by being
with Tomas, but instead entered the same world that she was trying to escape.
Franz is another character associated with weight. He was never able to
experience his life as being light. Franz was always trying to find weight and significance
in everything he did. He joined marches and political demonstrations as a way to find his
true meaning of life. Kundera wrote, “He felt like placing his own life on the scales; he
wanted to prove that the Grand March weighed more than shit” (269). Franz was
incapable of lightness. He was always searching for weight, which as a result, brought
him to an early death.
Lastly, Sabina can be considered to be the lightest of all. She refuses to be tied
down by her parents or by the totalitarian art. She always received pleasure from betrayal.
Her hatred towards kitsch is what made her seem so light. She used betrayal as a way of
23
�fighting kitsch and through betrayal, she was able to escape her life and live in total
lightness. Her dream of having freedom led her to leave Franz, ultimately because of her
lightness. Sabina was able to escape to America where she gained the freedom she
always wanted.
Although Kundera effectively portrays each character as heavy or light, none of
them actually finds their meaning of life. In fact, characters such as Tomas and Franz fall
under the paradox of lightness and weight. Even though these characters were associated
with either weight or lightness, their actions were representative of the opposite. Tomas,
who was originally a light character, becomes heavy towards the end. Likewise, Franz
who was always searching for weight ultimately becomes light through his early death.
Tereza stays heavy throughout the whole book, but is capable of spreading her heaviness
to Tomas. And lastly, Sabina, lightest of all, is the only character alive at the end of the
book, and not even she is happy with her life.
In the beginning, Tomas was a light character who wanted freedom. He slept
with random women which symbolized his lightness. However, that began to change as
Tereza entered his life. By accepting Tereza into his life, he took on all of her burdens.
Kundera wrote, “she knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too
seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the lightness and amusing
insignificance of physical love. How she wished she could learn lightness!” (143). Tereza
was evidently a heavy person, but her heaviness began to spread onto Tomas. Tomas saw
Tereza as a “child whom he had taken from a bulrush basket” (Kundera 7). He feared the
responsibility he was about to take on. However, his compassion and inexplicable love is
what forced him to accept a complete stranger into his life and the burden that their love
would eventually bring.
When Tereza unexpectedly arrived in Tomas’s life one day with a suitcase, he
unexpectedly took all her weight onto himself. Tereza’s heavy suitcase represented her
whole life crumbled up. The physical weight of the suitcase symbolized the weight which
Tereza lived in. Tomas accepted her suitcase, ultimately accepting the weight of her
whole life. He felt as if he had taken on all of her responsibilities. However, when Tereza
left to Czechoslovakia and left Tomas in Zurich, he felt light again. “Suddenly his step
was much lighter. He soared. He had entered Parmenides’ magic field: he was enjoying
the sweet lightness of being” (30). Tomas was finally enjoying his life again. He gained
back his lightness that Tereza had taken away from him. He felt free again, but his
compassion for Tereza kept reminding him of her. She had infected him with a
compassion that he was unable to resist. Although Tomas wanted freedom and lightness
in his life, his love for Tereza evidently makes him a heavy character.
24
�Moreover, Tomas can also be seen as a heavy character through his actions of
writing the anti-communist article. Ultimately, he was demoted from being a well-known
surgeon to a window washer because that article compared the Czechoslovakian
communists to Oedipus. Like Oedipus, the Czechoslovakian communists asserted that
they did not know what they were doing. Tomas said, “As a result of your “not
knowing,” this country has lost its freedom, lost it for centuries, perhaps, and now you
shout that you feel no guilt?”(Kundera 177) However, unlike Oedipus who recognized
his responsibility for his wrongdoing, the communists were instead using their lack of
knowledge as a way of staying in power. Tomas greatly criticized the communists in this
article and was asked by his boss to remove it, but he refused. Tomas, as a result, was
fired from his job. He became a window washer, descending in ranks. This shows how
his actions of not removing the article had an effect on his life. This one action led him to
losing a job that he loved. Therefore, it can be seen as weight because every action in a
heavy person is critical to their life.
Tereza, on the other hand, doesn’t change. Even though she wanted to be as
light as Tomas, she was too weak to succeed. She was constantly under the weight of
jealousy due to the women who Tomas slept with. However, instead Tereza was able to
turn Tomas into a weak and heavy person. “It turned into a tiny little object that started
moving, running, dashing across the airfield”, Kunder wrote “It was a rabbit” (305-306).
Tereza’s dream of Tomas turning into a rabbit certainly symbolizes how weak Tomas
became. He was no longer living in total lightness or sleeping with random women. He
was solely living under Tereza’s weight in a countryside away from everyone.
Franz was undoubtedly a heavy character, but his early death put him into a state
of lightness. He was always attaching weight to everything he did because he wanted to
find importance in his life. He believed that by joining political marches and parades he
would be able to find the meaning of life. “Franz felt his book life to be unreal. He
yearned for real life, for the touch of people walking side by side with him, for their
shouts. It never occurred to him that what he considered unreal was in fact his real life”
(100). Therefore, Franz was always searching for weight other than realizing what he
really had. Likewise, Franz didn’t really love Sabina. Instead, he liked the idea of her.
“He was happier with Sabina the invisible goddess than the Sabina who had accompanied
him throughout the world … He has always preferred the unreal to the real” (120). This
was the main reason why Franz was brought to an early death. He never realized what he
had in life which ultimately made him heavy because he was always searching for
something and misjudging what he had. Although, Franz was a heavy character, his early
death made him very light. His inscription, “A return after long wandering” showed that
25
�he did not have to search and wander for a meaning of life anymore. He was freed from
the solemn weight that was always a burden to him.
Sabina is left alone at the end solely because of her lightness. Her life was based
on a series of betrayals, and betrayal was her path to freedom. She was able to escape the
totalitarian system to America through betrayal. She had no trouble selling her paintings
in America unlike in Geneva. She left Franz in Geneva mainly because she wanted to.
She did not have Franz’s burden of weight on her; instead she had the burden of the
“unbearable” lightness. Her ultimate lightness forced her to make decisions which left her
alone and isolated. Sabina wanted to die under the sign of lightness. “She would be
lighter than air” wrote Kundera (273). While Tomas and Tereza died under the sign of
weight, Sabina wanted to be cremated and scattered to the winds to continue her pursuit
of lightness.
Despite the fact that Kundera views a person’s life as only happening once, he
views an animal’s life as the opposite. A dog’s life is repeated in a circle while human
time runs in a straight line. “Dog time cannot be plotted along a straight line: it does not
move on and on, from one thing to the next”, wrote Kundera (74). Instead, a dog’s life
repeats in a circle. The repetition lies in the idea of eternal return. And the eternal return
is what gives life weight. “Happiness is the longing for repetition” Kundera wrote (298).
If humans don’t experience a repeated circular life then they don’t attach weight to their
lives. They are not able to find the meaning of life because their lives only occur once.
Therefore, Kundera seems to agree with Nietzsche’s argument that only through eternal
return a person is able to find the meaning of life nevertheless, Kundera still argues that
because eternal return does not exist then ultimately a person is not able to find the
meaning of life.
Although it is evident that Kundera does not agree with Nietzsche and the
eternal return, Kundera still effectively portrays the theme lightness and weight. The
theme lightness and weight can be seen as a dichotomy. Lightness and weight can be split
up into two different parts, which contradict each other. Light symbolizes only one life
that never repeats, while weight signifies eternal return. Kundera tries to explore the
answer to the philosophical ambiguity posed by Nietzsche and Parmenides by associating
each of his characters with either lightness or weight. Nevertheless, Kundera is never able
to find a real answer to this mystery as his own characters fail to realize the meaning of
life.
26
�Works Cited
Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. New York: HarperPerennial, 1999.
Ridley, Aaron. “Nietzsche's Greatest Weight.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies No. 14
(1997):19-25.
Small, Robin. “Eternal Recurrence.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 13, No. 4
(1983):585-605.
27
�The Port Richmond Farmers’ Market Proposal
Andrew Burt1
Mission Statement
The Burt Foundation’s Mission is to provide struggling communities of New
York City with new and inventive ways of gentrifying their districts through the
revitalization of their neighborhoods as a whole.
Proposal Summary
The Burt Foundation is seeking to serve as a liaison between the Roman
Catholic Church through the Staten Island Catholic Youth Organization of Port
Richmond and the local community struggling to provide its citizens with ample, readily
available, year round access to fresh and healthy sources of nutrition. The Foundation is
requesting that the Roman Catholic Church provide the Port Richmond Catholic Youth
Organization with the monetary resources needed to purchase and renovate the previous
Farrell Lumber Yard into a local farmers’ market. The unique location of the previous
lumber yard has both indoor and outdoor components that make it ideal to provide the
local community with healthy sources of nutrition within walking distance of their
residences as well as attracting patrons from outside areas. The overall goal of this
renovation is to bring back prosperity to the Port Richmond area in the same place that its
historical roots are planted.
Background
Port Richmond
The Port Richmond area of Staten Island, New York is located geographically
on the north central shore portion of the island. In the 2,000 census it was reported that
16,406 people compiled the population of Port Richmond’s area code. From that 16,406
residents 10,399 were reported to be of white ethnicity, 3,384 black backgrounds, 4,211
Hispanics or Latinos, and a mixture of other ethnicities that compile the culture of the
area. The area is comprised of 8,140 males and 8,266 females. Port Richmond
accounted for three thousand two hundred and seven jobs in the private sector,
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Abraham Unger (Government and Politics) for LC 14:
Society and the City.
28
�representing four percent of all the private sector jobs on Staten Island. (U.S. Census,
2000)
Vibrant Past
The Pt. Richmond Community of Staten Island has a rich and vibrant history
formed around the commercial district that formerly existed. Pt. Richmond Avenue is
often referred to as the former 5th Avenue of Staten Island. (Michele Sledge, Interview)
The local community had every type of business a community needed to survive. There
was a bank, lumber yard, hotel, dining facilities, schools, library, a large number of
furniture stores, as well as other companies that made up the business district along and
around Pt. Richmond Avenue.
Economic Downfall
The local community took several devastating blows to its economic standing
when the Staten Island Mall was established around the same time that the North Shore
Rail was shut down. The community business leaders fought to keep their business alive
through forming various associations to unify their efforts. Despite their efforts
consumers were no longer traveling to the north shore of the island to buy their goods.
Many residents left the local area and moved to neighboring communities. The closing
of the lumber yard was especially devastating to the economic standing of the community
due to its unique ability to attract consumers beyond the local residents.
New Community Forms
New York City is composed of roughly 8.4 million people. Fifty percent of
those citizens are immigrants or first generation immigrants. Pt. Richmond is no
exception to this statistic. In recent years there have been an increasing number of
immigrants of Hispanic heritage moving to the Pt. Richmond area. This minority group
has been one reason why the local community has been able to hang on as long as it has.
The new groups of residents have opened up stores and restaurants to service the newly
forming community in the same buildings as the businesses that had previously moved
and shut down were located.
Agencies Step Up
Many of the new immigrants in Pt. Richmond have not become legal citizens of
the United States. Without legal proof of citizenship the immigrants are unable to receive
some forms of government aid that they could benefit from. As a result a variety of
29
�agencies have stepped up efforts to aid in the transitional stage facing the community.
There are places that provide medical care, citizenship paperwork guidance, meals to the
elderly, community outreach programs, job training, aid new entrepreneurs through the
beginning stages of establishing themselves and maintaining revenue stability, and a
variety of other services. Some of the most predominant agencies that help the local
community are: Catholic Youth Organization, Meals on Wheels, Port Richmond Board of
Trade, Northfield LDC, Project Hospitality, New York Main Streets, and many more.
All of these organizations are working to improve the living conditions and overall
camaraderie of the Pt. Richmond community. The Burt Foundation strives to work with
all the currently standing foundations and organizations to improve the community as a
whole and work toward a prosperous future.
Literature Review
Farmers’ Markets
Farmers’ Markets are generally classified as farmers sell their products to
consumers with direct relationships. Many farmers’ markets exist in a general facility in
which a variety of farmers and growers congregate to sell their products. Markets are
commonly open around the same time periods. Small and medium sized operations often
utilize farmers’ markets as direct forms of marketing themselves to the general public
through collusion with a given market. Often consumers establish direct relationships
with the vendors and share personal camaraderie.
In 2000, the USDA studied the 2,863 identified farmers’ markets in the United
States to form a basis about their operations. The research concluded that 66,700 farmers
serve 2,760,000 customers per week at farmers markets. In addition, 19,000 farmers use
farmers’ markets as their sole source of marketing. Farmers’ markets reported retail sales
of approximately $900 million. This represents 93 percent of total sales. Customers
spent an average of $17.30 per week at farmers markets. (Payne, 2002) As of mid-2009,
there were 6,132 farmers markets operating throughout the U.S. This is a 16 percent
increase from 2009. (ams.usda.gov, 2010) These figures project that the dramatic
increase in the number of farmers’ markets across the nation also affected the gross
income of the markets and the number of patrons to the markets.
Farmers’ Markets in New York City
New York City is comprised of five different boroughs made up of five
collective counties joining forces to become one city. The charter of “Greater New
York” was signed into law on May 4, 1897, by Governor Frank S. Black, the charter
30
�counties of New York, Kings, Bronx, Richmond, and Queens combined to make the City
of New York. (nyc.gov, 2010) New York City is known for its rich variety of farmers
markets that supply locally grown produce to all five boroughs. The New York State
Department of Agriculture and Markets is responsible for working with farmers markets
across the state of New York, and keeping track of how many farmers’ markets each
county has. According to the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets
the five counties that make up the City of New York account for 124 of the states
farmers’ markets with New York County having 42, Queens County 18, Bronx County
27, Kings County 34, and Richmond County 3. (agmkt.state.ny.us, 2010) Richmond
County makes up the entire Staten Island borough of New York City, and is dramatically
straggling in farmers’ markets compared to the other boroughs of New York City.
Markets Making a Difference
In addition to providing a healthy lifestyle option to citizens of urban areas
farmers’ markets are also now working to reach lower economic groups. Previously
farmers’ markets were viewed as a pricier option to acquiring goods for consumption and
something that lower income families were priced out of affording. In recent years there
has been a movement for markets to make their products more readily available to lower
income families. This is demonstrated through data collected in 1998 when greenmarket
locations redeemed $150,000 in food stamps and $1,000,000 in farmers’ market coupons
(USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Woman, Infants, and Children
funds that can only be used at farmers’ markets). (Payne, 2002)
Community Members
The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Linda M. Baron
spoke at the Port Richmond Board of Trade meeting on October, 25, 2010. In her
presentation she covered key features about the community and how her chamber works
with local business to ensure their prosperity in the future. “The Port Richmond local
business leaders are going to have to take a unified approach to upcoming obstacles in
order to have the best outcome for their businesses.” L. Baron (personal communication,
October 25, 2010) One large topic of discussion was the current healthcare problems
facing the Port Richmond community as a whole, and what local business could do to
prepare for upcoming changes in new health care policies their business will soon face.
She advised many of the business owners to speak with their accountant and lawyers to
ensure that they were not left behind in the upcoming change.
31
�After the meeting she discussed how many of the local food vendors in the area
were in need of revitalization to the way in which they approach purchasing their
produces. “The need for a local sustainable food market is dire in the area for the
neighborhoods of Port Richmond. “ M. Sledge (personal communication, November 7,
2010)
In a course of interviews conducted with North Field LDC’s Economic and
Community Development Corporation, Michele Sledge commented that the “Port
Richmond area touches on every social economic issue facing the nation today.” M.
Sledge (personal communication, November 7, 2010) Issues discussed uncovered the
need for community members to feel secure while purchasing goods in the local
community. The abundant presence of law enforcement in the community makes patrons
feel uncomfortable with their surroundings. When asked about her opinion on placing a
farmers’ market in the previous Farrell’s Lumber Yard she replied, “The lumber yard
would be an ideal location for a future farmers’ market.” M. Sledge (personal
communication, November 7, 2010)
Strategies to Combat Under-Nutrition
The need for nutritional improvement throughout America is a social issue
facing the nation. Households need to become more aware of the contents they put into
their bodies. A scholar recently looked into the role that foods play in the nation and
concluded startling accounts and began a push for a change in the nation. “Foods for
families must be adequate; that is not just meeting the bare energy needs for survival, but
provide all the nutrient essential for normal development. The changing nutrition scene
is influenced directly and indirectly by several interrelated factors. There is a need to
evolve nutritional orientation of foods, production programs; examine and revise the
mistakes of the past and use new knowledge and technologies to evolve new strategies
for combating under nutrition.” The piece calls for the industry to lessen the
responsibility of food producers, but focuses on the role that consumers play in providing
nutrients to themselves and their families.(Gopalan & Aeri, 2001)
The Resilience and Strengths of Low-Income Families
Low income families are often the most resourceful households. They have to
endure the task of making low salaries and wages stretch to cover all of their family’s
needs. Research in this field has uncovered, “Families which endure the largest level of
suffering often have higher levels of communication and feelings of unity in their fight
against oppression.” (Orthner, Jones-Sanpei, & Williamson, 2004) The Port Richmond
32
�community is full of vibrant citizens that work to improve their lives to the best of their
abilities.
People Are Just Becoming More Conscious of How Everything’s Connected
Variations in eating styles are something that many people inherit as a part of
their heritage. While some styles are known to individual geographical regions other
characteristics can be generalized through the combining of a variety of heritages from
differing regions with a common factor tying them together. Modern researchers looked
at three ethno cultural groups in two differing regions of Canada. They deciphered the
ways that tradition played a factor to explain regional differences concerning ethical
consumption in contemporary Canada. Their findings support their arguments about the
way in which regions consume food. “We argue that ‘reflexive modernity’ cannot be said
to apply unambiguously in contemporary Canada. The food concerns of Punjabi British
Columbian and African Nova Scotia participants centered more on cultural traditions
than on ethical consumption. While European Canadians in British Columbia (BC) and
Nova Scotia (NS) appear similar on the surface, British Columbians expressed strong
commitment to discourses of ethical consumption, while those in Nova Scotia displayed
almost no engagement with those discourses. In contrast, tradition was a more prominent
concern in food decision-making. Availability of resources for ethical consumption both
shaped and was shaped by local discourses. Differing relationships to community may
contribute to reflexive ethical consumption.” (Beagan, Ristovski-Slijepcevic, &
Chapman, 2010)
Ties Across Seas
Many nations face similar problems that the Port Richmond community of New
York City faces. Providing fresh produce to their urban areas from rural areas is a key
feature that urban planners across borders are beginning to examine. The government in
prosperous cases must play a role as a facilitator of relations to ensure prosperity. “Good
governance is at the core of poverty reduction and how meeting the environmental health
needs of the poorer groups need not imply greater environmental degradation.”
(Satterthwaite, 2003)
Hispanic Healthcare Disparities
One unfortunate battle that the Hispanic population endures is being treated as a
monolithic population that is looked upon as the same in the medical field. Healthcare
providers need to recognize that there is diversity within the Hispanic community just as
33
�there is with every other ethnic group across the globe. Many barriers are in the way of
the Hispanic communities receiving the adequate assistance that they need. Port
Richmond has a large Hispanic population with many ethnic groups represented. The
needs of these ethnic groups must be met by the community in order for healthcare to be
utilized at its maximum efficiency. Data collected from the Medical Expenditure Panel
Survey compiled by a group of experts in the field discovered differences across all
Hispanic ethnic groups. “Multivariate models show that Mexicans and Cubans are less
likely, to have any emergency department visits than non-Hispanic whites, Mexicans
Central Americans/Caribbeans, and South Americans are less likely to have any
prescription medications. All Hispanics are less likely to have any ambulatory visits and
prescription medications, whereas only those with a Spanish language interview are less
likely to have emergency department visits and inpatient admissions more recent
immigrants are less likely to have any prescription medications.” (Weinick, Jacobs,
Stone, Ortega, & Burstin, 2004)
Early Childhood Nutrition and Primary School Enrollment
Low income countries often experience issues with youth suffering from
malnourishment. This problem can lead to serious medical conditions in the future.
Another problem is the idea that early childhood enrollment in education institutions can
be affected by the problem. In recent research conducted from Ghana startling
conclusions were formed about the nation’s youth. “ Our estimates which address a
number of previously ignored economic issues, firmly support the hypothesis that early
childhood malnutrition causes delayed enrollment. We find little or no support for
alternative explanations based on borrowing constraints and rationing of places in
schools.” (Glewwe & Jacoby, 1995)
The Role of Schools in Obesity Prevention
Schools have become increasingly involved in teaching the nation’s youth
healthy eating habits to prevent childhood obesity. New nutritional programs have been
integrated into classrooms to educate youth on how to take care of their bodies.
Government has set up new regulations for meals that are served through school
programs. “U.S. schools offer many opportunities for developing more nutritious food,
offering greater opportunities for physical activity, and providing obesity – related health
services.” (Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006) Having a local farmers’ market in the Port
Richmond community would be a great educational source for the school systems to
34
�utilize. Local growers could be utilized as educational resources for the urban students to
learn from.
Tying Together
All of the academic literature compiled in research agrees that proper nutrition is
at the forefront of health care issues. If people are consuming nutritious substances they
are more likely to live a healthier lifestyle. The role that food plays in human’s daily
lives is critical for survival. Healthy food sources must be obtainable by all people
regardless of economic standings and racial background. Governments and communities
must work together to achieve the highest level of proficiency in local areas.
Funding Request
Request
The Burt Foundation primarily seeks to improve the Port Richmond community
of Staten Island through the reinstallation of an anchor business that attracts consumers
from various portions of Staten Island. The foundation aspires to aid in establishing a
line of credit from the Catholic Dioceses to the Pt. Richmond Catholic Youth
Organization to purchase and renovate the Farrell’s Lumber Yard property into rentable
spaces for local growers and producers to sell their products. Transforming the former
Farrell’s Lumber Yard into a year round farmers’ market is a goal the Burt Foundation
believes will breathe a new stability throughout the community.
The Farrell Lumber Yard is located at 2076 Richmond Terrace, Lot 1073/0061.
The brokers for the property are currently Chis Reno and Scott O’Brien. The 63,000
square foot property is currently advertised at $1,999,000. The property was previously
priced at $2,400,000. The buildings’ location currently meets the New York City zoning
requirements for commercial use. M. Sledge (personal communication, November 7,
2010) Along with the purchase of the building the Burt Foundation is also advising and
additional $250,000 be loaned to the Catholic Youth Organization to make needed
renovations to convert the space into rentable sectors for vendors.
Population Effect
Farmers’ market would service the local community of Port Richmond and the
local surround neighborhoods through providing a constant source of obtaining healthy
products for themselves and their families. Market vendors would all share a common
formality to assure that the low income families of the area are able to purchase the goods
for their families by accepting food stamps and the USDA’s issued farmers’ market
35
�stamps. The market will also provide the same opportunities for obtaining healthy goods
to the neighboring areas of Staten Island while bringing them back to the North Shore
Port Richmond region. The Port Richmond Catholic Youth Organization would be able
to retain all revenue collected from the retail spaces rented to the local farmers. Local
producers of natural products would be provided a new outlet for selling their products to
the general public in established facilities able to accommodate their individual
characteristics. Businesses in the surrounding area will receive customers that would not
otherwise travel to the north shore Port Richmond portion of Staten Island. The farmers’
market would also aid in the branding of Staten Island as a borough of New York City
working to improve the lives of its residents and fellow citizens.
Employment
The Burt Foundation would extend training and facilitating assistance to the
local Pt. Richmond Catholic Youth Organization aiding in the transitional stages of
training new employees on how to manage the market as a business entity. The Pt.
Richmond CYO would be able to hire on a new employee to oversee the operations of the
farmers market as well as develop relationships with local growers and producers to
ensure business prosperity and financial gain for both parties. The Pt. Richmond’s
CYO’s current accountant would handle the financial aspect of the new business venture
until the market becomes established enough to require a part or full time accountant.
Renovations made to the current standing building would require the work of skilled
artisans in the construction field to make architectural changes to the insides of the
building. Local citizens in the area would have the opportunity to acquire part time
positions with the growers and producers at the market and aid them in the operation of
their businesses.
Strategic Plan of Implementation
The availability of the farmers’ market year round component makes it uniquely
different from every other farmers’ market in Richmond County and the majority of New
York City. The main season for prime retail sales will follow the general months of
operations of farmers’ markets. However, in the winter season the space no longer rented
to spring thru fall seasonal growers will be rented to various vendors with products that
directly relate to the winter season. Christmas tree sellers will be able to utilize the
outdoor indoor component of the facility to maximize profits and ensure loss of
inventory. As well as hosting a variety of season vendors with goods and products
designed for the winter season.
36
�Qualifications
The Burt Foundation’s goal of aiding New York City’s struggling
neighborhoods is to find obtainable goals for local areas to accomplish to further gentrify
themselves into more well-rounded areas. For this reason the Burt Foundation works to
promote ties between parties and serve as a liaison between parties to ensure the best
possible outcome for the local communities. The members of the Foundation are
dedicated to ensuring that all facets of projects are completed in the most efficient way
possible.
Unified Efforts
The Burt Foundation believes in working in collaboration with every partner
involved in a projects plan. Therefore, the Foundation will strive to ensure that the
Catholic Diocese and Catholic Youth Organization establish a line of credit for the CYO
to use and pay back over a given time period. The Foundation will also work to form
partnerships between the CYO and vendors at the market. Efforts made by the Feeding
America movement will be echoed throughout the market with every vendor promoting
and offering information about the project and providing ways of delivering monetary
donations to the foundation. The Burt Foundation will also work with the vendors to
ensure that they meet the standards of the market to become food stamp and USDA’s
stamp comparable. The building would join the “I am Staten Island Movement” and
become safe places for people to turn to when in need.
Timeline
Once approval has been given and renovation plans are under way the
Foundation will work to ensure the CYO fills every slot in the market for opening day.
The purchase agreement and transfer of titles along with the renovations to the property
are all dependent upon weather conditions and deadlines to be set up upon purchase of
the property. Total renovations upon purchase of property should take a maximum time
period of six to twelve months.
Evaluation
Effectiveness
The effectiveness of the proposed plan for a farmers’ market to be put in the
former Farrell’s Lumber Yard will be measured through the data collected from various
aspects of the operation. The data will be collected and analyzed to determine the
prosperity of the project. The evaluation will be formatted around: loan payments being
37
�repaid on time, capital retained by the Catholic Youth Organization after expenses,
number of farmers provided with a new outlet to sell their goods, amount of food stamps
and USDA farmers market stamps redeemed, donations made to Feeding America
Movement, low income families aided by the market, and the overall improvement of the
local surrounding area.
References
Baron, L. (2010, October 25) Personal Interview.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2007, January 12). Profile of General Dem. 2000; zip code 10302.
September 26, 2010, from www.factfinder.census.gov.
United States Department of Agriculture. (2010, October27) Farmers Markets and Local
Food Marketing. Retrieved October 29, 2010, from
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/farmersmarkets
Beagan, B. L., Ristovski-Slijepcevic, S., & Chapman, G. E. (2010). “People Are Just
Becoming More Conscious of How Everything’s Connected: ‘Ethical’ Food
Consumption in Two Regions of Canada.” Sociology, 44(4), 751 -769.
Glewwe, P., & Jacoby, H. G. (1995). “An Economic Analysis of Delayed Primary School
Enrollment in a Low Income Country: The Role of Early Childhood Nutrition.” The
Review of Economics and Statistics, 77(1), 156-169.
Gopalan, C., & Aeri, B. T. (2001). “Strategies to Combat Under-Nutrition.” Economic
and Political Weekly, 36(33), 3159-3169.
New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. (2010, February 17). New York
State Farmers’ Markets. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from
http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/CommunityFarmersMarkets.asp.
New York City. (1997, May 4) Archieves of Rudolph W. Guliani. Retrieved October 29,
2010, from http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/97a/me970504.html.
Northfield Community Local Development Corporation. (n.d.) Economic and community
development. Retrieved November 1, 2010, from http://www.portrichmond.net/nldc/
econdev.htm.
38
�Orthner, D. K., Jones-Sanpei, H., & Williamson, S. (2004). “The Resilience and
Strengths of Low-Income Families.” Family Relations, 53(2), 159-167.
Payne, T. (2002, March) Agecon. Retrieved October 29, 2010, from
ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/27625/1/33010173.pdf.
Satterthwaite, D. (2003). “The Links between Poverty and the Environment in Urban
Areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, 590, 73-92.
Sledge, M. (2010, October 25) (2010, November 7) Personal Interview.
Story, M., Kaphingst, K. M., & French, S. (2006). “The Role of Schools in Obesity
Prevention.” The Future of Children, 16(1), 109-142.
Weinick, R. M., Jacobs, E. A., Stone, L. C., Ortega, A. N., & Burstin, H. (2004).
“Hispanic Healthcare Disparities: Challenging the Myth of a Monolithic Hispanic
Population.” Medical Care, 42(4), 313-320.
39
�A Home Run for Civil Rights
Matt Cangro1
There is a tendency to believe that the civil rights movement in America began
in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. During that time, the movement garnered national attention
as the media aired graphic accounts of protestors in southern streets beset by fire hoses
and police dogs. In reality, the struggle for racial equality had begun long before Rosa
Parks refused to yield her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. At the turn of the
nineteenth century, black community leaders in Savannah and Atlanta protested the
segregation of public transportation. Ever since the formal establishment of segregation
in the late nineteenth century, there was resistance to institutionalized white supremacy.
This was even the case during the height of lynching and Jim Crow repression. African
Americans banded together to combat racism and discrimination. They established
schools, churches, and social institutions within their separate communities. Black
workers such as the Atlanta washerwomen and black porters on Pullman railroad cars
organized strikes to demand better pay (Santino, 76). On February 12, 1909 the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded, and became
leading civil rights organization in the country. The 1940s brought the New Deal, World
War II, and major social and economic changes to the country. As the nation fought for
democracy in Europe, black leaders pointed out that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were not
so different from the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. Black veterans were
encouraged to confront white supremacy at home and riots sometimes broke out on
southern army bases. Martin Luther King, Malcom X, and Jackie Robinson were born
into this America. While the first two are acknowledged civil rights leaders, Jackie
Robinson is mostly known for being the man who broke Major League baseball’s color
barrier in 1947. Most people do not realize that Jackie Robinson was a civil rights activist
his entire life.
In 1944, while Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (aka Little) were still in high
school, Jackie Robinson was drafted into the very segregated United States Army. He
was assigned to a cavalry unit at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he applied for Officers’
Candidate School (OCS). In theory, Army policy allowed the training of black officers in
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Lori Weintrob (History) and Dr. Stephen Preskill
(Education) for LC20 entitled From Violence to Nonviolence:The Quest for Justice.
40
�integrated facilities. In reality, blacks were routinely denied access to OCS. Robinson
was rejected and told, off the record, that because blacks lacked leadership ability they
were excluded from OCS. An angry Robinson took his plight not to Army officials but to
a fellow black recruit, the heavyweight-boxing champion of the world, Joe Louis. Louis
was also stationed at Fort Riley, and he arranged for a meeting with a representative of
the secretary of defense (Rampersad, 91). A few days later, several blacks, including
Robinson, were enrolled in OCS. However, Robinson was soon to realize it was going to
be a long road to equality.
In July of 1944, sixteen months before Branch Rickey tapped him to integrate
baseball, Robinson boarded an Army bus with the light-skinned wife of a fellow black
officer. The two walked half the length of the bus and sat down. The driver, angry that a
black man was seated in the middle of the bus next to a woman who appeared to be
white, yelled at Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson knew that military
buses had been ordered desegregated and he ignored the order. Robinson’s refusal led to
his arrest and court-martial. As he wrote to the NAACP two weeks later, “I refused to
move because I recalled a letter from Washington which states that there is to be no
segregation on army posts” (Rampersad, 99). In his autobiography, Robinson stated that
he was influenced by the actions of boxers Joe Louis and Ray Robinson who had also
refused to obey Jim Crow laws. Robinson was acquitted, but the experience left him
discouraged yet determined and defiant. He later wrote, “It was a small victory, for I had
learned that I was in two wars, one against the foreign enemy, and the other against
prejudice at home.”
Branch Rickey had been looking for a black baseball player to integrate the
game of baseball for years. Rickey was convinced that Robinson was that player.
Robinson was talented, educated, had demonstrated a strong character. He was
determined not to bow to discrimination. However, Rickey was concerned about
Robinson's explosive temperament. Rickey knew that while the younger man’s
aggressiveness fueled his athletic performance, it also made him vulnerable. At their first
meeting, Rickey gave Robinson a copy of Papini's Life of Christ and asked him to read
the sections on nonviolence (this was nearly ten years before Martin Luther King would
step out onto the national stage). Rickey told Robinson that until he was established he
would have to refrain from confrontations. Jackie Robinson answered, “Mr. Rickey, I've
got two cheeks. If you want to take this gamble, I'll promise you there will be no
incidents” (Tygiel, 71).
In the spring of 1946 Jackie Robinson was on his way to spring training in Jim
Crow Florida, Martin Luther King was attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, and
41
�Malcolm X was in Massachusetts State Prison sentenced to eight to ten years for
burglary. The year was significant for all three men, Martin Luther King decided to
become a minister, Malcolm X was introduced to the Nation of Islam through the letters
of his brother Reginald, and Jackie Robinson realized the enormity of the challenge
before him. Because of the segregation laws in Florida, Robinson was forced to ride in
the back of buses, was unable to stay in the same hotels as his white teammates and some
games in which he was scheduled to play were canceled because of his presence.
Robinson however, persevered, he not only led his team to the championship in the Little
World Series, but his actions began the dismantling of Daytona Beach's Jim Crow laws.
In 1948, the city auditorium, Peabody Auditorium, was desegregated. In 1990, a statue
was erected in City Island Ballpark to honor Jackie Robinson's personal struggle against
racism. The statue depicts Robinson in his uniform talking with two young children, one
black, and one white.
The following year was momentous for all three men. On April 15, 1947, Jackie
Robinson strode onto the turf at Ebbets field to become the first African-American to
play major league baseball. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was ordained a minister and
delivered his first sermon in his father's church, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. And
Malcolm X, intrigued by letters from Elijah Muhammad, converted to the Nation of
Islam. In many ways, the year 1947 defined these men not only as individuals, but also as
civil rights activists. Their unique contributions to the civil rights movement and the
legacy they would leave for future generations were determined by the decisions they
made that year.
Over the course of the next decade, the three men solidified their positions with
regard to the civil rights movement. Each man made a unique contribution to the
movement that was shaped by the philosophy of specific individuals. King was
influenced by Gandhi's doctrine of satyagraha (“truth force”), Thoreau's concept of civil
disobedience, and Reinhold Niebuhr’s statements about non-violent direct action. King
believed that these philosophies offered “the more excellent way of love and nonviolent
protest” as a means of building an integrated community of blacks and whites in America
(Jackie Robinson). Malcolm X heavily influenced by Elijah Muhammad who taught that
white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from achieving political,
economic, and social success (Metcalf, 342-343). Unlike King and Robinson who
wanted to end segregation, Malcolm agreed that America was too racist to offer hope to
blacks. They proposed a separate nation for blacks apart from the corrupt white nation.
By the time Malcolm X was released from prison in 1952, he had changed his name from
“Little” to the legendary 'X'. Malcolm considered “Little” a slave name and chose the
42
�“X” to signify his lost tribal name. He strongly encouraged his brothers and sisters to
follow suit as a symbol of their commitment to mount aggressive, and if necessary,
violent opposition to the white oppressors.
Jackie Robinson was an interesting mix of Christian faith and political activism.
As a young man, Robinson was greatly influenced by a pastor at his church, Karl Downs.
The Reverend Downs taught Robinson about a Savior who died for his sins, who taught
His followers to turn the other cheek when insulted (Jackie Robinson Foundation).
Robinson’s relationship with Downs, his Christian faith, his determination and his
political instincts made it possible for him to accept not only Branch Rickey’s challenge,
but also Martin Luther King’s commitment to non-violent protest. It is important to
understand that in the politics of the mid-twentieth century, “turning the other cheek” is
not simply an act of passivity, but also a form of defiant, nonviolent resistance. For the
first three years of his tenure in the major leagues, Robinson kept his word to Branch
Rickey. He quietly and consistently “turned the other cheek” despite the threats, insults
and epithets Robinson heard on major league diamonds. As he made his mark on the
game and won the grudging respect of baseball fans, he was known to protest racial
injustices both on and off the field.
In1957, Jackie Robinson announced his retirement from baseball. With his
playing days behind him, Robinson began a second career as a business executive and
activist. Robinson believed there were two keys to the advancement of Blacks in
America—the ballot and the buck. He stated, “If we organized our political and economic
strength, we would have a much easier fight on our hands”(Long, 92). In typical
Robinson fashion, he devised a two-prong campaign to further the goals of the civil rights
movement. From 1957 to 1964, Robinson served as chair of the NAACP's Freedom Fund
Drive, raising over a million dollars for education and scholarships. He took an active
role in the Harlem YMCA and other community organizations, and he was a key figure in
establishing Harlem's African American-owned Freedom Bank. Robinson dedicated his
career and reputation on making economic empowerment a reality for many black
entrepreneurs.
Robinson also became more directly involved in politics. His involvement with
Richard Nixon and the Republican party could give the impression that Robinson was a
conservative, but that would be a vast over-simplification of Robinson's politics. In 1960,
Robinson was called an “Uncle Tom” and “sell-out” for supporting Nixon over
Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy. Robinson did not receive any money or political
favors for supporting Nixon his only concern was how strongly a candidate supported
43
�civil rights: Robinson said, “I was not beholden to any political party. I was black first”
(Rampersad, 321-322).
It is important to remember that the Nixon of 1960 was not the same man who,
in1968 inflamed the black community by pandering to racist white southerners. As
Eisenhower’s vice president, Nixon enthusiastically fought for the civil rights bills of
1957 and 1960. Neither the Kennedy of 1960, nor the Kennedy of 1963 took affirmative
civil rights actions. As a senator, Kennedy voted to water down a section of the Civil
Rights bills of 1957, and actively courted racist Southern Democrats. Robinson promised
his detractors that if his candidate betrayed him on civil rights, “I'll be right back to give
him hell.” He did exactly that, Jackie subsequently denounced the political meanspiritedness of Nixon and the Republicans.
While black America was proud of Robinson’s exceptional performance on the
baseball field and his high visibility in community affairs and politics, he was not free
from controversy or from disagreement with other civil rights leaders. At one point,
Robinson resigned from the NAACP, claiming they failed to listen to younger, more
progressive black people. Black militants, such as Malcolm X, resented what they
interpreted as Robinson’s identification with a conservative, affluent white society and
labeled Robinson an “Uncle Tom.” Certainly, on the matter of racism, Robinson was
anything but a denier and status quo defender.
Robinson believed that Malcolm X was a talented man with a valid message for
African American youth but fatally flawed by a philosophy that was based on hatred. In a
war of words, the two men feuded over Malcolm's characterization of Robinson as a man
beholden by white people who had put him in a position to succeed. Robinson defended
not only his own integrity but also the integrity of white friends like Branch Rickey,
William Black, and Nelson Rockefeller (Long, 182, 186). While Malcolm X criticized
successful African Americans claiming they distanced themselves from the struggle for
equal rights, Robinson sought to give more African Americans a path to success.
Malcolm X's and Robinson's goals were identical, but their approaches were polar
opposites.
The same year Jackie Robinson announced his retirement from baseball Martin
Luther King was elected president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC). The goal of the SCLC was to use direct action demonstrations as a
strategy for ending segregation. Robinson had a deep respect and genuine affection for
Martin Luther King Jr. and as such, he became an ardent supporter of and speaker for the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As much as Robinson admired King, he
recognized that his own temperament was not suited for King's nonviolent
44
�demonstrations. Robinson understood that his time was better-spent heading fund raising
drives. As such, he founded the Church Fund, which raised money to rebuild black
churches destroyed by arsonists.
While Robinson eagerly embraced King's dream of racial equality they did not
always agree. In 1960, Robinson used his syndicated newspaper column to air his
disagreement with Dr. King’s stand against the war in Vietnam. King telephoned
Robinson and explained his motivation for the opposition. Their talk did not persuade
Robinson to accept King's stance. However, it did help him to understood why King, a
champion of nonviolence could not condone armed conflict in Asia (Long, 157).
Minor disagreements aside, Jackie Robinson stood proudly along with his son
on August 28, 1963 at the March on Washington as Martin Luther King delivered his
famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Malcolm X, on the other hand, condemned the march
as a “circus.” He claimed that the organizers had corrupted the integrity of the march by
allowing whites to participate.
Robinson approached the civil rights movement from the practical perspectives
of political power and economic opportunity. He also followed Martin Luther King’s
philosophy of nonviolent protest, (as recommended by Branch Rickey) which allowed
him to be accepted and admired by all baseball fans. While tempering his somewhat
confrontational nature, he did make his opinions known once he had established his
reputation. In some ways, he was like Malcolm X in that he said what was on his mind
despite its seeming political incorrectness.
Today Jackie Robinson is recognized as a pioneer, a larger than life individual
who made it possible for others to move forward. His achievements had an effect on
American society well beyond the baseball field. His selflessness brought the races closer
together, empowered the civil rights movement, and helped shape the dreams of an entire
generation. Robinson got the break of a lifetime when he was selected to smash
baseball’s color barrier. But at the end of his life he realized that many Blacks had
continued to lose ground: “I can't believe that I have it made while so many of my Black
brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their
dignity, live in slums or barely exist on welfare.” That is why Robinson insisted, “I never
had it made.” I cannot help but wonder if he would say the same thing today (Jackie
Robinson Foundation).
45
�Works Cited
Archives. JackieRrobinson. , 2003. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www>.
“Jackierobinson.org.” The Jackie Robinson Foundation. N.p., 2005. Web. 5 Dec 2010.
Long, Michael, G. First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson.
New York, Henry Holt and Company, 2007. Print.
Metcalf, George, R. Black Profiles. McGraw-Hill Book Company. New York, 1968
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: a Biography. New York: Ballantine, 1998. Print.
Santino, Jack. Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle: Stories of Black Pullman Porters.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy. Oxford
[England: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
46
�The Moral Obligation to People in a Learning Environment
Julia Zenker 1
As a citizen of the world it is difficult to say that I have no moral obligation to
other people that I may not know. There is no guiding moral theory that flawlessly defines
a citizen's duty or obligation to another citizen. The moral theories that I have become
familiar with, express at least one inconsistency with regard to their ideals. Instead of
relying on one moral theory to prove an individual's moral obligation to other citizens, I
believe one must combine components of several different theories in order to fully
affirm that citizens have a moral obligation to one another. Through one particular
experience of mine at El Centro, I have come to analyze my moral obligation to the
people of that organization as well as the citizens of the world. By synthesizing aspects of
Kant's moral theory and psychological egoism, I have reasoned that I am morally
obligated to help provide a comfortable learning environment in which the ESL students
can learn and live.
One of the students in the ESL class at El Centro and I made a connection that
made me think about my moral obligations to people I do not know. I noticed that a few
weeks into my time at El Centro, the class had gained a new student. After he introduced
himself to me as Pedro, he revealed that he had been in a different ESL class. Pedro
noticed that in his previous classes, at a nearby high school, the teacher would not speak
to the students in English. He understood that in order to become fluent in the new
language, he would have to challenge himself to be in an environment where he had no
choice but to hear and speak the language. He explained to me some of the detrimental
effects of the teacher's unsatisfactory teaching methods.
The student revealed that since he had a poor quality english instruction, he was
unable to effectively perform his job. He was not able to distinguish between the words
‘‘in’’ and ‘‘on’’. At times, Pedro's employer would tell him to put plywood ‘‘on’’ a box.
Pedro would indicate to his employer that he was uncertain what was meant by ‘‘on.’’ His
employer would become impatient with him, which in turn made Pedro nervous and
anxious. Michael Nagel's article, Mind the Mind: Understanding the Links Between
Stress, Emotional Well-Being and Learning in Educational Contexts, describes the
neurological effects that Pedro experiences under pressure. Nagel explains that stress
produces powerful mind and body processes (Nagel 36).
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Sarah Donovan (Philosophy) and Dr. Margarita
Sanchez (Modern Languages) for LC8: A Journey to Different Worlds.
47
�Under this type of stress, Pedro was not able to function while his ‘‘Fight or
Flight’’ response was in action. Nagel asserts that Pedro's body had secreted a hormone
called Cortisol into his system (Nagel 37). When high levels of Cortisol are released in
an individual's body, the capacity to think is diminished ( Nagel 37). Not only did this
type of pressure negatively affect Pedro's self confidence, but it also put him in a frantic
state of mind. Nagel mentions that the longterm effects of the hormonal secretions of
Cortisol have included damage to parts of the brain and even the depletion of certain
brain cells (Nagel 36). In Pedro's position, he is subjected to an excess of daily stressors
that could potentially damage his brain. The author points out that ‘‘...emotion and
cognition are intertwined in the mind...’’ (Nagel 40). Generally, when one's emotions
cloud their judgement, they become clumsy which places themselves and all the other
workers at risk of injury.
From my experiences as student in the horseback riding business and in the
academic field, I too have witnessed and felt the damaging effects as a result of feeling
uncomfortable in a learning environment. In retrospect, I can identify that not only did
my impatient teachers influence my behavior when I was in their presence, but it also
began to effect every interaction I had. Once a confident individual, I would nervously
formulate sentences and second guess myself constantly.
Having reflected upon my previous experiences with intolerant mentors, I was
able to relate to Pedro on a very personal level. The incidence that he shared helped me
to realize that no one deserves to be put under that type of stress; especially when they are
only trying to support their families. It further aided my understanding of Pedro's
struggles when I realized that, unlike me, he is not voluntarily putting himself in an
unfavorable environment. At any time during my oppression as a student I could have
quit. However, if Pedro left his oppressive post, his family would starve.
As a member of the human population, I believe that I have a moral obligation to
Pedro and other citizens alike. My experiences talking to Pedro at El Centro prompted me
to question what my moral obligations were to the students with whom I interact. As a
result of the conversation, I began to ask myself how I felt when I was involved in similar
circumstances. Also, I questioned whether socially constructed borders, such as the
US/Mexican Border, could justly prohibit a citizen from surviving or providing for their
family. In essence, I questioned whether my privilege as a healthy and educated individual
affirmed my moral obligation to others that were in some type of need, as I wished that
they would do the same for me, given our roles were reversed.
By applying Kant's moral theory and psychological egoism I understand that I
have a moral obligation to other people. Through Kant's moral theory, an individual
accepts that humans have intrinsic value. Since humans have value in themselves it is fair
48
�to say that all people ought to be treated with respect and all people ought to treat other
people with respect. In Kant's second categorical imperative, he claims that we must
‘‘always treat humanity, whether in our own person or that of another, never simply as a
means, but always at the same time as an end’’ (MacKinnon 80). Kant means that as
humans we have value in ourselves and we cannot use others, as they have intrinsic value
also, as disposable objects in order to fulfill selfish goals. Kant's moral theory suggests
that treating people in a way that makes them a means as well as an end is ‘‘also a source
of human dignity’’ (MacKinnon 81). In other words, Kant agrees that it is in a person's
self interest to treat others as an end.
Under the guiding ideals of Kantian Ethics the principles explain that I have a
moral obligation to people that I may or may not know. For example, Kant's second
categorical imperative explains that since both Pedro and I have intrinsic value, it is my
job as a moral agent to treat him with the same respect that I might treat my family, since
no individual quantitatively has more or less intrinsic value. Kant's theory maintains that
doing the 'right' thing only has moral worth if it is done just for the sake of being moral.
Contrary to consequentialism, Kant's theory claims that only the motive and act
of a moral situation are important in evaluating whether an act has moral value. Kant
established that as long as a person has what he called ‘‘good will’’, the act is moral
regardless of the consequence. Kant explains that if an act that is carried out when the
motive of the individual is to achieve a self interested objective, the act has no moral
worth.
It seems that some aspects of Kant's moral system and those of psychological
egoism are inconsistent with one another. This misconception is dispelled through Kant's
concept of a rational, moral community and his distinction between reason and emotion.
While Kant's moral theory stresses the importance of the society to the individual, it is
the psychologically egoistic individuals that make up the society. As a result, Kant would
say that it is the duty of the society to achieve goals that would benefit the community as
a whole. Since the community would be made up of the psychologically egoistic
individuals their goals would very likely benefit themselves and the society.
Kant also argues that all humans are capable of rational thought and because of
this we have the duty to treat others with respect, as we would want that respect in return.
Every individual has a rationale that warrants dignified treatment from other rational
beings. Under this premise, it would be in one's own self interest to respect the thoughts
of another individual, if one wanted the same respect for their thoughts.
Since humans are psychological egoists they have to fight against their inherent
thoughts that compel them to only act in their own self interest. Kant believes that in a
case where a person actively works against these thoughts, they are moral agents. In
49
�reality they may only be trying to appear moral.
It is in that individual's self interest to act in a way that appears moral to avoid
society's censure or to avoid a guilty conscience. Kant maintains that since we cannot
control our emotions, they cannot dictate the actions we make in moral situations. Rather,
we ought to make use of our rationality when we are faced with a moral situation. A
psychological egoist would reason that we cannot make emotionally biased decisions
when confronted with a moral issue. While a psychological egoist may be inclined to
consider the self interested benefits of his or her decisions, they may not always be
shortsighted and utterly selfish.
When confronted with a difficult moral problem a psychological egoist would
agree that one cannot base their decision on emotion. In fact, a follower of Kantian ethics
and a psychological egoist might reason that an individual ought not to act in a way that
follows a human's instinctual emotional reaction. In Godwin Sogolo's article, Human
Nature and Morality, Sogolo declares that it is within an individual's capacity to ‘‘override
their genetic predispositions [to act selfishly]’’ (Sogolo 53). For instance, one might
experience happiness by eating chocolate. However they are capable of denying
themselves the satisfaction of eating the chocolate, as it is unhealthy for them. To a
Kantian follower or a psychological egoist it would be better for an individual to apply
impartial reasoning to evaluate the best outcome, whether it be pleasurable to that
individual or not.
A psychological egoist is a person that is naturally inclined to think in a way that
would serve his or her own self interest. Psychological egoism is a descriptive term
rather than a prescriptive term; people ought not to act in an ethically egoist manner, but
all humans have the proclivity to think egoistically. People deny being psychological
egoists, because they assume that an individual that thinks in this way will have no
incentive to do good things for other people; this is not so. In this situation, we must
consider the differences between acting selfishly and acting in one's own self interest.
Many times what is good for me, or in my own self interest, is also good for other people.
I would want to act in a manner that is helpful to my goals, but I would not want to
alienate those around me to get to my goals, which would be acting selfishly. In a
situation where I was in need of help, I would want others to help me.
I would not want a bad act to be on my conscience, for that would not be in my
own self interest to feel guilty. I believe that though we should not always act in a way
that benefits ourselves, it is an inherent human quality to do it. As we fight against the
human inclination to act selfishly we can also realize that many times when we do act in
our own self interest it benefits others as well. Sogolo flawlessly explains this anomaly by
explaining that ‘‘...if a person's desire were to proceed from ‘‘X’’ with ‘‘X's’’ actions
50
�directed toward the interest of say ‘‘Y’’, it is a blend of egoism and altruism’’ (Sogolo 44).
Sogolo affirms that if an individual were to willingly act in their own self interest, while
consciously benefitting another individual, the act has moral worth under Kantian ethics.
Of course an individual could not subscribe to both the moral theories of Kantian
Ethics and Ethical Egoism, because their ideals are inconsistent with one another. Ethical
egoism is a prescriptive term that describes how an individual ought to be. The theory
claims that all individuals ought to always act in their own self interest. The ethical egoist
does not believe in performing duties that are not beneficial to themselves. This is very
nearly the opposite of a Kantian follower's idea of acting with morality.
A Kantian follower would find that acting in one's own self interest has no moral
value, because it does not consider the worth of other individuals or simply doing what is
right for the sake of being moral. To Kant, performing a duty need no more reason to be
done than the fact that it is a duty. Jonathan Harrison explains in his article, Self-Interest
and Duty, that ‘‘ doing my duty makes me happy’’ (Harrison 23). However, a Kantian
follower would then make the claim that the reason a duty should be performed cannot be
solely for the purpose that it makes that individual happy. They would argue that a duty
should be performed simply because it is what is right. The psychological egoist and
Kantian follower would accept that a duty ought to be done because it is right, but they
might also recognize that the particular moral act will also have positive consequences for
themselves.
In his article, Harrison supports the claim that psychological egoism and Kantian
ethics can be combined to prove that one has moral obligation. He explains that it is an
unconvincing argument for an ethical egoist to claim that he or she would like to perform
'good' acts, but cannot because these acts may not produce a positive outcome for the
individual (Harrison 23). Harrison explains that an individual may subscribe to
psychological egoism for a more convincing argument. A psychological egoist would
recognize that performing a 'good' act is a duty and though the act may conduce desirable
consequences for that individual, those consequences are not the only reason for doing it.
As in psychological egoism, most acts of ethical egoism do produce benefits for
society and not just for one particular individual. However, there are instances of
inconsistency within the ethical egoist 's theory. Ethical egoists are compelled to always
act in their own self interest when contemplating a moral issue. In certain circumstances,
the theory does not work. In a situation where it is in the self interest of an individual to
behave in one way and it is in the self interest for a different individual to do the opposite,
the system falls apart. In this situation, the individuals will never come to a compromise,
because it would not be in either of their self interest. Consequently, there would never be
an end to the conflict.
51
�Psychological egoism in contrast is not plagued with this type of situation,
because it is not a prescriptive theory. Placed in the same situation as the ethical egoist, a
psychological egoist would not have to act in his or her own self interest. The
psychological egoist may be inclined to think about what act would be in their self
interest, but they would not necessarily act in that way. It is within the psychological
egoist's capacity to reject his or her ideas to act selfishly. The psychological egoist
would likely reason that it would not be in their longterm self interest to quibble with the
other individual, and would then decide to make a compromise. It is even possible that the
psychological egoist might adopt Immanuel Kant's ideals to guide him or her to the moral
course of action in the situation.
In the event that an individual acts in their own self interest, the consequences
are not limited to only be beneficial to that individual. The Abraham Lincoln anecdote
suggests that egoistic acts, for the most part, have moral worth. The narrative explains
that as Lincoln was driven over a bridge, he heard the squeal of piglets. He ordered his
coachmen to stop so that he could rescue the drowning piglets. After saving the piglets, a
friend of Lincoln noted that his heroic act was uncommonly selfless. Lincoln is quoted
saying in response ‘‘...that it was not for the sake of the pigs that he acted as he did.
Rather it was because he would have no peace later when he recalled the incident if he did
not do something about it now.’’ (MacKinnon 34 ).
From Lincoln's situation, the audience can distinguish the correlation and differences
between psychological egoism and Kant's moral theory. After performing what seemed
like a completely altruistic act, Lincoln admits that in reality he was acting in his own self
interest. Clearly Lincoln believed that the piglets had value; whether intrinsic or
instrumental. From this belief he recognized that, in the future, he would have been
compelled to feel guilty about not saving them; which was not in his self interest.
Now that the principles of both Kantian ethics and psychological egoism have
been defined, the reader can begin to understand why I have a moral obligation to help the
ESL student, Pedro. I believe that Pedro has intrinsic value and it is my duty to treat him as
such. I am obligated to appreciate my time with Pedro, but not just so that I can receive the
required credit for community service. Kant would say that even if I teach Pedro perfect
English, if I have not done so for the right reasons, the act has no moral worth.
Since I am psychologically egoistic, I cannot help but think of the possible
benefits I will receive from helping Pedro. For example, not helping Pedro would be
mentally taxing for me. I would worry whether anyone was helping Pedro to survive in
the uncomfortable environment he is in. I would wonder whether his children were
receiving adequate meals and education, because they are the future adults of the world
and my peers. My conscience would be filled with the thoughts of Pedro's well being.
52
�This type of stress would not be in my self interest. Though I may not like to admit it, I
would like to appear to be a moral agent.
While I would contemplate what benefits I would receive from providing Pedro
with comfort, I would also want to consider that treating people as if they had intrinsic
value is my duty. Since I accept Kant's second categorical imperative, I would agree that
while my acts will benefit me in the future, I don't have a choice but to treat Pedro with
dignity. Pedro is a rational being that deserves the same respect that I would bestow upon
any individual. To that end, it is my duty to treat Pedro with dignity.
Kant's moral theory and psychological egoism play an important role in proving
that I have a moral obligation to people outside of my society. It is not within an
individual's right to deny another the natural freedom of life. Beyond that, it is a citizen's
duty to help those that are struggling to an extent where the less fortunate can help
themselves. The people that have not been able to relate to another human being in their
struggles may not be able to fully comprehend what their moral obligations entail. For
me, these experiences with the people at El Centro have exposed my mind to the
hardships that they are facing. My involvement in the organization tunes me in to just one
of a citizens moral obligations; the moral obligation to make people feel comfortable in
an educational environment.
Works Cited
Harrison, Jonathan. ‘‘Self-Interest and Duty.’’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Vol.
31. 1 May 1953: pp. 23-29.
MacKinnon, Barbara. Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues. Wadsworth Cengage
Learning. 2009, 2007. Belmont, CA. Print.
Nagel, Michael. “Mind the Mind: Understanding the Links Between Stress, Emotional
Well-Being and Learning in Educational Contexts.” International Journal of Learning
16.2 (2009): 33-42.
Sogolo, Godwin. “Human Nature and Morality: The Case of the IK.” Philosophy and
Social Action 11.(1985): 41-54.
53
�The Punishments of the Bacchaeans
Caroline Geling1
To punish someone is to subject them to some type of pain, confinement, or
death, as a consequence of some offense, transgression, or fault they have committed.
Euripides’ The Bacchae contains multiple types of punishments for different actions.
Some appear to be completely justified; however, others seem too harsh. In this paper I
will examine the actions and punishments of the characters Pentheus, and his mother,
Agave, by Dionysus. I will defend the fact that Pentheus‘ punishment was well deserved
while Agaves’ punishment was too extensive.
Euripides’ tragic tale, The Bacchae, is an unfortunate and gruesome story of a
young and beautiful god who craves revenge upon those who revolt against his divinity.
This youthful god, Dionysus, has come back to his place of birth, Thebes, to prove that he
is truly half human and half divine. His desperate need to prove this to the people of
Thebes stems from his anger for the way his mother, Semele, had been treated in the past.
Not only was Dionysus upset with all the citizens of Thebes, but he was especially
infuriated by the refusal of his cousin, Pentheus, the new King, and Semele’s sisters to
accept him as divine.
Dionysus is only a god because Semele, a mortal and the daughter of former
King Cadmus, was a mistress of Zeus, the almighty god. She became pregnant with
Dionysus but her mortal family refused to believe Zeus was the father. Semele’s sisters
Ino, Autonoe, and Agave simply thought Dionysus was a bastard. While pregnant,
Semele was actually killed by the thunder-bolting glory of Zeus in his divine form.
However, Zeus saved the young Dionysus. Dionysus grew up to travel the world and
foreign lands, gathering a cult of female worshippers along the way. He eventually
returns to Thebes with his cabal to carry out revenge on the house of Cadmus while
disguised in human form. He begins by sending the women of Thebes to Mt. Cithaearon
where they fall into a frenzy of madness, dancing, and hunting. While this is happening,
King Pentheus decides to declare a complete ban of any worshipping of Dionysus.
Pentheus stumbles upon Cadmus and the great prophet, Teiresias, as they are
traveling to the mountain to be with the women, although they are not under the same
1
Written under the direction of Dr. John Danisi (Philosophy) for LC 9: Minds, Machines,
and Human Beings.
54
�spell. Pentheus gets extremely angry and hostile, demanding that they do not worship
Dionysus. “I happened to be away, out of the city, but reports reached me of some
strange mischief here, stories of our women leaving home to frisk in mock ecstasies
among the thickets on the mountain, dancing in honor of the latest divinity, a certain
Dionysus, whoever he may be!” (Euripides, 215-220) “By God, I’ll have his head cut
off!”, says Pentheus to the two men (Euripides, 240).
Pentheus attempts to capture Dionysus, and he is extremely confident in this
decision. He desires to chain him up; however, he is a god and soon escapes this foolish
treatment. Dionysus used his divine powers to cause a tremendously damaging
earthquake and fire that brings the palace to the ground. Finally, through a face to face
confrontation, Dionysus ends up manipulating Pentheus into coming with him to see the
possessed women. Dionysus convinced him to dress as a woman in disguise. This is
where Dionysus’ plan of severe punishment comes about. He brings young Pentheus to
the mountains and boosts him up into a tree where the women spot him. Low and
behold, Pentheus is ripped to shreds and torn of his limbs by his own mother, his aunts,
and the rest of the women.
The audience of the play is most often shocked by Dionysus’ relentless
punishment of Pentheus. It is rather unexpected and can also appear as harsh,
considering it was his own mother who murdered him. However, there are multiple
reasons and plenty of proof that Pentheus did, in-fact, deserve this type of punishment.
Pentheus was an extremely young, “beardless,” King (210). He “acts out of a kind of
unteachable, ungovernable, ignorance of himself and his necessities; he is prone to
violence, harshness, and brutality,” and he “wantonly, violently, refuses to accept the
necessity that Dionysus incarnates,” as stated in the introduction to the play
(introduction).
Although he is the King of Thebes, Pentheus is merely childlike. He displays all
the qualities of a young and foolish man. He is extremely boastful yet vulnerable at the
same time. His stubbornness and his inability to accept Dionysus as a god are due to his
complete and utter ignorance of himself, and where he stands as a mortal. The fact that
he is a young man and extremely foolish is no excuse for his behavior because he was
warned multiple times by the people of Thebes: including Teiresias, the chorus, and his
own grandfather, Cadmus. Teiresias says:
But you are glib; your phrases come rolling out smoothly on the tongue, as
though your words were wise instead of foolish. The man whose glibness flows
from his conceit of speech declares the thing he is: a worthless and a stupid
55
�citizen. I tell you, this god whom you ridicule shall someday have enormous
power and prestige (267-273).
Teiresias even tries to explain that Dionysus is truly a god; he is the god of the
liquid wine, the gift for the suffering of mankind. He says, “Mark my words, Pentheus.
Do not be so certain that power is what matters in the life of man; do not mistake for
wisdom the fantasies of your sick mind. Welcome the god to Thebes; crown your head;
pour him libations and join his revels” (309-313). Pentheus is too close-minded and
foolish to take any of these warnings into consideration. He says, “I see: this is your
doing, Teiresias. Yes, you want still another god revealed to men so you can pocket the
profits form burnt offerings and bird watching” (255-258). Pentheus will say anything to
prove himself right and ignore the truth.
Cadmus, his grandfather, agrees that Pentheus is acting foolishly. “Your mind is
distracted now, and what you think is sheer delirium. Even if Dionysus is no god, as you
assert, persuade yourself that he is” (332-334). Pentheus had even seen his own cousin
Actaeon die a dreadful death for boasting “that his prowess in the hunt surpassed the skill
of Artemis,” (339-342). Cadmus begs “Do not let this fate be yours” (342). However,
Pentheus is still a reckless fool and does not listen. Teiresias, after hearing that Pentheus
wants to capture the god, says, “you do not know the consequences of your words.
Cadmus, let us go pray for this raving fool and for this city, too, pray to the god that no
awful vengeance strike from heaven” (358-363). That is just what happens; there is an
awful vengeance strike from heaven and it is the punishment of poor, foolish Pentheus.
The Chorus of foreign women collectively states that Pentheus is being,
“inhuman, a rabid beast, a giant in wildness raging, storming, defying the children of
heaven” (542-545). The women go on to beg of Zeus “descend from Olympus, lord!
Come, whirl your wand of gold and quell with death this beast of blood whose violence
abuses man and god outrageously” (553-557). Dionysus himself even tries to warn
Pentheus upon meeting him at the palace. He says, “You do not know the limits of your
strength. You do not know what you do. You do not know who you are” (504-507). He
continues “I go, though not to suffer, since that cannot be. But Dionysus whom you
outrage by your acts, who you deny is god, will call you to account. When you set chains
on me, you manacle the god” (515-519).
Pentheus was so naive that he refused to recognize Dionysus’ divine powers
when Dionysus caused the earthquake and fire that brought the palace down. After he
had chained Dionysus up, Dionysus escaped because he is divine and incapable of being
captured. “He razed the palace to the ground where it lies, shattered in utter ruin-his
reward for my imprisonment” (633-634). Dionysus was easy on Pentheus, at first, for
56
�refusing to believe he was a god. However, Pentheus was too unteachable. He deserved
to be killed because of the multiple warnings he had been given. Even though it was his
own mother, Agave, who was ripping him apart, it was not too harsh. Regardless of
being young and foolish, he was a king and should have acted less ignorant. He knew
that the gods were supreme and all-powerful, but he just refused to believe in Dionysus.
Agave received a punishment from Dionysus as well. Even though her actions
were in favor of the god, he still punished her again. Dionysus said:
upon you, Agave, and on your sisters I pronounce this doom: you shall leave this
city in expiation of the murder you have done. You are unclean, and it would be
a sacrilege that murderers should remain at peace beside the graves (1322-1327).
Another reason Dionysus would like to punish Agave is for her lack of instilling Thebian
values and cultures on her son. She had all of Pentheus’ life to teach him how important
the gods were but she evidently did not.
All of this may be true; however, there is immense evidence that Agave was not
in her right mind during the murder of her son, Pentheus. The women of Thebes seemed
to be under some sort of spell or trance; they would dance, sleep, wander, and “nestled
gazelles and young wolves in their arms, suckling them” (700-701). This was not exactly
normal behavior. To the audience it seems as though the women are being controlled by
a higher power, or by the god. However, the women are simply intoxicated by the wine
and so possessed by Dionysus. The messenger went on to describe the scene he was
watching by the mountains, “At this we fled and barely missed being torn to pieces by the
women.” He saw the women, with their bear hands “tear a fat calf, still bellowing with
fright, in two, while others clawed the heifers to pieces. There were ribs and cloven
hooves scattered everywhere, and scraps smeared with blood hung from the fir trees”
(738-741). According to this messenger, “everything in sight they pillaged and
destroyed” (733-753). This clearly shows that these women are being controlled by
something.
Before Dionysus brings Pentheus to his death in the mountains, he says to the
women of Thebes, “Agave and you daughters of Cadmus, reach out your hands! I bring
this young man to a great ordeal. The victor? Bromius. Bromius- and I. The rest the
even shall show” (973-976). This shows that Dionysus is not really giving the women a
choice; he demands that they reach out their hands and partake in this great ordeal. The
Chorus cries out to them, “sting them against the man in women’s clothes,” ... “O Justice,
principle of order, spirit of custom, come! Be manifest; reveal yourself with a sword!”
(980-992).
57
�When Dionysus had Pentheus up in the tree attempting to spy on the women,
Dionysus’ voice, like the god that he is, came down from heaven and said, “Women, I
bring you the man who has mocked at you and me and at our holy mysteries. Take
vengeance upon him” (1079-1081). The messenger who described this event said, “And
now they [the women] knew his cry, the clear command of god. And breaking loose like
startled doves, through grove and torrent, over jagged rocks, they flew, their feet
maddened by the breathe of god” (1088-1092). Clearly, Agave, who is possessed by
Dionysus, is working out his actions and demands.
The messenger also claimed that Agave was “foaming at the mouth, and her
crazed eyes rolling with frenzy. She was mad, stark mad, possessed by Bacchus” (11221124). Agave was possessed; and, as such her actions were caused by the breath of god,
not her own conscience. The messenger explained that Agave “seems to think it is some
mountain lion’s head which she carries in triumph through the thick of Cithaeron” (11411143). Agave was so possessed that she literally believed her son was a lion; and
accordingly, the god used her to tear apart that lion and proudly carry the head. When
she got back to Thebes, the Chorus asked her, “And Pentheus, your son?” and she
replied, “Will praise his mother. She caught a great quarry, this lion’s cub (1194-1196).”
Agave was so proud that she wanted to show her son the lion she killed; she had no idea
her son was dead, by her hand. “And my son. Where is Pentheus? Fetch him” (12111212).
Agave had no recollection or where he was killed or why. She did not even
know she was at the mountain or what she was doing there. “But we- what were we
doing on the mountain?” (1293-1294). She experienced the greatest grief when she
realized her son was dead. After being told that she must be exiled and suffer forever she
said:
O Father, now you can see how everything has changed. I am in aguish now,
tormented, who walked in triumph minutes past, exulting in my kill. And that
prize I carried home with such pride was my own curse. Upon these hands I
bear the curse of my son’s blood (1331-1336).
Agave is bound by Dionysus to suffer great punishments; yet the entire murder was out
of her hands. It could not, then, be her fault. Her punishment was too excessive
considering she was possessed by Dionysus and had no control over her actions.
My opinion is that Pentheus deserved his terrible fate and did nothing to stop it,
even though there were many chances along the way. I also believe that Agave did not
deserve her harsh punishment as a consequence of her actions; she had no say in them.
The play clearly showed that Pentheus was warned of the power of the gods, not only by
58
�the people of Thebes, but by Dionysus himself. It also showed how Agave and the other
women were possessed by the gods. I interpreted it as Dionysus controlling these women
and commanding them to kill Pentheus. By examining the dialogue I came to the
conclusion that Pentheus fully deserved his fate; however I also concluded that Agave’s
punishment was too harsh, considering her state of mind.
Works Cited
Danisi, John. “The Bacchae.” Reflective Tutorial. Wagner College. Staten Island, New
York. 15 Oct. 2010. Lecture.
Euripides. Euripides: Bacchae. London, UK: Createspace. 2009. Pages 142-220. Print.
59
�The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Nothingness:
Utilizing the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre to Better
Understand Kundera’s Novel
Zachary Weinsteiger1
Throughout Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being the reader is
confronted with the opposing personalities of the core characters. These can be separated
into the two opposing sides of “lightness” and “weight” and, on a more basic level, sex
and love. Kundera’s narrator tells the reader that the novel was born from a concept of
Nietzsche; however a close analysis of the characters shows that rather than being merely
a musing on eternal return it may be read as a tale of individuals grappling with Sartre’s
concept of “Being for Others.” In a sense each character is seeking to reaffirm his or her
own existence through varying uses of others. For example, Tomas grapples with his
existence by constantly reaffirming his physical existence in his sex acts with others.
Tereza grapples with her existence in her love for Tomas, or more accurately her desire to
be loved by Tomas. Sabina grapples with her existence both through the physical act of
intercourse and, moreover, by utilizing shame as a means to affirm the self. The desires
and behaviors demonstrated by these various characters can all be traced back to Sartre’s
concepts of “Being for Others,” the bulk of which is to be found in his essay Being and
Nothingness. Thus it can be argued that to fully understand Kundera’s characters and the
novel on the whole, one must first have a clear understanding of the ideas posed by JeanPaul Sartre.
One can make the claim that Kundera must have been in some way or another
influenced by Sartre’s works because they were contemporaries. Born in 1905, Sartre
began publishing his thoughts and works in 1936, causing a stir in the world of
philosophy. Kundera himself was born in the year 1929 and therefore grew up in a world
that was being introduced to Sartre and his philosophy. Through his obvious interest in
and knowledge of Nietzsche and his works, it can be seen that Kundera was thoroughly
interested in the realm of philosophy, particularly existentialism, and would have been
well versed in the writings of his contemporary philosophers. Sartre passed away in 1980,
a mere four years before the publication of Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of
Being. Thus one can assume that Kundera would have had Sartre on his mind while
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley (English) for EN291: Freshman Honors
Literature Seminar.
60
�writing his novel and, subconsciously or otherwise, he would incorporate Sartre’s “Being
for Others” into the work.
The concept of “Being for Others” stems first and foremost from the concept
that without the boundaries set by others, one is, on one level, perfectly free, however
without any sort of set self-identity: “Man is the quest for self-identity, substantiality,
permanence, stability, objectivity. Yet to win these would be to lose the very freedom of
man… the price of freedom is vacuity; the price of self-identity is external
determination” (Fell 67). Mankind seeks to define themselves, to reaffirm their existence,
but by doing this through others they limit their freedom by becoming a determined
object by being seen by the other. This is Sartre’s concept of “The Look”: “This relation
in which the Other must be given to me directly as a subject although in connection with
me, is the fundamental relation, the very type of my being-for-others” (Sartre 341). In
other words, when another is present, our relationship to them sets up boundaries. “The
Look” is the concept that how you are perceived by a person constructs what you are in
essence. Thus the existence of others limits us and our freedom by manufacturing a
deterministic self, constructed by the views of others, but in doing so also gives the
desired self-identity and reaffirmation of existence. So one finds oneself in concrete
relations with others as a means of affirming existence and self-identity, and from this
stems the emotion of attachment known as love:
Thus, in love, I want to remain an object for the other, but at the same time I want
to be a limiting object, an object which the other will accept, not once and for all,
but again and again, as limiting his transcendence. The lover wants to be ‘the
whole world’ for the loved one. Neither the determinism of the passion nor the
detached attitude of elective affinity can satisfy the lover. He wants to be the
occasion, not the cause of the passion (Salvan 87).
Mankind seeks others, and love, in order to have a set means with which to constantly
reaffirm the self. The loved one provides a point of reference, which will always
acknowledge and affirm the existence of the other by using them as a point of reference
for themselves: “Whereas before being loved we were uneasy about the unjustified
protuberance which was our existence… we now feel that our existence is taken up and
willed even in its tiniest detail by an absolute freedom… our existence is justified”(Sartre
483-484). We seek others for love because they see us in a way we wish to be seen: “The
Other holds a secret- the secret of who I am” (Sartre 475). Put basically, since others are
what determine the self of the individual, as the self is defined by others rather than the
individual himself, we seek in love an other who sees us in a way which we find
favorable. When one has found a person who sees him or her in a way in which one
61
�wishes to see oneself, one forms an attachment, known as “love”, and uses the other as a
means of constantly reaffirming that self that exists in them as a reference point.
Setting love aside, another means through which we affirm our existence is
through the act of sexual intercourse: “I make myself flesh in order to impel the other to
realize for herself and for me her own flesh. My caress causes my flesh to be born for me
insofar as it is for the Other flesh causing her to be born as flesh." (Sartre 508). Through
the coming together, the fusing, of two bodies we only reaffirm more concretely the
existence of our own physical bodies. Coming so close physically allows us to observe
more closely our physical barriers and thus the barriers of the self. One proves oneself to
be a physical entity in order to prove the physical existence of the other. Sartre claims
that this is the basis of sexual desire. Furthermore we may reaffirm ourselves through the
concept of shame: “Shame…is the apprehension of myself as a nature although that very
nature escapes me and is unknowable as such.” (Sartre 352). Put simply, shame stems
from our inherent self-consciousness that arises from being looked upon by others. One
feels shame because one knows that others are perceiving them and making one an object
which may be seen unfavorably. This is a very brief explanation of a few aspects of
Sartre’s overall idea of “Being for Others” but, for the purpose of allowing one to better
grasp the characters and their actions, it serves its purpose.
Beginning with Tomas, one should first look at his relationship with Tereza.
Tomas fell in love with Tereza for the simple reason that it made him feel powerful:
He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger; she
seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with
pitch and sent downstream for Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed
(Kundera 6).
He comes to love her because of how he is reflected in her. The individual comes to love
because they wish to have a frame of reference in which to see their self-identity.
Through Tereza, Tomas saw himself as a protector. He had immense power over this
“child” and thus he became attached to her, for he expected, as in all love according to
Sartre, that she would constantly reaffirm this to him. In a loving marriage he would
forever become a powerful protector over her. Later the narrator claims that “Their love
story did not begin until afterward: she fell ill and he was unable to send her home like
the others” (Kundera 209). Specifically because of her weakness he came to love her. Her
weakness made him all the stronger and reaffirmed this again and again.
Despite Tomas’ love for Tereza, he is also extremely promiscuous. This stems
from Tomas’ wish to reaffirm his own existence physically. He uses sex as a means of
manifesting his own physical existence. As a surgeon he knew the body inside and out,
but what he didn’t know was others. He sought constantly to discover others in order to
62
�reaffirm himself: “So it was not a desire for pleasure… but for possession of the world…
that sent him in pursuit of women” (Kundera 200). He wanted to define the world around
him in relation to himself through the act of physical love, through which he could both
define others and himself as separate physical and conscious entities:
What is unique about the “I” hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a
person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else,
what people have in common. The individual “I” is what differs from the common
stock, that is what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled,
uncovered, conquered (Kundera 199).
This is Tomas’ whole reason for promiscuity. He is in search of the “I,” his “I,” in the “I”
of others. He seeks to discover what is unimaginable about others because in doing so he
is testing his own boundaries. By testing his boundaries sexually he is able to better see
himself as an object in existence.
Tereza exemplifies, perhaps more so than the rest, Sartre’s concepts of love.
Tereza grew up under the rule of her mother, a woman who lacked shame when it came
to her body: “Your body is just like all other bodies; you have no right to shame… In her
mother’s world all bodies were the same and marched behind one another in formation”
(Kundera 57). This instilled in her a fear of sameness. Her existence lacked any sort of
validity or justification if it was simply the same as any other. This fear manifests itself in
her nightmare:
I was at a large outdoor swimming pool. There were twenty of us. All women. We
were naked and had to march around the pool. There was a basket hanging from
the ceiling and a man standing in the basket. The man wore a broad-brimmed
hat shading his face, but I could see it was you. You kept giving us orders.
Shouting at us. We had to sing as we marched, sing and do kneebends. If one of
us did a bad kneebend, you would shoot her with a pistol and she would fall dead
in the pool (Kundera 18).
This nightmare exemplifies Tereza’s fear of sameness. As her mother had taught her, the
women that were around her were essentially the same; interchangeable from one
another. Tereza walks in formation, afraid of any slight failure as it will lead to her being
tossed aside in favor of the others, or, in the terms of the dream itself, shot. Tereza
counteracts that fear by seeking the love of Tomas. While Tomas loves her because her
weakness makes him into a strong protector, she loves him because she wishes him to be
there to reaffirm her uniqueness, her self-identity. But Tomas’ infidelity causes her
distress. Because love is attempting to maintain the attention of another solely on one’s
self, Tomas’ apparent focus on other women causes Tereza much suffering: “‘For months
now your hair has had the strong odor to it. It smells of female genitals. I didn’t want to
tell you, but night after night I’ve had to breathe in the scent of some mistress of yours’”
63
�(Kundera 235). The scent on Tomas haunts Tereza so because it means he has been
focused on other women rather than her. Instead of continually reaffirming Tereza’s self,
Tomas only strengthens her worries of sameness.
It is interesting to note here Tereza’s relationship with Karenin. When Tomas’
attentions are out of reach of Tereza, she finds solace in Karenin’s look. Karenin, being a
dog, allowed Tereza to feel important, as in the dog’s eyes she was the master. But more
telling is what Kundera claims about the nature of love in analyzing the relationship of
Karenin and Tereza:
It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did
not ever ask him to love her back…Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is
that we yearn to be loved, that is we demand something (love) from our partner
instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but
his company (Kundera 297).
This is almost exactly Sartre’s point. Love is masochistic because one demands that the
other limit their freedom by only viewing them. With the dog nothing is demanded, it is
just a pure unconditional love between two beings. Tereza isn’t asking the dog to love her
back, to give her the affirmation of self-identity, but merely to keep her company.
Thus Tereza reached a point where she needed to affirm her own existence in a
different way and this manifested itself in her encounter with the engineer:
In the light of the incredible, the soul for the first time saw the body as something
other than banal; for the first time it looked on the body with fascination: all the
body’s matchless, inimitable, unique qualities had suddenly come to the fore.
This was not the most ordinary of bodies… this was the most extraordinary body
(Kundera 155).
Through her sexual adventure with the engineer, Tereza is able to reaffirm to herself her
uniqueness. She sees her body distinctly apart from the bodies of others by manifesting it
through sex with the engineer. Here Sartre’s philosophy stands out in Kundera’s own
words: “She did not desire her lover’s body. She desired her own body, newly
discovered, intimate and alien beyond all others, incomparably exciting” (Kundera 161).
She discovers her own body, that physical level of self, through this sexual act.
Sabina uses a slightly more bizarre concept in order to reaffirm her existence to
herself. She uses shame before others as a means to remind her of her own existence.
She manifests this in her grandfather’s bowler hat:
The lingerie enhanced the charm of her femininity, while the hard masculine hat
denied it, violated and ridiculed it. The fact that Tomas stood beside her fully
dressed meant that the essence of what they both saw was far from good clean
fun… it was humiliation. But instead of spurning it, she proudly, provocatively
64
�played it for all it was worth, as if submitting of her own will to public rape…
(Kundera 87).
This “public rape” falls in line with the concept of shame. Shame is what one feels when
they become acutely aware of the others perception of you, particularly when the
perception is less than desirable. Sabina present herself as weak and ridiculous before
others to attain that feeling of shame. Naturally, she is also having intercourse with these
others, which is a means of affirmation, but this must be noted. She wears the ridiculous
outfit of lingerie and hat and stands before a mirror with another in order for her to feel
more acutely, on a different level than love and sex, her relation to other people. The
feeling of shame reminds her of her own being, her own existence apart from, yet
dependent upon, others. She refuses to accept love, due entirely to its limiting effects, and
sex is not enough for her to fully comprehend her self-identity, therefore she adds into her
sexual acts the element of shame.
In these ways we see how Sartre’s philosophy has affected, perhaps even been
the source of, the behaviors of Kundera’s characters. All of them share the same
existential woe. They all struggle with the same feelings. They go about resolving this, by
reaffirming their existence, physical or otherwise, in a variety of ways which reflect
Sartre’s ideas on the topic of “Being for Others.” Was Kundera consciously trying to
make his characters reflect these thoughts? One cannot know that. What one does know
is that Kundera lived in the time of Sartre. It is inconceivable that a man as well read as
Kundera would not have had a thorough knowledge and understanding of the
philosophies of Sartre, particularly since Kundera shows himself to be an existentialist.
Works Cited
Fell, Joseph. Emotion in the Thought of Sartre. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.
Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, Inc., 1999.
Salvan, Jacques. To be and not to be: An analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre's Ontology. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1962.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology.
New York: Washington Square Press, 1992.
65
�Here, There, and Everywhere
Morgan Grubbs1
What is a moral obligation? The dictionary defines the word obligation as: “a
binding promise, contract, sense of duty” (dictionary.com). Logically, a moral obligation
would be a code or standard of morality that we are bound to uphold. Of course most
people feel a sense of moral obligation to family and friends. People go to extraordinary
lengths to protect and provide for their loved ones. One has to ask, how far does this
“contract” extend? Who does the umbrella of moral obligation cover? Are the members
of our community covered? What about the members of our state? Our country? What
about total strangers living halfway around the world? Do we have a moral obligation to
people we will never meet?
I believe we do. John D. Rockefeller said it best when he stated, “Every right
implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation, every possession, a
duty”(brainyquote.com). As citizens of the world, and especially citizens of America, we
have a debt to our community- both locally and globally. In this essay, I will use Peter
Singer’s article, “Kantian ethics”, and the theory of Natural law to support the statement
that as humans we have a duty to help people, regardless of their proximity or relation to
us.
Our experiential learning for LC8 was to assist in English as a Second Language
classes at an organization called El Centro del Inmigrante. Quickly I (along with another
student, Kellie Griffith) was given the opportunity to help three women, Elvia, Gloria and
Dominga, learn to read and write. I have forged friendships with all three women but I
have made a special connection with Elvia. She is an amazing woman who came to the
United States from Mexico about three years ago. She cannot read or write in Spanish or
English because she never had the chance to receive a formal education. Although Elvia
is learning quickly and is one of the most clever and intelligent women I have ever met,
she is very hard on herself. One week, Elvia and I were working one on one to learn some
new and challenging words. She became very frustrated and told me that she was stupid
and couldn’t do it. It was not the first time I heard Elvia use self-deprecating language.
Our lessons over the past few months have been peppered with her self-doubt and
criticism. I am always quick to remind Elvia that what she is doing is hard, it is
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Sarah Donovan (Philosophy) and Dr. Margarita
Sanchez (Modern Languages) for LC8: A Journey to Different Worlds.
66
�frustrating and challenging and all around difficult. Elvia has absorbed society’s message
that because she cannot speak English, she is stupid. Tragically, I see this belief mirrored
in a five-year-old girl named Hilda.
I work with Hilda on Wednesdays at tutoring sessions where I help her complete
her spelling homework. Hilda’s parents cannot help her with the homework because they
do not speak English. Hilda can understand English very well but she still has a bit of a
problem speaking it and obviously with writing because she is five. One day, we were
working on writing the letter “K.” Hilda became frustrated and said, “I’m stupid. I can’t
do this.” I was shocked to say the least. I realized that at the tender age of five, Hilda
already believed that because she was living in America, and she could not speak English
as well as the children in her class, she was stupid.
Elvia and Hilda are two people that American society has made to feel
that they are “stupid” because they do not speak English. Some people may ask, so what?
Why should I care? It relates back to the idea of a moral obligation. What is our moral
obligation to Hilda and Elvia? Is mine different from someone who has not met these two
inspiring women? Peter Singer would say no.
In his article “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Singer takes the position that if
we have the power to do something to stop suffering, we should do it, regardless of
proximity or knowledge of whom we are helping (Singer). Most people would label what
I am doing for Elvia and Hilda as “charity work.” Singer, on the other hand, would
disagree and say that I am merely doing my duty as a person. Singer would go even
further and say that every single person in the world should be trying to help Elvia, Hilda
and others like them. It could be as simple as not endorsing or promoting harmful
stereotypes like the ones that Hilda and Elvia are affected by. Of course it’s great if
people are inspired to do much more, but everyone should at least do a little bit. It’s our
duty as global citizens.
The debate between duty and charity is one that is not often thought
about. The notion that we, as humans, have an obligation to help strangers is a foreign
concept for most Americans. In our “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” society, helping
others is considered a generous or kind thing to do. If you told most people that they have
a duty or that they must help strangers they would be shocked and maybe angry. It makes
one wonder, why is the culture of giving in our country apathetic and sometimes even
hostile? Why are the priorities of our nation so skewed? Rob Reich would say that it is
inevitable for people to feel indifferent about charity due to the culture of giving in our
nation.
67
�In his article, “The Failure of Philanthropy,” Reich discusses the reasons why
people don’t give or are apathetic about giving. He says, “…because American policies
governing philanthropy are indifferent towards helping the poor, American individuals
and institutions likewise fail to funnel their money to those in need” (Reich, 29). People
look, whether consciously or subconsciously, to their government to find what they
should value. Therefore, when the government does not spend their money on the poor
and needy, neither do the American people. When the government does not make giving
to charities a priority, society does likewise.
In Kantian ethics, there are two categorical imperatives, or two
commands that are the foundations for Kant’s theory of morality. The second is to treat
humanity as an end and not a means. Basically, because humans are humans they have
intrinsic worth, or value in themselves. This value is not based on and cannot be changed
by a person’s usefulness or how much they are loved by others (MacKinnon, 80). This
relates to our moral obligation to strangers. If we keep in mind someone’s intrinsic worth
when we consider what we “owe” people, our conclusion should always be that we
should help our fellow man, even if we don’t know them. People are viewed as being
valuable because they are people, not because they are someone’s brother, someone’s
husband, or someone’s daughter. Strangers should have just as much value to us as our
immediate family. Elvia and Hilda should be valued because they are Elvia and Hilda,
not because they are brave, not because they are smart, but because they are who they
are. Others should help them because of this value. Things that are valuable deserve and
require work and care by others.
In his article, “A Duty to Be Charitable,” Peter Atterton discusses
Kant’s first categorical imperative. The basic premise of Kant’s first categorical
imperative is that in order for an action to be moral, it must be able to be universalized.
Basically, if everyone did the “action,” the world would be better off. Atterton uses this
imperative to argue against a society that doesn’t value giving. He said it is possible to
conceive a world where the universal law is that no one helps those in need. However, the
imperative would be broken because eventually it would contradict itself. Atterton says,
“…may a situation might arise in which the man needed love and sympathy from others,
and in which, by such a law of nature sprung from his own will, he would rob himself of
all hope of the help he wants for himself” (Atterton, 137). If a man doesn’t want to give
to charity and he universalizes the law then if he is in need and wants help from a charity,
the law contradicts itself. Therefore Atterton proves that giving to those in need is
supported by Kantian ethics.
68
�Natural laws and natural rights are laws and rights that transcend
society, cultures and written laws. They are privileges that we have as human beings that
cannot be given or taken away by governments. Our country has deep roots in this
theory, it is cited numerous times in our Constitution and our Declaration of
Independence. All people have certain rights that they are entitled to, regardless of race,
religion, gender, age, socioeconomic class or sexual orientation. The basic train of logic
to support natural laws and rights is: humans are of the same species. Humans are born
with the same basic capacities, and therefore, all humans should be treated equally. If we
have a moral obligation to help any member of humanity, we have a moral obligation to
help all of humanity, because all men (and women) are created equal. Elvia, Hilda, and
the other people at El Centro have the same rights as everyone else living in the world
and deserve to be treated accordingly.
In conclusion, we have a moral obligation to help complete and perfect
strangers because they have intrinsic worth, they have natural rights that we cannot take
away, and because it is our duty as a human being to help them. My work at El Centro
has helped me to better grasp this concept and to understand that all people deserve the
best life possible, even if I will never meet them.
Works Cited
Peter Atterton. “A Duty to Be Charitable? A Rigoristic Reading of Kant.” Kant-Studien
98.2(2007):135-155.
“John D. Rockefeller Quotes.” Quotes and Quotations at BrainyQuote. 2001. Web. 15
Nov. 2010. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_d_rockefeller.html>.
MacKinnon, Barbara. Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.
“Obligation | Define Obligation at Dictionary.com.” Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings
and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Ask.com, 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obligation?&qsrc=>
Reich, Rob. “The Failure of Philanthropy.” Stanford Social Invocation Review, Winter
2005.
69
�Dissident Voices Against the Injustices of the School
Experience of the LGBT Community
Elle Brigida1
Schools are microcosms of society in which the ideals and morals of an entire
generation can be shaped. In high schools and universities, the heterosexual students
exhibit the homophobia of society at large. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
students, combining to make the LGBT community, face prejudice and discrimination
every day not only in the United States, but worldwide. Other students verbally and
physically assault them, deface their property, and in extreme cases, murder them. Their
harassment leads to fear, dropping out of school, and truancy. Recently, several gay teens
in the United States committed suicide as a result of bullying from their peers.
Sociologists offer many different solutions to homophobia in schools including
bibliotherapy and no tolerance policies from the administration. Student run
organizations, however, are the key to promoting tolerance and awareness. Organizations
such as the Gay Straight Alliance and the Day of Silence raise awareness within the
school community from students to other students. For tolerance to prevail, the attitudes
of the students must change in order for society as a whole to become a more accepting
and safer place for the LGBT community.
Although society has become more accepting of the LGBT community, some
still exhibit homophobic attitudes. “Diversity and Inclusivity at University: A Survey of
The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) Students in the UK” is a
nationwide study of the campus climate based on survey data from 291 LGBT students
from 42 universities across the UK. According to the data, homophobia on campus is still
a significant problem despite the implementation of new equality laws on campus. The
survey asked questions such as “Since you have been at university have you ever been a
victim of homophobic harassment/discrimination?” and “Have you ever deliberately
concealed your sexual identity to avoid intimidation?” Although only 23.4% of those
surveyed reported being victims of homophobic harassment, 54.3% have deliberately
concealed their sexual identity to avoid intimidation. Therefore, Ellis asserts that
although most LBGT youth have not been directly harassed, the threat of violence and
rejection causes them to conceal their sexual identity. However, direct harassment is also
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Patricia Moynagh (Government and Politics) and Dr.
Erica Johnson (English) for LC7: Dissident Voices in Politics and Literature.
70
�prevalent in universities in the UK as well as in the United States. Some of these
incidents occur in residence halls: “My second year, I moved, and the one person out of
two that the university selected to share my flat in the second year was very homophobic,
saying things like ‘better dead than gay’ and threatening me several times” (Ellis 730).
Tyler Clementi was a victim of such residence hall abuse. Tyler Clementi was a
freshman at Rutgers University who recently jumped off a bridge a day after authorities
say two classmates surreptitiously recorded him having sex with a man in his dorm room
and broadcast it over the Internet. One student was his roommate, Dharun Ravi, and the
other was a floor mate, Molly Wei. Ravi and Wei have been charged with invasion of
privacy. They face up to 5 years in jail and expulsion from Rutgers University.
Verbal harassment often occurs in high school environments as well. In “The
Ideology of “Fag”: The School Experience of Gay Students”, Smith argues that speech,
whether as verbal abuse or homophobic graffiti, leads to antigay activities that stretch to
the school as a whole. Smith asserts that “verbal abuse both is and initiates attack” (Smith
309). The gay student acquires a gay identity through what Smith calls the ideology of
“fag.” According to Smith, “the gay students’ stories show the school’s complicity in the
everyday cruelties of the enforcement of heterosexist/homophobic hegemony” (309).
Among these stories is the story of one student whose principal told him that “if [he]
didn’t keep [his] sexual preference under wraps [he’d] be suspended” (Smith 314). When
he refused to be silent about his sexual orientation, he was suspended for “being rude and
insubordinate.” The administration of school systems should be encouraging students to
be open about their sexuality, not to hide it. If the administration does not accept the
students for who they are, the other students will continue to harass them. Another
student discusses an incident in the lunch room: “he walked by and he tripped me and my
tray and said something like ‘a faggot needs to be on his knees” (Smith 320). Derogatory
remarks such as these reflect the ignorance of the bullies. Bullies must be educated in
order to become more tolerant.
The harassment does not stop once the homosexual students leave school. “It’s
not that they would [merely] threaten me, they would do it when I was walking home.
They would get me from behind. Just to jump on me and kick me, and no reason for it,
just the fact that I was different” (Smith 319). The entire world feels unsafe to the gay
student. Some students feel so unsafe and alone that they resort to killing themselves.
For some students, adults are more hurtful than their peers. For Student #2, an
openly gay artist and recent graduate of art school in New York City, “homophobia was
bad for me when I was a teen more from the other students’ parents. Most kids knew I
was gay just because and then when I was 15 I came out in school. They never said
71
�anything to my face, but I felt it. There were many times when there were parties, or we
had to do assignments in groups and I couldn’t go to some of the kid's houses because
their parents didn’t like the fact that I was gay.” Student #3, who is “certainly not
homophobic”, discusses his parents’ anti-gay sentiments. “Asian parents are against gay
people too. It’s just a fact. Especially Asian fathers. My dad along with most Asian dads
just thinks it’s not natural. It’s just how they grew up. The government in Vietnam back
then would kill you if you were gay or jail you because Communism can be messed up.”
One could argue that the conservative older generation will not change their views.
However, the youth of America and of the world at large can promote tolerance within
their generation.
Homosexuals are not the only ones who are targeted. Even self-identified
heterosexual men who “were only people perceived to be fags” (Smith 319) because of
their effeminate characteristics are harassed because they are different. At Wagner
College, if a student is in the theatre department and acts effeminately, students assume
that student is gay. However, that is not always the case. For example, student #1, a
Wagner College freshman, who is described by his fellow students as “eccentric” and can
be seen sporting nail polish and a fedora, identifies himself as a heterosexual male.
However, students harass Student #1 merely because they think that he is gay. When
discussing his high school experience, student #1 said that “it was hard because people
would assume that I was gay and I would think ‘Who are you to tell me what I feel?’” He
also shared harassment he endured even in middle school: “I’ve had people come by my
house and yell at my parents words like "FAG". It’s not very nice. It was on the night of
my middle school prom when that happened.” In this way, those who merely appear to be
gay are harassed as well.
Interestingly enough, bullies are not always heterosexuals. Some openly
homosexual males have exhibited spiteful attitudes towards those who they deem
homosexual as well although they have not “come out” yet. Sexuality is not something
that can be decided by others. However, student #1 has had many experiences in which
others have decided that he is homosexual without asking him about his own sexual
preferences. It seems that in this age of openness about sexuality, in the theatre
community especially, other people assume the sexuality of others before finding out for
themselves. As Caitlin Ferchaw, a senior theatre performance major at Wagner, puts it,
“When you’re in theatre, every guy is gay until proven straight.” However, this
assumption can be harmful to those who are not yet open about their sexuality or in the
case of Student #1, the opposite of what others assume. For example, he discussed an
incident of harassment from an openly homosexual student: “This school’s usually really
72
�accepting. It kind of bugged me that “he” of all people would be the one to say something
rude. We all went out to karaoke in the city one night. My cousin was there standing right
next to him and he screamed out ‘Student #1, You’re Gay!’ like he was trying to make
me realize something about myself. He’s ignorant and he’s actually gay so it says
something. Ignorance knows no preference.”
Some students do not attribute bullying to their sexual preference and see it as a
rite of passage of high school. Student #2 discusses his school experience: “Well I went
to high school in Colombia, but I went to a private American school, so I am a product of
the cross of both cultures. I wasn’t overtly teased about my sexuality during high school,
I was bullied as most boys are, but it wasn’t specifically because I was gay and I did my
fair trade of bullying to be honest.” Student #3, a heterosexual male student at the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, attributes bullying to the likeability of the gay
men who are bullied. He compares his experience with two different homosexual male
students in high school: “This random time in the hallways after school Mike was
walking by and this group of kids yelled “fag!” as they walked onto the floor and he was
walking down the stairs. People just don’t like Mike and that’s the reason why people
might use him being gay as a way to insult him. No one does that to Paul and Paul is very
open about it. He doesn’t really hide it from people and people love Paul. They’re just
two different people who are both gay.”
However, this bullying can have grave consequences. Most recently, several
homosexual teenagers have committed suicide due to bullying from their peers. Seth
Walsh, 13, committed suicide after years of being bullied. Even before Seth came out as
gay, family and friends say, he was perpetually picked on for his mannerisms and his
style of dressing. Seth's grandparents say the breaking point came after what they believe
was a bullying incident in a local park on Sept. 19. The police interviewed several of the
students who teased Walsh but determined their actions did not constitute a crime, news
reports say.
Asher Brown, also 13, shot himself after being harassed at his middle school in
Houston. The 13-year-old's parents said they had complained about the bullying to
Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns
fell on deaf ears. David and Amy Truong said they made several visits to the school to
complain about the harassment, and Amy Truong said she made numerous phone calls to
the school that were never returned. The school reports that no complaints were made.
Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old in Indiana, hanged himself Thursday after being
bullied. He never told anyone he was gay, but his classmates acknowledged that he was
teased because students assumed he was. His friend Jade says the bullies would call Billy
73
�“gay and tell him to go kill himself.” Karen questions, “You actually heard people tell
him go kill yourself?” She answers “yes”. An incident that occurred the day before
Billy’s suicide is most concerting. His friend James Kriete was told by Billy’s sister “He
had a chair pulled out from underneath him and told to go hang himself.” Kriete says,
“I've been bullied and that could have been me. That's all I keep thinking about, that
could have been me” (Hensel).
Although the bullies did not murder these victims with their own hands, their
harassment has a direct correlation with their deaths. These incidents are reminiscent of
the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Matthew Shepard was an openly gay freshman
at the University of Wyoming. He had previously gotten his jaw broken by a man who
found out he was gay at a bar. In 1998, at the Fireside Lounge, Shepard met two men,
Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney who led him to believe they were gay.
However, they were not gay and in reality, hated Shepard for being who he was. They
beat Shepard unconscious and left him hanging from a fence to die. Wyoming legislature
had previously crushed bills outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians making it
impossible to charge Henderson and McKinney with a hate crime.
The common link between these cases is the inability or unwillingness of the
authorities to do anything to prevent hate crimes and harassment. Anti-gay discrimination
and bullying is reported to the administration of high schools and colleges across the
county and nothing is done to prevent the untimely death of these gay teens. In 1998,
Henderson and McKinney were not charged with a hate crime. One would think that laws
against hate would have changed over a decade later. However, discrimination against the
LGBT community is allowed throughout the United States. School administrations do
nothing to protect their students. According to Guillermo Riveros, an openly gay artist
who attended art school in New York City, “the biggest example of homophobia right
now is that governments are giving the opportunity to people that for whatever reasons
think they have a right to decide what others can or can’t do. If the government wanted to
do something once and for all about homophobia it wouldn’t leave things up for
discussion. It’s been years of talking about equality...civil rights movements, a holocaust
at this point a government, all governments should just say everybody gets the same
rights and nobody can discuss it.” The government must take a stand for gay rights and in
turn the rights for all of its citizens. After the devastating amount of recent suicides
something must also be done to promote tolerance and awareness in schools.
In recent years, students have stood up for their rights to be protected by their
schools from bullying. Jamie Nabozny, as a middle schooler in Wisconsin was tormented
for his sexual orientation. Students urinated on him, pretended to rape him during class
74
�and when they found him alone kicked him so many times in the stomach that he required
surgery. Nabozny reported his harassment to school officials who did nothing to help
him. He sued his school for failing to protect him from antigay abuse and with the help
of Lambda Legal, a prominent legal association meant to protect the civil rights of the
LGBT community, won his case in a federal appeals court. In July of 1996, for the first
time in history, a federal court deemed the school responsible for the safe school
environment of all of its students including those in the LGBT community.
Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” discussed the
difference between a just and an unjust law. A law is just if it uplifts human personality
and a law is unjust if it degrades human personality. The absence of just laws is the same
as the existence of an unjust law in the case of antigay discrimination. Laws must be
instated which protect the rights and safety of gay citizens because these just laws would
uplift human personality and not degrade it. King also asserted that doing nothing to
prevent violence is no better than participating in acts of violence. Therefore, the
administration of schools, who do nothing about antigay bullying, are as responsible as
the bullies for the abuse gay teens sustain.
However, sociologists offer a variety of approaches to promoting tolerance in
schools and society on a larger scale. In “Bibliotherapy for Gay and Lesbian Youth:
Overcoming the Structure of Silence,” Jonathan W. Vare and Terry L. Norton promote
creating an environment that is friendly towards the coming out process of gay and
lesbian youth through literature. Vare and Norton argue that “schools are social
institutions that mirror the beliefs of society at large”(190) and therefore mirror the
homophobic views of society as a whole. Bibliotherapy is healing through literature. Vare
and Norton assert that “carefully selected and monitored books can help foster positive
change in the attitudes of adolescents struggling with self-identity” (191), in this case,
gay and lesbian adolescents. They lay out the basic rules of bibliotherapy for gay and
lesbian youths including the idea that “books should affirm homosexual identity and
orientation by depicting the presence of gays and lesbians as a normal part of life” (192).
They conclude by recommending books for teachers to introduce to students. Finally,
they assert that appropriate books promote sexual exploration and affirm the identities of
gay and lesbian teens, ultimately working towards acceptance rather than silence.
In “Constructions of LBGT Youth: Opening up Subject Position,” Talburt
asserts that educators must listen to the queer youth. She worries that the adult
perspective on the risks facing LGBT youth are not compatible with the actual social life
of LGBT youth. The lives of LGBT youth are as unpredictable as those of heterosexual
youth. Therefore, Talburt asserts that their means of crafting identities may not be
75
�recognizable according to the representations adults have of queer youth. As adults seek
to foster a safe environment for LGBT youth, Talburt asserts that they must listen to the
voices of the LGBT youth they seek to assist and realize that LGBT youth will
continually generate new meanings for their identities.
Student-run groups like the Gay-Straight Alliance are an important step towards
tolerance in schools. The Gay-Straight Alliance is a student organization that is intended
to create safe environments in schools for students to support each other and learn about
homophobia. Since the Gay-Straight Alliance’s founding in 1988, in Concord,
Massachusetts, over 4000 schools have started their own Gay-Straight Alliances. The
Gay-Straight Alliance is a place of comfort for those who feel alone in the “coming out”
process. They host events such as Gay-Straight Alliance dances and socials where
students from other schools can meet and find support. Most importantly, they promote
tolerance within the school community with events such as the Day of Silence. On the
Day of Silence, students, gay and straight alike, take a vow of silence to bring attention to
anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying, and harassment at their schools. The power of silence
is central to Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie. Kambili, the protagonist, remains
silent throughout most of the novel. It is only when she begins to find her voice that she
can form her own identity. Similarly, the silence of the LGBT community represents the
struggle that LGBT teens face to develop and accept their own identity, an identity which
other ignorant students decide is “wrong.”
Student #2 thinks that student run tolerance groups are a step in the right
direction. “I think things will get better as long as new generations embrace breaking the
same cycles, if they stick to the same thing, they’ll be the same old generations and
following their mistakes.” Groups like the Gay-Straight Alliance are breaking the old
cycles of intolerance and prejudice. Education must start in schools for the entire world to
change their intolerant views.
The students at Wagner College recently spoke out against the harassment
surrounding the recent suicides of gay teens across America with a candlelight vigil.
Throughout the day, students wore purple to signify their solidarity in fighting hate and
intolerance across the United States and especially on college campuses. At night,
students came together to pay their respects to those who committed suicide with a
performance from the school’s all-female a capella group, Vocal Synergy, and readings
of the stories of the teens who committed suicide. The vigil commenced on the steps of
the Student Union with everyone in attendance singing “We Shall Overcome.” However,
not all students participated in the vigil. Most students in attendance were members of the
theatre department or involved in music. Representatives from the sports teams were
76
�lacking. Some even laughed at those students congregated on the steps of the Student
Union as they walked by on their way to dinner. Although not everyone was required to
attend the vigil, those who did not attend should have been respectful to those in
attendance who were paying their respects to teens who had committed suicide. It does
not matter if those teens were gay or not. They deserve the respect of everyone, not just
the theatre community. Although the vigil was a step towards tolerance, if not all students
attempt to be open to understanding and continually decide to be ignorant, no progress
can be made.
The vigil brings up an interesting question. Why wasn’t everyone on campus in
attendance? Besides scheduling conflicts, apathy seems to be the most prevalent reason.
When asked why he was not in attendance, Student #1 answered, “I do not know. I just
didn’t. If I had, I would not have been as moved as everyone else though. I was pretty
neutral about the whole thing.” How can one be neutral when gay teens all across the
United States are taking their own lives? Suicide is not something to be apathetic or
neutral about. However, the majority of the world seems to share this apathetic attitude. If
one does not act, one is actively participating in discrimination. When one does nothing,
one passively consents to the harassment and ultimate deaths of gay teens across
America. What else must be done for the youth of America, not just those that are part of
the LGBT community, to wake up and take a stand for the equality of all students?
Maybe their favorite television show was more important than commemorating the death
of students who, aside from their sexual orientation, are just like them.
Works Cited
Alexander, Bryan. “Seth Walsh, Gay Boy Bullied into Suicide, Remembered - TIME.”
Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews –
TIME.com. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023083,00.html>.
Ellis, Sonja. “Diversity and Inclusivity at University: A Survey of The Experiences of
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans (LGBT) Students in the UK.”, Higher Education 57.6
(2009): 723-739.
Friedman, Emily. “Tyler Clementi, Victim of Secret Dorm Sex Tape at Rutgers
University, Commits Suicide - ABC News.” ABCNews.com - ABCNews.com:
Breaking News, Politics, World News, Good Morning America, Exclusive
Interviews – ABC News. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://abcnews.go.com/US/victim
77
�-secret-dorm-sex-tape-commits-suicide/story?id=11758716>.
Hensel, Karen. “Teen Suicide Victim Hangs Himself from Barn Rafters.” WISHTV.com
Indianapolis, Indiana News Weather & Traffic. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/east_central/teen-suicide-victim-hangs-himselffrom-barn-rafters>.
“Lambda Legal: Nabozny v. Podlesny.” LambdaLegal.org. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/nabozny-v-podlesny.html>.
Nabozny, Jamie. “Biography.” Home Page. 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.jamienabozny.com/Biography.html>.
“New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder - ABC News.” ABCNews.com –
ABCNews.com: Breaking News, Politics, World News, Good Morning America,
Exclusive Interviews - ABC News. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=1>.
Nichols, Sharon L.. “Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth: Understanding Diversity, and
Promoting Tolerance in Schools”, The Elementary School Journal 99.5 (1999): 505-519.
O'hare, Peggy. “Parents: Bullying Drove Cy-Fair 8th-grader to Suicide | Houston &
Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle”. Houston News, Entertainment
, Search and Shopping | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7220896.html>.
Smith, George W.. “The Ideology of “Fag”: The School Experience of Gay Students”,
The Sociological Quarterly 39.2 (1998): 309-335.
Talburt, Susan. “Constructions of LBGT Youth: Opening up Subject Positions”, Theory
into Practice 43.2 (2004): 116-121.
Vare, Jonathan W. and Terry L. Norton. “Bibliotherapy for Gay and Lesbian Youth:
Overcoming the Structure of Silence”, The Clearing House 77.5 (2004): 190-194.
78
�Extracting the Spider Webs of a Subway Lost in History
Klevi Tomcini1
An efficient public transportation system is necessary for a community to prosper. Public
transportation is difficult to achieve, but “good transportation and communication are a
basic necessity” (Jacobs, J. 1961, 340). Aside from the Staten Island Ferry, the public
transportation system of St. George is poor. The Federal Association of Staten Island
Transportation (F.A.S.I.T.) wishes to solve issues of Staten Island’s poor public transportation system. Through a grant, the Federal Association of Staten Island Transportation will provide an efficient transportation system for residents, attract more
commerce to areas in Staten Island, and improve the living standards of its residents. The
money for the grant will be spent on completing the Verrazano Narrow Tunnel, which
will link the 95th street Brooklyn R-Train station to Staten Island. Installation of this
system will promote an increase of jobs and improvement of life for the residents of the
area. The implementation of the train will allow residents to have the opportunity for
better jobs and lifestyle.
Background – F.A.S.I.T Mission
Transportation is a vital aspect for a community to mature. F.A.S.I.T. wishes to
create a transportation system, which would allow St. George to mature over time as a
vital area, not only in Staten Island but New York City at large. Staten Island is a
congested area with high movement of automobiles. This is largely due to the low usage
of the public transportation system. Due to the poor condition of the public transportation
system within Staten Island, the public transportation system is not used in Staten Island.
The difficulty of commuting within Staten Island, has caused commerce to suffer,
specifically in St. George. Many people have difficulty getting to certain places in Staten
Island. For example, residents in Brooklyn would rather go to the theaters located in
Manhattan, rather than St. George’s Theater despite the fact that it could be closer. This is
due to the ease of transportation to Manhattan. With a development in the transportation
system, St. George will experience a high amount of commerce coming into the area.
This project will improve the living standards of 13,185 people in St. George
and affect the lives of 65,882 residents of the North Shore where other stops will be
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Abraham Unger (Government and Politics) for LC 14:
Society and the City.
79
�implemented. St. George has a large population of minorities; the median home market
value of St. George is $282,465. St. George is densely populated and a historic area. St.
George is one of the less affluent neighborhoods in Staten Island. The majority of St.
George's population speaks English with some Spanish speakers. The issue of
transportation is relevant not only to St. George but throughout Staten Island. A subway
system linking Staten Island to Brooklyn will greatly benefit the area in economical and
social terms. Although a subway system connecting Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
is expensive, it can also provide an efficient transportation system for residents, attract
more commerce to areas in Staten Island, and improve the living standards for residents
of Staten Island.
Introduction
Transportation is a vital aspect in the maturing of a community. For the most
part, New York City has one of the most efficient public transportation systems in the
world. It is, however, incomplete and would be better “if they ever finished it” (Page,
M. (1999)., p. 404). The Verrazano Narrow Tunnel was a project, which linked Brooklyn
to Staten Island through a subway, which ran underneath the Verrazano Bridge, which
was never completed. Staten Island is often referred to as the “forgotten borough of New
York City” with many of its problems leaning “towards transportation” (Anderson, J.
2010 ). The original plan to address this problem was first proposed in 1912. The RTrain, which was developed in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn solely extended to the 95th Street
station to accommodate the expansion of the system into Staten Island. Staten Island is a
congested area due to the low use of public transportation. This is directly linked to the
poor conditions of the public transportation system in Staten Island. Due to the difficulty
of moving within Staten Island, commerce in specific areas has greatly suffered. One of
these areas is St. George. Using land for public transportation is an "investment, which
reduces congestion and spatially stimulates the demand for residential land
consumption," which in turn will help the economy of an area (Wheaton W. C. 138). St.
George is considered to be the transportation hub of Staten Island due to the ferry. Other
than the ferry, the transportation system in St. George “needs infrastructure to succeed”
in economical terms (Anderson, J. 2010). Fifty-four percent of St. George’s population
uses public transportation. This shows that there is an emphasis on a need for an efficient,
strong public transportation system in order to meet the demands of the residents.
Although a subway system connecting Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn is
expensive, it can also provide an efficient transportation system for residents, attract more
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�commerce to areas in Staten Island, and improve the living standards for residents of
Staten Island.
Literature Review
Primary Sources
The Advisory Committee provides plans for future zoning, transportation, and
development actions in Staten Island. It provides data about St. George and the North
Shore. The data was collected by the Community Advisory Committee and presented
through a Power Point presentation in Snug Harbor Cultural Center on November 5,
2010. The study exhibits ways of improving transportation connection in Staten Island. It
explains problems that the North Shore faces such as congestion and a lack of commerce.
Some projects it proposes for the future are the North Shore Railroad, Bus Rapid Transit,
Heavy Railroad, and Light Rail Transit. Each of these projects exhibits similarities to the
extension of the Brooklyn bound R- Train. These projects are costly, but hope to achieve
a similar goal, which is to improve the community they wish to serve. The presentation
focuses on solving Staten Island issues with improvement of their public transportation
system.
The Advisory Committee uses census data such as the population of the North
Shore, the average amount of commuters in the North Shore, the median home value
market in the North Shore, and vacant footage of the area. This study speaks specifically
about the North Shore and advocates for transportation improvements that Staten Island
officials are focusing on. There is a strong use of census data, which will be used
throughout the grant proposal. It relates to the other articles by providing the framework
of the area the grant proposal will be focusing on and provides the population that will be
used in the grant proposal. Also, it depicts how lack of transportation impacts a
community and must be improved by projects seen in the Brooklyn Historical Railway
Association article (Advisory Committee. 2009).
Staten Island Transportation Task Force examines Staten Island’s need to
improve the public transportation system in various communities such as St. George. The
author uses primary data, which focus strictly on Staten Island. According to the
presentation, through the renewal of roadways and the development of a public
transportation system, the life for the residents will be improved and the area will attract
commerce. This author examines the government stimulus package to support projects of
public transportation in Staten Island. According to the presentation, the Federal
Transportation Bill also supports transportation projects.
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�Through the presentation, the author states that roadways will be improved for
quick transportation with buses. The railroad systems will be installed on the shore of
Staten Island. The Staten Island Ferry will be improved as well. Multiple bus services
will be added near St. George which will be much more efficient. This is significant due
to the fact that it offers a connection for the Narrow Tunnel projects. The projects in turn
will provide jobs, which can boost the economy. The author concludes that the
transportation system must be quick and efficient for communities such as St. George.
This study depicts how much money is available for Staten Island through the
government stimulus package. It supports the need for a transportation system in Staten
Island. It is related to the other articles by showing how transportation should be
implemented in Staten Island and how it is possible, such as the development of a train
system. It shows how projects seen in the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association article
can be constructed and would be beneficial if constructed and is also supported by
Wheaton’s article (Staten Island Transportation Task Force [SITTF], 2008).
The Brooklyn Historic Railway Association (BHRA) is a non-profit
organization, in which most of the work is done voluntarily. BHRA is an engineering
organization, which is certified in electric railroad construction. It provides articles that
exhibit information on the connection of Staten Island to Brooklyn through the Verrazano
Rail Tunnel using the R-Train. The tunnel has already been built with an investment of
$4.3 million dollars. This tunnel would allow the R-Train to connect to St. George as well
as the Staten Island's Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) railroad branch and the Staten Island
Railway. The tunnel has not been used since it was originally constructed. It was seen as
“hope and a hole in the ground” according to newspapers at the time.
This article provides newspaper articles that were written at the time about the
tunnel, which was supposed to connect Staten Island to Brooklyn, and it even provides
the blue prints to the project. This article depicts information on the abandoned tunnel
and the forgotten plan. It reveals the funds that were placed for the project’s completion.
The article relates to the other articles by showing how some plans, which were forgotten,
can be important to a community in the future. The organization discusses how
transportation can be costly but can provide needed jobs. Additionally, it shows how
communities view transportation as hope and a beneficial investment, as demonstrated in
Wheaton’s article. (The Verrazano Rail Tunnel The Brooklyn-Richmond Freight &
Passenger Tunnel, 2008).
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�Academic Sources
Wheaton examines the benefits of urban transportation in reference to real
estate investments in his article Residential Decentralization, Land Rents, and the
Benefits of Urban Transportation Investment. As a result of the development of an
efficient public transportation system in an area, the rent and cost of homes will increase.
Development of urban transportation also brings up the commercial center’s prosperity.
A neighborhood evolves and becomes economically prosperous if there is an efficient
transportation system. Wheaton uses government ideas of transportation and describes
the best way it should operate. He focuses on the aspect of money for real estate
investment and commerce purposes. The author specifies that highways are important in
terms of an efficient public transportation system.
Wheaton uses a mathematical approach to describe how an efficient
transportation system is directly correlated to the economic value of an area. He supports
his assertions with mathematical evidence, which explains that real estate and commerce
will increase if an area has a successful public transportation system. Wheaton cites
multiple amounts of references from the political, marketing, and urban development
sectors. The author concludes that investors are needed in developing a successful urban
transportation system in addition to the government. By doing so, the value of a
neighborhood will increase.
This article argues that the impact urban transportation has in an area. House
cost and rent in St. George are relatively low with the development of an efficient urban
transportation this would change. According to the article, urban transportation also
brings up the commercial centers in an area. St. George is having trouble with business
and an efficient urban transportation system could help boost business in the area. This
article is related to the others by showing a benefit of public transportation in terms of
commerce. It shows that public transportation can benefit a community. Mamon and
Marshall’s study proves that public transportation is needed in low-income communities.
This article focuses on inducing revenue to these areas with public transportation.
(Wheaton W. C., 1977).
Schenker and Wilson examine the relationship of mass transportation towards
the demand of mass transportation in twenty-three states. The authors of this article have
performed statistical studies that exhibit the importance of public transportation in
metropolitan areas. The findings of this article show that public transportation is related
to an area’s economic value and racial context. Schenker and Wilson use regression
analysis to depict a relationship of the transit demand and the population of an area.
Schenker and Wilson use the population of metropolitan areas such as New York,
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�Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Miami to depict the need of transportation and how it
is correlated to the economic income of a family. In areas such as New York and
Chicago, which have the highest population of many cities, public transportation is
utilized to a great degree. The need for public transportation is high in metropolitan areas
due to the urgent need for transportation to jobs. Work place and residential distance area
are closely related; this connection indicates a great need for public transportation in
urban areas. Race in an area is correlated to the need of efficient public transportation.
Minority classes tend to use public transportation much more than Caucasians, due to the
economic income of minority classes. Public transportation is an alternative way of
moving for these classes at a cheaper cost than automobiles.
Schenker and Wilson use mathematical formulas to analyze the need of various
forms of public transportation in certain areas. There is a great implementation of census
data in terms of the population, economic revenue, and race in the areas they study.
Schenker and Wilson use twenty-three cities in their study and eleven variables to exhibit
a need of public transportation in these cities. These cities include New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami. The variables they use include
economic income, density, race, car ownership, dwellings, and need of transportation for
work, rush hour commuters, and area. Schenker and Wilson discuss that public
transportation is in high demand in major metropolitan areas. The need of public
transportation is correlated to many things. There is a cross basis relationship between the
variables the study mentions and the need of public transportation. Income revenue and
race in an area depict the level of need in an area more so than other variables.
Schenker and Wilson reference a variety of cities and the use of public
transportation and the variables that effect the use of the public transportation system.
The article provides variables seen in St. George such as race and use of automobiles, and
how public transportation is related to them. The authors depict the need of public
transportation in the working class, as well as the minority class, which make up the
majority of St. George. Schenker and Wilson show data on how public transportation can
benefit a community in terms of its family economical income. The context of this article
is related to another by Mamon and Marshall’s article but it does not take into account the
reason why some may choose automobile transportation rather than public transportation.
The Use of Public Transportation in Urban Areas: Toward a Causal Model
examines the proportional use of public transportation and automobile use. Mamon and
Marshall study the purpose as to why some individuals may choose to use an automobile
rather than public transportation and vice versa. The authors analyze public policy
towards urban transportation systems. They use a number of interdependent variables and
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�propose a model, which states how they are interrelated. Occupation and income level
have a direct effect towards the choice of using public transportation. The income level of
an area has the greatest effect on an individual’s choice of using the public transportation
system. Low paid jobs in low-income areas tend to have a high volume of public
transportation. The effective distance of a job is related to the public transportation
system that is used.
Mamon and Marshall use mathematical formulas for their research method.
Throughout the article Mamon and Marshall cite many known scholars, mainly
Goodman, who conducted a study on transportation and variables that affect the use of it.
The sex, occupational status, income, employment density, residential density, number of
automobiles owned in area, and mode of transportation are variables seen in their study.
They use information from the Urban Mass Transportation Administration a great deal as
this is what their study was conducted for. The authors conclude that income level of an
area is the main factor of using public transportation.
The article shows that a low-income area is a factor of public transportation. St.
George is a low-income area with a large minority population. The population tends to
use public transportation more than others and also provides a reason for an efficient
public transportation system in St. George. It is related to the other articles since it
advocates a public transportation system to benefit the poor. Schenker and Wilson’s
study is very similar to this article but it does not take into account the reason why some
may choose automobile transportation rather than public transportation. It can relate to
why automobile use can be a problem and how a public transportation system should be
advocated to be used more in an area. (Mamon, J. A. & Marshall, H., 1977).
Fund to Solve Issues of Transportation in the Island
First and foremost, the cost of the project must be addressed. F.A.S.I.T. is
looking to receive a grant sum of $60 million dollars. The project was placed at a “cost of
$60 million” for completion (Johnson, D. A., (1996), p. 205). Although this is costly, the
property will be given to the MTA once the construction is completed. Once the system is
in place, "profits from public transportation can be high when it is needed and easily
compensate for the cost "of projects such as the Narrow Tunnel completion (Merewitz,
L., 1972, p. 83). In order for this project to be completed, the MTA and the government
must allocate funds for the project. A community relies on the fact that a “transportation
decision is reflecting the impact of governmental programs on general urban
development” which in turn improves the living standards of residents. (Fagin, H., 1964,
p. 141). The potential revenue will be high for New York City, as property value, rent,
85
�and property tax will increase. The income level of residents is expected to increase
which is in correlation to the income tax of the area. Residents would also accept higher
taxes to help pay for the project if “funds are well liked, high-prestige actives, are more
easily accepted”, residents would accept higher taxes for an improvement of their public
transportation system (Ross, B., 2009, p. 40). If the funding provided by the MTA runs
out, which usually happens with these types of projects, F.A.S.I.T. plans on appealing to
the local business organization. F.A.S.I.T. strongly believes that local business
organizations will support this project. Public transportation tends to “increase
investment, reduces congestion, and spatial stimulates the demand for residential land
consumption” once it is developed (Wheaton, W. C., 1977, p. 138).
Staten Island has an array of problems that the F.A.S.I.T. wishes to address and
solve. The home market value of property in St. George is relatively low in correlation
with the rest of the island. The connection with St. George to Brooklyn will change this.
With the "investments in transportation, an impact in the land market value" will be seen
in an increasing rate (Wheaton, W. C., 1977, p. 142). Investments on a public
transportation system will improve the life of Staten Island residents and land cost of the
area. Land cost would increase a great deal in Staten Island if the Narrow Tunnel Project
is completed. Real estate investors “saw great benefits to be reaped” once the tunnel was
completed (Johnson, D. A., (1996), p. 203). New York City is greatly known for its
public transportation system, but neglects its highest “borough in tax revenue”
(Anderson, J. 2010). A public transportation system in Staten Island will “shuttle
residents between residential neighborhoods to midtown office districts” which will allow
the employment levels to increase in St. George (Kotkin J., (2005), p. 94).
Retail stores in St. George have suffered and have not seen high amounts of
commerce in the area. With an improvement of an urban transportation system, potential
customers will stay in the area due to the ease of transportation. St. George is a dense
area but residents do not have a transportation system to commute other than the ferry.
Many residents use the ferry due to having no other transportation system, which is
efficient. If another transportation system is provided, usage of that system would be
high. Through various studies, it has been seen that “density is a major indicator of mass
transportation use" (Schenker & Wilson, 1967, p.367). If the area has an efficient public
transportation system more people will stay in the area. St. George’s main goal is to
attract commerce and wish to see “more hipsters come into St. George and gentrification
take place” (Hanks, K. 2010). With improvements in public transportation, it will serve
as an “attraction to a younger generation” who need a public transportation system to
move around. (Ross, B., 2009, p. 39)
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�Staten Island is a very congested area. This is due to the high amount of
automobile ownership. Staten Island has a ownership rate of “2.4 cars per family”
(Anderson, J. 2010) Many choose to use personal automobiles rather than the public
transportation system due to the poor upkeep of the public transportation system in Staten
Island. There is a "negative correlation between automobile ownership and mass
transportation ridership” this tends to be seen in areas with a poor urban transportation
system (Schenker & Wilson, 1967, p.364). Staten Island needs to improve its
transportation system in order to address to this problem. According to the Staten Island
Transportation Task Force a public transportation project would “relieve congestion” in
the area (Staten Island Transportation Task Force [SITTF], 2008). With the continuance
of the Narrow Tunnels project, the transportation issue will be solved. Through the
improvement of a public transportation system, the use of automobiles will decrease in
Staten Island.
Movement within Staten Island is difficult due to Staten Island’s poor
transportation system. The F.A.S.I.T. will help solve this issue with connecting the
Narrow Tunnel subway line into Brooklyn. According to the New York Times during
1912 the subway system linking Brooklyn to Staten Island would "be of great value to the
district” (Hands, M., 1912). Public transportation systems act as a necessity in an area in
order to prosper and to significantly improve the life of residents. President Johnson has
stated, "the life of a city depends on an adequate transportation system"(Lyndon B.
Johnson, 1967). St. George is a dense community in that "number of families per unit has
often been cited as important determination of mass transportation demand,” this will
require an improvement of the transportation system in St. George. (Schenker & Wilson,
1967, p.364) With the improvement of a transportation system, the movement within
Staten Island will increase, resulting in an increase in levels of commerce in St. George.
The Population That Will Benefit
St. George has a highly diverse community. According to governmental census
data of the year 2000 , Caucasians make up 29.2% of St. George's population and total at
19,087, African-Americas make up of 22.3% of St. George's population and total at
8,636, Asians make up 6.4% of St. George's population and total at 2,571, Hispanics
make up 18.9% of St. George's population and total at 7,317 the remaining is categorized
as others (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). St. George's family income median is $54,351
dollars and is “correlated directly to use of public transportation" due to the area having a
low median income(Mamon, J. A. & Marshall, H., 1977, p. 26). According to the New
York Time’s Class Matters the lower middle class earns between $50,000 and $70,000 a
87
�year and they have been reported to use public transportation to a greater degree. (Class
Matters, 2005, p. 25)
St. George has a high use of the public transportation system “54% of St. George
uses public transportation” (Advisory Committee. 2009). While the median home market
value of homes in Staten Island are seen to be above $400,000 “the median home market
value of St. George is $282,465” (Advisory Committee. 2009). Being that St. George is
densely populated and is known as a historic area, this area requires a high use of public
transportation and “St. George is densely populated and a historic area” (Advisory
Committee. 2009). A public transportation system will benefit the lower middle class by
providing means to get to their ends, which is daily transportation to work. It will
improve the living standards of the residents as well as the income of the residents by
saving on such nuisances like gas and tolls. The residents would also have rapid
transportation to outside boroughs, even Manhattan. The ferry may take a half an hour to
get into Manhattan, but the “ferry service runs every twenty minutes in peak hours”; this
would indicate that taking the subway to Manhattan may be quicker (Advisory
Committee. 2009).
Strategy for Speed in Staten Island Left here
Funding for the transportation improvement of Staten Island must come from the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA is asked to fund this project due to
their contribution to public transportation in New York. The MTA is a public benefit
corporation which "provides quality rail and bus services to New York City and State,”
this includes providing rail service to Staten Island. (MTA, 2010) F.A.S.I.T. is requesting
$60 million dollars from the MTA. It was estimated that to complete the Narrows Tunnel
Project it would “cost $60 million” for completion (Johnson, D. A., (1996), p. 205).
Funding for this project can also be supported by the stimulus package, which was given
out to states across America. With the stimulus package, “over $190 million in direct or
displaced funds go to Staten Island” which can be used to improve the living standards of
its residents. (Staten Island Transportation Task Force [SITTF], 2008). Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger signed the Senate Bill 375 in 2008, which gave transportation projects
top priority for funding. This shows that transportation is a main priority in many other
cities and should be one for Staten Island. Schedule planning will be strictly followed for
this project. This is in order to make sure everything goes according to plan and
construction does not part from schedule. An orderly schedule related to "time-cost is
detrimental in maintaining a cost effect model" in order to reduce cost of a project
(Dodson, 1969, p. 377). The Narrow Tunnel underneath the Verrazano Bridge is already
88
�constructed which would link Staten Island to Brooklyn. The tunnel underneath the
bridge is already completed, but lacks the connection of the two boroughs. The original
investment of “$4.3 million was spent on the Narrows Tunnel project”, this makes the
project much easier since the tunnel has already been built. (The Verrazano Rail Tunnel
The Brooklyn-Richmond Freight & Passenger Tunnel, 2008). The tunnel will be used for
the subway system by simply placing the tracks and fully connecting the system together.
This will be much simpler then connecting the two boroughs without a tunnel. The
original plan for the tunnel would “enter Staten Island midway between St. George and
Stapleton” the tracks were in place to be connected for Staten Island. (Feinman, M. S. &
Darlington, P., n.d.)
Mission Impossible Must Be Achieved
The Staten Island transportation system is “among of the longest and slowest
anywhere”, and with improvement of the system “it would fundamentally change Staten
Island itself” (Yates M. 2010, January 25) Federal Association of Staten Island
Transportation's main mission is improving the living standards of Staten Island
residents. St. George is an extremely important district in Staten Island due to the ferry
terminal. When tourists take the ferry, they tend to not explore the area in part due to not
having an efficient mode of transportation to get around the island. With the
improvement of transportation, it would be easy for tourists to move around the island
and explore its beauties. When one travels "comfort and convenience relate to use of a
public transportation system", by providing an efficient public transportation system that
tourists and residents would have conveniences in traveling thus stay in the area longer.(
Barff, R. & Mackay, D. & Olshavsky, R. W., 1982, p. 377). F.A.S.I.T. specializes solely
in improving transportation for Staten Island. For that purpose, it will be well suited to
implement a project to accomplish that task.
F.A.S.I.T. was founded on the principles of solving the Staten Island public
transportation system crisis. For many years, the organization has advocated for the
improvement of transportation for Staten Island. Staten Island has the highest tax revenue
for New York City, thus should not be neglected when it comes to public transportation
as it has in the past. F.A.S.I.T. proposes this grant in order to solve a crisis, which Staten
Island has been facing for many years. We believe in ending this crisis once and for all.
Staffing the Best for Staten Island
The staffing for this project will focus on specialized training and experience.
The staffing which will be necessary to accomplish this task will vary. F.A.S.I.T. believes
89
�in using Staten Island residents in order to stimulate the employment rate in Staten Island.
By doing this, we will ensure the arrival of each worker on time with no delays in work.
Overtime, if needed will also be much easier due to workers living close to the working
site. Staten Island residents will also be more motivated by the project than others. We
will seek at least thirty general laborers with crane experience, four truck drivers for
goods to arrive in an orderly manner. We will need two experienced supervisors to make
sure that everything goes as quick and efficient as possible. A team of accountants will be
needed to make sure that the funds are not poorly spent and the project does not go over
the expected cost. Three engineers will be needed to make sure that the project is enacted
in a quick and efficient manner as well as flexible hours for the workers. A planner will
be needed to plan out the layout of the project as well as the scheduling of the project.
Dispatchers will be used for communication purposes to workers. A foreman will be
needed in order to give orders to the crew.
Relationships with other Visionaries
Many organizations are concerned with the problems of Staten Island
transportation. Staten Island Economic Development Corporation believes that improving
the transportation system of Staten Island is vital to solve St. George's commercial
problems. A system “connecting Brooklyn with Staten Island using the R – Train will not
only benefit St. George, but the entire island” in commerce and living standards of the
residents (Anderson, J. 2010). F.A.S.I.T. will work with the Staten Island Economic
Development Corporation to solve the problems of transportation in Staten Island.
Downtown Staten Island Council believes that the transportation of St. George needs
more improvement. Kamilla Hanks the executive director states that a subway system
linking Brooklyn to Staten Island “will absolutely increase commerce in St. George”
(Hanks, K. 2010). Northfield Community LDC believes that a transportation system
going into St. George from Brooklyn “will bring economic development to the entire
North Shore” (Sledge M., 2010). The MTA will largely be involved with the project
through funding. A public transportation system focuses on “improving the productivity
and livability of urban areas” which should be the primary focus of a government. (Fagin,
H., 1964, p. 141). The MTA and Island officials “verified that the tunnel was once a valid
plan” (Tacopino J., A Subway? On Staten Island!?. 2010). The Chamber of Commerce
has stated that “they dug out a hole for a potential tunnel” (Tacopino J., A Subway? On
Staten Island!?. 2010). The project is in order and there will be a great deal of
interrelationships with other organizations for providing these services to the Staten
Island residents.
90
�Lengthy but Rewarding
The length of this project should take approximately seven years. This is due to
the need to still fully connect the tunnels to the boroughs, which can take a span of two
years. Once the two boroughs are connected, the system must be connected to the R –
Train on 95th street as well as the current railway system in Staten Island. This is
expected to take three years. After all this has been completed the connection will exist
and there will be a need to implement a track system to the tunnels, this project should
last two years.
Contribution to the Organization
The overall mission of F.A.S.I.T. is to improve the public transportation system
of Staten Island. By accomplishing this project, the transportation system of Staten Island
is expected to have high usage levels as well as general improvements. We will offer the
availability of a transportation system to St. George, which will allow the area to prosper.
For an area to prosper "accessibility of transportation is extremely important for an area";
this will be seen in St. George once the project is accomplished (Dodson, 1969, p. 378).
The mission of the project is to improve living standards of residents. With
improvements in public transportation, "opportunities for employment, recreation,
education, and other activities" will become more readily available (Dodson, 1969, p.
378).
Evaluating the Project
The evaluation of the project should see an improvement in St. George after the
project is complete. Our main goal is to see an increase of commerce, living standards,
and employment in the area. Public transportation has an "effect on income on
employment density" (Mamon, J. A. & Marshall, H., 1977, p. 27). This in turn will
increase the employment rate and commerce in St. George. We will closely study St.
George's demographics specifically in labor force, income, and private sector
employments. We expect that the all of these factors will increase once the project is
completed. This project will immediately fund jobs for the area due to the construction
needed to complete the project. Success will be the main criteria for this project. We will
see how the project has effected the community of St. George. F.A.S.I.T. will distribute
surveys to residents in order to discover the resident’s perspective on the project. The
daily use of the transportation system before and after the project will be observed.
Revenue for the MTA, property sales, rent, living standards, commerce, and employment
increase is expected. We will closely see the percentage of transit riders using the subway
91
�system for work needs. We should see congestion within the Island decrease due to the
use of a public transportation system. Although F.A.S.I.T. wishes to complete this project
as soon as possible there may be delays due to weather, unknown predicaments,
bypassing of rules and regulations, or a increase in the cost of the project.
Conclusion
Although a subway system connecting Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn is
expensive, it can also provide an efficient transportation system for residents, attract more
commerce to areas in Staten Island, and improve the living standards for residents of
Staten Island. The Narrows Tunnel Project was proposed in the past to address the issues
Staten Island faces. The original investment for this project was $4.6 million dollars. The
tunnel underneath the Verrazano Bridge is already completed. F.A.S.I.T wishes to finish
the project by connecting the tunnel from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Staten Island. Through
this connection congestion is expected to decrease, retail stores are expected to increase
in profit, the quality of life is expected to increase, and employment is expected to
increase. With the help of the MTA, F.A.S.I.T. believes many issues in Staten Island
today will be solved.
XIV. References
Advisory Committee. (2008). North Shore Land Use and Transportation Study. Retrieved
November 5, 2010, from http://www.nycedc.com/NewPublications/Studie/StatenIsl
andNorthShoreStudy/Pages/StatenIslandNorthShoreLandUseandTransportationStudy.asp.
Anderson, J. (2010, October 15). Personal interview.
Barff, R. & Mackay, D. & Olshavsky, R. W. (1982). “A Selective Review of TravelMode Choice Models”. The Journal of Consumer Research. 8(4), 370-380. Chicago, IL:
The University.
Dodson, E. N. (1969). Cost-Effectiveness in Urban Transportation. Operations
Research,17, 373-394. Hanover, MD:INFORMS.
Fagin, H. (1964). Urban Transportation Criteria. Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science. 325, 141-151. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Feinman, M. S. & Darlington, P. (n.d.) BMT 4th Avenue Subway. Retrieved November
7, 2010, from http://www.nycsubway.org/lines/4thave.html
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�Hands, M. (1912, February 15). Brooklyn Subway Extension Plan. New York Times.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, NY: A
Division of Random House, Inc.
Johnson, D. A., (1996). Planning the Great Metropolis: The 1929 Regional Plan of New
York and Its Environs. 202-212. London. UK: E & FN Spoon.
Hanks, K. (2010, November 1). Personal interview.
Kotkin, J. (2005). This City. New York City, NY: Modern Library.
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94
�The Effects of Hubris
Brenna Dean 1
For people, sometimes a strong feeling just seems to rule emotions they have
and then plays into their actions. But to what extent does it get to be overwhelming and
then occupy their entire life? In Sophocles’ play, Antigone, the strong feeling of pride
seemed to take over some of the characters’ actions and, therefore, the results proved to
be devastating. Both Creon and Antigone in the play experienced the overpowering
effects of arrogance and excessive pride on their part, despite whether they eventually
realized it or not. The hubris they let consume them ended with bad results and death,
and they didn’t even know it was coming. Pride is an unforeseen factor in one’s
character and tends to impact future proceedings just as the hubris in Antigone affected
the ending results of the play.
Pride as an overall term doesn’t seem like it could cause such results. However,
pride can come in all sorts of forms. The more known form is when someone obtains
pride from doing something right. But the obsessive more dangerous form, called hubris,
can change outcomes. This hubris can shield one’s view of life and also their feelings on
situations that occur. When a character from a play is put in this position, it is bound to
affect all events there forth. This is exactly what occurs in Antigone; Creon and Antigone
let their pride influence their decisions without knowing it.
Antigone has pride right from the start of Sophocles’ play. Her actions were
motivated by pride for her family and even though she understood they might lead to her
death, she continued with them. Her pride surpassed rational thought and she was just
struck with the feeling that it was necessary that she stand up for her family, mainly her
brother in this case. As she goes on with her ideas she comes across her true beliefs: her
higher allegiance is to the gods rather than the state and King Creon, eventually leading
to her death. She realizes then that her impiety or piety would have no effect on her
destiny, which was already decided for her, but because of how she lives it we must see
her as responsible. To fully understand what happens to Antigone, it is required to know
what happened from the beginning of the Greek play.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. John Danisi (Philosophy) for LC 9: Minds, Machines,
and Human Beings.
95
�First, Antigone defies an edict of the king of Thebes and performs a sacred
burial that was forbidden. She believes her brother, Polyneices, deserves a proper burial
despite the fact that the king clearly states “whoever breaks the edict death is prescribed, /
and death by stoning publicly” (Sophocles 35-36). She discusses with Ismene, her sister,
what she must do for her brother regardless of the rule because she “will not prove false
to him” (46). Her sister replies telling her not to do so, that her ignorance to Creon will
come back to haunt her but Antigone ignores her. At this point, her hubris has consumed
all her thoughts and she will not be pleased until she fulfills her own wishes. Her
ignorance to the law is clearly exemplified when she states, “I myself will bury
[Polyneices]. It will be good / to die, so doing. I shall lie by his side, / loving him as he
loved me; I shall be a criminal – but a religious one” (72-75). She obviously knows the
harm she is doing to herself; yet her pride controls her and she neglects realizing the fact
that it is very possible that she will die doing that deed.
This leads to the next point: she does not know her place in the situation.
Antigone thinks that “no suffering of [hers] will be enough / to make [her] die ignobly”
(97-98). But in realization she doesn’t care what any others think; she is just doing what
she believes is right and hopes that the action which she believes to be pious will be
enough for the gods to help her. Creon knows that Antigone is enveloped in her own
thoughts because “this girl had learned her insolence / before this, when she broke the
established laws. / But here is still another insolence / in that she boasts of it, laughs at
what she did” (480-483). Creon knows that Antigone is proud of her actions and,
therefore, doesn’t know her place in the situation. Her hubris clearly haunts her here
when it begins the downfall of the rest of her life. She “went to the extreme of daring /
and against the high throne of Justice / [she] fell…grievously” (853-855) into her
upcoming fate that Creon would instate for her.
A hierarchy is established between her, the meager inhabitant, and Creon, the
head of the system and of the state. Antigone, however, clearly disregards such chain of
command. Her ideals have her believing that “the time in which [she] must please those
that are dead / is longer than [she] must please those of this world” (76-77). Ultimately,
she believes that her life and her actions therein, belong and are more for the gods rather
than any measly ruler of Thebes. Creon challenges her actions and tells her she must be
punished but Antigone questions, “what law of god [has she] broken” (921)? The gods
have more authority than anyone in her eyes and she thinks falsely of those who dispute
this belief. Antigone asserts:
96
�If [she dared] to leave / the dead man, [her] mother’s son, dead and unburied, /
that would have been real pain. The other is not. Now, if you think [her] a fool
to act like this, / perhaps it is a fool that judges so. (466-470)
She implies that Creon is then a fool to reject her and her view on the situation. By doing
so, her arrogance of pride is seen and Creon decides that her death is imminent.
Lastly, the gender destiny that is emphasized for women is not recognized by
Antigone. Ismene sees that Antigone refutes any such option and tries to illustrate it and
make it clear to her. She tells Antigone that she “ought to realize [they] are only women,
/ not meant in nature to fight against men, / and that [they] are ruled, by those who are
stronger, / to obedience in this and even more painful matters” (61-64). By ignoring her
place and all the points before it, the hubris comes to affect Antigone’s view on
everything. She believes her assertions are the only ones that are true and, therefore, the
rest of her life is mainly built upon her pending death.
Creon also has an overpowering pride from the beginning. The power and status
of being king clouds his mind and soon he obtains an unquestionable feeling of hubris.
He believes his power transcends all and wants his rules to be the greatest values of
Thebes. His hubris seems at times to be worse than that of Antigone’s but he is
eventually able to step out of “the box” and reevaluate the situation. Unfortunately, at
that point, he can’t undo the effects of his pride, but he does realize all the harm he
caused and the fact that he not only ruined other lives, but also his own.
Creon starts his fall into the excessive pride by creating an edict. This edict was
instated because there was a war between Eteocles and Polyneices, two sons of Oedipus
who wanted the throne, and it ended in each of their deaths. Creon saw Eteocles’ death
to be sacred and he was allowed a sacrificial burial, while Polyneices was denied such
amenities. He directed the Chorus exactly what to do with his body:
You shall leave him without burial; you shall watch him / chewed up
by birds and dogs and violated. / Such is my mind in the matter; never
by me / shall the wicked man have precedence in honor / over the just.
But he that is loyal to the state / in death, in life alike, shall have my
honor. (205-210)
Here he tells them to leave his body without any burial and let it rot where it is. The only
ones that he wants to take happiness in Polyneices are the animals that will destroy it.
The power Creon asserts over everyone soon leads to unforgivable endeavors.
By creating the law, Creon is ignoring the unwritten and eternal law of the gods.
The edict obviously counters the god’s law but when the sentry, the Theban who is under
orders to watch the unburied dead from the recent war, tries to explain such, Creon
97
�replies “what you say is surely insupportable / when you say that the gods took
forethought for this corpse” (282-283). The sentry tries to tell Creon that the body
already had a plan that the gods had given it but Creon denies because his pride has only
allowed him to see and believe in his own power. Even Antigone contests by telling him
she does “not believe / [his] proclamation [to have] such power to enable / one who will
someday die to override / God’s ordinances, unwritten and secure” (452-455). The gods
are supposed to be above all and, despite Creon’s thinking, they are also higher than him
and so he cannot overrule them. Haemon, Creon’s son, tells Creon that he is acting
erroneously when he tries to condemn Antigone, the woman who was supposed to be his
wife, to death. He proclaims that “there is no reverence in trampling on God’s honor” to
which Creon replies “your nature is vile, in yielding to a woman” (745, 746). Haemon
tries to tell Creon he is ruining the honor of the gods but Creon denies and tells Haemon
to stop defending a woman.
Creon’s negligence to the eternal law, that gods have all power in the end, leads
to the hubris in the next point. He, conclusively, believes himself to be “unteachable” to
others. He is warned by his own son to “not bear [the] single habit of mind, to think / that
what [he says] and nothing else is true” (705-706). In this, Creon is told by Haemon to
stop being naïve; his ruling is not as high as the status of the gods. As the king of
Thebes, he wants “to talk but never to hear and listen” (758) to what others’ opinion on
the matter at hand is. His idea of being “unteachable” takes his obsessive pride to
another level.
Creon even has the audacity to ignore the well-known blind prophet’s advice.
Teiresias, the prophet, tries to stop Creon from fully divulging into his hubris, killing
Antigone, and affecting the rest of his life. However, Creon only denies what Teiresias is
saying by calling his prophecies lies (201) and telling him he “is a wise prophet, but what
[he loves] is wrong” (1059). Creon is completely disregarding the wisdom of all others,
especially the prophet, by letting his pride take complete control of his actions.
Eventually though, Creon is persuaded by the Chorus to look at what Teiresias
has said and what he has done to Antigone and all others by following only his pride. He
doesn’t even realize that the hubris is consuming his life and decisions until this instant.
He exclaims, “Oh, the awful blindness / of those plans of mine” (1264-1265). However,
now when he goes to redeem himself for the harm he has caused, he will go to find
nothing but horrible results of his ugly pride.
The grave consequences of hubris were going to affect Antigone and Creon
more than previously conceived. The outcome of their lives was going to be based
completely on what they had done before. Death was going to be a very large factor and
98
�sadness was soon going to fill their lives. For Creon, this unforeseen pride was going to
influence the proceedings in an unimagined way because he discounted Teiresias’
warning that “in requital the avenging Spirits / of Death itself and the gods’ Furies shall /
after [his] deeds, lie in ambush for [him], and / in their hands [he] shall be taken cruelly”
(1075-1078) for what he had done. Nothing good was going to come of prior actions in
the play.
For Antigone’s hubris, she is sentenced to death by Creon. He has his servants
“hide her alive in a rocky cavern there, / [he’ll] give just enough of food as shall suffice /
for bare expiation” (775-777). She begins to complain that she was only doing what she
believed was a pious action in the eyes of the gods. She insists that she still needs to live
a complete life, one in which she would be able to wed and have children. Yet, Creon still
sends his niece off.
These actions come back very quickly to haunt Creon because he finally does
realize his hubris, but now it cannot help change the course of events. Haemon discovers
that Antigone hanged herself to her death and he is devastated. He is so upset that he no
longer desires to be alive. Soon after, a messenger is describing that “Haemon is dead;
the hand that shed his blood / was his very own… / His own hand, in his anger / against
his father for a murder” (1175-1179). Haemon’s death than escalates into another
horrible feat: the death of his mother and Creon’s wife, Eurydice. She becomes
depressed by the death of her prized youngest son and, therefore, also commits suicide.
A second messenger has to report to Creon that “the queen is dead. She was indeed true
mother / of the dead son. She died, poor lady, / by recent violence upon herself” (12821284).
Lastly, Creon takes off his crown and decides that all the hardship he has now
experienced is not worth the expense. He had learned justice too late (1270) and was
now “dissolved in an agony of misery… [hoping] that [he] may never see one more day’s
light” (1311, 1332). Creon realizes that his pride obscured his view for so long that its
effects were everlasting, despite his realization of his hand in his actions. He would
forever be remembering this time as the moment when hubris took over and ruined his
family and his life.
As the Chorus stated, “Wisdom is far the chief element in happiness / and,
secondly, no irreverence towards the gods. / But great words of haughty men exact / in
retribution blows as great / and in old age teach wisdom” (1348-1352). Full
understanding and knowledge can make someone happy but not so it disrespects the gods
because “what is destined / for us, men mortal, there is no escape” (1337-1338). Creon
could wisely give advice after he realized his mistakes, but before then only the gods
99
�could predict what was going to happen. The pride in both Antigone and Creon is an
unforeseen factor that impacts the future proceedings of Sophocles’ play.
Works Cited
Danisi, John. "Reflective Tutorial." RFT: Antigone. Wagner College, Staten Island. 2010.
Lecture.
Sophocles. Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. Ed. David
Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Trans. David Grene. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago, 1991. 159-212. Print.
100
���
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1 Whose Life, Whose Choice? - Doctor and Patient Relations / Christina Parello -- 8 Martin Luther King and the Shadow Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement / Stephen Galazzo -- 14 Heterosexual Male Transvestites in America / Lauren M. Wagner -- 21 Lightness and Weight Paradox in The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera / Radislav Meylikh -- 28 The Port Richmond Farmers’ Market Proposal / Andrew Burt -- 40 A Home Run for Civil Rights / Matt Cangro -- 47 The Moral Obligation to People in a Learning Environment / Julia Zenker -- 54 The Punishments of The Bacchaeans / Caroline Geling -- 60 The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Nothingness: Utilizing the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre to Better Understand Kundera’s Novel / Zachary Weinsteiger -- 66 Here, There, and Everywhere / Morgan Grubbs -- 70 Dissident Voices Against the Injustices of the School Experience of the LGBT Community / Elle Brigida -- 79 Extracting the Spider Webs of a Subway Lost in History / Klevi Tomcini -- 95 The Effects of Hubris / Brenna Dean
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����Section I: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Paper
2
Reconstructing Electron Tracks using a Gas Electron Multiplier Detector
Gia DeStefanis
Section II: The Social Sciences
Full Length Paper
18 Studying in a Group Versus Independently: The Effects on Exam Grades
Tehmina Bhojani
Section III: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
28 A Phenomenological Examination of Truth in Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury
James Messina
34 Revisiting Descartes: The Interaction between Mind and Body in Meditation VI
Emily Burkhardt
46 Hagar and Ishmael in the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible:
A Cause of Variance in Islam and Christianity
Bareah Alam
54 The Media, Materialism, and The Matrix
Anne Blum
60 The Origins of Carolingian Minuscule
Emily Werkheiser
70 Feminine Devils: The Demonic Portrayal of the Female in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Jessica Verderosa
78 The Flaws of Plato’s Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul in the Phaedo
Nidhi Khanna
���Reconstructing Electron Tracks Using
a Gas Electron Multiplier Detector
Gia DeStefanis (Physics and Mathematics)1
This is a preliminary study for the development of a new detector that uses Gas Electron
Multipliers (GEM) to reconstruct positron tracks emanating from a source object. In this
study, the ionization trail left by an electron is used to determine the position and
calculate the angle of the charged particle track as it traverses the gas detector. This is
accomplished by analyzing the charge distribution from the incident charge on the
readout pads of the detector. The long term goal is to image tracks in three dimensional
space and generate a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) image.
I. Introduction
The purpose of this investigation is to reconstruct an electron track from a
Strontium- 90 (Sr-90) source. A triple GEM detector with a multiple pad readout was
employed to image segments of the ionization trail left behind by electrons as they
traverse the drift gap of the detector. By measuring the charge distribution on the pads,
the charge centroid (equation 1) and the track angle may be determined, corresponding to
the position of the track and a vector pointing along the direction of the track respectively
(figure 1).
Centroid
i w i x i
i w i
w i is the charge on pad for a given event
(1)
x i is the pad number
II. Apparatus
The detector is made up of three standard GEMS with a mesh on top and
readout pads underneath (figure 2). It is enclosed in an Ar-CO2 gas mixture that flows in
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Craig Woody (Senior Physicist, Brookhaven
National Lab) and Bob Azmoun (Stony Brook University) during a summer 2011 SULI
(Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship) Program.
1
2
�a 70-30 ratio. A gas system delivers the mixed gas to the detector at a flow rate of 100cc
per minute. High voltage is delivered to the 7 GEM electrodes by a power supply with
Figure 1a: Detector performance
eTrack
Drift
Gap
=
(Track Angle)13m
m
Projection of Charge onto Pads
Figure 1b: Illustration of how the track angle is calculated. The collected charge is a projection
of the track in the plane of the pads, thus allowing the reconstruction of the track angle.
Green: charge distribution on pads for one event. Red: centroid calculation for one event
Figure 1c: Measurement of track position using the charge distribution and centroid calculation
3
�independent channels. For protection, each channel has a 10 micro-amp trip setting that
avoids possible sparking in the detector.
The detector (figure 3) is illuminated with a collimated beam of electrons from a
Sr-90 source. As the electrons enter the detector, they leave behind a trail of ionization in
the rather wide drift gap of 13mm, whose projection is then measured on the pads (figure
4). Sr-90 undergoes -decay, and releases electrons with energies up to 2.28 MeV. The
Sr-90 source is mounted inside a primary brass collimator (figure 5) that has a 1.22 mm
hole and is 1” long. This collimator is then mated up with a secondary 3” long brass
collimator with a 1mm hole. Originally, it was mated with a 1” long brass collimator with
1 mm hole but that resulted in very poor collimation, providing no peak in the pads.
Adding the extra 2” corrected the problem .
Located underneath the brass is a veto counter that has a 0.75 mm hole drilled
into a 2x2” piece of thick scintillator mounted to a PMT. The veto PMT is set to 1400 V
with a threshold of 20 mV. The purpose of the veto is to reject all electron tracks that do
not go through the hole in the scintillator during data taking. The electron tracks or
events of interest are obtained by asking for there to be charge in the GEM, but no light
in the Veto PMT. This ensures that the electron track that is detected is one that goes
through the hole in the veto scintillator and is thus collimated. Additionally, requiring a
“hit’ in the GEM, provides a positive trigger that signals the data acquisition system
(DAQ) to record the pad signals corresponding to this event.
Once the charge from the track is drifted into the GEM detector and amplified,
the amplified charge is then collected onto a one dimensional planar array of 12 pads that
are 2x10.5mm each and read out using a preamplifier and shaping amplifier. The pads
are in a Chevron (zigzag) pattern that allows for greater charge sharing between pads,
which results in a more accurate measure of the centroid.
The pre-amps and shapers are connected to 3 flash-analog-to-digital-converters
(FADCs), each equipped with 8 channels. The FADC records the magnitude of the
charge pulse from the preamp/shaper as a function of time and this information is then
saved to disk for analysis. The FADCs record a sample of charge every 10ns and collect
200 such samples after each trigger.
A stepping motor was utilized to move the source collimator over a specific pad
and accumulate 250,000 triggered events. With the source at normal incidence to the pad
plane, runs can be taken at several such positions with the aim to reconstruct the position
of the source using the data from the pads. Similarly, the incident angle is also set to 70o
with the aim of reconstructing the angle of the track.
4
�Figure 2: Image of the apparatus, which shows the source collimator
and veto counter illuminating the GEM detector.
Figure 3: Image of the top of the detector, with cross
hairs indicating the center of the pads.
5
�Figure 4: Image of the pads below the GEMs: using the right side only
Figure 5: Image of the collimator.
6
�III. Methods and Analysis
During the summer months of 2011 a lot of preliminary work leading up to the
final measurements was completed. A new pre-amplifier box was constructed, it was
populated with 12 new preamplifiers and shaping amplifiers and checked to make sure
that each channel had a similar electronic gain and rise time. A new channel to pad map
for all 24 channels of both the new and old preamp boxes was also developed. A new
GEM strip anode board (a one dimensional strip of 66 pads with 200 micron pads and
100 micron gaps) arrived and was tested for continuity, grounded and connected. FADC
module with 14 bits also arrived. Since the others had only 12 bits, the extra 2 bits were
masked.
Calibration all the channels of the FADC preamp combination was
accomplished by sending in a pulser to the preamps of a given amplitude, in effect
injecting a known amount of electrons in to the preamp, based on the formula, Q=VC.
By observing the resultant peak in the FADC, a relationship between the number of
injected electrons and FADC channel was obtained. In doing this it was discovered that
the first FADC has a calibration factor 4 times higher than the other two FADCs. The
calibration constants for all 24 channels are summarized in figure 6.
30
2000
20
1000
10
0
1P
1. ad
3- 24
P
1. ad 2
5Pa 2
1. d
7- 20
P
2. ad 1
1P 8
2. ad
3- 16
Pa
2. d 1
5- 4
P
2. ad 1
7P
3. ad
1- 3
P
3. ad 5
3P
3. ad
5- 7
P
3. ad
7Pa 9
d
11
0
FADC
3000
-1000
1.
Ne-/FADC
PreAmp Characteristics
-2000
-10
-20
PA Channels
Figure 6: Bar graph of calibration constants
7
Callibration Constant
Pedestal
�Following this, the preamp calibration was implemented in the code.
Furthermore, the code was cleaned up this year by implementing the mapping globally in
the code, by placing it in one place at the beginning of the code instead of repeating the
same mapping sequence throughout at various places.
Before taking data, some basic expectations were verified. Initially, the drift
time of the primary charge in the GEM drift gap of 13mm was measured to be 400ns.
This is demonstrated on the scope (figure 7), which shows the distribution of the arrival
time of charge on the bottom GEM electrode with respect to the veto + scintillation
counter trigger. A spread of about 520ns was expected based on the fact that the drift
velocity in Ar/CO2 (70/30) is 2.5cm/s. A drift length of 1.3cm, divided by the drift
velocity, results in a 520ns drift time.
Figure 7: Drift time of the primary charge in the GEM
The number of primary electrons in the gas from a track were calculated by first
noting that a MIP in Ar/CO2 (70/30) deposits 2.6 keV/cm of energy. Multiply that by
1.3cm * 2½ (assuming an angle of 45o) and find that there is 4.78 keV of deposited energy
per track by the charged particles. For Ar/CO2 (70/30) 28 eV/ e-i pairs are produced. By
dividing 4.78keV/28eV, 171 e- per track is determined, which when divided by 6 pads
8
�(or 12mm) is calculated to be 28 e-/pad on average from a single track. This number, as
well as the measured noise of each preamp channel is used to calculate the signal to noise
ratio, which is around 1% shown (figure 8). The average noise measured for each
channel was about 2500 electrons. Assuming a gain of about 8000, results in a signal of
about 224,000 electrons, leading to the 1% mentioned above.
S/N vs. Pad #
1.2
1
S/N^-1
0.8
0.6
Series1
0.4
0.2
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Pad #
Figure 8: Signal to noise vs. pad #
The energy spectrum for Sr-90 was measured by using a GSO crystal mounted
to a PMT. The raw PMT pulse height spectrum was measured and then the background
and the pedestal were subtracted off (figure 9).
Raw Sr-90 Pulse Height Spectrum before going through any
Scintillators
2500
2000
Counts
1500
1000
500
0
-1
0
1
2
MeV
3
4
-500
Figure 9: Raw Sr-90 Pulse height spectrum before going through any scintillators
9
�A C++ program has been written which uses certain algorithms to analyze the
data from the DAQ. For each event, the program initially calculates the baseline of the
pulse coming from each of the pads by averaging over the first 20 charge samples. After
subtracting off this baseline, the program then integrates over each pulse to determine the
total charge within the pulse. With this information, several histograms are made,
including one of the sum charge from all the pads per event, one that shows the charge
distribution on the pads by simply summing the charge on all pads for all events, one that
shows the number of pads that were hit per event, and finally one that shows the
distribution of the centroid calculated for each event. The centroid gives a measure of the
track position and is calculated by finding the weighted average of charge on the pads,
according to the formula above. The projection of charge on the pads gives a measure of
the angle of the incident particle, using simple trigonometry.
By illuminating the detector with a Fe55 source, the gains of the detector and
calibration scale of the histograms in terms of primary electrons were measured. For
most of the measurements the gain was around 8,000 (figures 10 and 11) and the
resolution was roughly 20% for the Fe55 peak. Fe55 produces an average of 210 primary
electrons in the Ar/CO2 (70/30), thus the peak of the Fe55 pulse height distribution sets
the histogram scale for the Sr-90 measurements (figure 12).
Gain vs. Voltage for triple GEM
100000
6-10-11 (P=759.2,T=26.85)
10000
GEM Gain
6-24-11 (P=752.84, T=26.85)
Expon. (6-10-11
(P=759.2,T=26.85))
1000
100
330
Expon. (6-24-11 (P=752.84,
T=26.85))
340
350
360
370
380
390
400
GEM Voltage (V)
Figure 10: Gain vs. voltage for triple GEM
10
�The “P/T corrected gain” is the gain adjusted for a P and T value of 760 Torr
and 293 Kelvin respectively. The gain fluctuations observed above are likely due to the
fact that the GEM detector was turned on and off and on again, and was in an unknown
state of charging up, resulting in values of gain that appear to vary independent of P/T.
GEM Gain Vs. Time
10000
9000
8000
GEM Gain
7000
6000
Series1
5000
Series2
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
7/16/2011
7/21/2011
7/26/2011
7/31/2011
8/5/2011
8/10/2011
Date
Figure 11: GEM gain vs. time
Figure 12: Fe-55 pulse height distribution
As mentioned earlier, the raw data from the FADC consists of 200, 10ns
samples of charge, which render the pulse height from the preamps as a function of time.
11
�Charge from the preamp is integrated in 10ns bins (samples) and saved as a data pair, the
first number is the sample number (with respect to some starting trigger), and the second
is the charge amplitude, in units of FADC channel. For each trigger a pulse for each
preamp is recorded and these raw data pairs are used to calculate the total integral of
charge from each preamp. This is calculated by the Riemann sum from 50 samples
behind the channel with the highest amplitude to 50 samples after this channel. By
choosing +/- 50 samples it gave the best RMS for the sum_int_cbi histogram of the Fe55
spectrum.
In the code specific cuts are set when the histograms mentioned above are
created. A ‘MINPULSE’ cut is the minimum amplitude on the pads for an event to be
counted which is set to 2 primary electrons. ‘MAXPULSE’ is set to 75 primary electrons
and is the maximum amplitude on the pads so that anything outside MINPULSE and
MAXPULSE is not counted as an event in the code. ‘MINGEM’ and ‘MAXGEM’ are
the minimum and maximum number of primary electrons in the bottom GEM pulse
height spectrum required (channel 1.1) to constitute an event, set to 30 and 1000
respectively. ‘MINSUM’ and ‘MAXSUM’ are the minimum and maximum sums of all
the pulse heights of all the pads required to constitute an event to 60 and 1000
respectively. There is also a limit to the number of pads being hit using MINPADHIT and
MAXPADHIT and that is a window between 1 and 4. Finally, the analysis is limited to
one row of 12 pads on the board.
The configuration file for the FADC’s is changed in an effort to center the
waveform in the window of 200 samples. Now the peak is centered on around 100
samples, whereas before the peak was set askew to one side of the 200 sample window, at
around sample 140.
Some improvements were made to the system. An earlier version of the trigger
included a trigger counter underneath the veto counter that was 0.5mm in width but it was
too thin and produced little detectable light. Since the light signal was so low, a threshold
was set for this PMT low as well, which caused it to trigger on noise of very high rate.
The high rate led to many false triggers in the data. So, when removing this, it triggered
on the veto and the GEM signal. However, it also turned out that the veto is not very
efficient at rejecting no-collimated electrons within the beam, leading to the rather broad
beam observed in the data (figure 13). A measurement was performed to test the
inefficiency of the veto counter: By triggering on the GEM alone for 30 seconds there
was 1100 counts, and when triggering on the GEM and veto for 30 seconds there was
1000 counts. From this information it was determined that the veto is very inefficient at
12
�rejecting uncollimated electrons from the beam. In order to improve the measurements, a
highly efficient veto counter is needed and possibly even a thicker collimator.
Figure 13: Centroid minus motor position distribution, integrated over all positions
IV. Results
The position of the source was moved by 1.75 mm, for 8 iterations along the pads.
The average displacement of the calculated position (centroid) was found to be 1.9mm, in
good agreement (figure 14) with the actual displacement of the motor (1.75mm).
The linear extent of the charge distribution on the pads is taken as the length of the
track projection on the pads with the source placed at a given incident angle. After
subtracting off the width of the distribution at normal incidence (which reflects the beam
width), the track angle may be calculated according to the formula above. For tracks
corresponding to 70o incidence, the projected length was found to be about 7mm,
corresponding to a calculated angle of 62o, in good agreement with the set angle (figure 15).
With the source set to normal incidence, the centroid distribution (figures 16 and 17)
was fit to a Gaussian function, whose mean is the calculated position of the source. The
width of the Gaussian () is found to be about 5.2mm on average, which is significantly
larger than the 1mm diameter of the collimator, indicating that the beam is not well
collimated.
The width of the beam was calculated according to the equation (2). Having
already measured the resolution of the detector using a finely collimated x-ray gun
(100um), the beam was found to be 5.5mm wide ().
13
�Detector Resolution σ c2 m σ 2
e beam
(2)
sc-m is the width of cent. -motor pos. distribution
se- beam is the width of Sr-90 electron beam
Figure 14: Centroid vs. motor position
(mm)
Figure 15: Charge distribution on pads (source placed at 70o, calculated angle: 62o)
14
�Figure 16: Centroid distribution on pads at one position
Figure 17: Charge distribution on pads at same position
V. Conclusions:
It has been successfully demonstrated that a GEM detector with a large drift gap
may be used to measure the position of an electron source. In addition, by measuring the
projection of the track on the pads of the detector, one can estimate the angle of the track.
15
�However, a more precise determination of the angle can be obtained by measuring the
drift time of the charge as it arrives on the pads. This will be studied in further tests of
this detector. Ultimately, the reconstruction of such tracks in three dimensional space
allows one to develop a tomography of the object which is used to create a PET
image. The benefit of using GEMs in such detectors is that they are inexpensive, simple,
reliable and versatile enough that they may be used for many applications.
VI. References
1. B. Yu et. al., “Study of GEM Characteristics for Application in a Micro-TPC” IEEE
Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 50, No. 4, August 2003.
2. B. Azmoun, “A Gaseous Based Drift Detector with GEM Readout for Tracking
16
��Studying in a Group Versus Independently:
The Effects on Exam Grades
Tehmina Bhojani (Nursing)1
In preparation for nursing school examinations, students try to find the best method to
study and to memorize the material that will be tested. While some prefer to study
individually, there are some nursing students that prefer to be around their peers and to
study together as a group. Both study methods have shown to have their own benefits as
well as drawbacks. Previous research studies have supported that students do prefer to
study in groups because it helps them improve their grades within the class. However,
the purpose of this study was to see if studying independently versus in a group yields
greater academic success for second degree nursing students. Data was collected using a
questionnaire that asked about demographics, study preferences and exam grades. After
analysis, the results indicated that studying independently did show a significant increase
in the average exam grades.
I. Introduction
Exam preparation, specifically related to study methods prior to exams, can be
accomplished in many ways. Some students prefer to study independently while others
prefer to study in groups. Advantages versus disadvantages can be identified for either
method. For example, from this researchers’ academic experience, some students
identified studying alone as a “more focused, getting your work done approach”2 and
indicated that group studying downfalls included frequent distractions that may take them
off the topic and the task at hand. On the other hand, students who would rather use the
group study method reported that study groups enabled the “sharing of ideas and
solidified understanding of the topic,”3 which is absent when studying independently.
Students learn more when giving an explanation to another than when receiving one (De
Voogd, Pilot, & Van Eijl, 2005). The purpose of this study is to identify which study
method, independent versus group study, achieves higher exam grades for second-degree
nursing students.
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Lauren O'Hare (Nursing) in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
2 Researchers’ subjective analysis of the subject matter
3 Researchers’ subjective analysis of the subject matter
1
18
�II. Research Question and Hypothesis
Question: Is there a relationship between studying independently and higher exam
grades?
Hypothesis: Students who study alone achieve higher exam grades compared to students
who study in groups.
III. Review of Related Literature
Research studies on study groups were very limited. Currently, there was no
literature found that supported the researcher’s hypothesis; and all preliminary studies do
not support that independent studying achieves higher exam grades. A study conducted
by the faculty at Utrecht University in 2005 concluded that “statistical analysis showed
that collaboration resulted in significantly better marks” (De Voogd et al., 2005 p. 49).
Faculty involved with this study performed their research on their English literature
classes. At the end of the semester, an evaluation was completed on the course and the
student’s preference of working individually or in groups of three students. Students read
weekly books and then were required to work individually to complete a quiz. They were
then either to work with their team or individually, based on the student’s preference, and
complete assignments based on those readings. Compared to previous background
information of the course, the completion of the reading increased from 60% to 90% (De
Voogd et al., 2005). According to De Voogd et al. (2005), “the comparison of marks
showed that the collaborating students as a group were the highly performing students”
(p. 57). The students that studied collaboratively achieved higher marks as well as
learned more than the students who performed individually.
Nursing schools today offer different methods of delivering the material that
will be tested on the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX®) upon the
students’ graduation from the program. Lectures and case-studies can relate to how the
content is studied and retained by the students (Campbell, Herrold, Lauver, West, &
Wood, 2009). According to Campbell et al. (2009), “students report a preference for
receiving didactic instruction that provides the information they believe they need to
know” (p. 134). This preference is similar to studying in a group – students will learn
and study the material that is believed to be on the exams. Campbell et al. (2009) also
found that using “case study as an interactive teaching methodology requires students to
become active learners, think critically, and extend classroom knowledge into the clinical
realm” (p. 134). Studying independently gives the student an advantage of being able to
relate the content received to real life scenarios, as does using a case study methodology.
19
�The results of Campbell’s et al. (2009) showed “no significant differences in learning
outcomes between lecture and case study teaching methods” (p. 137).
Although research on study groups was limited, literature was found from 1995
in which study groups among nursing students was researched. Adams and DeYoung
(1995) found that “study groups, both in class and out of class, those structured by the
teacher and those informally organized by students, can be very effective in increasing
learning” (p. 190). A questionnaire was completed by the students in both associate and
bachelor nursing degree programs. Both groups showed that their learning had improved
either “very much or somewhat” (Adams and DeYoung, 1995, p. 190-191) because of the
study groups.
IV. Methods
Nursing students in the second-degree accelerated program at Wagner College
were asked to complete a questionnaire (Appendix A). A total of nine questions were
included asking about the participant’s study preference and the average exam grade
achieved during that semester. A range of exam grades and study preferences were used
to compile the answers needed by the researcher. Data was collected and analyzed from
the questionnaires and were given numerical and percentage values.
The sample size was 18 students. Because this was a quasi-experimental study,
there was no randomization or control group. However, the manipulation included
studying with peers. The preference of studying independently or with a group was the
independent variable and the exam scores was the dependent variable.
Participants were given a brief explanation of the study and participated on a
voluntary basis. All questionnaires were anonymous.
V. Results
A sample of 18 participants completed the questionnaire. Of those 18
participants, 56% were between the ages of 21 to 26, 6% were between the ages of 27 to
32, 22% were between the ages of 33 to 37 years, 6% were between 38 to 43 years, 6%
were between 42 to 49, and 6% were 50 years or older were 6%. (See Table 1) .
Table 1: Ages of the Participants
Age Groups
21 – 26
27 – 32
33 – 37
38 – 43
42 – 49
50+
Total
Frequency
10
1
4
1
1
1
n = 18
20
Percentage
56%
6%
22%
6%
6%
6%
100%
��When comparing the three semesters, 8 participants used the same study method
throughout, either independent, group or both. Of them, 6 said they did see an
improvement of their grades while 2 said they did not (See Table 5). During the first
semester, 7 participants used both study methods and then 4 switched to studying
independently for the remainder of the two semesters and 3 of them did see an
improvement of their grades, while 1 did not (See table 6). A total of 3 students, started
the first and second semester off by studying independently and in groups. However,
they studied independently during the final semester, with an improvement in their grades
(See Table 7). One student that did not see an improvement of their grades started
studying independently during the first semester but used both methods during the second
and summer semesters (See Table 8). Two students, during their first semester, studied
in groups only. Second semester, one student used both, group and independent, while
the other student continued to study in groups only. However, their grades improved
once they studied independently for their summer sessions (See Table 8). Exam grades
ranged from 76 to 99 throughout the first semester of nursing school. During the second
semester and summer sessions, exam grades ranged from 82 to 99. Of the 18 participants
the 12 that do prefer to study independently only, at some point of the semester, 9
participants said they did see an improvement in their grades. The 4 participants that did
use independent studying and did not see an improvement in their grades, saw a decrease
in their grade or used only one method of studying throughout the three semesters
therefore resulting in no change.
Table 5: Comparison of Study Methods Over Three Semesters
(I-Independent Studying, S-Studying in Groups, B-Both Methods)
First
Semester
Preference
Second
Semester
Preference
Summer
Session
Preference
Improvement in
Grades (n=7)
B
B
I
I
I
I
Y
Y
B
B
I
I
I
I
Y
N
B
B
B
B
I
I
Y
Y
B
B
I
Y
22
�Table 6: Use of the Same Study Method Throughout
(I-Independent Studying, S-Studying in Groups, B-Both Methods)
First
Semester
Preference
Second
Semester
Preference
Summer
Session
Preference
Improvement in
Grades (n=8)
B
B
B
B
B
B
Y
Y
B
B
B
B
B
B
Y
Y
B
S
B
S
B
S
Y
Y
I
I
I
I
I
I
N
N
Table 7: Improvement in Grades for Participants Initially Studying Both Ways
and Switching to only Independently in Summer Session
First
Semester
Preference
Second
Semester
Preference
Summer
Session
Preference
Improvement in
Grades (n=3)
B
B
B
B
I
I
Y
Y
B
B
I
Y
Table 8: Improvement in Grades for Participants Initially Studying One Way
and Switching to only Independently in Summer Session
First
Semester
Preference
Second
Semester
Preference
Summer
Session
Preference
Improvement in
Grades (n=3)
I
S
B
B
B
I
N
Y
S
S
I
Y
23
�VI. Discussion
Although studying in groups along with studying independently was an
indicated preference, most students favored studying alone. Based on the analysis of the
collected data, students did see an improvement in their grades based on studying
independently as compared to studying in groups. However, there were students who
combined both, studying independently and in groups, who also saw an increase in their
grades. The average exam grade was 91% when there were 11 students (61%) who
preferred to study independently. On the other hand, when 3 to 6 students (17% to 33%)
preferred independent studying, the average exam grade for the semester was 89%.
There was a significant increase in the average exam grade among more students who
chose to study independently rather than those who studied in groups or those who used
both methods. The data that was collected and the results achieved by this research,
supported the researcher’s hypothesis that students who study independently do achieve
higher exam grades compared to students who study in groups.
VII. Recommendations for Future Research
The sample for this research included the second-degree nursing students. For
future research, this study can be generalized to a larger group and to a different
population (different program). By expanding the study’s population, however, results
may vary. Another possible recommendation could be the completion of a pre- and postquestionnaire by the participants. Pre-questionnaire is to be completed upon entrance
into the nursing or similar program. Towards the end of the program, a postquestionnaire can be completed. This can help the researcher facilitate in collecting and
analyzing the data to compare the results to better support his/her hypothesis.
VIII. References
Adams, F. E., DeYoung, S. (1995). Study groups among nursing students. Journal of
Nursing Education, 34(4), 190-191.
Bailey, K.E. & Lang, S.A. (2009). UT Teaching Teams Program Effectiveness. In UT
Learning Center. Retrieved from
http://www.utexas.edu/student/utlc/study_groups/program_effectiveness_2009.pdf
Bailey, K.E. & Lang, S.A. (2009). UT Teaching Teams Program: Student Participation
and Motivation. In UT Learning Center. Retrieved from
http://www.utexas.edu/student/utlc/study_groups/aera_poster.pdf
24
�Campbell, B. T., Herrold, J., Lauver, S. L., West, M. M., Wood, C. G. (2009). Toward
evidence-based teaching: evaluating the effectiveness of two teaching strategies in an
associate degree nursing program. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 4,133-138.
De Voogd, P., Pilot, A., Van Eijl, P. (2005). Effects of collaborative and individual
learning in a blended learning environment. Education and Information Technologies,
10:1/2, 49-63.
Appendix A: Questionnaire
Please circle your answer:
1.
Age 21 – 26 27 – 32 33 – 37 38 – 43 42 – 49 50+
2.
Gender
3.
During the first semester of nursing school, how did you study for exams?
Male
Independently
4.
70 – 75
76 – 81
70 – 75
76 – 81
94 – 99
100
Study Group
Both
82 – 87
88 – 93
94 – 99
100
Study Group
Both
What was your average exam grade for the summer sessions of nursing school?
below 70
9.
88 – 93
During the summer sessions of nursing school, how did you study for exams?
Independently
8.
82 – 87
What was your average exam grade for the second semester of nursing school?
below 70
7.
Both
During the second semester of nursing school, how did you study for exams?
Independently
6.
Study Group
What was your average exam grade for the first semester of nursing school?
below 70
5.
Female
70 – 75
76 – 81
82 – 87
88 – 93
94 – 99
100
Based on your study preference, did you see an improvement in your exam
grades?
Yes
No
25
���A Phenomenological Examination of Truth
in Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury
James Messina (Philosophy and English)1
The Sound and The Fury is many things at once: It is a meditation on time; it is a
critique of the Old Order in the South; it is an examination of post-emancipation race
relations; and it is a condemning inquiry into the nature of early 20th century gender roles.
Perhaps most importantly, though, Faulkner’s formidable novel serves as a revolutionary
polemic against traditional conceptions of objective Truth. Faulkner rejects the
presumption that there is one ‘Truth’ that is readily accessible to all individuals,
organized according to principles of causality, and apprehensible via the intellect’s
rational faculty. Faulkner illustrates the utter impossibility of such a reality in a
controlled, skillful manner throughout the text. He does so, chiefly, by effectively
utilizing four unique perspectives, which move from first person, sensuous and nearly
unintelligible, to calculated and rational, and finally to third person narration. Though this
methodology severs the connections between rationality, causality, objectivity and Truth,
Faulkner does not leave human beings in complete chaos. There may not be objective
Truth, but individual perspective remains, and individual perspective has its own truth.
By supplanting traditional objectivity with intersubjectivity (or shared experience), the
structure of Faulkner’s novel emphasizes the role of perspective in understanding the
world. In this paper, I will argue that these notions of intersubjectivity and perspective
are philosophically imperative in understanding the significance of the Compson
brothers’ most consistent shared experience: Their sister, Caddy.
Although it is clear that Faulkner was not acquainted with the phenomenological
movement occurring in Germany during the early 20th century, it is nevertheless
illuminating to employ the familiar backdrop of phenomenology in analyzing the content
of The Sound and the Fury. Phenomenology’s principal concern is to provide an
alternative to rationalism and scholasticism. This alternative is one of method. Instead of
moving from premise to conclusion logically based on a first axiom or assumption, one
must study and describe the content of consciousness toward the end of achieving
knowledge intersubjectively based on the content of consciousness, its intentionality and
its possibilities. Faulkner appears to be similarly critical of principled rationalism (and its
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Peter Sharpe for EN342(W): Growin'Up in Dixie.
28
�claims to absolute Truth…see Jason’s section), and his solution, that of gathering
perspectives, is equally methodological in nature.
Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology, posited what he called the
“phenomenological epoché”, which purports that objects of consciousness should be
observed as they appear to consciousness, detached from any claims regarding the
objective world (The Paris Lectures 48-49). Husserl argues that we must bracket what he
calls the “natural standpoint.” He intends by “natural standpoint” the idea that there is
actually an existent world ‘out there’, which can be observed, studied and ultimately used
as the fundamental basis for all other knowledge (The Thesis of the Natural Standpoint
and Its Suspension 112).
He argues that to assert the positive existence of such a world presupposes
“transcendental subjectivity.” More basically, without our own unique, individual
perspective, we would not have access to the so-called objective world at all. Each
transcendental subjectivity, or consciousness, has its own intentionality, or meaning.
Husserl writes:
Phenomenology always explains meanings, that is,
intentionality…transcendental subjectivity is not a chaos of intentional
experiences, but it is a unity through synthesis…an object…has reality for me in
consciousness. But this reality is reality for me only as long as I believe that I
can confirm it…Think about the tremendous importance of this
remark….existence and essence have for us, in reality and truth, no other
meaning than that of possible confirmation” (Paris Lectures 55-56).
With this passage, we continue to see the similarities between Faulkner’s project in The
Sound and the Fury and Husserl’s project in creating a new epistemology. Each take on
truth will initially force knowledge into solipsism (or the view that the only thing that we
know to exist is our own mind, or that only perspective is veracious); however, the end of
each is truth by way of intersubjectivity, or shared experience. That is to say, individual
descriptive perspectives become synthesized and take on new, more profound meaning
based on their cohesion with other descriptive perspectives.
The first three sections of The Sound and The Fury can ultimately be seen as a
phenomenology of perspectives. That is not to say that the narrator in each section is
engaged in perfect phenomenological description (there is no need to make such a strong
claim here, considering Faulkner’s lack of association with phenomenology proper). But,
in each case, we get a picture of the world that varies based on the narrator’s
intentionality, or based on the meaning that the narrator places on these events.
29
�Each of the first three parts of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury serves as an
independent account of, among other things, the Compson brothers’ experience of their
sister Caddy as a phenomenon—not, as a human being. That Caddy is arguably the
central character of the novel, in spite of the fact that she lacks her own narrative section,
is incredibly telling. Depriving Caddy of a narrative section allows Faulkner to present
her solely as an object. Throughout the novel, Caddy is denied subjectivity, and hence (if
we continue to follow the phenomenological interpretation that meaning is given by the
intentionality of consciousness), she lacks any real meaning. She exists only as an object
for her brothers, and her character is infused with their meanings.
For Benjy, she is a mother figure and represents order; for Quentin, she is an
ideal and represents chastity; for Jason, she is a “bitch”, and represents the perils and
disorder of financial and family life. As the novel progresses from Benjy’s perspective to
Jason’s perspective, the descriptive content of each preceding section is “checked” by the
current section. It is in this way that the reader gets a grasp on Caddy’s character as an
“emerging phenomenon.” This leaves the reader feeling that Caddy is all of these things,
and none of them at once. Her lack of narrative section confirms this. Caddy does
(presumably) have her own truth, in her reality, but neither readers, nor characters in the
novel are privy to it. This keeps her at the level of a phenomenon, an object of
consciousness throughout the novel.
We first see Caddy through the eyes of Benjy. By beginning the novel from this
perspective, Faulkner throws readers into the uncomfortable position of receiving the
vacillations of the mind of an idiot. That this section is presented neutrally (without
disclaimer, endorsement or disparagement on the part of the author) further emphasizes
the role of perspective in determining the truth. Benjy, given his mental capacity (which
is characteristic of his unique intentionality), lacks the ability to judge or interpret
anything at all. What readers experience in reading his section is a stream of
consciousness that lacks syntactical form, notions of causality and the metaphysic of
time. Benjy has only impressions (mostly sensuous impressions), and these impressions
are unadulterated by attempts at interpretation on the part of the character. We come to
understand what these events mean to Benjy based on his reactions to (intentionality
toward) them. He wails, he moans and he hushes. He grasps at the fence. And watches
them hitting. They call, “caddie!” His memories drift into his reality, and then he is in
them, with his sister once again.
When Caddy smells like trees, or the golfers call for their caddie, readers get a
picture of the free association that simple events elicit in Benjy’s consciousness. This
occurs in spite of the fact that he does not (can not) go through the process of interpreting
30
�the events through his narration. Caddy offers Ben love and support, and her presence,
even if only indicated by the word “caddie” on the golf course, can quite literally change
his reality. His experiences are ordered, and, in fact, upset by her presence, attitude, and
evolution as a character. Her innocence, demarcated by the smell of trees, represents a
time that she could be there for him; whereas her promiscuity, characterized by her
smelling of honeysuckle and perfume, points to her abandonment of him (as he sees it).
Here we see Faulkner saying that it is not always (if it is ever) possible to leave
judgments, or feelings, or sentiments out of our descriptions of experience. It roughly
follows that if there is one Truth, human beings have no access to it—that we are in
oblivion to it as a consequence of our own subjectivity; and so, epistemologically,
practically, there is no one Truth.
Jason’s section is a foil to Benjy’s. Where in the latter, we see no clear structure
or organizing concepts or judgment or interpretation, we see in the former all of the
above. Where Benjy’s section lacks clear references to time and drifts from past to future
whimsically, Jason’s section is dominated by clear, conventional (subject-predicate)
syntax, is organized chronologically, and employs reasoned out judgments regarding
nearly each event that transpires over the course of his narrative. The revolutionary thing
about Faulkner’s treatment of this contrast is that traditionally, the latter would be
favored as having a better claim to Truth. Not the case in The Sound and the Fury.
Faulkner denies any necessary connection between rationality and Truth. This is once
again due to the methodological suggestion that if Truth exists, human beings have no
stake in it. Since each section is only a perspective, and each perspective has the same
phenomenological value (unless contradicted in the consciousness that comprises it), then
each section is equal. This means that with respect to Caddy, each perspective is equally
valuable so long as the narrator of each section views his portrayal of her as a possibility.
And it is on this very point, that of reality (and truth) being contained within the
possibility of reality (and truth), that the phenomenological reading of the novel becomes
especially poignant. Quentin’s section is not as disorganized as Benjy’s, but it is not quite
as well ordered as Jason’s. Extreme disorder in Benjy’s case allows his view of Caddy to
remain a possibility, and hence, is for him a reality. His expectation of her to return is not
ruled out in his view (despite having witnessed her marriage) simply because he still
treats the calling of “caddie” from the adjacent golf course as indicative of his sister’s
inevitable return to take care of him. In Jason’s case, his ability to rationalize and
constantly assign blame to his nearest connection to Caddy (her daughter, Quentin),
coupled with his physical distance from Caddy precludes any chance that his view of her
as a “bitch” whose actions cheat him out of a job will be neutralized. Even when Caddy
31
�does things (such as requesting to see her daughter) that are far from “bitchy”, Jason has
the capacity to see the act from a perspective that maintains her status as a burden. His
early perspective on his sister will continue to prevail because his rationality allows him
to continually assert it as a possibility. Rationality, here, is an adversary of truth. In each
of these extreme cases, perception is reality simply because of the way perception is
affected by intentionality toward events, situations and attitudes. But what happens in the
moderate case?
Quentin’s view of his sister cannot remain. It was pointed out earlier that
Quentin sees in Caddy the physical manifestation of an ideal. He sees her as the
embodiment of the chivalric code. He is also, apparently, the most intimate with her.
From the moment that he learns of her having had sex with Dalton Ames, he attempts to
reconcile his idealization of Caddy with the loss of her virginity. Ultimately, because his
perspective does not (due in part to its moderateness and affectedness) allow him to look
past the fact that his sister’s previous reality as the image of chastity has been
contradicted. What was once, on the phenomenological view, a reality is no longer. This
ultimately leads to despair on the part of Quentin, and, rather than accept the shame that
is brought upon him by this new reality, he kills himself. He so strongly identifies himself
with his worldview that he simply can’t live knowing that the person closest to him is in
violation of it. He, of course, in his final act, goes against his own conception of honor.
He abandons the code that so colored his intentionality with his suicide. It is no mistake
that the act that violates his code must be terminal. If suicide is the manifestation of
humanity’s ultimate contradiction, it is appropriate that it comes to Quentin as a direct
result of the negation of the defining aspect of his intentionality.
One might expect the fourth section to assume Caddy’s perspective. It would
seem to be the next logical step in Faulkner’s pattern. It is no mistake that this is not,
however, the case. The fourth section, the latest chronologically, assumes the more
typical omniscient third person perspective. This is Faulkner’s conclusion. It is his last
word on the Compson family. He uses it to pull back the lens from the intimacy of first
person narration, and in doing so, emphasizes the critical role of intentionality in
assigning meaning. While the first three sections serve as a phenomenology of
perspective, the third emphasizes the void created by a lack of individual perspective.
This void is, of course, to be filled by the reader’s own intentionality, by his or her own
consciousness, as he or she is left to interpret the meaning of the carriage’s wrong turn at
the stature of the confederate soldier. We are to, essentially, fill this void: We must, in
completing The Sound and The Fury, assign meaning (or deny meaning) to events, facts
and conversations presented to our own consciousness. We must assign or deny meaning
32
�to Disley’s violation of Negro convention in bringing Benjy to the Easter service. We
must assign or deny meaning to Benjy’s complacency during the sermon. We must assign
or deny meaning to each of these events, otherwise they signify nothing.
Obviously, Faulkner was not a phenomenologist. Nevertheless, there are several
fascinating and illuminating parallels between Faulkner’s creative methodology and the
epistemological methodology posited by Husserl. Both place a strong emphasis on the
role of perspective or intentionality in infusing events with meaning. Both positions stem
from a criticism of rationalism and Truth. Both appear to posit a synthesis of detailed
perspectives as the only solution to the problems posed by suspension of any belief
regarding the objective world. This is not explicit in Faulkner’s case, but it seems to be a
suspension rather than a rejection based on the shift in point of view in the fourth section,
the conclusion of the novel, which does not assume the perspective of an individual, but
is instead told in third person by an omniscient narrator. All of this leaves the reader with
the impression that while life may be, The Sound and the Fury is certainly not a tale told
by an idiot, and that it almost certainly signifies something.
Works Cited
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury: the Corrected Text. New York: Vintage,
1990. Print.
Husserl, Edmund. The Paris Lectures. Trans. Peter Koestenbaum. The Hague: M.
Nijhoff, 1964. Print.
Margolis, Joseph, and Edmund Husserl. “The Thesis of The Natural Standpoint and Its
Suspension.” The Quarrel between Invariance and Flux: a Guide for Philosophers and
Other Players. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 2001. 112-21. Print.
33
�Revisiting Descartes: The Interaction between
Mind and Body in Meditation VI
Emily Burkhardt (Interdisciplinary Studies)1
Descartes is a major thinker in philosophy; his work in Meditations on First
Philosophy has influenced philosophers doing metaphysics after him. His essential
axiom, the cogito axiom: “I think therefore I am”, has permeated the mindset of even the
everyday person. Descartes solidifies the dualism between mind and body in Meditations,
conceiving himself as a mind precariously attached to a body. Most readers who analyze
Meditations focus on the definitions given by Descartes; they conclude that he creates a
human being that is a composite; the mind and body are taken to be two totally different
substances, and therefore can never interact with one another. On the surface, this reading
seems to be appropriate; indeed, this dilemma has ignited considerable debate over the
suggested dualism. Meditation VI is the conclusion to Descartes’ Meditations, and is not
only a summary of his ideas but a culmination and complex account of the mind-body
relationship.
This paper intends to show that readers and commentators of Descartes’ thought
have overlooked his message. True enough, he maintains that the mind and body are two
separate and distinct substances. Nevertheless, he also maintains that the different
faculties attributed to the mind and body revolves the problem of their interaction, and
this combination in function relates them to one another in the total process of thought,
commingled together in an individual person.
Part I: The Traditional Reading of Meditations
In order to understand Descartes’ central thesis, mainly that the mind is distinct
from the body and can exist without it, the process by which he came to such a
conclusion must be examined. In Meditation I, Descartes employs the method of doubt in
order to ascertain beliefs in which he has absolute certainty. He evaluates the ways in
which he comes to know things in the world utilizing hyperbolic doubt, and if any part of
the idea can be questioned, it is “thrown out”, no longer able to be trusted as a valid
source of information. Descartes states, “Because undermining the foundation will cause
whatever has been built upon them to crumble of its own accord, I will attack
1
A Senior Honors Thesis written under the direction of Dr. John Danisi.
34
�straightaway those principles which supported everything I once believed” (MN 18-19).
He suspects his belief in things, first throwing out those beliefs based on sense
perception, then setting aside all conclusions of the sciences that study physical things
that he is not certain are real, and finally proposing that hypothetically he could be
deceived by an evil demon. Descartes is famous for his use of the experience of dreaming
to explain how sensations and the seemingly real laws of nature can be doubted and
uncertain:
Nevertheless, it surely must be admitted that the
things seen during slumber are, as it were, like
painted things, which could only have been produced
in the likeness of true things, and that therefore at
least these general things—eyes, head, hands, and the
whole body—are not imaginary things, but are true
and exist…there is fixed in my mind a certain
opinion of long standing, namely that there exists a
God who is able to do anything and by who I, such as
I am, have been created. How do I know that he did
not bring it about there is no earth at all, no heavens,
no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and
yet bringing it about that all these things appear to
me to exist precisely as they do now? … Eventually I
am forced to admit that there is nothing among the
things that I once believed to be true which it is not
permissible to doubt (MN 20-22, emphasis added).
Descartes finds that it is increasingly difficult to discover if any of his beliefs are true,
though he has found many that could be false. His dream argument is carried forward
throughout his meditation, yet his “customary way of living”, that is, believing what his
senses tell him and all the other ideas he presupposed, remain the primary perception of
reality. Descartes reaches the conclusion that whether he is thinking or doubting, his
mind must exist to carry out those activities, mainly of doubting and perceiving. He is
therefore absolutely certain of the existence of his mind.
In Meditation II, Descartes begins to address the nature of his mind, and the
power that the mind has insofar as he is a totally thinking thing or substance. He attacks
this problem by evaluating “who” and “what” he is; his existence, as a thing that thinks,
is wrapped up in having a perceiving mind and in having a body that interacts with the
35
�world. Descartes writes: “What then did I use to think I was? A man, of course. But what
is a man? … I had a face, hands, arms, and this entire mechanism of bodily members: the
very same as are discerned in a corpse, and which I referred to by the name ‘body’” (MN
26). The body, insofar as it is connected to the world and other things which are
doubtable, must now be doubted as well.
The belief in the existence of his body must be “thrown out” by Descartes’; the
one thing or substance that remains is the existence of his mind. Metaphysically, the only
thing that exists is his mind; epistemologically, he can only know that his mind exists,
and nothing else. The above quote continues:
What about thinking? Here I make my discovery:
thought exists; it alone cannot be separated from me.
I am; I exist—this is certain. But for how long? For
as long as I am thinking; for perhaps it could also
come to pass that if I were to cease all thinking I
would then utterly cease to exist. I am therefore
precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is, a mind,
or intellect, or understanding, or reason—words of
whose meanings I was previously ignorant. (MN 27,
emphasis added).
Here is the crucial place where most commentators conclude that Descartes sets up an
unbreachable divide between mind and body; by putting all things as thoughts in the
mind, the external world is eliminated, as is the body and other physical phenomena; that
is, Descartes can exist as a thinking thing, which exists independently of the body.
Descartes will base the rest of his metaphysics off of the cogito axiom.
Those bodies which we believe to be most distinct, those things we touch and
see, are “something extended, flexible, and mutable” (MN 31). These things manifest
themselves to the mind. How this is understood is through the faculties of the mind, not
through imagination, but through judgment or intellect. “For since I now know that even
bodies are not, properly speaking, perceived by the sense or by the faculty of
imagination, but by the intellect alone, and that they are not perceived through their being
touched or seen, but only through their being understood, I manifestly know that nothing
can be perceived more easily and more evidently than my own mind” (MN 34).
Typically, these ideas in Meditation II lead commentators to conclude that it is the mind
that is the sole existent; all of reality, which Descartes discusses later, is in it, and the
36
�truth of the world can only be discovered through it. This paper will not disagree with
Descartes’ starting point, the cogito axiom.
The focus is rather on the nature of those ideas in Descartes’ mind and the
specific faculties that Descartes assigns to the body and mind separately, and the way in
which those functions together bring forth a composite human character.
Ordinarily, Meditation III is interpreted based on how Descartes’ expresses his
proof for the existence of God. Commentators usually focus on that argument in their
discussions. This paper will not discuss the details of that proof. Rather, it will discuss the
way in which Descartes defines ideas and the purposes he assigns to them.
Descartes holds that the mind is made up of ideas; they arise in three different
ways, which he classifies in the meditation.
Some of these thoughts are like images of things; to
these alone does the word ‘idea’ properly apply, as
when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an
angel, or God. Again there are other thoughts that
take different forms: for example, when I will, or
fear, or affirm, or deny, there is always some thing
that I grasp as the subject of my thought, yet I
embrace in my thought something more than the
likeness of that thing. Some of these thoughts are
called volitions or affects, while others are called
judgments (MN 37, emphasis added).
These ideas differ, and Descartes explains the nature of all of them. The first are innate
ideas; ideas built into the mind. “For I understand what a thing is, what truth is, what
thought is, and I appear to have derived this exclusively from my very own nature” (MN
38). This includes the cogito axiom. The second are factitious ideas, which are produced
by his mind, such as the idea of a unicorn, with no verifiable proof of existence but an
idea in his mind nonetheless. The third are adventitious ideas, which come from outside
of him, such as the idea of a chair.
Descartes gives an example of this through the idea of the sun, which displays
itself as two distinct ideas. Descartes writes: “One idea is drawn, as it were, from the
senses… By means of this idea the sun appears to me to be quite small. But there is
another idea, one derived from astronomical reasoning, that is, it is elicited from certain
notions that are innate to me, or else is fashioned by me in some other way. Through this
idea the sun is shown to be several times larger than the earth. Both ideas surely cannot
37
�resemble the same sun existing outside me” (MN 39). Here Descartes shows both the
inaccuracy of the senses and the ability for the mind to reveal the truth itself of these
objects. The sun appears by the senses to be small and to move across the sky, but there is
another idea, derived from reason, in which the earth rotates around the sun; it only
appears to be otherwise because of the distance and movement of the earth in
comparison.
Descartes concludes that all these ideas, insofar as he can think of them, exist,
and he notes that every idea has two kinds of reality. The first is formal/actual reality,
wherein all ideas actually exist and have real and positive existence in his mind. The
second is representative/objective reality, where every idea has content and is a picture or
representation of something else. Descartes concludes that his mind may be the cause of
the actual and representative reality of his ideas; he could be the producer of his ideas.
Descartes sustains this notion of being for any particular thing in his writing:
The very nature of an idea is such that of itself it
needs no formal reality other than what it borrows
from my thought, of which it is a mode. But that a
particular idea contains this as opposed to that
objective reality is surely owing to some cause in
which there is at least as much formal reality as there
is objective reality contained in the idea. For if we
assume that something is found in the idea that was
not in its cause, then the idea gets that something
from nothing. Yet as imperfect a mode of being as
this is by which a thing exists in the intellect
objectively through an idea, nevertheless it is plainly
not nothing; hence it cannot get its being from
nothing (MN 41-42, emphasis added).
All his ideas are contained within his consciousness, and hence are caused by his mind.
Due to the previously examined arguments, most thinkers conclude that Descartes
describes the mind and body as two separate and distinct substances, and as such they
also conclude that mind and body cannot interact with one another. Specifically, the mind
is a spiritual thing, non-extended, not in space or subject to the laws of physics; the body
is physical, extended in space and subject to the laws of physics. Given these properties,
then they cannot be intimately conjoined, forming one whole person that experiences
both. Most commentators simply conclude that Descartes is unable to remedy this
38
�dualism, and many philosophers after him wrote their metaphysical theories and critiques
of this perceived flaw in his argument.
This paper will argue that the traditional view is mistaken. Through the different
faculties of the mind and body, they inadvertently work together to form a whole person.
Part II: Revisiting Meditation VI
In Meditation VI, Descartes adds to the definition of mind and body; the real
distinction between them is the difference in their functions. The mind’s primary function
is understanding whereas the body’s is imagination. Descartes does not articulate in
detail, but the mind and body must turn towards one another in order to complete their
functions, and together, the unique human occupation of thinking is completed. At the
beginning of the meditation, Descartes wonders whether material things exist, “since I
clearly and distinctly perceive them… Moreover, from the faculty of imagination, which
I notice I use while dealing with material things, it seems to follow that they exist. For to
anyone paying very close attention to what imagination is, it appears to be simply a
certain application of the knowing faculty to a body intimately present to it, and which
therefore exists” (MN 72, emphasis added). The mind and body have a peculiar
interconnectivity which is fundamental to their being, and Descartes brings this out,
incompletely, in his work in Meditation VI. What Descartes hints at here is usually
overlooked, but contains a significant discovery within. Now we will turn to the text itself
and expose a more comprehensive description of the qualities of body and mind.
In Meditation VI, Descartes moves into a clarification and discussion of his
existence as mind. Material things exist insofar that they are known through the
application of imagination tied to the body that is present to the thing in question.
Descartes continues, describing the difference between imagination and pure intellection
and the way in which he “understands” his ideas. He uses the example of triangle. He
“understands” a triangle to be a figure, with three lines, three angles equaling 180
degrees, etc., and he can, with his mind’s eye, imagine how this would look. Similarly, it
is possible for Descartes to “understand” a chiliagon as a figure with 1,000 sides, yet he
cannot imagine what it would look like with his mind’s eye in the same way as he could a
triangle. An imagined figure does not help in knowing the properties of a chiliagon, but it
does help in knowing the properties of a triangle. Descartes writes: “I am manifestly
aware that I am in need of a peculiar sort of effort on the part of the mind in order to
imagine, one that I do not employ in order to understand. This new effort on the part of
the mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and pure intellection” (MN
39
�72-73). The faculty of imagination is unique to his mind, which carries with it a “new
effort” of mind. It is also in the mind that one is able to understand an idea.
Descartes proposes that he needs a certain sort of effort from the mind to
imagine that he does not need to understand. The power of imagining is not rooted in
Descartes’ mind, and as such, it is not innate to the mind; the power of understanding is
anchored in the mind and is a part of its essence:
The power of imagining depends upon something
distinct from me. And I readily understand that, were
a body to exist to which a mind is so joined that it
may apply itself in order, as it were, to look at it any
time it wishes, it could happen that it is by means of
this very body that I imagine corporeal things. As a
result, this mode of thinking may differ from pure
intellection only in the sense that the mind, when it
understands, in a sense turns toward itself and looks
at one of the ideas that are in it; whereas when it
imagines, it turns toward the body, and intuits in the
body something that conforms to an idea either
understood by the mind or perceived by sense. To be
sure, I easily understand that the imagination can be
actualized in this way, provided a body does exist
(MN 73).
What Descartes is pointing to here is that there is a high probability that a body exists and
that the power of imagining is rooted in the body. But first he reiterates previous thoughts
from Meditations I-V in order to be thorough and certain in Meditation VI. It is this
Meditation that dives deeper into the relationship between the body and the mind, and
Descartes skillfully weaves together the two things.
At first, Descartes perceived himself as having a body with many parts, which
was found among other bodies by which his body could be affected. He could sense what
would bring pleasure or pain, and within it sense appetites, bodily tendencies, other
bodies, and he could distinguish between them. He concludes that it is impossible that
these ideas of sensible things come from his mind. They are too vivid, and they are more
distinct and deliberate than knowingly formed ideas. The faculty of reason works within
Descartes’ mind directly after the faculty of the senses; the body is possessed by him and
he cannot be separated from it the way he separates from other bodies. Descartes reports
pain and pleasure in body parts, but not in external bodies, he gets a “peculiar twitching
40
�in [his] stomach, which [he] call[s] hunger” (MN 74-75). Descartes maintains that nature
has taught him in this way prior to the method of doubt.2 He recalls that the senses
deceive him in many different ways, and that the only thing he knows to be absolutely
true is that he is a thinking thing.
Descartes repeats the cogito axiom and his justifications for his reasoning that he
is fundamentally a thinking thing, regardless of those things taught by nature prior to the
method of doubt. He writes:
“on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of
myself, insofar as I am merely a thinking thing and
not an extended thing, and because on the other hand
I have a distinct idea of a body, insofar as it is merely
an extended thing and not a thinking thing, it is
certain that I am really distinct from my body and
can exist without it” (MN 78, emphasis added).
While this appears to once again conclude what traditionally is gathered from the first
five meditations, Descartes’ continuation into a deeper discussion of the faculties of mind
and body set Meditation VI apart, leading to a resolution of the problem of interaction, a
resolution that is normally overlooked by readers of the Meditations.
Descartes holds that the faculties of imagining and sensing are located in the
mind. But this faculty is a passive faculty, a faculty which receives and knows the ideas
of sensible things. But the power—the active faculty—to produce the ideas of sensible
things is not in Descartes’ mind; it exists in a corporeal or extended substance, namely,
the body. Descartes sets forth these faculties:
Now there clearly is in me a passive faculty of
ending, that is, a faculty for receiving and knowing
the ideas of sensible things; but I could not use it
unless there also existed, either in me or something
else, a certain active faculty of producing or bringing
about these ideas. But this faculty surely cannot be in
me, since it clearly presupposes no act of
understanding, and these ideas are produced without
my cooperation and often even against my will.
Therefore the only alternative is that it is in some
2
See MN 81, quoted on page 11.
41
�substance different from me, containing either
formally or eminently all the reality that exists
objectively in the ideas produced by that faculty…
Consequently corporeal things exist (MN 79-80,
emphasis added).
Descartes knows that God is not a deceiver from Meditation III, and God has given
Descartes a “great inclination to believe that these ideas issue from corporeal things”
(MN 80). He further states, “I understand nothing other than God himself or the ordered
network of created things which was instituted by God. By my own particular nature I
understand nothing other than the combination of all the things bestowed upon me by
God” (MN 80-81). Descartes adds that these ideas come upon his mind suddenly and
unexpectedly. He has no control over them via his will. He admits that he may not be
right or know truly the nature of his being, but his knowledge is limited by what God has
given him and to what he “clearly and distinctly understands”, which is the truth. Hence
he must proceed from this viewpoint.
One of the strongest and most impactful ways that Descartes gains knowledge is
through sense perception, though the method of doubt has cast a dark shadow on the
validity of these beliefs. Nature teaches Descartes that he has a body, and in this he
cannot doubt that there is some truth. Descartes states that he is not merely present to his
body, but connected intimately to the body; the mind and the body constitute one single
thing, but remain separate substances.
By means of these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst
and so on, nature also teaches not merely that I am
present to my body in the way a sailor is present in a
ship, but that I am most tightly joined and, so to
speak, commingled with it, so much so that I and the
body constitute one single thing. For if this were not
the case, then I, who am only a thinking thing, would
not sense pain when the body is injured; rather, I
would perceive the wound by means of the pure
intellect, just as a sailor perceives by sight whether
anything in his ship is broken. And when the body is
in need of food or drink, I should understand this
explicitly, instead of having confused sensations of
hunger and thirst. For clearly these sensations of
42
�thirst, hunger, pain and so on are nothing but certain
confused modes of thinking arising from the union,
and, as it were, the commingling of the mind with the
body (MN 81, emphasis added).
Despite Descartes’ revelations from Meditation I—in which he throws out his ideas of
sensible things based upon sense perception—he recognizes that there is still some truth
to those ideas. There is legitimacy to bodily feelings insofar as the sensations of the body
are connected to the interpretation of them in the mind. Sensations are, therefore, modes
of thinking of the composite of mind and body, which makes up Descartes, the human
being. Nature is defined as everything bestowed on Descartes by God, not just those
things in his mind (perception) or body (gravity). Descartes knows, through sensation, to
avoid things that cause pain and pursue things that bring pleasure. Nature does not teach
Descartes to conclude anything; the intellect of the mind, for example, must be involved
to connect the sensation of pain to the fire before you and lead to an understanding of
burning. It is here that Descartes brings together the two seemingly opposite substances
of mind and body; together, they form the totality of thought.
Descartes continues, noting that nature is not omniscient, but rather that man is
limited. Descartes utilizes the method of doubt to understand why a man would drink a
cup filled with poison when such a thing would bring him harm. He concludes that a
man’s body is a mechanism, similar to that of a clock. In illness or in health, the dryness
of the throat moves a man to drink; a body will not deviate from its nature just as a clock
will continue to give a set of numbers as “time”, even if it is incorrect.
Accordingly, it is this nature that teaches me to avoid
things that produce a sensation of pain and to pursue
things that produce a sensation of pleasure, and the
like. But it does not appear that nature teaches us to
conclude anything, besides these things, from these
sense perceptions unless the intellect has first
conducted its own inquiry regarding things external
to us. For it seems to belong exclusively to the mind,
and not to the composite of the mind and body, to
know the truth in these matters… admittedly I use the
perceptions of the senses (which are given by nature
only for signifying to the mind what things are useful
or harmful to the composite of which it is a part) as
43
�reliable rules for immediately discerning what is the
essence of bodies located outside us (MN 83-84,
emphasis added).
Nature teaches Descartes that his mind is tightly conjoined to his body, to constitute one
single thing. But Descartes tells us that no conclusions can be drawn from natures’
teachings.
Descartes continues to elaborate on the “composite of mind and body”, which
constitutes him as a man. The mind is not immediately affected by all parts of the body,
but just the brain, which relays the diverse interworkings of the body to the mind as one
complete thing. Descartes notes that whenever a part of the body is moved by another
part, it is moved in the same manner as any part in between (such as the pain in the foot
sent to the brain through nerves in the leg, torso and neck). Any motion in the body
produces just one sensation which is conducive to the maintenance of a healthy man; all
sensations from nature “bear witness to God’s power and goodness” (MN 88). What’s
more, “all the senses set forth what is true more frequently than what is false regarding
what concerns the welfare of the body” (MN 89, emphasis added). The body has motion,
which is converted into sensation, which is, in turn, understood by the mind through the
use of memory and intellect, which, in turn, connects the current happenings with the past
ones and examines the causes of error within the sense. It is in this way that sensation is
instrumental for the human being—i.e. being subjected to life leads the body and compels
it, yet does not garner truth. Truth is obtained through the interpretation of such
phenomena by the mind alone; the mind is a part of the interworking of the mechanism of
the body, and for Descartes is the most important and influential part of the human being.
The body and the mind join together as one amalgamated thing, completing the human
experience, understanding life as it is endured. More than this, these two separate
substances are connected through their dual inhabitance in the world and dynamic
relationship with one another in human beings.
Descartes points out that the difference between dreaming and waking states is
that dreams are never joined by memory with other actions of life. This seems at odds
with his dream argument from Meditation I, but Descartes takes that line of reasoning
one step further, dissecting dreams and finding how we know what is in “dream life” and
what is in “real life”. Descartes connects his perception without interruption to the whole
of the rest of his life, which happened while he was awake. Descartes concludes that “we
must confess that the life of a man is apt to commit errors regarding particular things, and
we must acknowledge the infirmity of our nature” (MN 90).
44
�Truly, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that we are thinking things. We
exist as minds, and while our body may exist as an extended thing that interacts with
mind and has sensations, it is utterly different from the substance that is the mind. Yet
this difference in substances allows for interaction between mind and body. Descartes
proposes a pseudo-solution insofar as the body transmits sensation through the nervous
system to the brain, where the mind could be “housed”, which leads to thoughtful
interpretation of the bodily sensation. The mind-body dualism can be overcome through
bodily mechanisms tied to the brain and the mind’s intellect, which interprets the
phenomena. Here the mind and body interact: together but separate, opposite but
necessary for the other to exist. The composite of mind and body make up a human
being—as one.
Descartes states firmly that man is a thinking thing, and though he offers an
explanation of the interaction between the mind and body, I am not completely convinced
the mind-body problem is overcome in his philosophy. He makes the mind and body
totally separate substances, and their means of communication still lacks a fundamental
key; where in the brain are the electronic impulses of the nerves translated into a form the
mind can understand and make use of? Or, at what point does the brain/body transfer
over to the mind, and how do we really know when that happens? How do we know it
isn’t just a bodily mechanism to think we have a mind, or a mind-created thought that we
have a body and it interacts with a body-filled world? These questions are not answered
in Descartes’ Meditation VI, but an intriguing and compelling notion of connectivity is
brought forth that makes way for a new interpretation, and possible solution, to the issue
of interaction in the mind-body problem. Though it is perhaps not indubitable to
Descartes’ consciousness through the method of doubt, the mind and body do indeed
relate to one another, and it is through their “commingling” that the nature of human
beings is more fully understood in Meditations.
Works Cited
Danisi, John. “Notes from Lectures in Modern Philosophy”. Fall, 2010.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641. Trans. Cress, Donald A. Third
Edition, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1993.
45
�Hagar and Ishmael in the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible:
A Cause of Variance in Islam and Christianity
Bareah Alam (Chemistry)1
Hagar is a well-known female figure in the Book of Genesis from the Old
Testament. Hagar is best known as the mother of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. While
this relationship to Abraham is uncontested in Islam, Hagar’s role in Genesis is
surprisingly different than her role in the Islamic tradition. Hagar, called Hazrat Hajra in
Islam, is best known for the story of her call to God in the desert, where her baby Ishmael
was parched from thirst. Hagar is respected to such a great extent in Islam – her and
Abraham’s son Ishmael are the basis for the second religious holiday for Muslims, Eid ul
Adha. The Christian tradition regards Isaac as the “lamb” Abraham was willing to
sacrifice, whereas the Muslim faith believes that it was Abraham’s other son, Ishmael.
Thus, the question arises: how could two religions that arose from the same basic
traditions diverge to such an extent when recounting a crucial historical story? Despite
their differences in the narration of the account of Hagar and Abraham’s sacrifice, the
Bible and the Holy Quran still have numerous similarities that have stemmed from the
same original tradition.
Much debate surrounds Hagar’s origin; scholars question whether she was an
Egyptian princess given as a slave to Abraham, and whether the text of the Bible says she
is in fact of Egyptian nationality. Hagar is not a native Israelite, because she is a servant
of Sarah’s, whom Sarah gives to Abraham so that he may produce an heir with her.
Sharon Pace Jeansonne refers to Hagar as a “foreigner in the land of Canaan” (Jeansonne
43) in her book, The Women of Genesis. Jeansonne further informs readers about Hagar,
“Identified as an Egyptian servant, the narrator suggests that Abram obtained Hagar when
he and Sarai were in Egypt.” (Jeansonne 44). In the Quranic commentary on Hagar’s
origin it is stated, “…Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, belonged to the royal family of Egypt and
was no handmaid…” (The Holy Quran, 37:103). Thus, even the Islamic interpretation
views Hagar as an Egyptian princess, but makes no mention of her as the maidservant of
Sarah.
Written under the direction of Dr. Joseph D. Smith, Jr. for RE 220: Forbidden
Knowledge:The Power of Myth in Genesis.
1
46
�The etymology of Hagar’s name may offer some insight into her true origins.
The origins of Hagar’s name are traced to ancient Arabia, where the root of Hagar is hgr
in the Palmyrene and Safaitic languages, and hgrw in Nabatean. The name “Hagar” itself
was a “female personal name,” as indicated in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Freedman et
al. 18). In addition, the authors note that the name Hagar should not be confused with the
name Hâjir for males, which is derived from Arabic, Nabatean, and Minaean. According
to the authors of The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Hagar’s name can be “explained by
Sabean and Ethiopic hagar, ‘town, city’… [and] it is unlikely that there is any connection
with hajara, ‘to emigrate’” in modern Arabic (Freedman et al. 18-19). This last piece of
information is quite interesting with respect to the belief that Hagar was an Egyptian
slave given to Abraham. Abraham lived in Ur, and it would in essence be an emigration
from Egypt to Ur, but Hagar’s name has no connection with the word “hajara,” once
again leaving the reader uncertain about Hagar’s origin. In fact, The Anchor Bible
Dictionary reveals that Hagar’s nationality was a literary device the authors used to
connect two stories from Genesis 12:10-20 and Genesis 16 (Freedman et al. 18).
The J and E sources, and to some extent the P source, have preserved accounts
of Hagar’s life and her role in the Old Testament (Buttrick et al. 508). Hagar’s role in
Genesis comes into play in chapters 16, 21, and 25, where her relationship to Abraham
and Sarah is revealed in the stories written by the J and E sources. The Interpreter’s
Dictionary of the Bible refers to Hagar as merely Sarah’s Egyptian handmaid who was
given as a concubine to Abraham by Sarah herself (Buttrick et al. 508). The first story in
Genesis 16:1-16, reaffirms the notion that Hagar is indeed Sarah’s Egyptian maid, whom
Sarah gives to Abraham so he can have children with her, since Sarah is barren. This is
customary in the Nuzi texts, and also in Genesis with Rachel and Leah in Genesis 30:3, 9.
As the narration reveals, Hagar becomes arrogant while she is pregnant, angering Sarah,
who seeks Abraham’s permission to treat Hagar harshly. Hagar then flees to the
Wilderness of Shur, where an angel of Yahweh tells her that she will give birth to a son
whose name will be Ishmael; the name Ishmael signifies the fact that God had heard
Hagar’s suffering (Buttrick et al. 508).
Hagar’s other contributions to the history of Genesis are her second story in
Genesis 21:8-21 and her implications for the New Testament. In the second story, Sarah
saw Isaac and Ishmael playing and feared that Ishmael might become Abraham’s heir,
along with Isaac. In turn, she begged Abraham to expel the mother and son, and Hagar
ran away to the Wilderness of Beer-sheba. In this dry region, Hagar believed her son
would die of thirst, but God’s angel showed her a well to quench Ishmael’s thirst
(Buttrick et al. 508). On the other hand, Hagar contributes to Biblical history in Paul’s
47
�writings in the New Testament, where Paul uses Hagar and Ishmael to represent the
slavery of the old covenant, as opposed to the new covenant’s freedom symbolized by the
son of the free Sarah, Isaac. Therefore, Hagar may not be as well-known a Biblical
female figure as Eve, but her role in the Book of Genesis is certainly noteworthy.
Hagar’s main contributions to the history of Genesis were that she fathered a
child with Abraham. In addition to bearing Abraham a son, Hagar is the ancestral mother
of the Bedouin peoples to the south of Palestine (Buttrick et al. 508-509). Although
Hagar is regarded as a mere concubine, she could have been important enough to
represent an entire tribal confederacy, such as Ishmael represented the Ishmaelites;
however, Hagar had no association with the Hagrites (Freedman et al. 19), and is thus
considered an inferior female figure. This role in Genesis is in stark contrast to Hagar’s
role in the Holy Quran, which reveals a different perspective of the events during the time
of Abraham.
Even in the Bible, it is mentioned that Hagar’s son would give rise to a great
nation; perhaps this foreshadows the dawn of the Islamic people that will trace their
lineage through Ishmael and Abraham. After Sarah mistreats Hagar, she runs away to the
wilderness in Shur, where the angel of God appears to her. The writers of the Book of
Genesis retell this account: “The angel of the Lord also said to her [Hagar], ‘I will so
greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’” (Holy Bible,
Gn. 16.10). Hagar is also given some great importance in Genesis because she is the first
person to name God. In Genesis, it is written, “So she [Hagar] named the Lord who
spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’; for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive
after seeing him?’” (Holy Bible, Gn. 16.13). In this way, Hagar is set apart from other
Biblical figures, but her respect is taken to another level in Islam.
In Islam, the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael is the basis for the second
major holiday, Eid ul Adha. This holiday commemorates Abraham’s willingness to
sacrifice his only son, showing his trust in God and his submission to the Will of God.
This particular story is a point of divergence for the Muslim and Christian faiths. Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, a Muslim participant in Bill Moyers’s compilation, relates:
The Qur’an does not mention the name of the son of Abraham offered for
sacrifice, so early in Islamic history there was debate as to whether the son was
Isaac or Ishmael. Later, Qur’anic commentators and religious authorities in
general gravitated toward Ishmael…Islam sees Isaac and Ishmael as …brought
into this world in a special manner to fulfill God’s purpose. So, whichever son
it was, he was willing to give himself in sacrifice. (Moyers 223).
48
�This excerpt from Moyers’s work sheds light upon some fundamental Islamic beliefs
regarding the story of Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son. In Surah Al-Saffat, chapter 37
of the Holy Quran, Allah reveals, “So We gave him the glad tidings of a forbearing son.
And when he was old enough to run along with him, he said, ‘O my dear son, I have seen
in a dream that I offer thee in sacrifice…That, surely, was a manifest trial.” (The Holy
Quran, 37:103, 107). Although the son is not mentioned specifically by name in these
verses of the Quran, the Quran declares that it was Ishmael because Ishmael was thirteen
years older than Isaac, and therefore the only son of Abraham’s at the time.
The Biblical account regarding this matter, however, begs to differ. In Genesis
it is written that God told Abraham, “‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you
love…and offer him there as a burnt offering…’” (Holy Bible, Gn. 22.2). Here, it is
clearly stated that Isaac is the son that is to be offered as a sacrifice, but the narrator fails
to remember that Isaac is not the only son of Abraham. In fact, Isaac was born thirteen
or fourteen years after Ishmael. Regarding this matter, the Bible clearly states, “Abram
was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.” (Holy Bible, Gn. 16.16), and
“Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.” (Holy Bible,
Gn. 21.5). The Islamic viewpoint uses this point to justify the belief that Ishmael was
the son Abraham was willing to sacrifice. According to Quranic commentary written by
Malik Ghulam Farid:
The Bible contradicts itself in this respect. According to it, Abraham was
commanded to offer his only son for sacrifice, but Isaac was at no time his only
son. Ishmael was senior to Isaac by 13 years and for these many years was
Abraham’s only son, and, being also his first born, was doubly dear to him.
The author comments on the Quran and Bible’s variance regarding which son was
supposed to be sacrificed by Abraham. The Islamic perspective reasons that since God
commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son, it had to be Ishmael, since Abraham had
two equally important sons that are both recognized in the Bible. In addition, The New
Interpreter’s Bible states, “…Hagar and Ishmael become more prominent figures in the
story of Abraham, receiving almost as much attention as Isaac.” (Birch et al. 487-488).
This statement proves that both sons were equal, but the Quranic commentary further
states that some Christian evangelists consider Isaac to be more important because his
birth was promised to Abraham and Sarah.
Aside from this divergence, Hagar has a great place in Islam. When Hagar runs
away to the desert, God addresses her. Trevor Dennis comments on this account in his
book, Sarah Laughed. The author writes, “For the first time someone other than the
49
�narrator has used Hagar’s name” (Dennis 66). This excerpt suggests that perhaps even
the Bible recognized Hagar’s unique status that the Islamic tradition has taken into
account and from which Islam has based its beliefs. Dennis further writes, “Thus only
two women in the entire Bible receive annunciations from God himself, Hagar and the
unnamed wife of Manoah.” (Dennis 69). Furthermore, in the Biblical account, Sarah is
portrayed as jealous of Hagar also, whereas the Quran does not mention such feelings
because Sarah was the one who suggested that Abraham take Hagar as a wife. These
differences are also coupled with a substitution “of Moriah for Marwah” in the Bible,
whereas the Arabic text of the Quran refers to the area as Marwah (The Holy Quran,
37:103). The location of Marwah holds great importance in Islam.
The story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, called Hazrat Ibrahim AS, 2, Hazrat
Hajra, and Hazrat Ismaeel AS, respectively, in Islam, is a common story told to younger
children as a reminder to them to strengthen their bond with Allah (God). An Islamic
Religious Knowledge Workbook recounts this tale, stating that Allah told Hazrat Ibrahim
AS to leave Hazrat Ismaeel AS and Hazrat Hajra in the desert in Arabia, along with some
food and water. When the food and water ran out, Baby Ismaeel started crying, so Hazrat
Hajra despairingly searched for some water and food for her child. While searching for
water, Hazrat Hajra ran “back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwa(h)…seven
times. While Hadhrat Ismaeel AS was crying, he was hitting his heel on the ground and a
spring of water started gushing out of the ground.” (Lajna Imaillah, U.S.A. 76). The
symbolic running between the hills of Safa and Marwah that is mentioned here is
commemorated by Muslims every year during the ten days leading up to the second Eid.
In fact, one of the ceremonies of Hajj is called Sa’ee, where Muslims walk between Safa
and Marwah, “re-enacting the search of Hagar, wife of Prophet Abraham, for water for
her infant son Ishmael,” (Chaudhry 28).
In addition, Muslims read in the Holy Quran that God will send trials to His
people, to test their faith. This same belief is applied to Abraham’s trial, where God tests
Abraham’s obedience and ability to submit to the Will of God. God asks Abraham to
leave his wife and son in the desert, and Rashid Ahmad Chaudhry writes in Muslim
Festivals and Ceremonies, “It is narrated that Abraham saw in a vision that he was
slaying his only son Ishmael.” (Chaudhry 30). Aside from Abraham’s story acting as
simply a test, Hossein from Moyers’s work states, “Abraham must act as a perfect
exemplar for all the problems monotheists face.” (Moyers 226). This statement is in
conjunction with the Islamic belief that throughout history, when God’s people start to
2
AS = Alaih Salaam (“Peace be upon him”)
50
�stray from the right path and Him, God sends prophets to reform the people and bring
them back to the right path. That is the basis for Muslim belief in all of God’s Prophets.
As previously mentioned, the holiday Eid ul Adha honors Abraham’s
willingness to sacrifice his son, and Muslims also remember the plight of Hagar and
Ishmael in the desert. Malik Ghulam Farid comments, “…Muslims who are the spiritual
descendants of Ishmael, commemorate with great fervor his intended sacrifice, by
slaughtering every year rams and goats all over the world on the tenth day of Dhu’lHijjah.” (The Holy Quran, 37:103). This passage hints at the Eid ul Adha celebrations
that include sacrificing a goat and distributing the meat to family, friends, and the needy,
and cooking meat dishes during the three days of celebration. Eid ul Adha, the “Festival
of Sacrifice,” is celebrated on the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah, which is the last month of the
Muslim calendar – a lunar calendar. This day concludes the Hajj (pilgrimage) ceremony
to Mecca; Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. After seeing the moon ten days before
the holiday, Muslims attend Eid prayers the morning of Eid and then proceed to their
individual celebrations. This Eid is celebrated two months and ten days after Eid ul Fitr.
The religious significance of a similar account from the Holy Quran and the
Holy Bible is quite noteworthy. Rashid Ahmad Chaudhry informs readers that since
Abraham had to leave Hagar and Ishmael in a barren desert of Arabia, there is a greater
moral to the story. Chaudhry writes, “Ishmael was made an instrument for the purpose of
establishing the true worship of God, and this was the place where the first House of
Allah, the sacred Ka’aba [in Mecca], was situated, though it was in ruins at that time.”
(Chaudhry 30). The Quranic verse “Our Lord, I have settled some of my progeny in an
uncultivable valley near Thy Sacred House.” (The Holy Quran, 14:38) sheds light upon
this belief. This verse not only references Abraham leaving his wife and child in the
desert, but also the event’s greater significance. Ghulam Farid writes regarding this
significance, “But God had so designed that the place should become the scene of the
activities of God’s last Message for mankind. Ishmael was chosen as the vehicle for the
implementation of the Divine plan.” (The Holy Quran, 14:38). The Quran hints at the
fact that Islam, the last of all major world religions, would arise from this site in Arabia
through the progeny of Ishmael. Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the Holy Ka’aba in
Mecca, which is why the history of the pilgrimage can be traced back to this time.
Regarding this, Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad writes, “Abraham raised it [Ka’aba] from the
ruins, which he discovered under Divine guidance, and about which he was
commissioned by God to rebuild with the help of his son Ishmael. It is the same place
where he had left his wife Hagar and infant son Ishmael, again under Divine instruction
… both of them worked together to rebuild the house and restart the institution of
51
�pilgrimage.” (Ahmad 38). In these ways, the greater religious and historical significance
of the Muslim holiday, Eid ul Adha, stems from a similar story in the Holy Bible.
Hagar, referred to as Hazrat Hajra in Islam, is not considered an inferior
concubine in the Islamic interpretation of the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, as
she is considered in some interpretations of the text of Genesis. In the Book of Genesis
from the Old Testament, as well as in the Holy Quran, Hagar is best known as the mother
of Ishmael, Abraham’s son. Muslims trace their spiritual lineage through Ishmael and
attribute the rebuilding of the Ka’aba in Mecca to Abraham and his son Ishmael. The
Islamic and Christian traditions differ in their interpretation of exactly which son
Abraham was called to sacrifice – Isaac or Ishmael. The Christian tradition holds that it
was Isaac who Abraham was commanded to sacrifice in a dream, whereas Islam believes
that it was indeed Ishmael who was the son Abraham was willing to sacrifice. This is
why Hagar is respected to such a great extent in Islam – she was the mother of a great
Prophet in Islamic history, and Muslims commemorate the events that took place in that
ancient Arabian desert every year, during Eid ul Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice”.
Therefore, despite a point of divergence regarding which son was the symbolic sacrificial
lamb, Islam and Christianity have similar stories in their respective Holy Books.
Works Cited
Ahmad, Hazrat Mirza Tahir. An Elementary Study of Islam. Tilford: Islam International
Publications Ltd., 1996. Print.
Birch, Bruce C., ed., et al. The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. 1. Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1994.
Buttrick, George Arthur, ed., et al. “Hagar.” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.
Nashville: Abingdon, Press, 2004. Print.
Chaudhry, Rashid Ahmad. Muslim Festivals and Ceremonies. Tilford: Islam
International Publications Ltd., 1988.
Dennis, Trevor. Sarah Laughed: Women’s Voices in the Old Testament. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994.
Freedman, David Noel, ed., et al. “Hagar.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York:
Doubleday, 1992. Print.
52
�Jeansonne, Sharon Pace. The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Lajna Imaillah, U.S.A. Religious Knowledge Workbook: An Introduction to Islam. Silver
Spring: Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, U.S.A., 2008.
Moyers, Bill. Genesis: A Living Conversation. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
The Holy Bible. Division of Christian Education of the National Council Churches of
Christ in the United States of America: Zondervan, 1989. Print. New Revised
Standard Version.
The Holy Quran. Malik Ghulam Farid, ed. Tilford: Islam International Publications
Limited, 2002. Print.
53
�The Media, Materialism, and The Matrix
Anne Blum (English)1
Many critics have conducted analyses of The Matrix, focusing on philosophy,
gender, race, and even the concept of nation in the film. However, critics have failed to
address the manner in which The Matrix relates to the media, one of the most important
forces in our society and personal lives. In The Matrix, a race of machines programs
humans into a computer simulated world in order to conceal the real world from them
and use them as an energy source. This is symbolically analogous to the way the media
exerts control over society while, paradoxically, relying upon it for its continued power.
Through advertising, television shows, films, and the internet, the media influences
everything from people’s buying habits to their political views; it subtly molds their
identities. According to Frederic Jameson, consumerism and the media have given rise to
a society in which individuals no longer exist, and, perhaps, never did; people, rather, are
merely the sum of the books they have read and the television shows they have
watched—“identity” is mass-produced by pop culture (115). Just as Jameson claims that
there is no such thing as an individual in postmodern society, in The Matrix, people do
not exist on an individual level; the matrix creates false identities and lives for humans.
The Matrix, therefore, is a reaction against media control and the manner in which pop
culture and consumerism—propagated by the media—construct individual identity and
subtly control the population’s views about issues such as politics and sexuality.
Morpheus describes the matrix to Neo as “the world that has been pulled over
your eyes to blind you from the truth.” However, although the members of Morpheus’s
crew exist outside the control of the matrix and know that it is a large-scale illusion, they
are still susceptible to its simulations at various points in the film. For instance, when
Neo is walking through the city with Morpheus during his training, he momentarily
forgets his purpose, and begins looking at a woman in a red dress to whom he is attracted.
He knows that she is not real, but though he is aware that she is merely an aesthetically
pleasing simulation of a human being, he momentarily falls prey to the simulated reality
(which, Morpheus reveals, is a training program rather than the actual matrix). Later in
the film, Mouse tells Neo that he designed the woman in the red dress and offers Neo the
chance to have sex with her. The eagerness with which Mouse discusses the woman
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Susan Bernardo for EN323(W): Science Fiction.
54
�betrays the fact that although he knows she is a simulation—a simulation he created—he
is still subject to the matrix’s deception. Like the matrix, even if a person is aware of the
media’s existence, function, and goals, he or she is often still susceptible to its influence.
For instance, with regard to media literacy, or, the movement to increase social awareness
of advertising in the media, Renee Hobbs writes, “While older children and teens may
have more knowledge about advertising, they may not necessarily employ critical
thinking skills in response to advertising or have more skepticism about advertising in
general” (“Media Literacy”). Although Hobbs specifically speaks about how adolescents
respond to advertising, this applies to all people who encounter the media. Despite the
fact that they may understand that advertisements are created with the goal of enticing
consumers to buy a certain product, they still sometimes yield to advertising just as Neo
briefly yields to a computer-simulated reality. He momentarily forfeits his critical
thinking faculties and his skepticism about the matrix is shattered.
Neo and Mouse’s attraction to the artificially constructed woman parallels one
of the media’s most damaging effects on society: sexism. The fact that the woman only
exists in a computer program highlights how the media (symbolized by the matrix)
commodifies sex and objectifies women; this particularly occurs with regard to
pornography. According to Carrie Pitzulo, “when…[pornographic] images are only of
women, the supposed celebration of sexuality is really a privileging of heterosexual male
desire” (263). Similarly, in “On Treating Things as People: Objectification,
Pornography, and the History of the Vibrator” Jennifer M. Saul writes,
By definition…use of pornography is use of a thing—a piece of paper, for
example—as a woman. Assuming that women are persons, use of pornography
is, then, personification...[the fact that] using pornography involves using pieces
of paper to fulfill the function of women is rather insulting to women. It
suggests that…women['s purpose]…is generating male sexual satisfaction. (4748)
Mouse realizes that the woman is not real, just as people who buy pornography realize
that “pieces of paper” in magazines are not real women. He tells Neo, “Well, she doesn't
talk very much, but if you'd like to meet her... To deny our own impulses is to deny the
very thing that makes us human” (The Matrix). Since the woman “doesn’t talk much,”
Mouse is, in essence, doing the same thing as someone who “uses pieces of paper to
fulfill the function of women”; he is using a simulated woman “to fulfill the function of a
[real] woman.” Mouse, then, embraces both the simulated world and sexism, just as
people embrace misogyny by purchasing pornography that objectifies women.
55
�However, Mouse is not portrayed as an evil character: he is presented merely as
a weak, youthful character who frequently annoys the other members of the resistance.
Although he and Neo momentarily yield to the seductive nature of simulated reality, they
do not consistently long to return to the matrix; it is for this reason that Cypher, rather
than Neo or Mouse, is the target of the film’s moral judgment and criticism. David J.
Gunkel argues that the film is ideologically reductive because the plot depends upon the
traditional philosophical scheme of hierarchical binaries to sustain its plausibility. Within
this dichotomous moral framework, Neo’s decision to live in the real world is considered
“good” whereas Cypher is demonized and presented as a dissolute traitor because he
prefers the pleasant illusions of the matrix to the stark nature of reality (197-198).
However, Gunkel neglects to explore the role of free will in his analysis of the film’s
philosophical underpinnings. The film not only condemns Cypher’s preference for the
comforts of an artificial world, it also condemns his eagerness to forfeit his free will in
pursuit of this artificial world—Cypher wants to exist in the matrix even though he
knows that it is a system that exists beyond his control. When he is eating steak with
Agent Smith in the restaurant, he tells the agent, “I know this steak doesn't exist. I know
that when I put it in my mouth, the matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.
After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss” (The Matrix). By
choosing to return to the matrix, then, he is knowingly relinquishing his free will and
deciding to allow the machines to manipulate the world that he will experience.
Similarly, although the media allows for quick and efficient methods of global
communication, it becomes an insidious force when people passively allow it to
manipulate them, as through advertising.
While Cypher and Agent Smith plot against Morpheus, they are sitting in a
luxurious restaurant in the matrix. In the successive scene, however, their lavish
surroundings are juxtaposed with the stark environment in which the members of the
resistance dine. Therefore, the film also equates the matrix with materialism and
hedonistic indulgence. Cypher, then, is also portrayed in a negative light because he
endorses the materialism and false pleasures of the matrix. Cypher also tells Agent Smith
that he wants “to be rich; someone important—like an actor” when he is plugged into the
matrix again, similarly revealing his propensity for artificial finery and grandeur.
However, although Agent Smith may plug Cypher into the matrix again, there is no
guarantee that he will fulfill his side of the bargain and make Cypher someone rich or
important. Cypher’s request reveals that the agents control human identity within the
matrix, just as pop-culture works through the media to mass produce human identity
56
�(Jameson 115). In our media-saturated world, “identity” is merely a collection of views
and opinions which people absorb from the media (Jameson 115).
In an article about the media’s role in international conflict, Yoram Peri states
that “If, in the past, the media were only as a tool of the state, they have seemingly also
been regarded as reflecting society and individuals. However, a deconstruction of media
and news media texts reveals deep structures that have not changed. As in the past, so in
contemporary time, the media [plays] a significant role in the construction of the image
of the enemy” (79). Thus, in constructing a given society’s view of “the enemy” during
wartime, it follows that the media can essentially control the manner in which society
perceives the war. If the media can be said to affect people’s views on war in this
manner, it logically follows that the media can easily affect—and even mold—people’s
political views. Since political orientation is something which is widely considered to
define individuals, this is a situation in which the media essentially constructs human
identity just as the matrix’s agents do.
Most people are oblivious to the matrix’s existence; this mirrors the fact that
they do not think about the effect that the media has on their lives, and thereby
inadvertently allow it to control them and mold their identities. Both the media and the
matrix take the form of advanced technology which has achieved such large-scale
dominance that it blurs the lines of human control: although the media was created by
humans, it has become such a powerful social force that it now manipulates them. The
media, however, only influences people insofar as they permit it to manipulate them.
Since Neo frees himself from the matrix and develops the ability to control it, this
suggests that people are capable of rising above the media’s influence. Although they
have created it and perpetuated its authority, they also possess the ability to diminish its
power over society as a whole. Neo’s telekinetic ability to manipulate the matrix also
shows that the media’s power is rooted in the minds of the individuals whom it exercises
authority over; this power can be easily revoked. However, in order to revoke it,
individuals who oppose it need to band together.
Although Neo is “the one,” he needs the support and help of the resistance in
order to be successful; the members of the resistance derive their power from its
communal nature. For instance, unless a member of the resistance stays on the
Nebuchadnezzar to call a cell phone or a telephone in the matrix, the other members of
the resistance will be trapped in the matrix. Similarly, when Cypher throws away the cell
phone, he causes the group dynamic to collapse and postpones Neo, Morpheus, and
Trinity from leaving the matrix. The resistance’s power is founded upon teamwork and
trust between its members. If, as it happens with Cypher, a single member of the
57
�resistance conspires to thwart the group’s efforts, or, if that member simply does not
cooperate with the group, the resistance will not achieve its goals.
This sense of interdependence is deepened when one examines the power
dynamics within the resistance. If Morpheus had not informed other members of the
crew about the matrix and helped bring them into the real world, then the crew would
never have understood that true reality lies outside of the matrix. Conversely, Morpheus
needs Neo and the rest of the crew to succeed; he cannot achieve his purpose alone.
Thus, the crew helps Morpheus in exchange for the knowledge he can provide them
about the matrix and about themselves. Interestingly, Neo would not have attained self
awareness and become “the one,” without the help of Morpheus and the other members
of the resistance. He can only break away from his identity as “Mr. Anderson” and
assume his identity as Neo, or, “the one,” by assuming his place within a community.
Analogously, although resistance to the media’s influence will begin in the
individual mind, it will remain on an individual level unless those who oppose it do so
openly and collectively. Those who wish to rise above the media’s influence would be
best served by creating awareness about the subtle (and not so subtle) ways in which it
controls society. Only by collectively opposing the media can we affect a change in the
manner and methods through which it operates; only then can we become individuals and
overcome the manner in which the media mass produces identity. We must gain control
of the media instead of allowing it to control us.
The Matrix, then, can be seen as a warning about the power the media exerts
over society. However, the film’s message is not entirely bleak. The media—like the
matrix—is a seemingly omnipotent, ubiquitously inescapable system which all humans
are subject to. However, just as Neo possesses the ability to overcome the illusions of the
matrix, society possesses the ability to collectively surmount the illusions of the media.
Works Cited
Gunkel, David J. “The Virtual Dialectic: Rethinking The Matrix and its Significance.”
Configurations 14.3 (Fall 2006): 193-215. Project Muse. Web. 24 March 2011.
Hobbs, Renee. “Does Media Literacy Work? An Empirical Study of Learning How to
Analyze Advertisements.” Advertising & Society Review. 5.4 (2004): HTML Format.
Project Muse. Web. 24 March 2011.
Jameson, Frederic. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” Postmodern Culture. Ed.
Hal Foster. Bay Press: Port Townsend, WA, 1983. 111-125. Print.
58
�The Matrix. Dir. Andy and Lana Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne,
Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving. Warner Bros, 1999. Film.
Peri, Yoram. “Intractable Conflict and the Media.” Israel Studies 12.1 (Spring 2007):
79-102. Project Muse. 24 March 2011.
Pitzulo, Carrie. “The Battle in Every Man's Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists.”
Journal of the History of Sexuality 17.2 (May 2008): 259-289. Project Muse. Web. 24
March 2011.
Saul, Jennifer M. “On Treating Things as People: Objectification, Pornography, and the
History of the Vibrator.” Hypatia 21.2 (Spring 2006): 45-61. Project Muse. 24 March
2011.
59
�The Origins of Carolingian Minuscule
Emily Werkheiser (Nursing)1
Do not take anything for granted. Many state this phrase in relation to all sorts
of things from a pencil to life itself. What about the way we write, the style, the script,
the format? Most people have never given this a passing thought, yet our style of writing
is as old as the Middle Ages, something straight out of the medieval world with a rich
history all its own. The Carolingian minuscule is our typical style sentence with capital
and lowercase letters and spaces in between words. There was a time when this was not
the case and a standard form of writing around the world did not exist. Many different
regions had styles unique to their cultures that were apparent in their writings left behind
for us to see.
Writing is an age-old talent, and infusions of Greek and Roman styles are part of
this history. Many Barbarian tribes enhanced these original styles and arrived at
something completely their own. Charlemagne’s revival of the arts and education and the
strong desire to provide a simplified style for reading and writing ended in a rich
background for current writing. After Charlemagne received his new style of writing, the
current Carolingian minuscule evolved even further. The monasteries were responsible
for the transmission of writing around the world through their vast scriptoriums, copying
book after book and changing their writing based on the popularity at the time. Like
many new things, Carolingian miniscule received its critiques, however, these seem to be
unfounded and not permanent since the use of the minuscule has prevailed. Throughout
all of these developments from tribe to monastery, one can start to glean the contributions
that inspired and created the Carolingian minuscule, and the rich history behind it that
many have taken for granted.
The history of Carolingian or Caroline minuscule begins with the history of the
first written letter; however, the discussion here will focus on its history since the Greek
empire. The Greeks had two different styles of writing, one of “book hand” and one of
cursive (Fischer 239). The book hand was used for literature and scribing, and the
cursive was used for everyday business--with a special script called uncial (Fischer 239).
“Uncial used ‘majuscules,’ or large, upper-case letters composed of curves instead of the
angular capitals of monumental texts [because curves were easier to write with on vellum
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Laura Morowitz for AH217: Medieval Art.
60
�and parchment]” (Fischer 239). Greek minuscule (Figure 1) developed around the 9th
century. It is a style that held the characteristics mentioned above, but became much
smaller, more compact and heavier (Fischer 241). The script is starting to get smaller,
while there is no distinction between capital letters, as they are all capital, progress is
already heading toward a simplified font. Greek minuscule even included markings in its
publications to mark where one should breathe due to the increasing number of literate
people. The issue of heightened literacy will become a reason for the unified script.
Later, typographers abandoned this idea, calling it unnecessary, and instead left their
writing unadorned (Fischer 243). One can begin to see how Caroline script has its roots
in the Greek.
The Romans also began to edit and change their script styles. Initially they had
a style very similar to the Greeks, using only capital letters with cursive styling; however,
they began to add a slanting stress to their capitals (Fischer 243). One can see the
modification as the letters became slighter for the ease of use; simply by stressing letters
and varying the way they put the ink onto the papyrus. Uncial writing was popular for
this group as well; “uncial writing’s earliest example shows it to be precise, as well as
very easy to read” (Fischer 243). Over time the Roman cursive evolved into something
simple that could be written with one pen stroke, this simplification then later led to the
development of New Roman Cursive (Fischer 245). This contained “minuscule that no
longer used capitals or uncials, developed [and] allowed three different letter heights:
ascending (like b), neutral (n), and descending (p)” the different heights changed based
on who the message or text was being sent to and for what (Fischer 245). The use of
lowercase letters to denote significance is crucial to the creation of lowercase. This
development, however, took a new turn in Italy and Southern France where they created
the half-uncial, which is thought to have formed the model for the creation of Caroline
Minuscule (Fischer 245). Half uncial (Figure 2) can be described as “a cursive uncial
mixed hand that maintained disconnected letters which took on new, lower-case shapes”
(Fischer 245).
While it is very clear that the Greek and Roman scripts contributed greatly to the
development of Carolingian minuscule, the various scripts of the Barbarian tribes also
added to its creation. Tribes such as the Visigoths, Merovigians, and Lombards each had
their own adaptation of the traditional Roman style half-uncial. “It was in the book
hands, elaborated from the cursive character, that the lines of national demarcation
became clearly defined…”(Chisholm 573). First, the Lombardian font is large with
sprawling cursive, very difficult to read, and eventually evolved into a form with
alternating wide and thin strokes resembling modern calligraphy (Chisholm 573). The
61
�Visigoth style developed similarly, maintaining more of the same structure as the Roman
half-uncial but over time leaning more toward a calligraphic style (Chisholm 573). No
doubt the two tribes had contact with each other and ended up merging styles. In the case
of the Merovingians, they collaborated with the other Frankish types and created a style
that was “cramped, laterally compressed, slender and almost illegible” (Fischer, 247).
Upon inspection of Figure 3, one is able to notice the contributions Greek writing has
made to the evolution of the Merovingian minuscule. It is easy to see how there was a
constant evolution of styles. It seems as though no one but the trained writer would be
able to read or understand these works. In a time where there was a push for literacy
among more people, the handwriting needed to be more legible whether it was in bookhand or cursive hand.
In 789, Charlemagne recognized the issues surrounding the different types of
Frankish script: Lombard, Visigoth, Merovingian, and demanded the revision of books in
the scriptoria of Germany, France and Northern Italy (Fischer 247). This was no easy
task, and it took a lot of work to develop a script that was suitable for Charlemagne’s
demands. He was determined to have an educational program fit for the revival of
learning and able to spread the Christian faith (Stokstad 110). Stokstad states,
“Charlemagne’s educational program required texts to be correct, uniform and legible”
(110). While this may seem like a desirable outcome, one might question the notion of
what Charlemagne meant by all text being correct. Did Charlemagne deem them
currently incorrect, was the information false or was it purely the lack of conformity in
the script that he called incorrect?
Alcuin of York was the abbot and scholar in charge of overseeing the
construction of what is now called the Carolingian minuscule (figure 4)—he also
conveniently oversaw Charlemagne’s educational reform (Fischer 247). There were very
specific things that set this script apart from all others previously mentioned. Fischer
describes it as, “a very clean, simplified script that avoided ornateness and created an
even, flowing appearance” (247-248). It was of the utmost importance to Charlemagne
that it was legible, and it seemed that this new script did so with ease. It adopted some of
the old letters from old Roman half-uncial, while deviating from the unorganized
Merovingian (Chisholm 577). Comparing the images of the different scripts, there are no
breath marks above the characters, and the weight of each letter is neither too bold and
heavy nor too light and flimsy. Each line and letter is spaced adequately so that they are
individually appreciated and understood. “Capitals, or majuscules, were now reserved
for initials (beginning letters of text) and other special uses…[it was not until] much later
capitals assumed a highly refined role…subject to precise rules of usage” (Fischer 249).
62
�The use of the majuscule and minuscule allowed words to be the same with different
meaning, Fischer cites the example bill and Bill, the item you pay versus the proper name
(249). Another addition Abbot Alciun made was the differentiation of certain letters in
the alphabet. “The letter u was invented to distinguish the vowel u from the consonant v”
(Fischer 249). Perhaps changes like this were what Charlemagne referred to when he
required a text that was correct. Stokstad mentions that scholars understand the
development of Carolingian minuscule to be one of the “most significant and lasting
achievement[s]” (110).
The Carolingian minuscule may have been a success for the time period, but
what makes it even more important is the idea that it became the foundation for modern
writing. Bishop describes it as an international script, which English scribes had been
attempting for years to create (xi). The educational reforms first spread to France and
Germany and then further on with the use of their new script (Fischer, 248). In Italy it
was used for documents and books; in England it became popular for Latin texts (249).
Chisholm describes how the style evolved into a more calligraphic form allowing it to be
more beautiful and exact (577). “By the tenth century, Carolingian minuscule had
become the standard hand in most of Western Europe, with many regional variants and
remnant local forms for special purposes” (Fischer 249). This statement by Fischer
highlights the universality of Carolingian minuscule and the fact that many regions in
Europe adopted it while they also held on to their traditional scripts. Perhaps this was a
way of holding on to their national identity, or it might have been a way to make special
documents, more special, by having them look different than every day documents. In a
way it might be similar to the use of calligraphy on collegiate diplomas—it signifies the
honor and prestige.
While Carolingian minuscule is heralded as one of the greatest achievements in
writing, there were those who did not like the script and did not find use for it. There
were also, with time, those who no longer found the usefulness of it and began to revert
back to their old styles. “By the 1100s the graphic unity of the Carolingian script had
begun to fragment, and the regional hands emerged, each expressing a characteristic
form” (Fischer 250). As stated earlier, nations held on to their regional styles and used
them to convey importance. Why now were nations abandoning the universal style
altogether and reverting back to what seemed old and outdated? Fischer suggests that
perhaps scribes were trying to save parchment at the time by bringing back the breath
marks and other punctuation above letters instead of spelling everything out nicely (250).
“Scribes were forsaking the more leisurely paced Carolingian Minuscule in favor of the
compact Gothic bookhand” (Shailor 34). This again highlights the need to save
63
�parchment and time. Writing in a simple neat way takes more time than quickly
scribbling something out on a note; this caused the reversion back to other forms because
they simply took less time to write. Writing and literature might have been flourishing
quicker than parchment could be produced, or patrons might not have wanted to own
large books, instead opted for something smaller with the same amount of writing.
Shailor comments on the trend associated with the use of Gothic bookhand, “that it was
simply more visually appealing and also highlighted an exciting calligraphic potential
that surpassed that of the Carolingian Minuscule” (34). Another modification made
during this time was the switch to Arabic numerals. “As a result of the Crusades, scribes
began using Arabic (1, 2, 3, 4) instead of Roman (i, ii, iii, iv) numerals, thus conserving
even more space” (Fischer 250). These intricacies caused some nations to stray from the
traditional uses of Carolingian minuscule, and other issues arose simply as time wore on
and the novelty of the Carolingian minuscule wore off.
Centuries after Charlemagne’s death Carolingian minuscule was still used,
especially in monastery scriptoria; however, it was modified and changed based on their
own needs, eventually evolving into an Anglo-Caroline style. It is rumored that
Carolingian minuscule made its first public impact in England during the Benedictine
coup in 964 (Dumville 16). Here too, many variants, three distinct ones, came about as
nations held on to their regional scripts, and adapted the minuscule to suit their needs.
“The effective life of the three distinctive styles practiced during the first two generations
of extensive Caroline writing in England…was converted or assimilated into a single
national style [that] may be discovered by following developments at Christ Church,
Canterbury” (Dumville 5). One of the biggest uses of Anglo-Caroline style script during
the tenth century was to copy the Rule of St. Benedict. Dumville states that,
“commentary on the Rule and glossed copies of the Rule are prominent among English
manuscript survivals” (8). The use of Carolingian minuscule signaled to many the
importance of the document. “They would have recognized that the books which they
imported from abroad—particularly those containing texts of ideological importance for
their cause…were usually written in that [Carolingian minuscule] script” (Dumville 17).
Clearly, Carolingian minuscule not only held great importance to many for its simplicity
and ease of use, but it also held importance in that its use symbolized religion and
internationalization. One of the defining characteristics in English Caroline minuscule
was its use of the square effects. “Square minuscule elements were retained in many
examples of Anglo-Latin script…in the letters common to both alphabets [presumably
Latin and English]” (Bishop xiv). It can be concluded that the English attempted to copy
64
�the Carolingian minuscule, however, they did not have the proper technique to do so, and
ended up with a squarer version.
While the English adapted their own form from Carolingian minuscule, it is still
possible to see the influences and how it retains most of the basic features (figure 5). The
English minuscule maintained the simple legible spacing and the similar variations of ink
width; however, it also makes use of markings above the letters like breath markers.
Bishop helps to describe it as a variation of things: “calligraphic or unpretentious, rapid
or deliberate, fine and precise or notably firm and energetic; it has much character, the
work of individuals being readily distinguished; it is consistently legible; script at once
feeble and slovenly” (xii). From this description it can be qualified as the script for any
occasion, and for this reason it makes sense that this version of minuscule was
predominantly used. Flexibility is key; unlike its earlier counterpart, it does not have one
style of writing for books and another for letters, but rather one could simply change a
few minute details and have a nice, properly written piece of work that suits his or her
need. The Anglo-Caroline minuscule also evolved from a need for changes within
monastery scriptoria and also changes within the nation itself.
Carolingian minuscule is more than just a style of writing; it holds its own
history and even was the inspiration for some historical changes. In its most refined form
of Anglo-Caroline style, one is still able to trace back its roots. To imagine that it was
derived from such ancient scripts as the Greek and Roman is exciting, but not surprising.
Nor is it surprising to see the different tribal (Lombard, Merovingian, Visigothic)
influences on the script. In the Middle Ages, word and art traveled quickly, religion
possibly even faster; therefore, any differences or changes such as these spread like wild
fire. They were not always accepted or received well, but that did not stop changes from
being incorporated into history and perhaps recognized at a later time. When all of these
influences came together to form the Carolingian minuscule during Charlemagne’s
educational reforms, the results were spectacular. Works of art and writing merged and
books were produced at astounding rates, literacy improved, and many became educated
enough to enjoy these works of art. For a time nations held on to their former scripts for
special occasions—looking to keep a piece of their history, no doubt, but like any great
innovation it met resistance. There were those who felt it too tedious to write with and
those who thought it was not fancy enough, and this lead to changes and a movement
away from Carolingian minuscule to a more Gothic style. At this point, however, there
developed a new hybrid of writing, the Anglo-Caroline style, utilizing the best parts of
each period of history, combining it into something functional and useful for all
65
�occasions. The history of Carolingian minuscule influenced many things, including the
way we write today.
What does this mean for us today? This vast history of majuscules and
minuscules was important during the Middle Ages, and is certainly fascinating to learn
about, however, even in 2010 there is a direct application, even more specifically to New
York. “In September, the Daily News reported that the changes would require street
signs which now mostly use all-capital letters to have upper and lower-case letters. So
MAIN ST. would become Main St.” (Donahue). The streets signs of New York are
getting an overhaul—they are trying to move away from all majuscules like the Greeks
and Romans and are instead moving to a fusion of majuscules and half-uncial text—or in
layman’s terms upper and lower case lettering. Why make such a drastic (and expensive
change) to road signs? “Experts concluded it would make the signs easier for drivers to
read, helping them get their eyes back on the road more quickly” (Donahue). Just like
Charlemagne, experts are realizing there needs to be a reform in what people are
reading—they desire a clear, legible and simple style that helps those on the road find
road signs and find them safely. Clearly, Carolingian minuscule is still around us and the
reforms made in the Middle Ages are applicable and still active to this day. The history
is not only fascinating but also timelessly useful, and one can be rest assured that even in
2050 some aspect of Carolingian minuscule will evolve, but still hold strong onto its
roots from where it came.
Works Cited
Bishop, T A. M. English Caroline Miniscule. Oxford paleographical handbooks. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971. Print.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. The Encyclopedia Britannica; a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
Literature and General Information. New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911. Google
Books. 572-577.
Donohue, Pete. “Feds Eye Delay for Costly Plan to Change New York City's Street
Signs.” New York Daily News. 30 Nov. 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/11/30/2010-11-30_feds_eye_delay_for_
costly_plan_to_change_new_york_citys_street_signs.html>.
Dumville, D N. English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism,
A.d. 950-1030. Studies in Anglo-Saxon history, 6. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell,
1993. Print.
66
�Farber, Allen S. “Carolingian Scripts.” History of European Medieval Art. 2010. Web. 02
Dec. 2010.
<http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth212/Carolingian_Culture/carolingian_scr
ipts.html>.
Fischer, Steven R. A History of Writing. Globalities. London: Reaktion, 2001. Print
“Learn How to Write and Pronounce the Ancient, Classical & New Testament Greek
Language - Online Lessons with Writing, Alphabet and Pronunciation.” Native Language
- Learn Foreign Languages and Linguistics Online (free Reference and Learning
Materials). 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://www.nativlang.com/greeklanguage/ancient-greek-writing.php>.
Norman, Jeremy. “700 to 800 Timeline : From Cave Paintings to the Internet.” Jeremy
Norman’s HistoryofScience.com - Rare Books, Manuscripts & Autographs, Publications,
Appraisals, Traditions & Culture of Collecting. 2004-2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.historyofscience.com/G2I/timeline/index.php?era=700>.
Shailor, Barbara A. The Medieval Book. Medieval Academy reprints for teaching, 28.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press in association with the Medieval Academy of
America, 1991. Google Books.
“The Evolution Type a, Part I: Handwritten Type; Programming Blog.” Neuro Software.
Web Design & Web Programming. 2007. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
<http://www.neurosoftware.ro/programming-blog/blogposter/web-resources/theevolution-type-–-part-i-handwritten-type/>.
Tillotson, Dianne. “Caroline Minuscule.” Medieval Writing. 4 May 2005. Web. 02 Dec.
67
�Figure 1: Learn How To Write
Figure 2: The Programming Type
Figure 3: Farber
68
�Figure 4: Norman
Figure 5: Tilletson
69
�Feminine Devils: The Demonic Portrayal
of the Female in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Jessica Verderosa (English)1
Throughout William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the play depicts the female
characters as tempters of humanity; inherently diabolical beings who try to undermine and
persuade the initially upright man to commit sins. Though the play presents the reader with
a tragically erring protagonist in Macbeth, an ambitious general who eventually gives into
the temptations of usurpation, both the witches and his wife, Lady Macbeth, are the figures
who lead him toward his sinful choices. Macbeth becomes a symbol for humankind,
representing a plagued humanity that recognizes the guilty consequences of sin, but still
desiring the prize achieved via immoral acts. However, if Shakespeare presents Macbeth as
a wavering, corruptible man, then the female figures within the play become the malignant
devils that tempt him. Although Macbeth possesses free will, the Weird Sisters originally
plant the idea of usurpation in his mind by prophesying his eventual kingship. Similarly,
Lady Macbeth uses cool, powerful logic to convince her waffling husband to perform
treasonous murders. This monstrous portrayal of both the witches and Lady Macbeth,
however, represents the prevailing Elizabethan fear of women. Macbeth categorizes the
Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth as terrifying, inhuman figures, maintaining that female
influence over the male mind can only result in destruction. In fact, the play asserts that by
obtaining power over Macbeth, the insidious women step out of their rightful, subordinate
roles, thus distorting themselves as well as others. Therefore, the Weird Sisters appear
bearded and manly, indicating a betrayal of their feminine identities, while Lady Macbeth
destroys herself by unwillingly succumbing to inherent female hysteria in her sleep. In this
way, the play’s parallels between Macbeth and humanity, alongside the female characters’
identification with the tempting devil, underscores an Elizabethan anxiety over women and
the desire to keep feminine power suppressed.
The beginning of Macbeth presents its protagonist as both honorable and brave,
the ideal general, unsullied by sin or temptation. In Act I, Scene II, the reader already
hears an account of Macbeth’s heroic deeds via a wounded Sergeant, “For brave Macbeth
(well he deserves that name)/Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’d steel,/Which
smok’d with bloody execution/(Like Valor’s minion) carv’d out his passage/Till he fac’d
the slave” (Shakespeare I, ii, 16-20). The Sergeant praises Macbeth multiple times for his
unrivaled valiancy, first informing his audience that the general truly deserves the title
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley for EN330(W): Shakespeare Survey.
70
�“brave,” only to then reinforce this notion by directly comparing Macbeth to “Valor’s
minion,” hailing him as the very disciple of courage. In fact, the play maintains Macbeth
to be a loyal, honorable figure who contrasts greatly with other flawed characters, such as
when nobleman Rosse states, “Assisted by that most disloyal traitor/The Thane of
Cawdor, began a dismal conflict/Till that Bellona’s bridegroom, lapp’d in
proof/Confronted him with self-comparisons/And to conclude/The victory fell to us” (I,
ii, 51-58). Rosse directly compares Macbeth to the “disloyal” Thane of Cawdor, claiming
that Macbeth ultimately succeeds against him because his superior military prowess
echoes his superior character and loyalties. While such parallels become ironies later
throughout the play, when Macbeth reveals himself to be a treacherous usurper, both
Rosse and the Sergeant’s praise becomes significant because their words indicate
Macbeth’s humanity. Although he develops into a tormented villain, Macbeth’s initial
honorability stresses his identity as a human being who internalizes, supports, and
personifies his society’s morals.
Indeed, Macbeth’s nobility does not begin to waver until the demonic witches
tempt him with their prophecy. In his study, C. J. Sisson asserts, “There is no sign of
Macbeth’s dangerous ambition until after his first interview with the witches” (14).
Although Macbeth certainly harbors ambition at the play’s opening, this quality allows
him to vanquish traitors and gain military victories, highlighting aspiration as a positive
attribute. Ambition never becomes “dangerous,” as Sisson states, until the witches’ words
entice him to direct it towards taking the throne. When the Weird Sisters appear
supernaturally before him, the third witch prophesying, “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be
King hereafter,” the words awaken a new mindset within the striving general
(Shakespeare I, iii, 50). Though the witches do nothing but predict his future kingship,
the prophecy leads the originally innocent Macbeth to envision and desire himself as
Scotland’s ruler. However, Macbeth does not immediately yield to these temptations, but
instead wavers and waffles, uncomfortable with the newfound ambitions the witches
trigger inside of him. When attempting to decipher whether the Weird Sisters’
appearance forebodes fortune or ill will, he reasons, “If good, why do I yield to that
suggestion/Whose horrid image doth unfix my air/And make my seated heart knock at
my ribs/Against the use of nature?” (I, iii, 134-137). Although Macbeth informs himself
that the witches’ prediction depicts success for him, he questions the physical
nervousness that overcomes him at the Weird Sisters’ words. This physical reaction
indicates Macbeth’s discomfort with his budding awareness that his ambition could easily
lead him to usurp the current leader, King Duncan. The witches tempt him, but Macbeth
struggles with this temptation, both knowing and fearing its sinful nature. In this way,
71
�Macbeth represents humanity plagued and tempted by sin, as Ken Colston stresses in his
article, “Unless one accepts sin as the obstacle to human fulfillment, Macbeth seems a
fearful and clumsy risk taker who looks behind and ahead way too often and who talks
and thinks way too much” (62). Macbeth symbolizes the human sinner who suffers guilt
due to the knowledge of his immoral acts, but still commits evil at the hands of
temptation. Therefore, when the witches leave him, Macbeth attempts to resolve his
struggles by stating, “If chance will have me king, why/chance may crown me/without
my stir”’ (Shakespeare I, iii, 143). Although the prophecy lures Macbeth to sinful
ambitions, he attempts to quell his desires by claiming he will only take the crown if the
situation befalls without his active participation.
However, if Macbeth represents the human sinner, than the female witches
consequentially represent the devil that persuades humanity toward sin. The play openly
portrays them as malignant, evil forces who take guiltless pleasure in tormenting
humanity. The Weird Sisters explicitly express their malevolent intentions toward
humans when they discuss a particular victim of theirs: “I’ll drain him dry as hay/Sleep
shall neither night nor day/Hang upon his penthouse lid;/He shall live a man
forbid;/Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine/Shall he dwindle, peak and pine” (I, iii, 1823). The Weird Sisters describe a sailor they take delight in tormenting, one of the
witches explaining how she will slowly dampen his willpower by barring him from sleep.
However, while the witches certainly cause human suffering, the play also stresses how
the Weird Sisters cannot force a human being towards evil. Therefore, the witch who
recounts the horrors she will inflict upon the sailor must also remind her sisters, “Though
his bark cannot be lost/Yet it shall be tempest-toss’d” (I, iii, 25-26). The metaphor of the
“bark” on a “tempest-toss’d” sea indicates how the Weird Sisters cannot condemn
humanity to evil, but simply tempt them towards it. The “bark,” indicating the sailor’s
soul, cannot be “lost,” meaning that the witches cannot forcibly overtake a human soul.
Instead, the witches can ensure that the soul is “tempest-toss’d,” meaning that they can
trigger temptations within the soul, causing a human being to struggle between right and
wrong. Similarly, the witches never possess nor force Macbeth to commit immoral acts,
but simply prophesize his kingship in order to lead him toward usurpation. Just as the
devil has no true power over the human soul, which possesses free will and can therefore
act on its own accordance, the Weird Sisters cannot force Macbeth towards wickedness
due to his free will, but instead exploit his ambition by predicting him as eventual king.
However, Macbeth does not present only the Weird Sisters as monstrous female
entities that entice Macbeth toward his ruin. His wife, Lady Macbeth, also leads him to
his destruction, thus categorizing another female character as the tempting devil. In his
72
�study, Harold S. Wilson openly states about Macbeth, “It requires an extraordinary
exertion of will and persuasion from Lady Macbeth to strengthen his wavering purpose”
(72).The play characterizes Macbeth as tentative, hesitant, and begrudging as he performs
murderous acts to achieve the crown, whereas Shakespeare shapes Lady Macbeth as
brutal, relentless, and wicked as she persuades her husband to usurp King Duncan. Even
with the Weird Sisters’ tempting words, only Lady Macbeth’s powerful influence pushes
her waffling husband to perform seditious acts. Indeed, Macbeth cannot even fully
imagine himself committing the murders necessary to become king, but instead projects
responsibility onto an imaginary blade: “Is this a dagger which I see before me,/The
handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:/And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts
of blood,/Which was not so before”(Shakespeare II, i, 33-35, 46-47). Macbeth envisions
a dagger with its handle already turned toward his hand, suggesting that the blade offers
itself to him, rather than Macbeth actively deciding to lift it. He also does not envision
himself stabbing the king, but instead sees the blade already bloodied, as if the act took
place without his willpower or knowledge. Therefore, the bloody dagger performs the
treacherous acts, not Macbeth, who simply reaps the benefits of kingship, but escapes the
guilty responsibilities of usurpation.
While Macbeth’s guilt and hesitation indicate his humanity, Lady Macbeth’s
disturbance with his wavering nature characterizes her as the insidious devil. When she
first discovers the Weird Sisters’ prophecy in her husband’s letter, she openly frets, “Yet
do I fear thy nature/It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness/To catch the nearest way”
(I, v, 16-18). Lady Macbeth understands that her husband’s morality will bar him from
murderous sedition; therefore she decides she must exploit his nobility in order to gain
access to the throne. Just as the devil attempts to undermine the soul, tempting
humankind with the benefits of sin, so does Lady Macbeth pressure her husband to forfeit
honor and seize the crown. When Macbeth expresses uncertainty about murdering King
Duncan, Lady Macbeth urges him by nearly jeering, “Wouldst thou have that/Which thou
estem’st the ornament of life/And live a coward in thine own esteem/Letting ‘I dare not’
wait upon ‘I would’/Like the poor cat I th’ adage?” (I, vii, 41-45). Lady Macbeth
pressures her husband into the act, claiming that he will never obtain the “ornament of
life,” or the crown, if he allows hesitation to keep him from performing the murder. She
further impresses on him that such tentativeness brands him a coward, thus stripping
away the masculine valor he represents at the beginning of the play. Yet, just like the
witches, who urge, but cannot coerce evil upon the soul, Lady Macbeth does not
physically force her husband into murder, but simply persuades him toward the act with
cruel logic. When Macbeth asks her what will befall them if they fail, Lady Macbeth
73
�answers, “We fail?/But screw your courage to the sticking place/And we’ll not fail”
before she recounts her plot to intoxicate the king, kill him in his slumber, and then blame
the murder on the servants (I, vii, 59-61). Lady Macbeth does not threaten Macbeth, but
instead strengthens his resolve by claiming his courage alone will ensure their victory. As
the Weird Sisters spark Macbeth’s temptation with nothing but verbal prophecy, Lady
Macbeth persuades her husband to perform treachery with nothing but her powerful
argument, linking the female figures to devils that entice a troubled humanity.
Macbeth further emphasizes Lady Macbeth as the devil via her demonic
characterization. While the witches’ pleasure in tormenting a sailor indicates their
wickedness, Lady Macbeth’s lack of regret in murder stresses her malevolent nature.
After Macbeth slays the king, he rushes from the room, thoroughly distressed, claiming,
“Methought I heard a voice, ‘Sleep no more!/Macbeth does murther sleep’ – the innocent
sleep/Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course/Chief nourisher in life’s feast” (II,
ii, 32-37). Macbeth expresses immediate guilt and turmoil due to the murder, maintaining
that his evil deeds will prevent him from slumber, which heals mental distress. Lady
Macbeth, however, scoffs at his anxiety as petty delusions, merely stating, “Who was it
that thus cried? Why worthy thane/You do unbend your noble strength, to think/So brainsickly of things” (II, ii, 41-42). Unlike her husband, Lady Macbeth expresses no true
turmoil, but claims such nervous thoughts undo Macbeth’s manly courage. She then
asserts her own fearlessness by smearing the deceased’s blood onto slumbering servants,
maintaining, “The sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of
childhood/That fears a painted devil” (II, ii, 50-52). Lady Macbeth characterizes fear of
corpses as childish, suggesting that to experience horror over the sight makes one foolish
and weak. The act of dirtying her hands with innocent blood does not upset her; it
becomes a necessary vehicle to achieve her husband’s kingship. Lady Macbeth never
shows any anxiety or regret in urging her husband to commit murder, but instead sees the
situation with a wicked, clinical logic, concerned only with the results of bloody
usurpation. This total lack of conscience condemns her as inhuman, just as the Weird
Sisters’ malignant glee in torment characterizes them as foul demons.
These demonic portrayals, moreover, also indicate an inherent Elizabethan fear
of women imbedded within the play. Indeed, both the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth
possess power over Macbeth’s thoughts, thus their influence must be pernicious and
destructive. The Weird Sisters purposely plant temptation into the general’s mind. The
first scene of the play immediately indicates the malignant intent of the witches with their
words, “There to meet with Macbeth,” (I, i, 8). Although the following scene only yields
praiseworthy description about Macbeth, the Weird Sisters’ ominous plans to meet with
74
�him, framed by thunder and lightning, stresses how their wicked influence will lead to his
moral decay. This image of the Weird Sisters as powerful, though malicious, forces
clashes with the accepted Elizabethan role of the subordinate woman. Thus, when
Macbeth and Banquo first witness them, Banquo observes, “You should be women/And
yet your beards forbid me to interpret/That you are so” (I, iii, 45-46). The witches,
lacking feminine subservience, deny their femininity entirely, therefore their appearance
becomes distorted, unnatural, and perverse, resulting in a masculine beard on an
otherwise feminine face.
Just as the Weird Sisters only possess negative influence, Lady Macbeth’s
influence over her husband only urges him toward a sinful murder that distorts order via
usurpation. In fact, Lady Macbeth’s argument itself indicates the prevalent cultural fear
of women via images of infanticide, “I have given suck, and know/How tender ’tis to
love the babe that milks me;/I would, while it was smiling in my face,/Have pluck’d my
nipple from his boneless gums/And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you/Have
done to this” (I, viii, 54-58). Lady Macbeth maintains that her resolve for her husband to
gain the crown is so strong that she would murder the child she nurses if it would achieve
this goal. However, this imaginary infanticide becomes symbolic for an overall cultural
anxiety concerning mothers. Since Elizabethan society rests its foundations on male
succession, the discomfort that women, who alone know the true lineage of male babies,
could distort family lines becomes incredibly common. In her article, Stephanie
Chamberlain explains, “That patrilineage could be irreparably altered through martial
infidelity, nursing, and infanticide rendered maternal agency a social and political
concern” (73). The actions of the mother become significant because pernicious maternal
intentions can bastardize, disrupt, or end vital family lines. Lady Macbeth stressing that
she will murder her child in order to achieve immoral usurpation, therefore, echoes this
deep cultural anxiety about demonic mothers’ abilities to destroy the rightful patrilineage,
such as King Duncan and his heir’s rule.
The image of infanticide, however, also represents negative cultural ideas
toward women via the womb. Elizabethans believe the womb to be the source of female
hysteria, therefore condemning women as beings with an inherently overemotional,
illogical mindset as well as a frailer, weaker physical disposition. Elizabethan society
maintains that tears, anxieties, strange whims and even physical illness derive from the
womb wandering erroneously throughout the female body (Kahn 34). In her study,
Coppelia Kahn maintains, “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 the wandering womb” (33).
75
�Elizabethans internalize a variety of symptoms as due to a female’s womb floating
aimlessly throughout the body; culture then asserts that only marriage will return the
womb to its rightful position, promoting Elizabethan patriarchy (33).
Lady Macbeth, therefore, attempts to defy her womb with the violent image of
infanticide. She envisions murdering her child, the product of her marriage, which should
keep her womb in its rightful place. In this way, the imaginary infanticide echoes Lady
Macbeth’s reversal of gender roles. While the play depicts Macbeth as plagued with
feminine turmoil over committing murder, Lady Macbeth’s unshaken resolve in smearing
blood over the sleeping servants suggests masculinity. The infanticide image becomes
symbolic of Lady Macbeth’s attempts to reject her femininity in order to gain power. In
fact, Lady Macbeth explicitly expresses this desire to deny her sex when she beseeches
malignant forces, “Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here/And
fill me from the crown to the toe topful/Of direst cruelty!” (Shakespeare I, iv, 40-43). Just
as the Weird Sisters deny their femininity, resulting in their distorted, bearded
appearances, Lady Macbeth directly denies her womanhood with this request; so that she
may step outside of the subordinate role the womb promotes in order to urge her husband
to usurp King Duncan.
However, despite her attempts, Macbeth ultimately concludes that Lady Macbeth
is unable to escape the innate female hysteria that exists within her womb. While the
supernatural Weird Sisters’ rejection of femininity keeps them from ever fully being
women via their beards, Lady Macbeth’s attempted rejection results in a destructive
insanity and eventual death. Though she appears originally collected at the time of the
murder, the guilt of the act begins to haunt her in her slumber. In Act V, Scene I, a doctor
and waiting gentle-woman observe Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, while she distressingly
cries, “Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say! One – /two – why then ’tis time to do’t./What need we
fear/ who knows it, when none can call our pow’r to/accompt?” (V, i, 35-40). Though she
suppresses her turmoil during her waking hours, Lady Macbeth still envisions blood on her
hands in her dreams, hysterical because she cannot cleanse her dirty palms, anxiously
fretting that she may be discovered, despite assuring herself that no one can accuse her
while she remains queen. Since Lady Macbeth rejects her womb by speaking of infanticide,
it begins to wander, thus leading to this nocturnal hysteria and her mentioned death at the
end of Act V (V, v, 16). She fails to truly achieve the masculine attitude she maintains
during the day, instead succumbing to the inherent illness of her womb that she herself
ousts from its rightful position due to her attempted reversal of gender roles.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth thus presents its female characters as pernicious figures
who seek to tempt the humanized male protagonist toward sin. While Macbeth represents
76
�the human soul plagued by temptation, the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth both
represent the guiltless devil that entices Macbeth toward usurpation. In addition to
characterizations that indicate an innate malignancy within the witches and Lady
Macbeth, the female figures also cannot actively force the human soul to perform evil
acts, but lure Macbeth to murderous sedition via verbal persuasion. This demonic
characterization of females, however, indicates the imbedded Elizabethan fear of women.
The Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth must be portrayed as pernicious influences because
they hold power over Macbeth’s thoughts, suggesting that female persuasion can only
lead to destruction and distortion. In fact, Macbeth asserts that the female characters
reject their femininity altogether by stepping outside the accepted subordinate role for
women. By denying this role, both the Weird Sisters and Lady Macbeth become
perversions of themselves. While the witches distort their appearance by growing
unnatural beards, Lady Macbeth’s rejection of her womb results in female hysteria and
death. Macbeth ultimately maintains the message that females with powerful influences
can only result in destruction.
Works Cited
Chamberlain, Stephanie. “Fantasizing Infanticide: Lady Macbeth and the Murdering
Mother in Early Modern England.” College Literature 32.3 (2005): 72-91. MLA
International Bibliography. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Colston, Ken. “Macbeth and the Tragedy of Sin.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought
and Culture. 13 (2010): 60-95. Project Muse. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.
Kahn, Coppelia. “The Absent Mother in King Lear.” Rewriting the Renaissance: The
Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Eds. Ferguson, Margaret W.,
Quilligan, Maureen, Vickers, Nancy J. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1986. 33-49. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. The Riverdale Shakespeare. Eds. Baker
Herschel, Barton Anne, Karmode Frank, Levin Harry, Smith Hallett, Edel Marie. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 1360-1376. Print.
Sisson, C.J. “Public Justice: Macbeth.” Shakespeare’s Tragic Justice. London: Methuen
& Co LTD, 1961. 11-27. Print.
Wilson, Harold, S. “Antithesis: Othello and Macbeth.” On the Design of the
Shakespearian Tragedy. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1957. 67-81. Print.
77
�The Flaws of Plato’s Arguments for
the Immortality of the Soul in the Phaedo
Nidhi Khanna (Biology and Philosophy)1
Ancient Greek philosopher Plato writes the Five Dialogues, and these classical
works focus on the trial and death of his teacher, Socrates. The Phaedo is the last
dialogue that recounts the remaining few days of Socrates’ life. In this dialogue, Plato
offers readers a variety of proofs for the immorality of the soul. The Greek tradition
suggests that the soul exists and embodies life. Socrates believes that the ultimate goal of
philosophy is to prepare for death, and he struggles to convince his friends that real
philosophers obtain wisdom once their souls separate from their physical bodies. The
four arguments that Socrates makes about the immortality of the soul include: the
argument from the opposites, the argument from recollection, the argument from affinity,
and lastly the argument from the forms. Although Socrates attempts to make compelling
arguments for the immortality of the soul, his arguments are flawed due to his
dependence on metaphysics.
Socrates first argument for the immortality of the soul deals with the theory of
the opposites. The theory of the opposites is the notion that opposites need to exist in
order to account for any kind of change. This theory is used to understand the relationship
between the living and the dead. According to Plato, Socrates believes that the soul came
into being from the dead, and therefore the immortal soul exists before and after a body
dies. Nevertheless, Cebes raises the question about the existence of the soul after the
death of the body.
Socrates proposes that the soul represents life and the body is a symbol of death.
One reason that this argument is problematic is due to Socrates’ belief that the soul is a
living entity that arises from the dead. He is able to make the argument that the body
ceases to exist after an individual’s death, however he cannot convince readers or even
Cebes that the soul is immortal because it exists forever. Socrates wants readers to accept
that the soul is immortal due to the reasoning that the soul is a non-physical entity.
Nevertheless, by acknowledging that the soul is eternal, the readers must accept a
metaphysical theory. Socrates cannot provide empirical data that proves that the soul
exists both before and after death.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Sarah Donovan for PH20: Ancient Philosophy.
78
�The second argument that Socrates proposes deals with the theory of
recollection. The theory of recollection suggests that individuals have the ability to
recollect ideas or knowledge that their souls learned previously during another life.
Recollection is dependent upon the theory of the Forms; this theory says that every
material object on earth is modeled after an immaterial, perfect blueprint in heaven (each
of which is called a Form).
In the Phaedo, Socrates states that dissimilar objects help an individual recollect
the concept of equality that he or she learned previously. Socrates utilizes the example of
a large and a small stick. When the two sticks are juxtaposed together, individuals
understand that the sticks are dissimilar, and people are able to comprehend the basics
notion of equality. According to Plato, Socrates believes that people are in general in
agreement about the concept of equality due to their ability to recollect the forms.
Although the argument for recollection seems convincing, Socrates does not
have enough evidence to show that the premises for his argument offers a valid
conclusion. University of Oslo Professor Panos Dimas specializes in Ancient Philosophy,
and criticizes Plato’s argument of recollection in his article, “Recollecting the Forms in
Plato.” Dimas states, “Plato has obviously realized, as many commentators have not, that
there is little philosophical plausibility in an argument for recollection that presupposes
the existence of the forms as a premise” (186). By accepting the existence of the forms,
Socrates uses this initial premise to make the casual claim that the soul needed to exist
before the body (Dimas 186). The argument appears plausible, but the claims that
Socrates makes encourages individuals to believe in a metaphysical idea that the forms
must exist. He cannot physically prove the existence of the forms, and proposes that a
non-physical entity, the soul, is the only thing that can truly understand the something
else that is non-physical (the forms).
Socrates struggles to prove that his argument of recollection is plausible due to
human beings’ dependence on their ability to reason to acquire knowledge. He believes
that sense perception does not aid individuals to achieve true understanding of the forms,
and thus people must use recollection to remember the knowledge that they already
possess. He states, “Then before we began to see or hear or otherwise perceive, we must
have possessed knowledge of the Equal itself if we were about to refer out sense
perceptions of equal objects to it, and realized that all of them were eager to be like it, but
were inferior” (Plato Phaedo .75b-c). Dimas suggests that Plato is overly dependent on
the theory of recollection and assumes that the knowledge that individuals acquire is only
through recollection (188). Nevertheless, Plato assumes that sense perception alone could
allow people to comprehend the forms. He believes that sense perception helps trigger
79
�cues in people’s mind about knowledge that they have already acquired in the past. Plato
cannot empirically provide evidence that the knowledge people acquire is through
recollection alone, and he heavily depends on non-physical ideas to make his argument
more convincing.
Socrates’ third argument for the immortality of the soul is referred to as the
argument from affinity. He proposes that the soul is immortal because the soul is
invisible and is constantly changing. Socrates states “The soul is most like the divine,
deathless, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, always the same as itself, whereas the body
is most like that which is human, mortal, multiform, unintelligible, soluble, and never
consistently the same,” (Plato Phaedo 80b). Plato believes that the physical body remains
the same throughout a person’s lifetime, and eventually decays after the person dies. The
physical body is a visible object that eventually ceases to exist. Nevertheless, the soul,
which eventually leaves the body, needs to remain pure by separating itself from the
impure body. Socrates suggests that the soul is a pure, invisible, non-physical object.
Socrates assumes that the soul must be immortal and necessarily must exist forever
because the soul is an eternal, non-physical object.
Simmias and Cebes cleverly question the logic behind Socrates’ argument. They
agree with Socrates that the soul exists, however Simmias and Cebes are not thoroughly
convinced that the soul exists after the death of an individual. They realize that Socrates
commits the fallacy of a weak analogy by assuming that the soul is immortal and can
exist long after the death of the body. Socrates compares visible and invisible objects and
implies that invisible objects are immortal because they are pure and eternal.
Simmias challenges Socrates’ argument by giving the example of the lyre and
harmony. Simmias believes the soul can be destroyed after the body physically dies. He
states that the harmony in the lyre is something that is invisible, and the harmony will be
destroyed once the strings on the lyre break. Socrates states that invisible, non-physical
objects cannot be destroyed, and therefore using that logic, Simmias proves that a
harmony is an invisible, non-physical object that can be destroyed. Therefore, Socrates
cannot claim that invisible objects like the soul are indestructible merely because they are
invisible objects.
Socrates criticizes Simmias’ view and proposes that Simmias incorrectly makes
the analogy that the soul is like a harmony. Socrates actually attacks the exactness of the
language of Simmias’ argument rather than the actual argument itself. He is fixed on
Simmias’ claim that a soul is like a harmony, and as a result, Socrates tackles the
argument that a soul cannot be a harmony. Socrates is relying on the metaphysical to
provide support for his argument that the soul is an invisible object that is indestructible
80
�merely because it is invisible. Plato wants people to accept the notion that the soul is
immortal because it is a non-physical object, and this implies that readers must submit to
a metaphysical theory that makes the claim that non-physical objects truly exist.
Cebes responds to Socrates’ third argument, and Socrates has a difficult time
developing an adequate response to Cebes. He states that Socrates cannot claim that the
soul is immortal because the soul is indestructible. In Cebes' example of the coat, he says
that the coat will outlast its owner, but that does not indicate that the coat is immortal.
The coat cannot be destroyed, and it is a physical object. Cebes believes that the soul
might inhabit many bodies before it is finally destroyed. Socrates needs to introduce his
final argument in order to respond to Cebes.
Socrates’ final argument deals with the forms. He discusses the relationship
between the opposites and concludes that if an object is confronted with its opposite, the
object must either retreat or be destroyed. The law of non-contradiction states that an
object cannot be itself and its opposite at the same time. Socrates defines the soul as
something that is indestructible. He believes that the soul is the carrier of life and at the
same time is deathless. According to Socrates, the soul cannot be destroyed because it is
deathless. He states:
If the deathless is indestructible, then the soul, if it is deathless, would also be
indestructible? Then when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but
his deathless part goes away safe and indestructible, yielding the place to death.
Therefore, the soul, Cebes, is most certainly deathless and indestructible and our souls
will really dwell in the underworld. (Plato Phaedo 106e)
According to Socrates, the law of non-contradiction assumes that the soul cannot
be alive at the same time it is dead. Therefore, the soul must be alive and is incapable of
being dead. In order to further prove his point, Socrates gives the example of the fire and
heat. When a person thinks of fire, the concept of heat is automatically associated with
the fire. The fire cannot be both hot and cold at the same time. Therefore, the fire cannot
participate in the forms of both hot and cold, as stated by the law of non-contradiction.
Socrates utilizes this analogy to show that the soul can only be alive and participate as a
transmitter of life. Since the soul is deathless and alive, it does not die once the physical
body ceases to exist. Using this logic, Socrates assumes that the soul is immortal and
exists forever.
Socrates also hints that the soul is alive and its main purpose is to help an
individual recollect the forms. Simmias and Cebes accept the fact that the forms exist,
which essentially means that they agree to a theory of metaphysics. The foundation of
this argument relies heavily on the acceptance of the existence of the forms and the
81
�assumption that non-physical objects exist and are indestructible. Nevertheless, Plato
wants people to submit to a theory of metaphysics by making the claim that the soul is
invisible, alive, and deathless. He cannot empirically prove that the soul is indestructible,
and he is making the claim that the soul is immortal based on his definition that the soul
is deathless. In the fire example, once the fire was introduced to its opposite (snow), it
ceases to exist. This logic is applicable to the case of a soul. Socrates states that the soul
continues to live even though it encounters its opposite, which is death. The soul
encounters the death of the physical body, and might possibly retreat and avoid death.
However, the soul might actually be destroyed (law of non-contradiction) when it
encounters the death of the physical body, and Plato cannot physically prove that the soul
will retreat and not destruct.
Plato offers a variety of arguments for the immortality of the soul in his classic
work, the Phaedo. The arguments for the immortality of the soul appear plausible, but
many aspects of all four arguments are flawed. Plato wants readers to submit to a theory
of metaphysics by accepting that both the forms and the theory of recollection exist. The
last argument in particular is not valid because Plato tries to weave the notions of the
opposites, forms, and recollection into the final argument. Lastly, Plato has a difficult
time proving that the soul is immortal because he heavily relies on the Socratic method in
the dialogue. The Socratic method entails the rallying of questions and answers in order
to resolve a debate amongst individuals. Readers can tend to get lost in the Socratic
method, and may not notice the fallacies in Socrates’ arguments. As a result, many of
Socrates’ arguments appear to be valid because Socrates attacks the rhetoric of his
opponents and wants his interlocutors and readers to accept several theories that are
based on metaphysics.
Works Cited
Dimas, Panos. “Recollection of the Forms in the Phaedo.” Phronesis. 48.3 (2003): 175214. Web. 28 Feb 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182728>.
Plato. “Phaedo.” Complete Works. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
82
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 2 Reconstructing Electron Tracks using a Gas Electron Multiplier Detector / Gia DeStefanis -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 18 Studying in a Group Versus Independently: The Effects on Exam Grades / Tehmina Bhojani -- Section III: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 28 A Phenomenological Examination of Truth in Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury / James Messina -- 34 Revisiting Descartes: The Interaction between Mind and Body in Meditation VI / Emily Burkhardt -- 46 Hagar and Ishmael in the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible: A Cause of Variance in Islam and Christianity / Bareah Alam -- 54 The Media, Materialism, and The Matrix / Anne Blum -- 60 The Origins of Carolingian Minuscule / Emily Werkheiser -- 70 Feminine Devils: The Demonic Portrayal of the Female in Shakespeare’s Macbeth / Jessica Verderosa -- 78 The Flaws of Plato’s Arguments
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Spring 2012
Volume X, Number 2
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
Should you buy or lease? What factors influence the cross-species transmission of
disease? Were corsets an unnecessary evil imposed on women throughout history or were
they incredibly useful garments? How did the United States reconcile segregation with a
modern judicial system designed to provide liberty and justice to everyone? Inquisitive
young minds at Wagner College have investigated these and other questions. The
interested reader will find much on the pages that follow.
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural
Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are
limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Dr. Jean Halley, Sociology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Lauren O'Hare, Nursing
Dr. Margarita Sánchez, Modern Languages
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Paper
2
The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish as a Model for a Listeria Monocytogenes
Central Nervous System Infection
William Rivera
Section II: The Social Sciences
Full Length Paper
28 No Boundaries? Understanding Risk of Human-Primate Disease Transmission
Jennifer Ida
Section III: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
44 Double Vision: The Utilization of Metempsychosis and Dual Identity in Aura
Julia Zenker
53 Leasing: Past, Present and Future
Noreen Taylor
68 The Corset as a Construction of Femininity: Silhouettes in the Victorian Era
Kristen Haggerty
98 A Dynamic and Progressive View of Autism Across Life Stages as seen in After
Thomas, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Temple Grandin
Ananda DiMartino
105 “For Richer, For Poorer?” — Gender, Money, and Marriage
Victoria Felix
111 The Legal Evolution of Jim Crow: Separate and Unequal
Tyler Seling
���The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish as a Model for a
Listeria Monocytogenes Central Nervous System Infection
William Rivera (Microbiology)1
Listeria monocytogenes, a pathogen of the central nervous system, was injected into the
vitreous humor of the adult zebrafish eye to determine if the organism could cause a
transneuronal infection. When injected into this tissue, this pathogen was able to invade
the cells of the retina, move through the optic nerve, and ultimately gain passage into the
optic tectum. The objective of the experiment was to accurately determine the presence of
an infection of L. monocytogenes in adult zebrafish. This experiment also gave insight
into the infection that was caused in the area. Approximately 20 adult zebrafish were
injected in the eye with L. monocytogenes, and through imaging techniques, the time
course of the infection was studied.
I. Introduction
Zebrafish
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a small fresh water fish native to Bangladesh that
belong to the group Teleostei. In the past decade, they have become a widely used
laboratory animal due to their inexpensive cost and availability in pet stores across the
scientific community. The fish began being used in developmental biology due to their
external fertilization and transparent chorion, and have since become popular in
neuroscience and microbial pathogenesis (Corbo et al., 2011). At this time, several other
groups are using zebrafish as a model organism to study microbial infection (Chaco et al.,
2010).
Listeria monocytogenes
Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative, intracellular, gram-positive bacterium
that may infect humans following the ingestion of contaminated food. It is a human
pathogen because it has been known to cause meningitis and spontaneous abortions in
infected humans (Levraud et al., 2009).
Research performed under the direction of Prof. Christopher Corbo in partial fulfillment of
the Senior Program requirements.
1
2
�L. monocytogenes is very common and has been found in plant, soil, surface
water samples, sewage, in the milk from cows, and in the feces of humans and animals
(Weis, 1975). Cases of human listeriosis (an infection brought about by L.
monocytogenes) stem primarily from food contaminated with the organism especially if
the host has a compromised immune system (Welshimer, 1971). A recent study showed
that individuals with an underlying condition that leads to a suppression of their T-cellmediated immunity are 150 times more likely to contract the organism when compared to
the general population (Gellin et al., 1991). Other conditions that put one at risk for
listeriosis include neoplastic diseases such as cancer, immunosuppression, pregnancy,
extremes of age, diabetes mellitus, alcoholism, cardiovascular and renal collagen
diseases, and hemodialysis failure (Nieman and Lorber, 1980). Infection with L.
monocytogenes generally leads to initial prodromal symptoms (headache, vomiting,
fever, and malaise) and eventually progresses to a central nervous system infection that is
meningitic or encephalitic in nature (Dee and Lorber, 1986). Listeria is also able to cross
the placental barrier and can cause a spontaneous abortion with women in their third
trimester of pregnancy (Becroft et al., 1971). A study from 1985 found that despite the
use of antibiotics, the mortality rate of neonatal listeriosis was 36% (Evans et al., 1985).
According to a study of human listeriosis in Britain from 1967 through 1985,
there are two clinical forms of neonatal listeriosis: an early (1.5 days after birth) and late
(14.3 days after birth) onset. In the early-onset form, the infant is infected in utero and the
organism is disseminated throughout the body, with a concentration of lesions in the liver
and placenta. In contrast, the late-onset form is believed to be acquired from the mother’s
genital tract and in most cases causes meningitis (McLauchlin, 1990). However, despite
this apparent threat to newborns, L. monocytogenes is fairly common in the intestinal
tract and antibodies against the organism are commonly found in humans (Seeliger,
1988). This is reinforced by a study of listeriosis in humans and animals in the
Netherlands, where it was found that 5-10% of the general population could be carriers of
the organism (Kampelmacher and van Noorle Jansen, 1980).
In order for L. monocytogenes to cause infection, it must first enter the host’s
cells. According to Racz et al. (1972), the organism is able to cross the host cell’s
protective barriers by inducing its own endocytosis. This process, known as parasitedirected endocytosis, allows the L. monocytogenes to enter the intestinal cells and
macrophages of the host and spread throughout the body (McGee et al., 1988). The
intracellular growth of L. monocytogenes was further studied by Mackaness (1962), who
determined that its survival inside the host’s cells depended on two factors: the virulence
of the strain and the state of activation of the macrophage. Cowart et al. (1990)
3
�determined that L. monocytogenes is able to attach to eukaryotic cells via the interaction
of a bacterial surface sugar (α-D-galactose) with a galactose receptor on the host cell.
They also found that virulent strains of the organism possessed an α-D-galactose residue
on its surface, where as non-virulent strains lacked the sugar and were unable to interact.
This means that virulent strains of the bacteria were able to attach to the host cells easier
and therefore were able to cause infection. Once the organism is phagocytized by the cell,
the organism uses listeriolysin O (an exotoxin) to escape from the phagosome and enter
the cytoplasm (Portnoy et al., 1988).
The state of the macrophage is very important in the survival of L.
monocytogenes. If the bacteria enters an activated macrophage, it will most likely be
killed by the toxic-free radicals (O2-) created inside the immune cell (Kaufmann, 1988).
However, if the organism is able to enter a non-activated macrophage, there is a good
possibility that it will be able to survive and infect other host cells.
After the use of listeriolysin O to enter the cytoplasm, the organism uses the host
cytoskeletal components to produce actin filaments required for the organism’s motility
(Portnoy et al., 2002). These actin filaments are arranged to form a “comet’s tail,” which
the Listeria uses to propel itself towards the cell surface and create a pseudopod-like
extension (Tilney and Portnoy, 1989). When this extension comes into contact with
another macrophage, it will be phagocytized and the Listeria will be placed into the
phagosome of the second immune cell (repeating the cycle). According to Tilney and
Portnoy (1989), this mode of transmission is extremely important in the survivability of
the organism because it allows it to transfer from “cell to cell without ever leaving the
host’s cytoplasm;” therefore avoiding interaction with the humoral immune system
(complement system and its associated antibodies).
On the other hand, not many studies have been performed with adult zebrafish
and its interaction with L. monocytogenes. The common notion, which was reinforced by
Menudier et al. (1996), was that adult zebrafish were highly resistant to listeriosis and
that a 50% more lethal dose would be required to induce an infection when compared
with mice. Jean-Pierre Levraud et al. (2009) expanded this study by finding that zebrafish
larvae were actually susceptible to an infection when L. monocytogenes was
microinjected near the urogenital opening. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to
determine the ability of L. monocytogenes to infect the zebrafish central nervous system
and the cellular response to this infection.
L. monocytogenes has been known to cause meningitis and encephalitis in
humans and animals. According to Greiffenberg et al., (1998), the L. monocytogenes is
able to cross the blood brain barrier, but the mechanism is not exactly understood. There
4
�are two routes by which the organism may gain entry into the central nervous system:
either through the microvascular endothelial cells or via entry into the cells of the choroid
plexus.
Microvascular endothelial cells form the barrier between the cells of the brain
(neurons and glial cells) and the blood. These cells are linked together via tight junctions
and prevent most molecules from passing. Greiffenberg et al., (1998) studied the
interaction between the microvascular endothelial cells and the pathogen, and despite the
L. monocytogenes being able to infect these cells, it could not kill them. They surmised
that the pathogen merely used the host cell as a source of replication and actin tail
formation. In another study performed by Schlüter et al., (1996), it was found that the L.
monocytogenes readily infected the epithelial cells of the choroid plexus, the structure in
the brain responsible for the formation of cerebral spinal fluid. The infection of the
cerebrospinal fluid is extremely dangerous for humans because it often leads to cases of
meningitis and encephalitis.
II. Objective
The objective of this experiment was to accurately determine the infection of
Listeria monocytogenes in adult zebrafish. The emphasis was on determining if the
pathogen could be transmitted from the retinal cells to the optic tectum. This required
analyzing the response of the cells within the optic tectum.
III. Materials and Methods
The adult zebrafish were acquired from a local pet store (Animal Pantry, Staten
Island, NY) and were maintained in a 10-gallon aquarium. The tank possessed proper
filtration and a day/night lighting cycle at 27°C. The fish were fed flake food daily.
Adulthood was determined following the measurements set in Corbo et al. (2011), which
defined adults being 2.5-3.8 cm in length. As in the situation with the experiment
conducted by Corbo et al. (2011), it can be assumed that the fish were sexually mature
because similar size fish are routinely used to obtain eggs for embryonic projects in the
same lab. All procedures conducted in this study are listed in and approved by the
IACUC Protocol (#359, issued by the New York State for Basic Research).
Microorganisms
Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19115 (serotype 4B) was obtained from the
ATCC: The Global Bioresource Center.
5
�Non-Biological Material
Chemicals and Biochemicals
Glycerol (Sigma Aldrich) was sterilized at 121 °C for 15 minutes. It was used to
make freezer stocks for the preservation of the L. monocytogenes. Ethyl Alcohol
(Electron Microscopy Sciences) was used to sterilize the injection site on the zebrafish
prior to the use of tuberculin syringes to perform the injections. It was also used in
increasing concentrations (50%, 70%, 95%, 100% ethanol) to dehydrate the zebrafish
brain tissue. Spurr resin (Electron Microscopy Sciences) was composed of a four
component resin mixed together according to the manufacturer’s protocol. It was used to
imbed brain tissue samples for study using light and transmission electron microscopy.
Xylene (Sigma Aldrich) was used to remove debris from the slides prior to cover
slipping. It also allows the DPX mounting media to be spread evenly along the slide.
DPX mounting media (Electron Microscopy Sciences) was used to permanently cover
slip the slides so that the specimens are preserved.
Buffers and Solutions
Phosphate Buffer Saline Solution (PBS) was initially composed of 0.2M sodium
phosphate dibasic. 0.2M sodium phosphate monobasic was then added until the pH
reached 7.2.This was then diluted to 0.1M, and 0.9g NaCl (Fisher Scientific) per 100ml
of solution (0.9%) was added. The PBS was used to resuspend the L. monocytogenes for
injection into the adult zebrafish. Karnovky’s fixative solution (KY) was composed of
4% paraformaldehyde and 2.5% glutaraldehyde in PBS solution (both fixative
components come from Electron Microscopy Sciences) and pH was altered to 7.2. Both
aldehydes were used to fix proteins. Glutaraldehyde is the stronger of the two and
required for electron microscopy tissue preservation. In particular, this was used so that
the tissue could be revisited for electron microscopy in future work. Tricaine powder (3amino benzoic acidethylester, Sigma Aldrich) was dissolved in distilled water to generate
a stock solution of 0.4%. This was further diluted to a final working concentration of
0.04% in distilled water and was used as an anesthetic for the zebrafish. The fish were
left to swim in the solution for several minutes until they were unconscious. This was
tested using the tail fin pinch response (Corbo et al., 2011). Osmium tetroxide (Electron
Microscopy Sciences) was used as the post fixation, specifically to fix lipid bilayers. This
was followed by increasing concentrations of ethanol to dehydrate the brain tissue
samples. The osmium tetroxide solution is normally stocked at 4% in distilled water and
diluted down to 1% in PBS for a working solution. Propylene oxide (Electron
Microscopy Sciences) is a transitional solvent that was used to remove the ethanol from
6
�the brain tissue and infiltrate the resin prior to embedding. Toluidine blue powder
(Electron Microscopy Sciences) was added to distilled water to prepare a 1% solution.
Once this was created, 1% sodium borax tetra (Electron Microscopy Sciences) was added
to prevent contamination of the staining solution. The toluidine blue was freshly filtered
and then used to stain the 1 μm semi-thin sections.
Oxford Media
Oxford media was used because it is not only selective (has certain antibiotics that
only allow for the growth of Listeria), but also differential in that there is a color change
if the organism is present. The results from this test plate would be used to confirm the
presence of the Listeria. Oxford media was prepared based upon instructions detailed in
kit ordered from the manufacturer OXOID. According to the kit, the Listeria Selective
Agar (Oxford Formulation Code: CM0856) is composed of 39.0 g/L Columbia Blood
Agar Base, 1.0 g/L Aesculin, 0.5 g/L Ferric ammonium citrate, 15.0 g/L Lithium
chloride, and is maintained at a pH of 7.0 and a temperature of 25°C. After autoclaving at
121oC for 20 minutes at 15 psi, the antibiotic cock-tail supplied by OXOID was
resuspended in 95% ethanol, and added to the media when it reached 50°C just prior to
pouring. Each vile of antibiotics provided from OXOID was for 500 mL of media. 0.5 L
batches were made one at a time.
Brain Heart Infusion Media
Brain heart infusion base is a very nutrient rich medium. It was the suggested
growth medium for Listeria by ATCC. To prepare, brain heart infusion base medium
from the company Difco was used and resuspended according to the manufactures
protocol. Briefly, 37g of powder was suspended in 1 L of distilled water. The media was
brought to a rolling boil and then 5 ml aliquots were prepared, capped and autoclaved
using the same conditions as above. According to the container provided by the company,
the powder consists of 6.0 g/L brain heart (infusion from solids), 6.0 g/L peptic digest of
animal tissue, 5.0 g/L sodium chloride, 3.0 g/L of dextrose, 14.5 g/L pancreatic digest of
gelatin, 2.5 g/L of sodium diphosphate, and should be maintained at a pH around 7.4.
Techniques
Calibration of Spectrophotometer with L. monocytogenes
It was important to know the amount of bacteria that was being injected into the
adult zebrafish eye. A spectrophotometer was used to determine the number of L.
monocytogenes in one sample. The first step was to centrifuge an overnight culture of L.
monocytogenes at 4000 rpm for 15 minutes. The pellet of the L. monocytogenes was
7
�resuspended in 5 mL of PBS. The entire sample of LM+PBS was then transferred into a
sterile tube and the spectrophotometer was blanked using PBS.
A tenfold dilution series was then started, where 1 mL of LM+ PBS was
transferred into 9 mL of a new tube containing sterile PBS. Then, 1 mL of the initial was
transferred into another 9 mL of sterile PBS. Between each reading with the
spectrophotometer, the machine was calibrated using a blank tube. The attempt was
designed to reproduce the same concentration of cells seen in an experiment performed
by Stockinger et al. (2009), where mice were injected with 5x106 CFU per mL L.
monocytogenes. However, determination of the exact concentration of cells in the sample
proved unsuccessful so an overnight culture of L. monocytogenes, pelleted and
resuspended in PBS to inject was employed. Despite the inability to acquire substantial
readings from the spectrophotometer, Table 1 does show that the initial readings were
consistent in that the optical density decreased with each subsequent dilution.
Dilution
600 nm
Cell Counts
Undiluted
1.999
TNTC
10-1
0.081
TNTC
10-2
0.012
TNTC
Table 1: Each dilution’s absorbance value and cell count.
Culture Conditions
For long term storage of L. monocytogenes, a 25% glycerol suspension was
prepared and stored at -80 °C. To revive the culture, a scraping of the glycerol stock was
resuspended in 5mL of brain heart infusion broth (BHI) and then cultivated overnight at
37°C prior to the day of injections. The cultures were not aerated or maintained in an
anaerobic environment.
Immediately before injection, the organism was pelleted via centrifugation using
a Thermo Scientific IEC C130R, for 15 minutes, at 20°C, and with 4000 rpm. The
supernatant was then removed and the L. monocytogenes pellet was resuspended in 5 mL
of PBS. The identity of the organism was then confirmed via the inoculation of an Oxford
media. This test was used primarily to confirm that the Listeria cells were still viable
(Figure 1). A tuberculin syringe was then filled with 100 L of the culture (Figure 2).
8
�Figure 1: On left side of the image is an Oxford test plate that was positive for Listeria
monocytogenes. On right side is an Oxford test plate that was negative for the organism.
Figure 2: Tube containing resuspended pellet form of Listeria monocytogenes and
syringe to be used in injections.
Injections with L. monocytogenes
A surgery station was prepared that consisted of sterile tuberculin syringes for
injections, a stereo microscope, a platform to rest the fish, ethanol to clean injection site,
forceps and scalpel for surgery, and a Bunsen burner to sterilize instruments (Figure 3).
To start the injection process, a single adult zebrafish was transferred from a 30 gallon
colony tank (that contained upwards of 50 fish and located in the Wagner College adult
zebrafish colony room B3) into a medium sized beaker. Once the gill rate of the fish
went back to normal, it was then transferred to a small beaker that contained the 0.04%
tricaine and fish were anesthetized according to the methods described by Westerfield
(2007).
9
�Figure 3: Surgery station for the injection of zebrafish & extraction of infected brain tissue.
Once the fish was completely unconscious (zebrafish would be upside down and
gill movement was very slow), which was confirmed by a pinch of the tail, forceps were
used to extract the fish from the tricaine beaker and place it on to platform beneath
stereomicroscope. The fish was then secured on to the platform with thumbtacks (Figure
4). It must be noted that the fish was not pierced with the thumbtacks; they were only
used to stabilize its body so that the injections could be performed.
Figure 4: Diagram of how fish were pinned onto platform using two thumbtacks.
After a fish was injected in the eye with the LM+PBS, it was immediately
placed into a small beaker and allowed to recover. On average, it would take about two
minutes for the fish’s gill rate to return to normal. In many cases, forceps were used to
move the fish so that water would pass by its gills in an attempt to reduce the recovery
time. Once the fish was swimming normally again, it was then put into a separate 2.5
10
�gallon tank (Figure 5). A maximum of five fish were placed in a single 2.5 gallon tank
and each was separated according to their injection site. For example, fish injected in the
eye were not placed in a tank that contained fish injected in the gills.
Figure 5: Five 2.5-gallon tanks used to house normal and infected adult zebrafish.
Procedure for L. monocytogenes Infected Fish
Fish were maintained normally after injections. They had proper filtration,
aeration and were fed daily. Any fish that showed immediate signs of sickness, which
included a loss of muscle control or difficulty swimming, were placed back into the
tricaine solution. An incision was then made by the dorsal-spinal area to euthanize the
fish and forceps were used to puncture the region directly above medulla. The top of the
skull was surgically removed with the forceps, which exposed the brain tissue. The entire
fish was then placed into KY fixative for later processing.
Fixation of the Brain and Embedding of Tissue Samples
In using the same procedure as Corbo et al. (2011), after fish (with exposed
brains) were placed in KY fixative solution at least overnight, their brains were then
removed from the skull and maintained in KY fixative for at least an additional two days
at room temperature. Brains were then post fixed in 1% osmium tetroxide, dehydrated
through an increasing ethanol concentration series (50%, 70%, 95%, 100%), infiltrated
with Spurr resin by using a 1:1 mixture of propylene oxide and Spurr resin for 1 hour,
and pure Spurr overnight at 4°C. The following day, the brains were embedded into pure
Spurr resin using BEEM capsules and cured at 60°C overnight, and then sectioned on
OMU-2 ultramicrotome (Figure 6).
11
�Figure 6: OMU-2 ultramicrotome used to section embedded tissue samples.
In order to make a cutting surface that is able to slice 1 μm semi-thin sections of
tissue needed for light microscopy, a boated glass knife needs to be made. After scoring
and breaking the glass using a LKB Knifemaker TYPE 7801-B (Figure 7) to produce a
diagonal piece of glass (with a sharp and dull end), a piece of metallic tape is placed
parallel to the base of the right triangle. Nail polish is then streaked along bottom of tape
to prevent water from escaping (Figure 8). The knife is then placed into the OMU-2
ultramicrotome and filled with water. Once the sample is aligned with the sharp edge of
the knife, 1 μm semi-thin sections are sliced and then put on to slides (Figure 9).
Figure 7: LKB Knifemaker TYPE 7801-B.
12
�Figure 8: Picture of knife with a boat needed to slice 1μm semi-thin sections of tissue
needed for light microscopy.
Sample
Top of glass boat
which contains water
Edge of knife is
where human
saliva is streaked
Figure 9: Diagram of glass knife needed to slice 1um semi-thin sections of tissue needed
for light microscopy.
Staining with 1% Toluidine Blue
After 1 μm semi-thin sections were made with the OMU-2 ultramicrotome,
slides were then stretched and sealed to the slide using a hot plate. Once all of the water
was evaporated from the slide, the slides were covered with 1% toluidine blue and heated
over a flame. Once vapor was detected, the slide was washed for 30 sec under running
13
�water and allowed to dry overnight. Slides were then cover slipped under the fume hood
using the solvent xylene to clear the slides and DPX mounting media.
Imaging
Slides were imaged using an Olympus BX-40 Light Microscope with Sony
ExWave HAD Sony Analog Camera using a FlashBus image capture card and ImageJ
capture software (Figure 10).
Figure 10: Olympus BX-40 Light Microscope with Sony ExWave HAD Sony Analog
Camera using a FlashBus image capture card.
Fish found dead more than 12 hours later
If a fish was found dead, the brain tissue would be surgically removed and
mashed with 50 μL of PBS in a sterile microcentrifuge tube. This brain tissue would be
placed on to Oxford media to test for the presence of L. monocytogenes (Figure 1). This
was done because dead brain tissue is not suitable to imaging and whether or not the fish
was infected with L. monocytogenes needed to be ascertained. Using this technique, some
data was collected on these fish, even if it was not imaging data.
14
�Figure 11: Flow Chart showing the steps of the experiment.
IV. Results
Determining the Routes of Infection
To gain insight into the routes L. monocytogenes used to enter the central
nervous system, three fish were injected with approximately 1 μL of L. monocytogenes
into the mouth, gills, and eye. Each injection site was tested with three fish. After 24
hours, two fish injected in the eye were found dead, and subsequent plating of brain
tissue onto Oxford media revealed the presence of L. monocytogenes.
Injections into the Zebrafish Eye
Due to the rapid onset of infection in zebrafish that were injected in the eye, it
was determined that a time course should be performed and fish that showed immediate
effects from the organism would be fixed and their tissue used for light microscopy. A
15
�total of 18 fish were then injected in the eye over two separate days (10 fish on 8-19-2011
and eight fish on 8-26-2011). It was found that of the 18 fish that were injected, eight
were positive for L. monocytogenes either through testing with Oxford media or
microscopic analysis (Table 2).
Of the 18 fish that were injected, seven fish died and five were intentionally
sacrificed (Table 2). Of the seven fish that died, the brain tissue of four (Numbers 3, 5, 67) were positive for L. monocytogenes. All five fish that were sacrificed (Numbers 8-12)
were positive for the presence of Listeria in the brain tissue as well.
Number
Result of Injections with Adult Zebrafish in the Eye
Presence of L.
Time
Died
KY Fixative or Oxford
monocytogenes
1
2 Hours
Yes
KY Fixative
No
2
2 Hours
Yes
KY Fixative
-
3
4 Hours
Yes
KY Fixative
Yes
4
5 Hours
Yes
KY Fixative
No
5
12 Hours
Yes
Oxford
Yes
6
12 Hours
Yes
Oxford
Yes
7
12 Hours
Yes
KY Fixative
Yes
8
7 Days
No
KY Fixative
Yes
9
7 Days
No
Oxford
Yes
10
7 Days
No
KY Fixative
-
11
7 Days
No
Oxford
Yes
12
7 Days
No
Oxford
Yes
Table 2: The 12 fish that either died or were sacrificed after injections in the eye.
Results from Microscopic Analysis of Brain Tissue Samples
The following figures (13-17) show cells presumably infected with L.
monocytogenes and were captured at a total magnification of 1000x. To differentiate
between normal and infected cells the figure found in Portnoy et al., (2002) Mini-Review,
which described the life cycle of L. monocytogenes using a series of electron micrographs
(Figure 12), was referenced.
16
�Figure 12: Cycle taken from Portnoy et al., (2002) Mini-Review, which states, “Stages in
the intracellular life-cycle of Listeria monocytogenes. (Center) Cartoon depicting entry,
escape from a vacuole, actin nucleation, actin-based motility, and cell-to-cell spread.
(Outside) Representative electron micrographs from which the cartoon was derived.
LLO, PLCs, and ActA are all described in the text. The cartoon and micrographs were
adapted from Tilney and Portnoy (1989).”
In using Figure 12 as a reference, attempts were made to identify cells in the
periventricular gray zone that were infected with L. monocytogenes . Due to Listeria
being an intracellular pathogen, it causes degradation inside the cell because it utilizes the
host’s cytoplasmic and nuclear components. Therefore, it was assumed that cells infected
with L. monocytogenes will have less nuclear material. This is detected by staining and is
indicating the breakdown or digestion of the host cell components. For example, Figure
13 shows the presence of four infected cells (indicated with arrows) that have less
material stained when compared with the normal cells (1). These infected cells (2-5)
contain an irregular shaped nucleus that seems pushed to one side because of the presence
of and degeneration caused by the L. monocytogenes.
The four infected cells also seem to be at different stages of the infection due to the
varying sizes of their nucleus and cytoplasmic space. For example, the infected cell on the
far left (3) seems to have less cytoplasm when compared with the cell on the bottom (4).
Thus, it can be deemed that Cell 4 is at a later stage of the infection because more of its
nucleus has been degraded by the pathogen. Another comparison can be made between
Cells 2 and 3. Cell 2 does not possess the same circular stain seen in Cell 3, which might
indicate that it is as an earlier stage of infection because more of its nucleus is present. The
final stage of infection seems to be represented in Cell 5, where there are no intracellular
17
�components present. This might be because the cell has been completely digested by the
pathogen and only part of the membrane is left intact. In this section, the membrane seems
intact, but in another plane of the cell, a region where the L. monocytogenes broke down
the cell membrane to escape may have been found. As is seen in Table 3, a correlation
might exist between the amount of material stained [inside the cell] and the stage of
infection present. For example, Cell 1 has a majority of its mass stained, which indicates
that it still has its normal (usually large) nucleus. However, Cell 2 only has about half of its
mass stained and could be at an early stage of infection (Table 3).
1
2
5
3
4
Figure 13: Micrograph indicates presence of L. monocytogenes in the brain tissue of fish
fixed four hours after injection.
Analysis of Figure 13
Cell Number
Stage of Infection
1
Normal cells
2
Early Stage
3
Mid-Stage
4
Late Stage
5
End Stage
Table 3: Table indicating the possible correlation between the amount of material stained
[inside the cell] and the stage of infection present.
18
�In Figure 14, the micrograph shows a single infected cell (A) that looks
strikingly different from the neurons surrounding it. In contrast to these normal cells,
which have a nucleus that makes up a large proportion of their cell mass, the infected cell
seems to be missing half of its nucleus. Also, the stain inside the infected cell is
asymmetrical, which might be an indication of the discontinuous level of degradation
present due to the pathogen.
A
Figure 14: Micrograph indicates presence of L. monocytogenes in the brain tissue of fish
fixed 12 hours after injection.
In Figure 15, two cells (B and C) are shown to be infected with the pathogen.
Cell C seems to be at a later stage of infection because less of its material is stained.
However, the cytoplasm of cells (B and C) is very similar in shape. The lower quadrant
of the unstained portion in Cell C and the upper quadrant of the unstained region of Cell
B both have a similar groove projecting into the stained region. If these cells (B and C)
are infected, this projection into the stained region might consist of Listeria cells that are
attempting to degrade the remaining nuclear material.
19
�B
C
Figure 15: Micrograph indicates presence of L. monocytogenes in the brain tissue of fish
fixed seven days after injection.
In Figure 16, three cells (D, E, and F) are shown to be infected with the
pathogen. Unlike the images seen in Figures 13-15, the infected cells of Figure 16 seem
to have no uniform remnant of the stain. For example, Cells B and C (Figure 15) both
have a rectangular shaped cytoplasm (unstained region). In contrast, the cells (D, E, and
F) have pieces of nuclear material (stained areas) spread throughout, indicating the
discontinuous level of degradation throughout the intracellular space.
D
E
F
Figure 16: Micrograph indicates presence of L. monocytogenes in the brain tissue of fish
fixed seven days after injection.
20
�V. Discussion
Injections in the Eye
The objectives of this experiment were to accurately determine if L.
monocytogenes could infect the visual cortex through inoculation into the eye, as well as
the subsequent cellular response to the infection in adult zebrafish. The main goal of this
study was to determine if the infection was possible in the zebrafish and to examine the
pathology of the subsequent infected cells. In the experiment, the only injection site that
showed conclusively positive for L. monocytogenes in the brain was through infection of
the eye. Consequently, this suggests the organism was able to travel from the vitreous
humor of the adult zebrafish eye (injection site), enter the cells of the retina, proceed
through the optic nerve, and ultimately gain passage into the optic tectum. Of the 18 fish
that were injected in the eye, eight were positive for L. monocytogenes either through
testing with Oxford media or microscopic analysis (Table 2). Based upon this data, it can
be concluded that the organism had a relatively high success rate at entering the optic
tectum from the vitreous humor of the eye.
According to the results seen in Table 2, it can be inferred that the organism has
the greatest incidence in the brain tissue when it was allowed to grow in its host for 12
hours or more. In Table 2, the 7 Days samples (Numbers 8-12) contained the highest
frequency of Listeria cells inside the brain tissue. In contrast, no infected cells were
found in the 2 Hour (Number 1) and 5 Hour (Number 4) samples. Based upon these
results, it can be inferred that the Listeria required a certain amount of time to travel from
the injection site into the optic tectum.
The results seen in Numbers 8-12 were also surprising in that all five fish did
not die of an infection despite the high persistence of Listeria in their brain tissue. This
could suggest that the brain infection was not enough to kill the organism. Although it
was not tested, it may be interesting to see if any other vital systems were infected with L.
monocytogenes when the organism is injected into the eye. For example, an infection of
the cardiovascular system would be very detrimental to the organism as well allow for the
pathogen to move to many other areas of the body. Future work may look at the ability of
this organism to move throughout the system.
The presence of no Listeria cells in the 2 Hour (Number 1) and 5 Hour (Number
4) samples implies that these zebrafish did not die from an infection caused by the
pathogen. In actuality, these fish might have died from the internal bleeding or puncture
wound caused by the injection itself. Also, the growth seen in the 4 Hour (Number 3)
sample might have been the result of a higher infective dose given to the zebrafish or the
possible misidentification of a red blood cell. The surgery is a tedious procedure to
21
�perform and there are a number of issues that can come about due to injections into the
eye. Future work may use a pulled glass capillary tube for the injections as they will
cause less damage to the tissue.
In addition, it was of interest to determine if there was any cellular based
immune response. So far, the presence of any immunological cells or the activation of
microglia (macrophages of the brain) has not been noticed. Further immunological assays
would need to be performed in order to determine whether these cells are present. Future
laboratory work will also utilize different techniques to determine the effect that this
infection has on the ability of eliciting an immune response in the central nervous system.
Microscopic Analysis (Cells, Infection, Distribution)
In using the light microscope, cells of the periventricular gray zone (the region
of cells located in the optic tectum bordering the lateral ventricle) were viewed because
this is the cortical structure that processes visual input and this layer contains a very
dense layer of cells. These neurons (circular cells) are very small and contain a large
nucleus. In contrast, neurons infected with L. monocytogenes have less material stained,
indicating the degradation or digestion of the cells’ components. The breakdown seen
inside the cell is most likely the result of L. monocytogenes using the host’s cytoplasmic
and nuclear components as a carbon source as well as the actin cytoskeletal components
that Listeria uses for motility (Portnoy et al., 2002). Also, infected cells that contain less
stained material might be at a later stage of infection, suggesting that the L.
monocytogenes has utilized most of the cells’ internal components to produce the actin
filaments needed for its “comet tail.”
Differentiating Between Normal Red Blood Cells and Infected Cells
During the microscopic analysis of the adult zebrafish brain tissue, another goal
of ours was to be able to discern between red blood cells within capillaries and neurons
infected with L. monocytogenes. However, this is a difficult task because zebrafish
possess nucleated elliptical red blood cells. Therefore, the nucleus looks smaller when
compared to the overall size of the cell and can be mistaken for an infected cell (whose
inner components have been degraded). To be sure that the L. monocytogenes detected
was in fish, the lab plans on acquiring a green fluorescent protein expressing strain of L.
monocytogenes. With this, fluorescent detection would confirm the pathogen’s presence.
Future Experiments with L. monocytogenes
It is hoped that this study is expanded by viewing our samples using the
transmission electron microscope. This would not only provide greater detail, but also
22
�allow the red blood cells and infected cells to be effortlessly differentiated. Future
experiments will also seek a more comprehensive understanding of an infection in the
visual system by obtaining retina samples from adult zebrafish.
Although it was not tested in this study, it may be interesting to see if any other
vital systems were infected with L. monocytogenes when the organism is injected into the
eye. In conjunction with this, different techniques will be utilized to determine the effect
that this infection has on the ability of eliciting an immune response in the central
nervous system. Also, pulled glass capillary tubes will be used in place of tuberculin
syringes because they allow for ultra-fine needles that will not damage the zebrafish
tissue.
Methodological Aspects
This was the first experiment performed in our lab where zebrafish were used as
an experimental model for brain infections caused by a pathogen. It can be concluded that
there is a presence of L. monocytogenes in the brain hours after inoculation into the eye
of the fish. At this time, the procedure of inoculation was developed by our group and
since this is the first round of the experiment, there may have been a small amount of
error in the procedure. The death of some fish only hours after injection seemed to have
occurred less as more injections were performed. The ability of the experimenter to inject
may have improved over the course of the experimentation.
VI. References
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783-789.
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Intracerebral targets and immunomodulation of murine Listeria monocytogenes
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26
��No Boundaries? Understanding Risk
of Human-Primate Disease Transmission
Jennifer Ida (Anthropology)1
Cross-species transmission of disease between non-human primates and humans has
increasingly become of great concern; however, we still lack essential background data
on the process. It is hypothesized that close phylogenetic relationships, niche overlap,
anthropogenic disturbance, and close contact with humans will increase the likelihood of
transmission. This hypothesis is tested through an analysis of the literature. Specific cases
of transmission were examined and the key factors of transmission were identified.
Factors were then compared across cases. The research demonstrates that the degree of
relatedness between humans and non-human primate species, as well as the extent of
niche overlap and shared territory, often resulting from human encroachment on primate
habitats, are salient factors in explaining frequency of transmission and predicting which
species are most affected. The examined species will include baboons, redtail guenons,
and chimpanzees. In addition, this research highlights possible routes of exposure,
including fecal/oral and aerosol/inhalation transmission. The results then suggest
directions for future research, including an examination of ways to mitigate risk.
I. Introduction
By examining cases reported in baboons, redtail guenons, and chimpanzees, we
will identify the key factors of disease transmission between non-human primates and
humans, i.e. close phylogenetic relationships, niche overlap, anthropogenic disturbance,
and close contact with humans, and seek to understand modes of transmission.
Transmission of pathogens between non-human primates and humans occurs frequently
due to the close phylogenetic relationship between them. The more closely related
primate hosts are to one another, the more likely they are to share similar pathogen
communities and immunological responses. Because of primates’ phylogenetic closeness
to humans, the geographic location and spatial distribution of each host species can affect
patterns of transmission. That is, host species with broader geographic ranges will be
exposed to a greater diversity of pathogens and likely spread disease more frequently.
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Celeste Gagnon as part of the
independent study AN593: Primate Behavior and Ecology.
1
28
�Niche overlap, anthropogenic disturbance, and close contact with humans
dramatically increase the likelihood of transmission between non-human primates and
humans. Degree of niche overlap between humans and non-human primates can have
detrimental effects on primate populations. Increased population density often results in
human establishments encroaching on animal territory, resulting in the exposure of
animals to human pathogens as we will examine using the case of Sapolsky’s baboons
(Sapolsky and Else, 1987). The influence humans have in changing the environment of
primates is an important factor to consider when analyzing cross-species disease
transmission as practices such as logging and forest fragmentation have been observed to
have lasting effects on habitats (Chapman et al., 2005). Not only do humans influence
changes in the environment which, in turn, make animals more susceptible to disease, but
they can also be directly responsible for exposing primates to diseases. Ecotourists,
researchers, and guides are among those that can often be sources of exposure to disease
(Woodford et al., 2002).
Understanding modes of infection is crucial in order to identify patterns of
pathogen transmission and make pathogen-specific suggestions for prevention (Gillespie
et al., 2008). The modes of transmission examined in this paper include
aerosol/inhalation transmission, fecal/oral transmission, and other indirect routes such as
reservoirs.
Disease transmission can have devastating effects on primate populations and
cause serious conservation risks to many non-human primate populations that are already
threatened or endangered (Chapman et al., 2005). By applying data retrieved from past
and current research, preventative steps could be mapped out with potential for
implementation.
II. Discussion
Phylogenetic Relationships
Close phylogenetic relationships between primates and humans arguably allow for
the transmission of infectious disease across species lines with relative ease. The more
closely related two primate species are to one another, the greater the chance there is for
them to share similar levels of parasite richness (Nunn et al., 2003). Due to their close
evolutionary relationships, primates often share similar immunological responses which
directly influence the successful establishment of cross-species infection (Pedersen and
Davies, 2009).
Davies and Pedersen (2009) used the human disease database (Taylor et al., 2001)
and the Global Mammal Parasite Database (Nunn and Altizer, 2005) to measure pathogen
29
�sharing between humans and primates. Using generalized linear modeling, they were able
to determine the relationship between the evolutionary divergence of 117 primate species
(according to the dated phlyogenetic tree of Bininda-Edmonds et al., 2007), and their
pathogen communities. Their results suggested phylogenetic relatedness can be used to
understand a third of the variation in pathogen communities. In other words, the more
closely related primate hosts are to one another, the more likely they are to have similar
pathogen communities.
Animals that are phylogenetically close to humans, such as gorillas, chimpanzees,
and orangutans, are therefore susceptible to many of the infectious diseases of humans
(Woodford et al., 2002). In fact, the list of communicable diseases that primates and
humans share, as compiled by Woodford and colleagues (2002), is quite extensive. They
include the following: the common cold, pneumonia, influenza, hepatitis, smallpox,
chicken pox, bacterial meningitis, tuberculosis, measles, rubella, mumps, yellow fever,
paralytic poliomyelitis, encephalomyocarditis, and Ebola fever. The following parasitic
diseases are also included: malaria, schistosomiasis, giardiasis, filariasis, infection with
Strongyloides spp., Entamoeba spp., Oseophagostomum spp., Acanthocephala spp.,
Cyclospora sp., Giardia sp., and Sarcoptes sp (Woodford et al., 2002).
It is important to keep in mind that not all organisms that are highly infectious in one
species are also highly infectious in another, even closely related species (Reinquist and
Whitney, 1987). Viral diseases can easily be transmitted from humans to primates or
primates to humans, yet have dramatically distinctive effects. This is often seen in the
transmission of Herpes simiae, also known as herpes b. Herpes b is usually latent in
species of non-human primates such as macaques, yet if transmitted to humans can
quickly result in serious illness and mortalities. Herpes b antibodies are present in close
to 25% of macaques. Reinquist and Whitney suggest that all macaques should be
considered carriers due to the level of difficulty in identifying carriers. The effects of the
disease on the natural host, usually either rhesus or cyanomolgus macaques, are minimal
with the most severe cases developing mild skin lesions. However, mortality rates are
extremely high (90%) in humans with only 2 of the 20 reported cases surviving.
Geographic Location
Geographic range, the measure of the total area covered by a species, is considered
to be a significant factor in predicting viral and protozoan species richness (Nunn et al.,
2003). A parasite community can be easily increased by species that cover a wide
geographic area. The wider the area, the more likely they are to share territory with other
species and therefore share pathogens, resulting in the rapid growth of a parasite
30
�community. This, therefore, means that a host species with a broader geographic range
will also be exposed to a greater diversity of pathogens due to niche overlap.
The work of Pedersen and Davies (2009) particularly emphasizes this point. Their
study focuses on measuring the phylogenetic risk of host shifts, that is, the likelihood of
pathogens shifting between neighboring hosts that are also closely related. They found
that there was a high correlation between phylogenetic risk and the number of
geographically overlapping primates. They were also able to determine the centers of
high phylogenetic risk of host shifts from wild primates to humans, known as hotspots.
For example, although Amazonia was found to have a high frequency of host shifts
between primates, it is not considered a hotspot for humans due to how distantly related
New World primates are to humans. Therefore, areas where Old World primates reside
(central Africa) seem to pose a higher phylogenetic risk. It is important to note that
although Davies and Pederson use their data to suggest hotspots for transmission of
pathogens from primates to humans, it can also be used to suggest the reverse.
Niche Overlap
Increased population density often results in human establishments encroaching
on animal territory, resulting in the exposure of animals to human pathogens. In the case
of Sapolsky’s baboons, a troop of wild olive baboons in Narok District, southwest Kenya,
the effects of human contact and disturbance went far beyond population declines
(Sapolsky and Else, 1987). Close human contact due to niche overlap led to infection of
the troops with bovine tuberculosis, resulting in permanent change to the troop’s social
behavior. Two troops were under study by Sapolsky and his colleagues. The first troop,
Garbage Dump Troop, was observed scavenging for food in the garbage dump of the
only nearby village as well as in a dump located behind the local slaughterhouse. The
other troop, Forest Troop, was observed venturing out of their territory into the territory
of Garbage Dump Troop in order to gain access to the refuse dumps. However, it was
only the most aggressive adult males of Forest Troop that were up to this task.
Local villagers soon recognized signs of illness among the animals and reported
them to the authors. Subjects were diagnosed with M. bovis, bovine tuberculosis. The
Garbage Dump Troop suffered a population decline of approximately one-third of their
population, while only adult males of Forest Troop were infected. Sapolsky and Else
(1987) demonstrated that the outbreak of M. bovis infection arose from slaughtered,
infected cows at the slaughterhouse. Baboons were seen gathering around the open
killing area and feeding on animal waste and blood.
31
�However, infection was not the most alarming effect. The deaths of the males
from Forest Troop greatly changed the composition of their group (Sapolsky and Share,
2004). The deaths more than doubled the female to male ratio and by 1986, the troop was
experiencing changed behavior. Because only less aggressive males survived, dominance
interactions were no longer the same. What is even more astounding is that these
behaviors still persisted nearly seven years later. The unusual behaviors that surfaced
because of the deaths in 1983 were still in existence. This means that new males that
were joining the group were adapting to the troop specific behaviors, an occurrence that
was unseen in wild primates before this.
Anthropogenic Disturbance
The influence humans have in changing the environment of primates is an
important factor to consider when analyzing cross-species disease transmission. Such
practices as logging and forest fragmentation have lasting effects on habitats (Chapman et
al., 2005). Studies, such as the one conducted in Kibale National Park, Uganda (Gillespie
et al, 2005), have shown that anthropogenic disturbances such as these can alter primateparasite interactions and lead to changes in gastrointestinal parasite infections. Redtail
guenon populations in logged areas suffered from gastrointestinal infections that were
greater in both richness and prevalence as compared to populations without human
disturbance. The redtail guenons of the logged forest were infected with the following
three parasite species: dicrocoeliid liver fluke, Chilomastix mesnili, and Giardia lamblia.
In logged areas, infective-stage primate parasites were found at higher densities,
suggesting a greater risk of infection for both human and nonhuman primates. Gillespie
and colleagues (2005) identified what they considered to be accurate predictors of
infection prevalence by observing the correlation between “forest-fragment attributes and
infection patterns” (p. 141). They found that there was a direct relationship between treestump density, an indication of degradation, and the prevalence of parasitic nematodes
(Chapman et al., 2005). They concluded that the degree and nature of anthropogenic
disturbance affect the transmission of gastrointestinal parasites. One possible explanation
is that the primate populations in disturbed areas no longer have access to needed
nutrients. This added stress can lower the animals’ immunity and cause them to be more
susceptible to parasites. Another suggests that the redtail guenons’ susceptibility to
parasites may have increased due to restricted mobility created by limited habitat space.
In models used to determine the effects of anthropogenic change on hostparasite interactions, “changes at the multiregional scale” (Chapman et al., 2005, p. 141),
which they define as “[processes] that act indirectly on an ecosystem-wide level to
32
�modify disease transmission patterns” (Chapman et al., p. 138), take climate change into
account as one key way host-parasite interactions are affected. Chapman and colleagues
(2005) argue, “The larger the geographic scale over which host-parasite interactions
change, the greater the number of populations that can potentially be affected. Climate is
the factor that has the greatest potential to influence host-parasite interactions at this
spatial scale” (p. 141). The emergence of certain diseases is often associated with
particular seasons. For instance, hot, arid conditions have been noted to cause the
eruption of epidemics, such as meningococcal meningitis. Chapman and colleagues
(2005) refer to the work of Guernier, Hochberg, and Guegan (2004), through which they
point out that the dispersion of human pathogens is directly related to climatic factors.
They draw attention to the greater concentration of pathogens near the equator and
suggest that these trends will continue to increase with global warming. They explain
these patterns using the climatically-based energy hypothesis which suggests that species
richness gradients depend on energy availability (Guernier et al., 2004). Guernier and
colleagues (2004) conclude that precipitation, particularly degree of wetness, is
responsible for pathogen distribution. Because pathogen richness and prevalence are
directly related to an area’s wetness, tropical areas tend to harbor a larger variety of
species. Climatic changes such as those seen during rainy seasons facilitate transmission
of water-borne diseases and can also provide new breeding grounds for vectors, therefore,
increasing diseases such as those that are mosquito-borne (Chapman et al., 2005).
The influence of stress due to anthropogenic change can have detrimental effects
on primates. The destruction and fragmentation of the primates’ natural ecosystems are
responsible for the increasing stress put on primates (Woodford et al., 2002). This leads
to the facilitation of pathogen transmission and the development of various strains of
diseases. Stress may also come from habituation, which often leads to further
susceptibility to diseases due to immunological, gastro-intestinal, and cardiovascular
changes (von Holst, 1988).
Close Contact
Not only do humans influence changes in the environment which, in turn, make
animals more susceptible to disease, but they can also be directly responsible for
exposing primates to diseases. As a result of increasing human population density,
tourists, researchers, and guides are among those that can easily be sources of exposure
(Woodford et al., 2002). Although a traveler may not be aware of their illness, they can
bring new strains of a disease to an area. Also, stress due to travelling can leave tourists
open to contraction of local intestinal infections, allowing them to pass on those diseases
33
�to nonhuman primates during tours. Woodford and colleagues (2002) point out that even
if a visitor was aware of his/her sickness, he/she would be reluctant to admit it after
paying a substantial amount of money to gain admittance into the primates’ habitat.
Researchers and those responsible for the management of habituated primates
have an even greater chance at exposing the primates to disease. Researchers and
managers often spend hours in close contact with the animals, creating opportunities for
the rapid spread of disease across species lines. Wallis and Lee (1999) demonstrate the
risk researchers pose at field sites. The necessity of habituation results in the primates
becoming comfortable in close proximity to the human researchers, rather than retreating
as humans approach. As a result of habituation at research facilities, primates have been
observed approaching humans, even taking a seat beside researchers without hesitating to
make direct physical contact. Although research presence has provided many positive
results for primates, such as reducing poaching, it is important to keep in mind that there
are also negative effects and attention needs to be put on reducing these effects, while
maximizing the many positive effects (Kondgen et al., 2008).
Guides and guards might pose the greatest threat as they are in daily contact
with both primates and tourists and their pathogens (Wallis and Lee, 1999; Woodford et
al., 2002). Ironically, given their degree of contact, they often do not have the same
access as tourists do to vaccinations or medical care, putting them at even greater risk of
infecting primates or themselves.
Three communities of habituated chimpanzees in the Ivory Coast were
negatively affected during a research project that took place over a period of seven years
(Kondgen, 2008). The three chimpanzee communities suffered from five distinct
respiratory illness outbreaks, with three of the five outbreaks leading to the following
mortalities: six of thirty-two chimps died in the north group in 1999; eight of forty-four
chimps dies in the south group in 2004; one of thirty-four chimps died in the south group
in 2006. Although these numbers appear small, each death is significant in an endangered
species such as the chimpanzees.
Fifty percent of the deceased individuals were examined and, of these, one
hundred percent tested positive for human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) and human
metapnuemovirus (HMPV), both of which are common causes of human respiratory
disease. The authors conclude that humans, the only known reservoir for both viruses, are
responsible for introducing the two viruses directly into wild populations.
This is not the first case of this type of transmission being reported. Two cases
of zoo chimpanzees being infected with a febrile paralytic disease were noted prior to the
eradication of polio in the United States. Cross-species infection was suggested because
34
�of the closeness of contact with humans in zoo environments (Ruch, 1959). One of the
chimpanzees exhibited signs of loss of appetite and weakness in her left leg. Although
she was able to recover, the male chimpanzee, also exhibiting signs of weakness, became
paralyzed in his left arm and developed lesions comparable to human poliomyelitis
lesions. Poliomyelitis illness was reported in two children who had recently visited the
zoo, suggesting transmission had occurred, though the origin of the disease was not
identified. In the anthropogenic environment of zoos, there is concern about disease
transmission due to high rates of human and animal contact. In spite of the efforts of zoos
to significantly improve the quality of life for their animals, disease transmission remains
a legitimate concern. Improvements are often made by increasing enrichment activities.
Unfortunately, these enrichments often require close contact between the keeper and
animal.
Although tourists, researchers, and guides are all at risk of infecting primates,
preventive protocols could be implemented in the future to prevent transmission.
However, this is not the case for unintentional contacts such as those with villagers,
poachers, prospectors, miners, loggers, forest-product gathers, refugees, aid workers,
bandits, and soldiers who may come in contact with wild primates (Woodford et al.,
2002). Woodford and colleagues (2002) note that disease risk load is high among
refugees because of over-crowding, exposure to the elements, poor sanitation practices,
and malnutrition. Excrement left by the refugees lead to contamination of the surrounding
environment and thus can lead to the decline in health and overall survival of nearby
primate populations.
Hunting of wild primates, which involves tracking, capturing, handling,
transporting, preparing, and consuming meat (Wolfe et al., 1998) requires exceptionally
close contact between humans and wild primates, and in particular the bodily fluids of
primates (Chapman et al., 2005). Hunting often occurs at high, unsustainable levels
especially among many local communities which obtain their major food source from
hunting primates. Chapman (2005) notes the following:
“A single family of rubber tappers in a remote forest site of western Brazilian
Amazonia killed more than 200 woolly monkeys, 100 spider monkeys, and 80
howlers during an 18 month period. In remote villages in Cameroon, more than
60% of the community reported having butchered nonhuman primates, 30%
hunted primates, and 11% reported keeping primates as pets” (p. 139).
35
�Routes of Exposure
Understanding modes of infection is crucial to understanding how pathogens are
transmitted and the possible impacts transmission could have on a host species (Gillespie
et al., 2008). Woodford and colleagues (2002) categorize infectious agents that could be
transmitted from humans to primates according to their mode of transmission:
aerosol/inhalation transmission, fecal/oral transmission, and indirect routes.
Aerosol/inhalation transmission refers to diseases transmitted by coughing, sneezing,
spitting, and nasal discharge (Woodford et al., 2002). Infectious aerosols can be projected
several meters by these means. Diseases transmitted by aerosol/inhalation transmission
include the common cold, influenza, poliomyelitis, mumps, measles and chicken pox as
well as the bacilli of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The risk of infection by
aerosol/inhalation transmission is directly correlated with closeness of contact. Regular
close contact with humans often leaves animals subject to the residuals of human
behavior. The discarding of contaminated objects into the environment, a frequent
practice of humans, could easily spread disease. Woodford and colleagues (2002)
observed that because young apes are attracted to and may eat unclean, discarded
handkerchiefs, they can pose a particular threat.
Fecal/oral transmission refers to diseases transmitted by contact with infected feces
(Woodford et al., 2002). Introduction of pathogens can be caused by humans defecating
or vomiting in the primates’ habitat, especially if it is within visible sight of the animals.
Fecal/oral transmission pertains to bacterial organisms, viruses, protozoa, and parasitic
intestinal worms. Bacterial organisms that are transmitted by fecal/oral include
Campylobacter spp., Shigella sp. and Salmonella sp. Hepatitis A and B and poliomylelitis
are among some of the viruses. Protozoa transmitted by fecal/oral transmission include
Cryptosporidium sp., Cyclospora sp., Entamoeba spp. and Giardia sp.
Non-primate natural reservoirs, such as biting insects and intermediate hosts,
could also act as a means of transmission between humans and primates. Arthoprods such
as lice, ticks and fleas can easily infest nonhuman primates (Reinquist and Whitney,
1987), which can then transmit the disease to humans though contact. Such diseases
include malaria, filariasis, and a range of arboviruses. Transmission of one arbovirus,
human malaria, by mosquitoes to young orangutans in close contact with humans has
been documented (Kilbourn et al., 2003). Other arboviruses, including dengue fever and
yellow fever, also have life cycles that involve a range of non-primate host species.
Yellow fever uses the mosquito as its vector to transmit the disease to primates, its host
reservoir (Reinquist and Whitney, 1987). This suggests that reservoirs can undermine the
most hopeful eradication efforts (Wolfe et al., 1998).
36
�Effects & Prevention
As noted through these examples, disease transmission can have devastating
effects on primate populations, and cause serious conservation risks to many non-human
primate populations that are already threatened or endangered (Chapman et al., 2005).
Blood loss, tissue damage, and spontaneous abortion are among some of the most
unfavorable outcomes, while malnutrition, difficulty escaping predators, and competing
for resources are some of the less severe consequences (Gillespie et al., 2008). For
example, contraction of the measles by macaque populations has been reported to lead to
high mortality rates as well as spontaneous abortions of fetuses among females
(Lowenstein, 1993; Renne et al., 1973). Group behavioral changes have also been
reported as is the case with the baboon troop in southwest Kenya (Sapolsky and Share,
2004).
Given the information we have on the routes of pathogen transmission and the
effects of human contact and anthropogenic environmental change, we have the resources
necessary to begin taking preventative steps. Woodford and colleagues (2002) outline
regulations that need to be followed in the case of gorillas in tourist heavy environments.
For instance, recommendations include having researchers, guards, and guides tested
annually for diseases such as TB and appropriately vaccinated. Tourists should be wellinformed about regulations for visiting and the risk of disease for primates. Following the
existing regulations would also reduce the risk of transmission. These include not
permitting visitors to be within 5m or make contact with the animals, not exceeding the
maximum number of individuals in each tour group, and strictly enforcing the regulation
concerning the discard of materials in ape habitats, which as discussed above can pose a
serious threat to the animals (Woodford et al., 2002).
Studies suggest that the best way to prevent future disease spread is by
examining past and present relationships between host relatedness, geographic overlap,
and pathogen community similarity (Pedersen and Davies, 2009). By examining these
relationships, Pedersen and Davies (2009) demonstrate how they are able to quantify the
risk of future host shifts that each species faces. They also examine how past host shifts
between primates might have shaped pathogen communities by taking a closer look at
host specificity. Their study identifies regions where non-human primates and human
host shifts may occur in the future. They identify which lineages and within which
geographic areas disease emergence may be most likely. Due to limited data concerning
initial pathogen movement, it has proved challenging to create predictive models.
However, such predictive models appear to be the most promising preventative method
and certainly warrant future studies.
37
�According to Wolfe and colleagues (1998), in order to predict pathogen
emergence, we need close observation of primate populations, which will allow us to
recognize behaviors associated with emergence. Such behaviors may include the
consumption of specific plants or insects. This, for instance, may help us to identify the
reservoir of Ebola virus. Although such monitoring increases risk, they still conclude that
more systematic monitoring of primate populations through long-term studies will
provide us with the most useful and pertinent information needed to control novel
pathogens.
Wallis and Lee (1999) take a slightly different approach to prevention. They
note that many programs focus on extracting humans from the equation, which they feel
is not the most practical and efficient approach. They point out that many savannas have
been maintained by humans for a considerable amount of time and that by changing this
dynamic, we may be faced with unexpected ecological consequences. Instead, they
suggest a solution that promotes the idea of protection from exploitation rather than from
people in general. They suggest creating programs that would educate the local residents
about conservation efforts and, in particular, the health aspects surrounding conservation
by enticing the public with revenue-sharing programs and offering them the opportunity
to participate in decision making. They do acknowledge that it is important to be cautious
when educating local populations about topics such as disease transmission. Programs
should make an effort to stress that the health of primates is not more important than the
health of humans. They should also be careful as not to evoke fear or panic in local
residents (Wallis and Lee, 1999). Such approaches can prove more complicated in
practice, especially if the local culture is not thoroughly understood by those initiating
such programs.
III. Conclusion and Future Research
Given the state of current research on transmission of pathogens between
humans and primates, it is obvious that further studies are necessary in order to give us
clearer insight into such areas as animal reservoirs and potential hotspots. These are
topics in which data are limited and relatively recent, with the first study on predicting
the likelihood of potential host shifts only having been conducted in 2009. Incorporating
primates into studies that until now were focused on such animals as birds, pigs, and
cows can provide us with information that would prove indispensable to the field.
Development of more systematic means of monitoring is crucial to future advancement.
Such systematic monitoring would enable us to distinguish the effects of host density and
habitat characteristics on patterns of infections within primate populations (Gillespie et
38
�al., 2008). Gaps in geographic sampling of parasites as well as phylogenetic uncertainty
of infectious agents must also receive the much needed attention in order for them to be
filled. Focus on generating epidemiological models that combine both data on parasite
prevalence and data on parasite richness is another area that has yet to be covered, but
could potentially provide vital information and possibly lead to the development of
innovative questions. Of course, with gaps in background data such questions would be
impossible to formulate. Lastly, we would like to emphasize, as many others such as
Jones-Engel et al. (2001) have already pointed out, that future research in this field would
have endless benefits in that not only would it work to prevent future epidemics in
primates and work toward the conservation of many already endangered species, but it
would also work directly to prevent future outbreaks of infectious disease that would
threaten the health of human populations worldwide.
IV. References
Bininda-Emonds O. 2007. The delayed rise of present-day mammals. Nature 446: 507512.
Chapman C, Gillespie P, Goldberg T. 2005. Primates and the ecology of their infectious
diseases: how will anthropogenic change affect host-parasite interactions?. Evolutionary
Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 14: 134-144.
Freeland M, Calta G, Schendler C.1980. Projections of national health expenditures,
1980, 1985, and 1990. Health Care Financing Review 1: 1-27.
Gillespie T, Nunn C, Leendertz FH. 2008. Integrative approaches to the study of primate
infectious disease: implications for biodiversity conservation and global health.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 137: 53-69.
Gillespie T, Chapman CA, Greiner EC. 2005. Affects of logging on gastrointestinal
parasite infections and infection risk in African primates. Journal of Applied Ecology
42:699-707.
Guernier V, Hochberg M, Guégan J. 2004. Ecology drives the worldwide distribution of
human diseases. PLoS Biol 2: 740-747.
von Holst D. 1998. The concept of stress and its relevance for animal behavior.
Academic Press: 1-131.
39
�Jones-Engel L. 2001. Detection of antibodies to selected human pathogens among wild
and pet macaques (Macaca tonkeana) in Sulawesi, Indonesia. American Journal of
Primatology 54: 171-178.
Kilbourn, AM. 2003. Health evaluation of free-ranging and semi-captive orangutans
(Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) in Sabah, Malaysia. J Wildl Dis 39: 73-83.
Kondgen, S. 2008. Pandemic human viruses cause decline of endangered great apes.
Current Biology 18: 260-264.
Leendertz F. 2004. Anthrax kills wild chimpanzees in a tropical rainforest. Nature 430:
451-452.
Lowenstine LJ. 1993. Measles virus infection, nonhuman primates. Monographs on the
Pathology of Laboratory Animals: Nonhuman Primates. New York: Springer-Verlag.
108-118.
Nunn C. 2003. Comparative tests of parasite species richness in primates. The American
Naturalist 162: 597-614.
Nunn C, Altizer S. 2005. The global mammal parasite database: an online resource for
infectious disease records in wild primates. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News,
and Reviews 14: 1-2.
Pedersen AB, Davies TJ. 2010. Cross-species pathogen transmission and disease
emergence in primates. EcoHealth 6: 496-508.
Renne RA, McLaughlin R, Jenson AB. 1973. Measles virus-associated endometritis,
cervicitis, and abortion in a rhesus monkey. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical
Association 163: 639-641.
Renquist DM, Whitney RA. 1987. Zoonoses acquired from pet primates. The Veterinary
Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice 17: 219-240.
Ruch T. 1967. Diseases of laboratory primates. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders.
Sapolsky RM, Else JG. 1987. Bovine tuberculosis in a wild baboon population:
epidemiological aspects. Journal of Medical Primatology 16: 229-235.
Sapolsky RM, Share LJ. 2004. A pacific culture among wild baboons: its emergence and
40
�transmission. PLoS Biol 2:534-541.
Taylor LH, Latham SM, Woolhouse MEJ. 2001. Risk factors for human disease
emergence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B:
Biological Sciences 356: 983 -989.
Wallis J, Rick Lee D. 1999. Primate conservation: the prevention of disease transmission.
International Journal of Primatology 20: 803-824.
Wolfe ND. 1998.Wild primate populations in emerging infectious disease research: the
missing link?. Emerging Infectious Diseases 4:149-158.
Woodford MH, Butynski TM, Karesh WB. 2002. Habituating the great apes: the disease
risks. Oryx 36: 153-160.
41
���Double Vision: The Utilization of
Metempsychosis and Dual Identity in Aura
Julia Zenker (Philosophy and Spanish)1
The themes presented in Carlos Fuentes's novel, Aura, involve the reader in a
spiraling story about human identity. The persistence of the theme of “the double”
throughout the novel leaves the reader with a dizzied, uneasy feeling. The blurring of
lines between different characters, epochs and identities forces the reader to question the
reliability of the narrator. The genius of the novel lies within the usage of the second
person narrative, which in effect forces the readers to question their own interpretation of
the text. Fuentes's short and yet poignant novel addresses not only the idea of duality of
consciousness, but also, as in many of his other works, entangles both the audience and
Felipe in a labyrinth of mystery. By the time the riddle of the text is solved, it is too late
for Felipe to escape the mental coup, that alters his identity.
The novel's title, “Aura”, gives the reader an indication of the spirituality and a
foreshadowing of the mysterious atmosphere of the novel, before even turning to the first
page. The definition of the word gives way to the utter intangibility of an aura. Though an
aura is pervasive and distinctive, an onlooker will never be able to physically grasp an
aura. The elusive is a theme throughout the novel, as its main character is unable to grasp
the gravity of the situation in which he finds himself. Also, while Felipe desires Aura,
when he goes to reach for her, she vanishes like smoke. The visualization of an aura
emanating from individuals obscures their image, making it unintelligible to the
onlooker. As the novel nears the end, Felipe is able to see through that thick aura, much
to his surprise, to see what it has been hiding.
Fuentes' utilization of second person narration was no accident. Cleverly, the
author places the reader at the forefront of the novel, in the midst of this strange
conglomeration of sensorial imagery. Fuentes's intentions become clear when one
realizes that “a hypnotist often employs the second person as he addresses an individual
who is being placed in a trance” (Gyurko 1361). The audience is unable to take any
portion of the author's environmental descriptions lightly, as a reader is forced to
visualize every image, smell every odor and feel every sensation. Fuentes leaves no sense
Written under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Kiss for the honors course SP213(W)/EN213(W):
Hispanic Literature in English Translation.
1
44
�forgotten when he paints the picture of the atmosphere of the novel. Naturally, as the
reader follows the rarely used second person narrative, there is a more personal quality to
the story. Most audiences are unaccustomed to being addressed by the author, but it's
clear that Fuentes seeks to make the reader a participant in the novel's plot. Fuentes's
tactic proves to be essential in getting the reader intimated with the happenings of the
haunting novel. The mysterious nature of the story would be lost on the reader had
phrases like, “you love her, you too have come back...”, not been incorporated by way of
the second person narrative (Fuentes 145).
The unique quality of the second person narrative allows the reader to appreciate
the sensorial imagery throughout the novel. Understanding the atmosphere in Aura is key
to recognizing the foreshadowing and clues that Fuentes dangles in front of the reader. It
is in Fuentes's vivid descriptions of the atmosphere that the reader begins to get a glimpse
of what is to come. Fuentes's introduction to the double identity appears very early, but
first he creates a “thick and drowsy” atmosphere that will distort the reader's and Felipe's
senses for the greater part of the novel (Fuentes 11). The skin crawling sensations the
reader experiences as he picks up “old grimy bottles” in the “damp and cold” house add
to the reader's suspicions that dark forces are at work in Señora Consuelo's home Fuentes
39). The sound of the constantly yowling cats and the pungent smell of liver and onions
heightens the reader's awareness of the haunting aura that permeates the house. The dingy
Donceles 815 seems to breathe, as if alive, because of the humidity and plentitude of
vermin.
As Felipe searches for the address given in the newspaper advertisement for a
job practically written for him, he is struck by the “...conglomeration of old colonial
mansions...converted into repair shops, jewelery shops, shoe stores, drugstores” (Fuentes
9). The reader gets the first taste of the multiple identities for which Fuentes' novels are
famous when Felipe realizes that the house number had “...been changed, painted over,
confused” (Fuentes 9). Little does Felipe know, the conversion of old to new will have
significant meaning for him in the near future. It is no coincidence that Señora Consuelo
and her beautiful niece are situated in the only part of town where antiquated mansions
have been converted into new, prosperous shops. The town serves as a macrocosm for the
reality that Felipe is about to step into. The once striking homes, like Consuelo, have
withered at the hand of time, forcing them to reinvent themselves and maintain their
youthful appearance.
The contrast of light and darkness plays an integral role in the shaping of Aura's
eerie atmosphere.While most of the house remains in total darkness, some light streaks in
from holes in the wall where the rats had chewed straight through to the outside world.
45
�Felipe's room, the only room where his mind does not feel clouded, also has some
sunlight streaming in from the windows. The inhabitants have been accustomed to feeling
their way around the furniture and counting the steps to each passageway. As Felipe takes
an account of the dining room, he notices that he is able to easily separate the room into
two different elements: “the compact circle of light around the candelabra, illuminating
the table...and the larger circle of darkness surrounding it” (Fuentes 43). Felipe's report of
the darkness of the room serves as a symbol of the unknown, while the illuminated area,
considerably smaller, represents what he knows to be true. As he continues to drink the
“thick wine” occasionally shifting to ensure that Aura won't catch him in his hypnotized
glances of uncontrollable adoration, Felipe's circle of illumination begins to shrink. He
falls deeper and deeper into the darkness of the unknown at a rate directly proportional to
the rate that he imbibes the herb-infused wine.
It isn't until the novel's final scene that Felipe becomes fully illuminated both
literally and figuratively. St. Augustine's theory of illumination plays a particular role in
the contrast between light and dark in Aura. St. Augustine, in his critique of traditional
Cartesian paradigm, asserts that an individual's soul will be brought to, what he calls, the
natural light of reason (Augustine 161). The “...ray of moonlight that shines in through a
chink in the wall...” that illuminates Aura's eroded face surely is the critical point in
Felipe's revelation (Fuentes 145). Montero, as a consequence of the light, became an
informed character, with what was darkness before, now fully visible to him.
The dualistic infusion that Fuentes often incorporates into his novels are not
limited to contrasts between light and dark; the idea of dual identity is the paramount
theme of virtually all Fuentes's works. In Aura, Fuentes incorporates metempsychosis in
order to account for the hallucinogenic feeling the protagonist, Montero, experiences
when he feels his identity beginning to change. The transmigration of souls, also called
metempsychosis, is a fundamental doctrine in many Eastern religions. Each religion has
variations of the theory, but in general, the doctrine suggests that “the soul passes from
one body to another, either human, animal or inanimate” (Columbia Electronic
Encyclopedia 1). In Hinduism, the soul is thought to have entered the body of another
after death, while Buddhism rejects this belief and modifies it to claim that there is an
undifferentiated stream of being that prolongs existence for a pious soul (Columbia
Electronic Encyclopedia 1)
The variation of the reincarnation theory is clearly tested in Aura through the
characters of Aura and Felipe. Fuentes clarifies which type theory of transmigration he
identifies with in the novel. At one point, Señora Consuelo, explaining to Felipe the
nature of animals, remarks “they're always themselves, Señor Montero” (Fuentes 81).
46
�Consuelo hints at the difference between the souls of animals and humans, claiming that
humans share an identity with a concealed double self. Of course, Fuentes does not
subscribe unquestioningly to the traditional theory of transmigration. He adapts Aura in
order to incorporate a duality in the religious themes of the text. To that end, Fuentes's
famous ambiguous texts leave his meanings open to interpretation.
The idea of an immortal soul reminds the reader of the Platonic tradition of soul
rebirth or even Empedocles's tale of the double human in Plato's “Symposium”. The
theory of a latent, double identity has fascinated humans since the era of Ancient Greece.
Felipe's transformation into General Llorente not only fascinates him, but also horrifies
him. However, in Empedocles's account of love in the “Symposium”, he describes a time
when all humans existed with their double attached at the hip. In the novel, Felipe's
duality is not quite as publicly visible as being attached at the hip, but rather the spirit of
General Llorente seems to be attached to that of Felipe's. For those subscribing to
Western thought, “never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that two things of the same
kind should exist in the same place at the same time...conclude that anything that exists
anywhere...is there itself alone” (Locke 681).The idea of two spirits inhabiting the same
physical space is puzzling to a subscriber of the Western paradigm, but it is very clear in
the novel that Fuentes seeks to experiment with Felipe's identity. As is true of many of
Fuentes's literary characters, “identity is multiple and unstable, as are time and space”
(Gyurko 1360).
Felipe gets his first inclinations of mysterious activity between the two women
in the house as he notices their mirrored gestures. During his first interview with
Consuelo, regarding the translating position that has brought Felipe to the dilapidated
home, Felipe notes that “the girl nods and at the same instant the old lady imitates her
gesture” (Fuentes 25). This is only the first of many echoed gestures between the young
and old hostesses. In several scenes, like the one in the dining room, Felipe witnesses a
strange interplay between the Señora and her younger counterpart. Felipe incorrectly
interprets this tension between the two women as Señora Consuelo's tyranny over Aura,
“but at that moment the Señora becomes motionless, and at the same moment Aura puts
her knife on her plate and also becomes motionless, and you remember that the Señora
put down her knife only a fraction of a second earlier” (Fuentes 69). After several
moments of silence, with Felipe swinging his head back and forth between the women,
trying to understand their simultaneous hesitation, both the women excuse themselves
from the table. It is this type of behavior that leads Felipe and the reader to question the
accuracy of the narration;“perhaps you only imagined it” (Fuentes 59).
47
�Felipe never questions the cause of his dream-like and hypnotized state, but
Fuentes gives the reader hints of possible causes of this mental fogginess. At every meal,
Felipe mentions that he imbibes the thick red liquid which he assumes to be wine.
Through him, the reader feels as if they are under the influence of psychotropic drugs;
everything seems to happen in slow motion. As Aura leaves the table, Felipe watches her
“[get] up with a motion like those you associate with dreaming...” (Fuentes 71).
Eventually, Felipe recognizes that he too has fallen into mechanical, hypnotized
mentality; he identifies his “...sleep-walking movements with those of Aura and the old
lady” (Fuentes 99). One must assume that the “pointed heart shaped leaves of the
nightshade, the ash-colored down of the grape mullein with its clustered flowers; the
bushy gatheridge with its white blossoms;and the bella donna” that are in full bloom
outside the house, have made their way into the strange concoction that Montero recounts
drinking each night. Fuentes points the reader to the source of Felipe's lethargy as he
recounts that the herbs are used to “dilate pupils, alleviate pain, reduce pangs of
childbirth, bring consolation, weaken the will, and induce voluptuous calm” (Fuentes
103).
The effects of the herbs on Felipe's mental states account the hallucinogenic
experiences, but the reader's interest must then focus on determining the extent to which
these hallucinogens have warped Felipe's reality. Fuentes gives the reader the chance to
wonder whether the characters in the story are accurately described or even existent. The
reader cannot be sure that Señora Consuelo or the youthful Aura are not a figment or
construction of Felipe's mind. The story could be enjoyed as a neurotic hallucination or a
tale of soul transmigration (Guerard 5). The only part of the story that the reader can be
certain of is Felipe's account of reading the newspaper advertisement. As soon as Felipe
walked through Señora Consuelo's threshold, the reader could rely on his perception of
events. However, the audience can be fairly certain that Felipe was purposefully lured to
the home by Consuelo's newspaper article that was crafted to address Montero directly.
Felipe's remark that the newspaper ad “seems to be addressed to you and nobody else” is
Fuentes's method of hinting to the audience that Felipe's accounts, while blurry, are
generally accurate.
In literary history, many novels have dealt with the doppelganger effect; one
such novel is that of Stephen Conrad's, called The Secret Sharer. The short story depicts a
ship's captain struggling to deal with the his inner duality. The captain comes upon a
naked man clinging to the side of his ship, claiming that he escaped from the near by
ship, Sephora. The man, calling himself Leggatt, fled from the Sephora after killing an
insolent man aboard the ship. Almost immediately, the anonymous captain and Leggatt
48
�form what the captain calls a “mysterious communication” between the two (Conrad 65).
The captain feels a strange affinity for this refugee. Leggatt is secretly harbored by the
captain in his quarters, until he must be marooned on an island to avoid discovery. The
narrator confides that he is new to the ship and “...somewhat a stranger to [himself]...” as
well (Conrad 58). He constantly refers to the stranger as his double, almost as if he had
suspected that there was a latent identity within him. He explains that seeing Leggatt was
“as though [he] had been faced with [his] own reflection in the depths of a somber and
immense mirror” (Conrad 67). In Aura, Montero describes a similar phenomena in which
his body seemed to recognize that it was exactly where it was supposed to be. Felipe
claims that he began “feeling a pleasure [he'd] never felt before, one that only now [he's]
experiencing fully, setting it free...” (Fuentes 45). In hindsight, the audience now knows
that this feeling was the soul of General Llorente manifesting itself in Felipe.
While both Fuentes's and Conrad's text confront the idea of identity duality,
Conrad's protagonist greets his doppelganger as if he'd been expecting him. The captain's
demeanor in accepting Leggatt makes the arrival of his duality seem like a non-event,
while contrastingly, Montero's recognition of his duality spans the entire novel and his
recognition is coerced with psychotropic herbs. Conrad seeks to prove that “...even the
most rational man possesses a dual nature, that no man is above the threat of the
irrational” (Rosenfield 319). Although the captain's double is given a literal
personification unlike Felipe's inner duality, both the characters seek to hide or deny its
existence to outsiders. One of the recurrent themes of the double in literature is “the need
to keep a suppressed self alive, although society may insist on its annihilation” (Guerard
2). This theme is exhibited in both Fuentes's and Conrad's novels.
The suppression of the double identity is exhibited in Felipe's denial of it and in
the captain's literal sheltering of Leggatt. After countless foreshadowing of the double,
Felipe refuses to acknowledge his inner duality. It is only when the relationship between
Aura and Consuelo is fully revealed that he is able to come to terms with his own duality.
By then, it was too late for Felipe to deny General Llorente access to his body. The
General's spirit had already metastasized. Though the captain admits to the reader that he
recognizes his double in Laggatt, he must conceal him all the same. The captain believes
that if one of the crewmen were to come upon the two men in his cabin “he would think
he were seeing double or imagine himself come upon a scene of weird witchcraft...”
(Conrad 70). The captain knows that if he were to publicly acknowledge his other half,
his ship mates would “...[steal] glances at [him]” to check for signs of “lunacy or
drunkenness” (Conrad 109). Both protagonists suppress their suspicions of double
identity for fear of being rejected by others.
49
�The denial of the alternate identity manifests itself not only in Felipe and the
captain, but also in Consuelo, although the former are more genuine in their disbelief than
the latter. Felipe's account of events are fuzzy due to the effects of the herbs that alter his
consciousness, but his continued pursuance of Aura after he views the photographs of
her, looking the same in the present as she did sixty years ago, suggests that Felipe began
to get an inkling of the truth early on. Again, Felipe recognizes his own face, “...as if [he]
were afraid that some invisible hand had ripped off the mask [he'd] been wearing for
twenty seven years...” and superimposed it onto the picture of General Llorente, but he
continues to refuse to concede his second identity (Fuentes 137). Yet, Felipe, only a few
minutes later, finds himself caressing Consuelo's naked, withered body. Consuelo's denial
of the mysterious yowling cats and plentiful garden only add to the mystery of the novel.
Of course she does not genuinely deny Aura's representation as her counterpart, but she
must outwardly deny it until Felipe is comfortable with his own duality.
The captain, though recognizing himself in Leggatt, does not admit that Leggatt
does not exist outside of his own mind. In a sense, the captain is denying the existence of
his duality by projecting his second identity onto an actual person. The fact that the crew
men and servant never discover the stranger in the close quarters and lack of privacy
allowed by the ship at sea, suggests that the captain is feigning Leggatt's existence in
another body, outside his own. Unconsciously, the captain has welcomed a secret sharer
into both his cabin and his mind. He is even surprised by his conscious's hinting at its
duality when Legatt remarks, “it would never do for me to come alive again” (Conrad
103). The captain, exasperated by his inner consciousness's urging him to admit the truth
of his double identity, dismisses the statement by retorting, “it was something a ghost
might have said” (Conrad 104). By placing the culpability of the strange statement onto
Leggatt, the captain is able to laugh off the reality of his bifurcated consciousness.The
captain's denial of his inner Leggatt is mirrored by Felipe Montero's denial of his inner
General Llorente.
Fuentes's struggle to create a Mexican identity through his literature gives the
reader an indication of why most of his works portray the characters struggling with
identity. The Malinche's first born, the very first mestizo, was the starting point of the
dual identity with which many Latin Americans struggle. The mix of Spanish and
indigenous blood does not create a sense of pride for many mestizos. The fact that the
Spaniard, Hernán Cortés, “...disembarked at Veracruz to not bring peace, but genocide,
subjugation and destruction of the Nahautl culture” has left many mestizos ashamed of at
least half of their heritage (Boldy 291). Felipe's shame and denial of General Llorente's
existence within him is a symbol of this identity shame exhibited by mestizos. Felipe's
50
�denial of Llorente represents the Mexican resistance to foreign figures of authority, which
as history suggests, ultimately leads to tyranny. History has proven that the presence of a
foreign power within is like “...a monstrous Other that rapidly erodes and finally devours
the original self” (Gyurko 1361). This scenario is clearly depicted within the novel
through Felipe's transformation into General Llorente.
Fuentes even incorporates the stigma against the Malinche for betraying her
culture by copulating with the ruthless Cortés. The Latin American sense of machismo
and chauvinism is demonstrated by Señora Consuelo's willingness to allow a foreign
presence in her soul in comparison to Montero's resistance. Consuelo is depicted as an
evil sorceress and in Felipe's own words a “...perverse, insane old lady” (Fuentes 73).
General Llorente, Consuelo's husband and Felipe's alter identity, was also a soldier who
served the foreigner, Maximilian. The Malinche's weakness in loving a foreigner is
mirrored in Consuelo's choice of husband. What is more, Consuelo was so obsessed with
perpetuating her youth, that she has dedicated her life to creating a dual identity, namely
Aura. From his memoirs, the General divulges that his barren wife resorted to tempting
God with her rituals and even welcoming in this foreign identity. Aura, though very
subtly, is both a search for Mexican identity and a criticism of feminine weakness.
Fuentes's novel opens with a promise to include the reader and Felipe in an
exclusive journey toward knowledge; however, by the end of the reading, the themes of
the text are even more elusive. Fuentes manipulates the language of the novel to appear
as if the reader has preferential status through the usage of the “tú” form. The reader can't
help but feel in control of the text and personally connected to the promised inside joke
that will be revealed by its end. However Fuentes's method of drawing the reader and
Felipe into the text is his tactic to entrap and beguile them. At the end of the novel, the
truth is revealed and the joke is really on those who arrogantly thought that they were
exceptional. By the time Felipe recognizes his duality, it has already taken him over. All
the while, Fuentes craftily injects multiple social, identity and cultural parodies and
criticisms into the text for the experienced reader.
Works Cited
Boldy, Steven. "Facing up to the Other: Carlos Fuentes and the Mexican Identity." Third
World Quarterly. 10.1 (1988): 289-98. Web. 12 Nov. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3992816>.
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. "Transmigration of Souls." 6th Edition. Columbia
University Press, 2011. Web. 12 Nov 2011. <Transmigration of souls.>.
51
�Conrad, Joseph, and Kenneth R. McElheny, ed. The Secret Sharer and Other Stories by
Joseph Conrad. 1st. New York, New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1967. 55-118.
Print.
Fuentes, Carlos. Aura. Bilingual. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
1965. Print.
Guerard, Albert Joseph, Claire Rosenfeld, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, ed. Stories of the
Double. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967. 1-14, 250-311. Print.
Gyurko, Lanin A. "Carlos Fuentes." Latin American Writers. II. (1989): 1353-73. Web.
12 Nov. 2011. <http://library.wagner.edu/ereserves/aura.pdf>.
Locke, John. "Of Identity and Diversity." Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 68187. Print.
St. Augustine, . "Letter 120." Letter vol. 18 of Letters. Trans. Sister Wilfred Parsons.
Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1953. 159-61. Print.
52
�Leasing: Past, Present and Future
Noreen Taylor (Business)1
One of the more important aspects of any economy is leasing. In 2008, leasing activity
amounted to more than 640 billion dollars worldwide. Lease accounting has been an
important topic in the United States since 1949, when the earliest lease accounting
publication was issued. Over the past sixty-two years, numerous publications regarding
lease accounting models have been released and amended. Currently, the Financial
Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board
(IASB) are working on a joint proposal to improve lease accounting. The proposal would
eliminate lease classification, eliminate a company’s ability to tailor a lease for its own
benefit, and simplify financial reporting. This paper discusses past accounting models,
present accounting models, and the future of lease accounting under GAAP and the
IFRS.
An important aspect of leasing it is that is provides beneficial economic features.
The leasing industry helps companies to manage their cash flow while enjoying the
benefit of asset acquisition. However, much of the estimated 640 billion dollars of lease
commitments fail to appear on the balance sheet of lessees (Ernst and Young, 2010).
This gives a false impression of a company’s financial position and liabilities. Due to
this alarming amount of off-balance sheet lease obligations, the Financial Accounting
Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have come together
in an effort to change and improve lease accounting models. These changes will have
drastic impacts on almost every sector of the economy. The Boards propose to eliminate
the distinction between operating and finance leases. This poses the thesis question, “Will
the elimination of this distinction be beneficial or harmful for reporting entities and
accounting as a whole?” This paper will discuss the history of lease accounting, our
present accounting standards and the evolution of a new proposal.
There are three organizations that are responsible for the creation of accounting
standards throughout the world. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Financial Accounting Standards Board establish standards for accounting for the United
Written under the direction of Dr. Peg Horan in partial fulfillment of the Senior
Program requirements.
1
53
�States. The International Accounting Standards Board establishes accounting standards
globally.
Since 1973, The Financial Accounting Standards Board has been the
organization in the private sector that is responsible for creating accounting standards in
the United States. The standards created by the FASB determine the way that financial
statements are prepared for nongovernmental entities (FASB). Although the FASB can
create the standards for preparing financial statements, they do not have the authority to
establish them. The Securities and Exchange Commission has the ability to officially
recognize these standards. Under the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the SEC was
given the authority to establish financial accounting and reporting standards for publicly
held companies. However, the SEC relies on the FASB to create accounting standards
(FASB).
The FASB is part of an independent structure. This independence enables the
FASB to create and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting that help
nongovernmental entities to publish information that is useful for investors.
Independence enables the FASB to objectively consider stakeholder views. This
independent structure also includes the Financial Accounting Foundation, the Financial
Accounting Standards Advisory Council, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board
and the Governmental Accounting Standards and Advisory Council. The FASB is made
up of seven members: Chairman Leslie F. Seidman, Daryl E. Buck, Russel G. Golden,
Thomas J. Linsmeier, R. Harold Schroeder, Marc A. Siegel, and Lawrence W. Smith.
Members serve five-year terms and are eligible for reappointment.
The International Accounting Standards Board is an independent standardsetting body of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation. The IFRS
Foundation is an independent, private sector organization responsible for developing and
enforcing globally accepted international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) through
the IASB. The foundation takes into account the needs of emerging economies and small
and medium sized business entities (SMEs). The foundation is also highly interested in
bringing about convergence between national and international accounting standards.
The IASB is made up of fifteen members. Sir David Tweedie is the current
chairman of the IASB. These members are responsible for creating and publishing
standards. They are also responsible for approving interpretations created by the IFRS
Interpretations Committee.
One of the largest regulatory changes in the history of accounting is the
introduction of IFRS in most countries. Around 120 countries and reporting jurisdictions
require or permit IFRS for companies. Approximately 90 countries have fully conformed
54
�to IFRS in as required by the IASB. Several other countries such as Canada, Korea, Japan
and Mexico will be transitioning to IFRS in the near future (IFRS Foundation, 2011). In
2007, the SEC eliminated U.S GAAP reconciliations for foreign private issuers. Foreign
issuers were able to prepare their financial statements in accordance with International
Financial Reporting Standards. This would apply to financial years ending after
November 15, 2007 (SEC, 2007). This elimination is the first step in moving towards
convergence.
Since 1949 there have been many statements published in regard to lease
accounting . Lease accounting statements under GAAP first appeared in 1949, while
international standards were not published until 1980 (FASB & IASB, 2007.). The
following statements, research and memorandums were issued on lease accounting prior
to FAS 13 and IAS 17.
In 1949, the Committee on Accounting Procedure of the American Institute of
Accountants issued Accounting Research Bulletin No. 38, Disclosure of Long Term
Leases in Financial Statements of Lessees. In 1953 this ARB was restated. The
Committee was worried that companies using long term leases failed to show assets and
liabilities on their balance sheet. The Committee required that long-term leases be
included in the financial statements or notes.
In 1962, the AICPA issued Accounting Research Study No. 4, Reporting of
Leases in Financial Statements. This ARS reexamined leasing. John H. Myers, the
author of the study, determined that leasing had become more important since 1949.
Myers believed that a lease conveyed a right-to use property as opposed to a mortgageborrowing arrangement. Myers suggested that all leases be recognized on the balance
sheet at the discounted present value of cash flows that were to be paid for by the
property right.
In 1972, the APB issued Opinion No. 27. Opinion 27 was the first opinion to
give specific criteria for determining if an in-substance sale/purchase had occurred. Also
in 1972, the SEC issued ASR 132, Reporting of Leases in Financial Statements of
Lessees. The SEC discussed how a lessee should record a lease in which the lessor has
“no real economic substance other than to serve as a conduit by which debt financing can
be obtained by the ‘lessee’” (FASB & IASB, 2007).
In 1973, the APB issued Opinion 31, Disclosure of Lease Commitments by
Lessees. This Opinion called for more extensive and uniform disclosure or rental
commitments for non-capitalized leases. Opinion 31 required disclosure of the minimum
rental commitments for each of the five succeeding fiscal years, each of the next three
five-year periods and the remainder as a single amount. Opinion 31 required disclosures
55
�for the basis for calculating rent payments, terms of renewal or purchase options and the
nature and amounts of other guarantees and obligations. (FASB & IASB, 2007). In
October 1973, the SEC issued ASR 147, Notice of Adoption of Amendments to
Regulation S-X Requiring improved disclosure of Leases. The SEC criticized the APB
for wanting less disclosure and at the same time called for more extensive and significant
disclosure than ever before. The SEC required disclosure of the present value of
financing leases and the impact on net income of capitalization of such leases (FASB &
IASB, 2007). ASR 147 defined a financing lease as, “a lease which during the noncancelable lease period either covers 75 percent or more of the economic life of the
property or has terms which assure the lessor a full recovery of the fair market value of
the property at the inception of the lease” (FASB & IASB, 2007).
In 1974, FASB issued a discussion memorandum (DM), An Analysis of Issues
Related to Accounting for Leases. In this paper, the board discussed conceptual models
related to lease capitalization. They identified five conceptual models that could be used
to justify recognition of a lease arrangement in financial statements. The five models
include the Purchase Model, the Legal Debt Model, the Property Rights (Asset) Model,
the Liability Model, and the Executory Contract Model (FASB & IASB, 2007) . The
Board created a list of criteria for both lessor and lessees that would determine if a lease
should be capitalized. These criteria would apply to all five of the specific conceptual
models. The criteria for lessees stated in the 1974 FASB DM is as follows:
a.
Lessee builds up a material equity in the leased property.
b.
Leased property is special purpose to the lessee.
c.
Lease term is substantially equal to the estimated useful life of the property.
d.
Lessee pays costs normally incident to ownership.
e.
Lessee guarantees the lessor’s debt with respect to the leased property.
f.
Lessee treats the lease as a purchase for tax purposes.
g.
Lease is between related parties.
h.
Lease passes usual risks and rewards to lessee.
i.
Lessee assumes an unconditional liability for lease rentals.
j.
Lessor lacks independent economic substance.
k.
Residual value at end of lease is expected to be nominal.
l.
Lease agreement provides that the lessor will recover his investment plus a
fair return.
56
�m. Lessee has the option at any time to purchase the asset for the lessor’s
unrecovered investment.
n.
Lease agreement is noncancelable for a long term (FASB & IASB, 2007,
p.13).
The Board also discussed lessor accounting in their discussion memorandum.
They considered revenue recognition for lessor, related party lease transactions, and
uniformity between lessor and lessee accounting. They developed the following criteria
to determine if a lessor should recognize a lease as a sale:
a.
Lease transfers title to the property to the lessee by the end of its fixed
non-cancelable term.
b.
Lease term is substantially equal to the remaining economic life of the
property.
c.
Lease provides for a bargain purchase or a renewal option at bargain rates.
d.
Lease passes ownership risks to lessee.
e.
Lease is full payout.
f.
Leased property is special purpose to the lessee.
g.
Lease is treated as a sale for tax purposes.
h.
Collection of the rentals called for by the lease is reasonably assured
(FASB & IASB, 2007, p.14).
In October 1980, the International Accounting Standards Committee issues
Exposure Draft No. 19, Accounting for Leases (E19). This draft was based on the extent
to which risk and rewards incident to ownership of a leased asset lie with the lessor or the
lessee. The Exposure Draft listed four criteria to classify a lease as a finance lease. The
lease must transfer ownership to the lessee by the end of the lease term. The Lessee must
have the option to purchase the asset at a price that is expected to be lower than the fair
market value at the date that the option to buy becomes allowable. The lease term must
be the major part of the life of the asset. Finally, the present value at the beginning of the
lease of the minimum lease payments greater than or equal to the all of the fair value of
the leased asset net of grants and tax credits to the lessor at the beginning of the lease
(FASB & IASB, 2007).
Under GAAP, the current standard for lease accounting is Financial Accounting
Standard 13. The Standard was published in 1976. The statement established the
57
�standards for accounting for leases for both lessors and lessees. Statement 13 defines a
lease as an agreement that transfers the right to use property, plant and equipment for a
specified period of time. This does not include agreements which are contracts for
services and do not transfer the right to use property, plant or equipment. However,
agreements that transfer the right to use property and also include services for the
maintenance or operation of the property can be classified as a lease. Lease agreements
which concern exploration and exploitation of land for natural resources and licensing
agreements for film, plays, manuscripts, copyrights and patents are not considered leases
under statement 13 (FASB, 1976).
Statement 13 classifies leases into two distinct categories, operating leases and
capital leases. According to FASB’s FAS 13, a lease will be classified as a capital lease
if it meets one of these four criteria:
a.
The lease transfers ownership of the property to the lessee by the end of the
lease term (as defined in paragraph 5(f)).
b.
The lease contains a bargain purchase option (as defined in paragraph 5(d)).
c.
The lease term (as defined in paragraph 5(f)) is equal to 75 percent or more
of the estimated economic life of the leased property (as defined in
paragraph 5(g)). However, if the beginning of the lease term falls within the
last 25 percent of the total estimated economic life of the leased property,
including earlier years of use, this criterion shall not be used for purposes of
classifying the lease.
d.
The present value at the beginning of the lease term of the minimum lease
payments (as defined in paragraph 5(j)), excluding that portion of the
payments representing executory costs such as insurance, maintenance, and
taxes to be paid by the lessor, including any profit thereon, equals or
exceeds 90 percent of the excess of the fair value of the leased property (as
defined in paragraph 5(c)) to the lessor at the inception of the lease over any
related investment tax credit retained by the lessor and expected to be
realized by him. However, if the beginning of the lease term falls within the
last 25 percent of the total estimated economic life of the leased property,
including earlier years of use, this criterion shall not be used for purposes of
classifying the lease. A lessor shall compute the present value of the
minimum lease payments using the interest rate implicit in the lease (as
defined in paragraph 5(k)). A lessee shall compute the present value of the
minimum lease payments using his incremental borrowing rate (as defined
58
�in paragraph 5(1)), unless (i) it is practicable for him to learn the implicit
rate computed by the lessor and (ii) the implicit rate computed by the lessor
is less than the lessee's incremental borrowing rate. If both of those
conditions are met, the lessee shall use the implicit rate (FASB, 1976, p. 8).
For a lease to be considered a capital lease, the lessee must be transferred
ownership at the end of the lease term, the lessee must use the asset the majority of its
useful life, the lease payments for the property should be equal to or exceed 90 percent of
the fair market value of the asset at the beginning of the lease or the lease contains a
bargain purchase option. A bargain purchase option allows the lessee to purchase the
asset at the end of the lease term at a price that is lower than fair market value. However,
the economic life and the fair value criteria do not apply if a lease term falls within the
last 25 percent of the total economic life of the property. A lease may also be categorized
as a sales-type lease if the lease agreement meets one of the four criteria of a capital lease
and the two other criterions. Collecting of minimum lease payments must be reasonably
predictable and the amount of unreimbursable costs yet to be incurred by the lessor
should not be surrounded by important uncertainties. If the lease meets these two
stipulations, then it may be considered a sales-type lease.
Both lessees and lessors account for lease agreements in a different manner.
Capital leases and operating leases are treated differently in terms of accounting and
reporting. Lessees will record a capital lease as both an asset and an obligation at an
amount that is equal to the present value of the minimum lease payments at the beginning
of the lease term. This will not include executory, insurance, maintenance or tax
payments. If the present value amount exceeds the fair value of the asset at the beginning
of the lease than the fair value will be used. Unless the asset is land, it will be amortized
in a way that is consistent with the lessees’ depreciation policy for owned assets. During
the lease term, each minimum lease payment should be allocated between reducing the
obligation and the interest expense. This will produce a constant periodic rate of interest
on the remaining balance of the obligation. The asset recorded under the capital lease
and its amortization should be recorded separately on the lessees’ balance sheet or in the
financial statement’s footnotes. Termination of a capital lease should be accounted for by
removing the asset and liability and recording a gain or a loss. A lessee will only need to
account for an operating lease through a rent expense over the lease term as it becomes
payable (FASB, 1976).
Accounting and reporting for lessors differs from that of lessees. Capital leases
for lessors are diving into two types, sales-type leases and direct-financing leases. A
sales-type lease is very similar to the sale of a product in exchange for a long term note.
59
�The transaction includes a debit to a receivable and a credit to sales. There is also a debit
to cost of goods sold and a credit to inventories for the cost of the product. The salestype lease can also include interest implicit to the lease payments which is receivable to
the lessor, unguaranteed residual value and initial direct costs (Lee, 2003). The
distinction between a sales-type lease and a direct-financing lease is the presence or
absence of a manufacturer’s or dealer’s profit or loss. To record a direct financing lease,
the lessor must record a gross investment, unearned interest revenue and a net
investment. The gross investment consists of the minimum lease payments plus the
unguaranteed residual value accruing to the lessor at the end of the lease term. The
unearned interest revenue is the difference between the gross investment and the fair
market value of the property. The net investment is the difference between the gross
investment and the unearned interest revenue (Kieso & Weygandt, 1986). To account for
an operating lease, a lessor would include the lease property on the balance sheet and
deduct the accumulated depreciation from the investment in the leased property. The
depreciation method used would be consistent with the lessor’s normal depreciation
policy. Rent will be reported as income over the lease term and all initial direct costs will
be deferred and allocated over the lease term. (Lee, 2003).
Under the International Accounting Standards, the most current publication on
lease accounting is International Accounting Standard Number 17. The International
Accounting Standards Board classifies leases into two categories, operating and finance.
These two categories are determined by how much risk and reward belongs to the lessor
or the lessee. A lease is categorized as an operating lease if it does not substantially
transfer all risks and rewards incidental to ownership. On the other hand, if a lease
substantially transfers all the risks and rewards incidental to ownership, it can be
classified as a finance lease (IAS 17 p. 63-65).
Lessees will report lease payments under an operating lease as an expense. The
expense will be on the straight-line basis unless another systematic basis is more suitable.
The reporting standards are different for finance leases. Lessees will recognize finance
leases as assets and liabilities on their balance sheets at the lesser of the fair market value
of the leased property or the present value of the minimum lease payments. This will be
determined at the beginning of the lease. The present value of the minimum lease
payment will be calculated using the interest rate stated in the lease or the lessee’s
incremental borrowing rate. Initial direct costs will be added to the amount recognized as
an asset (IAS 17 p. 66).
Lessors will recognize operating leases on their balance sheets according to the
nature of the asset. Lease income will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the
60
�lease term and the depreciation policy will be consistent with that of similar assets.
Lessors will recognize assets finance leases on their balance sheet and present them as a
receivable equal to the net investment of the lease. Manufacturer or dealer lessors will
recognize selling profit or loss in the period in accordance with the policy followed by
the entity for outright sales. Costs occurred in negotiating a lease will be recognized as
an expense when a selling profit is recognized. This normally occurs at the end of a lease
term (IAS 17 p.69).
The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting
Standards Board have jointly developed a draft standard on leasing and are proposing
amendments to FASB Accounting Standards Codification and an International Financial
Reporting Standard (IFRS). Leasing is one of the more important aspects of financing.
Due to its importance, it is key that lease accounting provides financial statement users
with accurate and complete information in regard to an entity’s leasing activities. The
present accounting models for leases require leases to be classified as either capital or
operating leases. This model has been criticized heavily for not providing financial
statement users with valid information because leasing transactions are not portrayed
validly. The FASB and IASB have come together to develop a new approach to lease
accounting that would accurately recognize the assets and liabilities that are due to lease
obligations (FASB ED Topic 180 p. 5).
The exposure draft proposes that a right-of-use should be applied to all leases.
This applies to both the lessor and the lessee. The lease accounting changes would apply
to any entity that enters into a lease. There is an exception for biological and intangible
assets, leases to explore for natural resources and some investment properties. This does
however apply to leases of right-of-use assets in a sublease.
Lessees would need to recognize an asset representing its right to use the leased
asset for the lease term and a liability representing lease payments. A lessor would
recognize an asset representing its right to receive lease payments. Depending upon the
risks or benefits surrounding the asset the lessor has two options. The lessor could
recognize a lease liability while also recognizing the underlying asset or derecognize the
rights of the underlying asset that it transfers to the lessee and continue to recognize a
residual asset representing its rights to the underlying asset at the end of the lease term.
Assets and liabilities recognized by lessees and lessors would be measured on a basis that
assumes the longest possible lease term will occur and takes into account any options to
extend or terminate the lease. This basis would also use an expected outcome technique
that will reflect lease payments. This basis would also be updated when changes occur in
the assets or liabilities since the previous reporting period. These requirements only
61
�apply to leases that are long term. Leases 12 months or less would apply simplified
requirements.
Lessees with a significant amount of assets held under operating leases would be
substantially affected by the proposal. The proposal would require lessees to recognize
the assets and liabilities arising from these assets. The proposal wouldn’t only affect
capital leases in the sense that the measurement of the assets and liabilities arising from
leases. Lessor accounting would differ dramatically from existing GAAP and IFRS.
Depending upon the risk and benefits associated with the lease, the lessor would need to
apply a performance obligation approach or a derecognition approach. If a lessor retains
exposure to significant risks or benefits associated with the underlying asset, the lessor
would continue to recognize the underlying asset and also recognize a right to receive
lease payments and lease liability. If the lessor does not retain exposure to significant
risks or benefits, the lease would be accounted for in a way that is similar to current
accounting for capital leases (FASB ED Topic 840 (P.7-8)).
The proposed changes to lease accounting have been brought on by a recent
focus on off-balance sheet liabilities and past accounting scandals. The proposal would
eliminate operating leases and effectively off balance sheet liabilities. The news rule for
lease accounting would make leases much more complex. Leases will need to be reevaluated every period.
Eliminating operating leases and creating a lease obligation for all leases will
have an effect on the balance sheet. This will increase assets and liabilities on the
balance sheet. Under the new proposal, the interest expense will be recognized on the
obligation and depreciation on the asset. This will increase earnings before tax, interest,
depreciation and amortization, depreciation expense, and interest income (Hepp & Gupta,
Oct. 2010).
The proposal also raises concerns about leverage ratios that are vital to
measuring a firm’s performance or rations that figure out debt covenants. Companies
will need to watch how the standard will affect agreements that are based on these ratios.
Companies also need to be aware that the standard will cause income to go down and
expenses to go up.
Bill Bosco, an accounting policy consultant for the Equipment Leasing and
Finance Association, fears that the proposal will discourage companies from leasing
property and equipment. This will cause earnings to go down at the beginning of the
lease and eventually taper off. Booked lease obligations must reflect certain terms and
conditions such as contingent rent or renewal provisions. This can lead to greater
expenses of the life of the lease. These changes will result in a difference in income for
62
�financial reporting and tax filing. This will lead to changes in deferred tax assets.
Companies need to be careful when negotiating leases. They will try to push for shortterm leases and more flexible renewal terms. However, this can lead to higher rent
(Whitehouse, 2010).
The FASB/IASB lease proposal will also be retrospective. Companies must
apply the new standards to all prior periods that will be represented in a set of financial
statements. Therefore, companies need to start evaluating their current lease obligations.
The new standard is going to require companies to monitor their lease
agreements more. They need to determine how changes will affect the accounting. This
will cause more work for a company over the life of the lease. The elements of the
proposal would impose greater costs on and require greater efforts from reporting entities
and their auditors. Jeff Nickel, a partner with Deloitte and Touche, believes the standard
is going to have a huge impact on companies. Companies need to start evaluating their
accounting systems and their technical capabilities (Whitehouse, 2010).
There is a great amount of criticism towards the proposed accounting changes
for many reasons. Many believe that the new rules will cause a squeezing of the balance
sheet, companies will be discouraged from leasing plant, property and equipment and
new regulations are too complex, time consuming, and costly for reporting entities. This
proposal will cause many problems because U.S. executives are not prepared for the
changes. According to research by Deloitte and Touche, only 7% of individuals
questioned believed their company was extremely or very prepared for lease accounting
changes. The firm questions 284 individuals who either lease to or from an organization.
The proposed changes required information that is more detailed to be included in
financial reports. Mark Beddy, a real estate partner with Deloitte and Touche states that
(Singh, 2011),
The evidence from the U.S. is consistent with the key issues which have
concerned property owners and occupiers in the UK about the proposed new lease
accounting regime. It highlights the considerable compliance burden which any new
standard will impose, together with continued worries about the impact on financing,
lease lengths and property strategy (Singh, 2011). More than 40% of individuals who
responded to Deloitte and Touche believe that the new standards will make it difficult to
obtain financing in the future (Singh, 2011).
Although many feel that the lease proposal will complicate lease accounting,
others feel that the existing lease accounting standards under GAAP and IFRS can
significantly use some improvement. The proposal by the FASB and the IFRS to
eliminate the distinction between operating and finance leases is a way of improving the
63
�present standards. The proposed standards will simplify leases. There won’t be a need to
classify each lease as an operating lease or a finance lease. This will help take a burden
off entities. This will also remove the temptation to misclassify a lease as an operating
lease rather than a finance lease. Classifying a lease as an operating lease would allow
reporting entities to keep assets and liabilities off of their balance sheets.
The proposal would view all leases as a right-to-use property and an asset for
lessees and a liability for lessors due to rent payments. Lessees that currently classify
leases as operating leases will have more assets and liabilities on their balance sheets
under the new proposal. Lessors and lessees will have fewer opportunities to structure
leases in a manner that enables lessees to keep lease related assets and liabilities off their
balance sheets.
The FASB received many comments at the conclusion of the discussion on the
proposal. Almost half of those who responded agree with the board’s proposal. They
believe that the distinction between capital and operating leases complicates lease
accounting. Supporters of the proposal believe that the new model would put an end to
structuring leases for self-benefit. The respondents who use financial statements were
unanimously in favor of the proposal (Grossman & Grossman, 2010).
The lease accounting model proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards
Board and the International Accounting Standards Board is a reaction to the recent
scandals by the banks, Enron and others, to fix damaged accounting. Creating an
accounting model that includes only one classification of a lease would simplify the rules.
It would eliminate a company’s ability to tailor a lease to their advantage. The proposal
will have a major effect on a company’s balance sheet. Liabilities will rise, debt to equity
ratios will rise, and balance sheets will look bad. However, all lease liabilities will be
reflected on the balance sheet. The financial positions of companies will change, but they
will be more valid. The proposal will make financial information more comparable due to
its unified nature. Finally, the proposed lease accounting model will bring the United
States one step closer to IFRS convergence.
References
Daske, H., Hail, L., Leuz, C., & Verdi, R. (2008). Mandatory IFRS Reporting around the
World: Early Evidence on the Economic Consequences. Journal of Accounting Research,
46(5), 1085-1142. doi:10.1111/j.1475-679X.2008.00306.x.
Ernst and Young. (2010, August 23). What do the proposed lease accounting changes
mean for you? Retrieved April 5, 2011 from http://www.ey.com/Publication/
vwLUAssets/IFRS_Practical_matters_lease_accounting_secured_230810/$FILE/IFRS%
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�20Practical%20matters%20-%20lease%20accounting%20secured%20230810.pdf.
Financial Accounting Standards Board. (2010, August). Exposure draft leases (topic
840). In Financial accounting series. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from
http://www.fasb.org/cs/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=i
d&blobwhere=1175821125393&blobheader=application/pdf.
Financial Accounting Standards Board. (1976, November). Statement of financial
accounting standards no. 13. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from
http://www.gasb.org/cs/BlobServer?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=
id&blobwhere=1175820908834&blobheader=application%2Fpdf.
Financial Accounting Standards Board & International Accounting Standards Board.
(2007, February 15). History of lease accounting. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from
http://www.iasb.org/NR/rdonlyres/E2A88DF1-6BEB-4C1F-834BD249BCB7778A/0/Obs2.pdf.
Financial Accounting Standards Board. (n.d.). Facts about FASB. In Financial
Accounting Standards Board. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from
http://www.fasb.org/jsp/FASB/Page/SectionPage&cid=1176154526495.
Grossman, A. M., & Grossman, S. D. (2010, May). Capitalizing lease payments. CPA
Journal, 6-11.
Hepp, J., & Gupta, R. (2010, October). Preparing for the new lease accounting. Financial
Executives, 26(8).
IFRS Foundation. (2011). About the IFRS and the IASB. In IFRS. Retrieved April 5,
2011, from http://www.ifrs.org/The+organisation/IASCF+and+IASB.htm.
IFRS Foundation (2011, January). IAS 17 leases - technical summary. Retrieved April 5,
2011, from http://www.ifrs.org/NR/rdonlyres/2DD32552-A12E-450D-9E87649ED551BBD4/0/IAS17.pdf.
Kieso, D. E., & Weygandt, J. J. (1986). Intermediate Accounting (5th ed., pp. 979-980).
New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, S. (2003, October). Capital and operating leases; A research report. Retrieved April
5,
2011, from http://www.fasab.gov/pdffiles/combinedleasev4.pdf.
65
�Pounder, B. (2009, May). New views on lease accounting. Strategic Finance, 90(11), 1618.
Securities and Exchange Commission. (2007, December 21). 17 CFR Parts 210, 230, 239
and 249. Retrieved May 2, 2011, from http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2007/33-8879.pdf.
Singh, R. (2011, February 24). US executives unprepared for accounting changes.
In Accountancy Age. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://www.accountancyage.com/- aa/
news/2028578/executives-unprepared-accounting-changes.
Whitehouse, T. (2010, November). Lease accounting proposal may squeeze balance
sheet. Compliance Week, 30-31.
Appendix A: Glossary
Lease: conveyance of land, buildings, equipment or other ASSETS from one person
(lessor) to another (lessee) for a specific period of time for monetary or other
consideration, usually in the form of rent.
Lessee: Person or entity that has the right to use property under the terms of a lease.
Lessor: Owner of property, the temporary use of which is transferred to another (lessee)
under the terms of a lease.
Capitalized Lease: Lease recorded as an asset acquisition accompanied by a
corresponding liability by the lessee.
Operating Lease: Type of lease, usually involving equipment, whereby the contract is
written for considerably less than the life of the equipment and the lessor handles all
maintenance and servicing.
Bargain purchase option: A provision allowing the lessee, at his option, to purchase the
leased property for a price which is sufficiently lower than the expected fair value of the
property at the date the option becomes exercisable that exercise of the option appears, at
the inception of the lease, to be reasonably assured.
Fair value of the leased property: The price for which the property could be sold in an
arm's-length transaction between unrelated parties.
Lease term: The fixed non-cancelable term of the lease plus (i) all periods, if any,
covered by bargain renewal options (as defined in paragraph 5(e)), (ii) all periods, if any,
66
�for which failure to renew the lease imposes a penalty on the lessee in an amount such
that renewal appears, at the inception of the lease, to be reasonably assured, (iii) all
periods, if any, covered by ordinary renewal options during which a guarantee by the
lessee of the lessor's debt related to the leased property is expected to be in effect, (iv) all
periods, if any, covered by ordinary renewal options preceding the date as of which a
bargain purchase option is exercisable, and (v) all periods, if any, representing renewals
or extensions of the lease at the lessor's option; however, in no case shall the lease term
extend beyond the date a bargain purchase option becomes exercisable. A lease which is
cancelable (i) only upon the occurrence of some remote contingency, (ii) only with the
permission of the lessor, (iii) only if the lessee enters into a new lease with the same
lessor, or (iv) only upon payment by the lessee of a penalty in an amount such that
continuation of the lease appears, at inception, reasonably assured shall be considered
"noncancelable" for purposes of this definition.
Estimated economic life of leased property: The estimated remaining period during
which the property is expected to be economically usable by one or more users, with
normal repairs and maintenance, for the purpose for which it was intended at the
inception of the lease, without limitation by the lease term.
Minimum lease payments:
i. From the standpoint of the lessee: The payments that the lessee is obligated to make or
can be required to make in connection with the leased property. However, a guarantee by
the lessee of the lessor's debt and the lessee's obligation to pay (apart from the rental
payments) executory costs such as insurance, maintenance, and taxes in connection with
the leased property shall be excluded. If the lease contains a bargain purchase option,
only the minimum rental payments over the lease term and the payment called for by the
bargain purchase option shall be included in the minimum lease payments.
ii. From the standpoint of the lessor: The payments described in (i) above plus any
guarantee of the residual value or of rental payments beyond the lease term by a third
party unrelated to either the lessee or the lessor, provided the third party is financially
capable of discharging the obligations that may arise from the guarantee.
67
�The Corset as a Construction of Femininity:
Silhouettes in the Victorian Era
Kristen Haggerty (History)1
In modern society, corsets are often viewed as an unnecessary evil imposed on
women through history, a symbol of oppression and backwards thinking. The idea of
corsetry has been distorted through the lens of modern culture, so many people’s first
impressions of corsets involve Scarlett O’Hara’s seventeen inch waist. As an article of
dress, and a tool to help understand the Victorian era, corsets can be incredibly useful.
But unfortunately, as with many garments, “when their reign is over, they become objects
of ridicule.”2 Recently, however, the scholarly attitude towards corsetry has been
changing, and has begun to take on a less censorious tone.
By understanding the history of Victorian corsets, their link to industrialization,
the physicality of wearing a corset, and the contemporary ideology in which corsets were
espoused, the “sociocultural production of meaning”3 is explored, and a more
comprehensive argument can be formed. When viewed through this lens, corsetry as a
patriarchal tool becomes a simple argument. Instead, light is shed on the complexity of
corsetry, and the multifaceted ways it affected Victorian society. Corsets were not
imposed upon women by a merciless patriarchy, but used to maintain a desirable and
respectable physical figure which emulated the popular construction of femininity. Their
existence was not merely good or bad, but, like most occurrences in life, a distinct, everchanging, and hard to grasp balance of the two. But by weaving the multifaceted
experiences of Victorian and modern women into a narrative of female experience, the
misconceptions may give way to a clearer understanding of why corsets are still one of
the most influential undergarments ever to grace the human form.
Victorian Corset History- Industrialization and the Changing Silhouette
Before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, many goods and services were
A senior honors thesis written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith for HI-593:
Corsets and the Female Silhouette.
2Norah Waugh, Corsets and Crinolines (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1970), 7.
3 Michael T. Murphy, “Jane Farrell-Beck and Colleen Gau, Uplift: The Bra in America;
and Valerie Steele, The Corset: A Cultural History” Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 38, No.
2/3 (Summer/Autumn 2003): 155.
1
68
�produced by families for their own consumption, or using ‘cottage industries’. The
Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s and continued to develop through the 19th
century. This mechanization of culture changed many things about daily life, including
the production and wearing of corsetry.
In that period of time, the Western world went through a rapid period of
industrialization. The silhouette and corsetry of a woman from the time of the young
Victoria to that of someone living during the end of her reign would have been different
in a multitude of ways, from the appearance they gave of the figure to the method by
which they were produced.
Tracing the origins of a change in silhouette is not an exact science, and seems
to condense down to the fact that fashion is cyclical, and is influenced by the social and
political events of the time as well as simply by a society’s whims. Changes can occur on
a small, quickly changing scale, which affects things like fashionable sleeve sizes and
hem lengths. But they can also be traced in a wider, more unhurried way. By viewing
nude artwork and portraits throughout the past several centuries, the change in the ‘ideal’
figure is evident, and occurs over a long period of time. In the 1500’s, “the new,
expanded Renaissance awareness of fleshly beauty seems to have been concentrated—as
it was to be for centuries—on the female belly.”4 Large, rounded stomach were admired
and emphasized, and women with otherwise slim bodies and protruding stomachs were a
beauty ideal. But over the next 200 years, the focus of beauty begins to shift from the
stomach to the breasts and hips, and “a marked fullness of breasts and corresponding
fullness of backside had become the chief sexual charms of women, for which a slender
waist provided the appropriate foil,”5 and a protuberant belly was no longer the ideal.
This change in erotic and ideal focus occurs slowly over centuries, and there is not much
explanation for the change other than the shifting whims of fashion.
The most concise explanation for the faster ‘fads’ of fashion is that the industry
consists, like many self-regulating phenomena, of a continuous cycle of rising and
falling. Clothing’s emphasis has always been on the silhouette it creates, and “the overemphasis of line has given an… underlying rhythm to women’s clothes…a long slender
silhouette gradually begins to widen at the base, emphasis shifts from length to breadth,
and when the greatest circumference possible has been reached, there is a collapse, a
folding up, and a return to the long, straight line.”6 We can see the phenomena occurring
4 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, (New York: University of California Press,
1978), 97.
5 Hollander, 113.
6 Waugh, 7.
69
�in the period after the Civil War, when garishly large hoopskirts gave way to hobble
skirts and bustles. This cycle in reverse can also be seen in the fashions of the 20th
century, to use a modern example. During World War II, women’s dresses were short and
tight, with an emphasis on military tailoring and wide shoulders. But in 1947, Christian
Dior introduced the New Look, a silhouette with a wasp waist and full skirts, with
influence on exactly the opposite proportions of the previous decade.
This ever-changing silhouette can be seen when comparing a corset from the
1830’s, at the beginning of the Victorian era, to one made in 1898, at its end. Viewing the
two side by side, as in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the difference in the way they shaped the body is
evident. The 1830’s corset provides a gentle shaping but does not alter the body’s natural
silhouette significantly. It also places emphasis on a wide belly and hips, which it is made
to flare widely over. The 1890’s silhouette is much slimmer throughout, with an
hourglass shape wherein the waist is pulled in significantly to emphasize the hips and
breasts. The origin of both silhouettes is rooted in this cyclical theory of fashion.
In the Empire period directly before the Romantic era of the 1830s, corsets were
nearly non-existent. The Empire silhouette of a high bust and long tubular skirt were seen
as a Neo-classical take on traditional Greek garments.
But from 1810 through the 1820s, society shifted away from this radical style,
representative to the next generation of an “overturned social order” and the “consequent
loosening of morals and deportment”7. The waistline began to drop back to its natural
position, corsets lengthened from just below the bust to the hip, and gussets replaced tabs
at the bottom of the garment. Breasts were also newly shaped by gussets inset into the top
of the corset instead of flattened by boning or pushed unnaturally high.8
The placement of corsetry on the body also changed. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, it was common for corsetry to be on display on the body. Garments such as
kirtles combined petticoats and stays into a singular item, worn on top of a shift and
common for the working classes. But in the nineteenth century, “corsets definitively
stayed underneath the dress.”9
Corsets in the 1830s were known interchangeably as both corsets and stays.
They were “almost always made of plain white cotton or linen, or at most, white satin.
White was associated with chastity, and corsets formed part of an array of modest
underwear.”10 These were made in two layers, and corded with cotton thread. The cords
Waugh, 75.
Valerie Steele, Corsets: a Cultural History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001),
39.
9 Steele, 39.
7
8
70
�were positioned so as to give structure to the garment, and to gently shape the body.
Cords over the stomach area held it flat, while diagonal cording at the ribs gave the waist
a gentle curve. “The direction and placement... is intended to flatten the stomach but also
to radiate out over, and thereby emphasize, the curve of the hips.”11A flat wooden busk
ran down the front of the garment, in between the bust cups, as well as two smaller
wooden slats or whalebones in the back12. These gave an extra stiffness to the figure, and
helped women lace slightly tighter and hold an erect posture. The result was not much
different than that of a modern woman wearing shape wear. The natural figure was
slightly compressed and tightened by the stays, but not altered in any drastic way.
Cording instead of steel or whalebone also created a more comfortable experience in the
wearing of the stays.
From the 1830’s to the 1860’s, this silhouette began to change and become more
and more of an exaggerated hourglass. The 1860’s was the peak of this style, and corsets
were short and very wide at the hips and breasts, with a tiny waist in the middle. The
contrast between the small waist and large hips creates nearly an “X” shape out of the
torso. Then through the latter half of the 19th century, the silhouette began to slim down
and become more fluid. Instead of an emphasis on just a slim waist, a corset created a
‘wasp waist’, with a tiny waist gently sloping to larger and fuller hips. It is this silhouette
that is in fashion in 1898.
“During the 1890s, it was fashionable to be voluptuous at the bosom and hips,
but small at the waist. Tight corsets aided this by displacing flesh from the waist to these
areas.”13 This corset gave a woman the desired silhouette, an hourglass figure with a
wasp waist. In the 1880‘s the “spoon busk” was popular, which was “narrow at the top
and widen[ed] out into a pear shape”14, but at the beginning of the next decade this fell
out of fashion in favor of a longer and less rounded shape to the stomach. This was
achieved with the use of steel bones running vertically throughout the garment. Many late
19th century corsets had metal clasps at the front as well as back lacing so a lady could
put the garment on by herself.
These silhouette changes can be interpreted by a cyclical method of fashion
ideals, but there is more to the change than a simple cause and effect mentality.
Silhouette changes are also caused by the mechanisms that allow them to happen. A
Steele, 39.
Eleri Lynn, Underwear: Fashion in detail (London: V&A Publishing, 2010), 84.
12 Waugh, 79.
13 Lynn, 90.
14 Waugh, 83.
10
11
71
�woman in pre-history would not have been able to achieve an 1898 silhouette even if she
desired it, because the tools to make it happen simply had not been invented yet. “Clothes
of any period belong to, and form part of, the greater whole of the architectural and
economic background against which they are worn; they must also adapt themselves to
the texture and design of the materials produced at the time.”15
The Victorian era was the age in which the Industrial Revolution flourished. At
the beginning of the era, steam ships were just beginning to cross the Atlantic. By the
end, telephones and motor cars were beginning to make their way into everyday life. As
the uses of technology expanded, so did the ways in which women could alter their
silhouettes and, “when a line became exaggerated, she [could] develop it to the utmost
limit.”16 Each new invention during the Industrial Revolution trickled down to affect the
mechanics of women’s corsetry, and by default, the way in which silhouettes were
altered. From the 18th to 20th centuries, “there was a significant convergence in styles of
dress- particularly for middle class and elite males- over the course of the late eighteenth
to early twentieth centuries, and there are strong reasons to think of this as a product of
genuinely global processes.”17
Industrialization during the 1830s was still an emerging phenomenon, and
although the production of cloth had been mechanized, garment making was still a handsewn industry. Stays were relatively simple to make, cut in only three or four body
pieces. Although commercial patterns would not be available for another twenty years,
books such as The Workwoman’s Guide (1838) and The Young Woman’s Guide
Containing Correct Rules for the Pursuit of Millinery, Dress, and Corset Making (1847)
included instructions and rough diagrams for construction18. Most women sewed their
own stays by hand, the home sewing machine not having been invented yet, although
dressmakers could put together a pair for someone as well. Author of L’Art de faire les
corsets (1828), Madame Burtel, declared that “It is not amusing to make a corset, as it
can be to make a ball gown [or] a hat... but that doesn’t matter, a young woman must be
able to make everything she needs.”19 Dressmakers, or mantuamakers if called by the
more traditional term, still abounded.
In the early decades of the 1800’s, the production of cloth was increasingly
mechanized, and homespun was virtually nonexistent by the early 19th century, but
Waugh, 7.
Waugh, 7.
17 Kenneth Pomeranz, “Social History and World History: From Daily Life to Patterns of
Change”, Journal of World History, (2007): 75.
18 Steele, 39.
19 Steele, 39.
15
16
72
�creating ready-to-wear clothing was still decades in the future. “Garments least dependent
on a close fit (like cloaks, petticoats, and chemises) entered factories in the 1860s and
1870s; blouses (known then as shirtwaists) and skirts did not follow until their more
billowy silhouette came into vogue in the 1890s. Dresses would not be mass-produced
until the 1910s.”20
The stays of the 1830s may appear simple, but industrial developments had
actually greatly improved their functionality. In 1823, a device known as the Instant
Release system was exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle. Invented by Josselin,
the system was a precise juxtaposition of ropes and pulleys that allowed a woman to lace
her own corset, as well as to unfasten it unassisted.21Although the system was not widely
used, it was available to make an everyday task more streamlined. This simple device is a
clear example of the Industrial Revolution’s influence on everyday life. Corsets, once
expensive and made by tailors for upper class women of leisure, were now accessible to
middle and working class women who may not have had servants available to help them
with the task of lacing. As corsets became more prevalent and available, their hardware
had to adapt to plebian use.
Another technological advancement appeared in the same decade, quietly
revolutionizing women’s stays. Metal eyelets were introduced in the 1820s, allowing
corsets to be laced more securely than before, when eyelets were created using buttonhole
or whip stitching.22
Concerns over the health and safety of corsets have been documented for
centuries, but in the early 19th century, attempts were made to actually create a more
comfortable and healthier pair of stays (Fig. 3). In 1848, Madame Roxey A. Caplin
showed her “hygienic corsets” in Paris, stating that her corset had been shown by those in
the medical field to be superior.23 Throughout the next century, countless options existed
in corsetry for those who sought healthier garments, though most were no more effective
than their ‘dangerous’ counterparts. One quack invention was the ‘electro-magnetic busk’
patented by Caplin. Other manifestations of health corsets were actually beneficial. An
1890’s woolen corset created by Dr. Gustav Jager used pleating at the bust to
comfortably accommodate the breasts, cording instead of steel, and wide button straps to
Marla R. Miller, “The Last Mantuamaker: Craft Tradition and Commercial Change in
Boston, 1760- 1845”, The McNeil Center for Early American Studies (2006): 421.
21 Beatrice Fontanel, Support and Seduction: A History of Corsets and Bras (New York:
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.1997), 49.
22 Lynn, 122.
23 Steele, 41.
20
73
�support the frame.24 Although corsets such as this, and its variations (including knit
versions) truly were more comfortable, they never gained widespread popularity.
The art of corsetry continued to improve through the use of mechanization“While there existed only two patents for corsets in 1828, sixty-four would be registered
between 1828 and 1848.”25
In the 1830s, it was necessary to have an assistant for lacing stays. But in 1848,
a new method of lacing was developed in France, known as ‘lazy lacing’. This method
involved using two laces, or one that was very long, and creating two long loops at a
woman’s waist. Those loops could then be used by the wearer to pull the laces
themselves, and then caught on small metal loop attached to the front of the corset, thus
enabling a woman to produce a slimmer silhouette without assistance. “Lazy lacing was
only made possible by developments in other areas of corset fastening, such as the
introduction of the split steel busk and slot-and-stud fastenings, which entered
commercial production towards the middle of the 19th century.”26
In 1868 Edwin Izod invented the steam molding process. “Ideal” torso forms
were cast in metal, over which finished corsets were place. The forms were then heated
so that the corsets formed perfectly to the figure, thus creating a ‘glove’ fit for the
garment.27
The Warner company invented stainless steel ‘boning’ towards the end of the
era, thereby solving the problem of rusting and breaking stays. The many metal bones in
corsetry were still subject to daily wear and tear, however, and in 1893 a patent was
registered for corset shields, which would ‘lessen liability of breakage of the ribs... and
protect the body of the wearer’28. These shields were worn inside the corset on the sides
of the waist, which dealt with the most pressure when the garment was pulled tight to the
body.
In the mid 19th century, whalebone was used for boning, but by the 1890s the
baleen whale had been hunted almost to extinction. Steel had thus largely replaced
whalebone (and cording before it) as the preferred shaping method.
All of these developments affected the way that a corset acted on the body. At
the beginning of the Victorian era, a woman could only alter her shape so much before
the limits of cording and cloth were exceeded, and the homemade corset was constructed
Lynn, 130.
Fontanel, 52.
26 Lynn, 119.
27 Steele, 46.
28 Lynn, 94.
24
25
74
�to fit her figure instead of the other way around. But by the end of the era she could
conceivably lace herself several inches smaller in her steel stays, which, because of
‘glove fit’ technology, gave her the perfect figure.
Mechanical innovations were not the only way that the Industrial Revolution
shaped women’s corsetry, however. The societal changes that came from industrialization
also pervaded the art of creating, wearing, and selling women’s undergarments.
In the 18th century, many corsets were professionally tailored, expensive, and
available only to the wealthy. Being able to wear a true corset, along with the fashionable
outfits it naturally accompanied, was the mark of a higher class- the lower class wore
jumps, a laced bodice “often made from stiffened or strong fabric, but with little or no
boning…worn by working women for mobility.”29 But by the latter half of the 19th
century, industrialization was booming. Mass-produced corsets, as well as other items of
dress, were widely available at all levels of economic and social standing. The
“democratization of fashion gave more women access to corsets. Beauty was now
supposed to be every woman’s ‘duty’ (if not her ‘right’) by means of artifice if not
naturally.”30
This meant that even those in the working class were expected and encouraged
to indulge in well-made, factory produced underwear. In fact, one of the best selling
corset products was Symington Corset Company’s ‘Pretty Housemaid’, first produced in
the 1880’s (Fig. 4). It was advertised as ‘the strongest, cheapest corset ever made’, and
was “affordable, attractive, [and] well-designed.”31 The corset had a minimal number of
bones, and instead took most of its structure from familiar 1830’s cording methods,
creating the fashionable wasp waist but also allowing for the hard daily work of a maid.
The item came in a variety of colors, and even included such decorative details as lace
around the top and floss embroidery on the side stays. It was an ideal corset for those
working women who wished to remain stylish on small amounts of income, and was a
best seller at the time. One study showed that the percentage of working class French
wives (in Paris and the provinces) who owned corsets rose from 33% between 1850 and
1874 to 44% between 1875 and 1909.32
Industrialization and mass production also increased the variety in corsetry,
allowing it to be seen as a private fashion statement instead of simply a serviceable and
29
Lynn, 221.
Steele, 36.
31 Jill Salen, Corsets, Historical Patterns and Techniques (New York: Costume &
Fashion Press, 2008), 59.
32 Steele, 49.
30
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�sensible form of underwear. In the early part of the Victorian era, corsetry was noticeably
lacking in variety. Corsets were uniformly white and plain, although detail could be
found in cording patterns and embroidery on the outer layer. By the end of the era, a
wider variety of colors and materials were acceptable, even though some combinations
were still shocking to contemporary sensibilities. One such item, in the Victoria and
Albert collection, is constructed from a shocking pink silk satin, with black lace and pink
ribbon around the upper edge. In 1885, a Parisian magazine said of colored corsets,
“Very elegant and extremely becoming. Evidently designed to be seen, and ... looked at!”33
Colors advertised included black, white, pink, blue, red, or ‘blush’. Fabric had expanded
from simple jean or linen to satin weave cotton and coutil.34
The mass production of corsets now allowed for the expansion of the genre.
Catalogues offered a wide selection [for sale]: nuptial corsets, corsets made of
white satin for the ball, lightly boned morning corsets, stayless corsets for night
wear, nursing corsets with drawbridge gussets, traveling corsets with tabs that
could be let out at night for sleeping, riding corsets with elastic at the hips;
corsets for singing, for dancing, for bathing at the seaside (unboned), for riding
the velocipede (made of jersey); cool and supple doeskin corsets for summer
wear, pearl grey or chamois colored and trimmed with Nile or periwinkle satin;
and net corsets of violet silk cord with a small sachet of perfume hanging in the
center.35
The popularity of industrialization was an idea that was profited on by corset
advertisers as well. Many corset advertisements pictured empty corsets being frolicked in
by cherubs, or small vignettes about the life-changing effects of this corset or that.
However, “some corset manufacturers proudly displayed images of smoke-belching
factories on their trade cards and stationery, linking their products to notions of technical
innovation and progress.”36
Advertising also changed with the progression of technology. As photographic
techniques improved, advertisements began to depict real women wearing corsets instead
of line drawings or illustrations. It is interesting to note that these mass-produced corsets,
when advertised, were not actually placed on a woman’s body. Models were
photographed in the correct poses, and then a picture of the corset was superimposed on
their photograph. Any areas of their body that extended beyond the edge of the corset
Lynn, 126.
Saundra Altman, “Fully Boned Victorian Corset, circa 1898”, Past Patterns, (2000): 1.
35 Fontanel, 58.
36 Steele, 46.
33
34
76
�were then darkened out, creating the ideal womanly figure without any need for
immodest photography or pesky fittings with a model that may not be the ideal size.37
A common modern complaint is about the cheapness of material products today
compared to several decades before, but this frustration is not recent. The expected
duration of a corset in the late 1800’s had greatly diminished from the beginning of the
century. Many garments from the 1830’s show evidence of home alterations, revealing
that they were worn for long periods of time and possibly passed to relatives when they
no longer fit the original owner. But an average corset in the 1890s was only intended to
hold up for about one year. “The Symington Corset Company of Leicestershire
guaranteed their corsets for twelve months.”38 Various inventions such as corset covers
endeavored to extend the lives of these articles, but ultimately the lower quality of mass
production and the amount of strain a corset experienced every day made them an
impermanent feature in a woman’s wardrobe.
The Industrial Revolution helped lead to the production of corsets that were both
readily accessible to a wide segment of the population, and full of mechanizations that
made significant alterations to the natural silhouette possible. Because of this, the amount
of body modification to which the female torso was subjected during the Victorian period
has been under contention by scholars for decades. The prevailing attitudes about this
period of history have been generally negative, focusing more on the damaging physical
and social implications of these garments rather than the industrialization that made them
possible and the society that made them acceptable. However, recently more attention has
been paid in costuming to the fullness of the experience surrounding corsetry, and the
multi-faceted explanations for their embrace by society in the Victorian era.
Corsetry as a Means of Constructing Femininity
The field of costume history emerged as a legitimate scholarly pursuit around
the 1970’s, which is when the Women’s Liberation movement was also blossoming. Thus
many of the first academic works written about corsetry took a decidedly anti-corset tone.
The main themes of these works seemed to be that corsetry was a tool of the patriarchy,
used by men for centuries to oppress women. In summary, “corsets represented a
fashionable and unhealthful instrument of patriarchy, imposed by men upon women in
order to approximate bourgeois ideals of a physically disabled, chaste, yet eroticized
feminine form.”39
Altman, 1.
Lynn, 94.
39 Murphy, 155.
37
38
77
�The corset, it was argued, was used to “police femininity”40, because it not only
restricted a woman’s natural capacity for movement, it dictated that her natural shape was
not ideal. And what was ideal changed frequently, causing women to distort their bodies
in different ways throughout their lifetimes. Women “remain[ed] in fetters...in a
strangling corset”41, bound to their male sovereigns like horses in bridles.
Besides being seen as a way to control women themselves, corsets have also
been interpreted as a way to elevate the status of the patriarchy. Fashion determined that
women should wear corsets, and it was women who cared about fashion- they were
frivolous, hence men could condemn women for wearing outfits that required corsetry,
while at the same time expecting their use. This offered “masculine critics a safe platform
to discuss dangerous sexual issues, while ingeniously providing a vehicle to shape and
control female sexuality”42 Thus doctors could advocate for ‘health corsets’ and preach
about women needing to free themselves from the vanity of fashion, but could also
expect to go home to wives or sweethearts who looked neat and ‘properly shaped’ in
whatever corset was currently en vogue.
Along similar lines, many anti-corset advocates discuss the sadomasochistic
nature of the garments. Corsets were described in a 2001 text as “construct[ing] middleclass women as psychologically submissive subjects”43. Traditional gender roles were
reinforced or even increased, and the expected characteristics for each sex were clear.
“Men were serious, women frivolous, men active, women inactive, men aggressive,
women submissive.”44
The Victorian era has traditionally been seen as a sexually repressive time
period, and many scholars argue that corsetry was the perfect balance of punishment and
sexuality for Victorian men and women alike. In a time when birth control was illegal,
and pregnancy was an embarrassment but motherhood was idealized, “women were
routinely objectified for the pleasure of the male spectator as a consumable object of
desire.”45 This was accomplished through the use of clothing that both cloaked the body
and emphasized its secondary sexual characteristics.
Leigh Summers, Bound to Please: a History of the Victorian Corset. (New York: Berg,
2001), back cover.
41 Fontanel, 52.
42 Summers, 3.
43 Summers, back cover.
44 Helene Roberts, “The Exquisite Slave: the Role of Clothes in the Making of the
Victorian Woman”, Signs, Vol. 2, (Spring 1977): 555.
45 Summers, 186.
40
78
�Victorian literature idealizes the submissive woman, and elevates her to the
status of sainthood. A poem written by Coventry Patmore, about the joys of a perfect
marriage, includes the stanza,
A rapture of submissive lifts,
Her life into celestial rest:
There’s nothing left of what she was;
Back to the babe the woman dies.
And all the wisdome that she had
Is to love him for being wise46
This sentimental attitude towards the frailty of women does correlate with the
popular clothing of the time, which tended to restrict movement in some ways. The
attitude and clothing together have been interpreted to make the statement that “the
clothing of the Victorian woman clearly projected the message of a willingness to
conform to the submissive-masochistic pattern, but dress also helped mold female
behavior to the role of the ‘exquisite slave’”47
This masochistic leaning echoes with patriarchal sentiment as well. By asking
women to be submissive, and dressing them as such, they become objectified. The idea of
Victorian objectification of women is subtly different than our modern concept. Today,
we think of a woman being objectified for her body, as a simple sex object. “Corsetry
[had a] dual ability to create an acceptable fashion idea, ostensibly based on virginal
reticence and refined debilitation, but with the added capability... to flagrantly sexualize
the body.”48
In the Victorian era, the clothes themselves often became the focus of
objectification, and the woman as object was a perfect, submissive homemaker first, with
sexuality only expressed in undertones and through clothing items. In fact, the
sexualization of clothing was so rampant that it appears in quite a lot of Victorian
literature. One such novel, The Well-Beloved (1892), records a scene in which the main
character helps a young lady out of the rain and to her hotel. As he sits in the lobby, her
wet clothes are sent down to dry by the fire, and, looking at them, he falls in love. This
idealizing of a woman from her undergarments is wholly Victorian, and “the female body
is articulated as a vessel for an (absent) unworldly object of desire, and her clothing as a
vessel for the (absent) female body”.49 The corset (and its cousins, the shift and the
Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House, 4th ed. (London: Macmillan Publishing
Co., 1866), 113.
47 Roberts: 557.
48 Summers, 122.
46
79
�crinoline) became so entwined with the essence of femininity that they were an
acceptable substitute for the female itself. In Victorian life and literature, “the female
body and its clothes [became], not exactly exchangeable objects, but metaphors of sorts
for one another.”50Thus by becoming an accessory to the fetishizing of women, the corset
was a symbol of women’s oppression and struggle, a ball-and-chain that was keeping
women from rising up from under the foot of the patriarchy. Through this lens, corsets
were justly seen by modern historians as evil mechanisms, without merit to females
themselves.
Corsets are also commonly viewed as painful garments, effective only when
their wearer is uncomfortable. The history of their havoc-wreaking is summed up in a
particularly vehement passage from a work of literature published in 1997- “After
centuries of corsets that squeezed their breasts, bruised their waists, sheathed their bodies
in armor, and made them all the more desirable, women finally jettisoned this instrument
of torture.”51
Most of these arguments against the corset have merit. The sexual dynamics of
the Victorian times did call for a society in which women were expected to be quiet and
angelic, and one cannot deny that the fashions of the time were restricting. But in recent
years, a more balanced approach to the subject of corsetry has arisen- in 2001, Valerie
Steele wrote that “corsetry was not one monolithic, unchanging experience that all
unfortunate women experienced before being liberated by feminism. It was a situated
practice that meant different things to different people at different times.”52
Instead of simply discussing the militant feminist perspective on corsetry,
scholars have begun to explore the “plurality and historicity of meanings and attitudes”53
in relation to the garment. In imposing our modern viewpoint on a historical
phenomenon, it is easy to add irrelevant meanings or disregard the ideas and surrounding
culture of the time period itself. Concentrating on the “sociocultural production of
meaning”54, that is, the attitudes towards corsetry at the time it was used, as well as the
attitudes of modern people who experience corsetry firsthand, creates a more balanced
picture, one that looks at both the ways that corsets created a culture of gender inequality,
but also how corsetry was empowering. Yes, corsetry had its issues, many of which were
Casey Finch, “Hooked and Buttoned Together: Victorian Underwear and
Representations of the Female Body”, Victorian Studies (Spring 1991): 338.
50 Finch: 338.
51 Fontanel, 7.
52 Steele, 1.
53 Murphy, 155.
54 Murphy, 155.
49
80
�valid, but it “also had many positive connotations- of social status, self discipline,
artistry, respectability, beauty, youth, and erotic allure.”55
In seeking a balanced view of corsetry, I donned an 1898 replica corset to
experience the physicality of wearing one. As soon as the laces were closed, I did indeed
feel like a feminine ideal- my waist was tiny and curved outward to a full bust and hips,
and I was wrapped in ribbons and lace like a living present. But the feeling wasn’t only
about my silhouette. I stood erect (there was no other way to stand) and felt more
confident in my posture and bearing, a respectable and attractive person. There was no
doubt in my mind about the transformation that took place when I put on a corset. If I had
to list my attributes while wearing one, femininity would have been written at the top. I
did not feel uncomfortable, masochistic or pressured by patriarchy to fulfill an ideal.
The simplest way to refute the claims that women were sadomasochistic puppets
can be found in the statement issued by Anne Hollander, one of the founders of the field
of modern costume history: “People have always worn what they wanted to wear.”56
Stating that all women in the Victorian era were submissive and ready to accept pain to
fulfill their feminine duty is to vastly underestimate the spirit of human nature. Today, in
a room full of people, you will have some who dress to the height of fashion and damn
the consequences, some who care enough to follow a few trends, and others who still
wear their high school band t-shirts to work. Assuming that women were all equally
enduring torture for centuries is a generalization, and a pretentious one at that. “It should
not be assumed that all the women in the past were angry victims in their long skirts and
tight stays, and felt forced into helplessness because of them.”57 Thinking this way robs
all past generations of women of their free will, and reduces them to puppets on a
political stage.
Similarly, the hosts of medical problems attributed to corsets run the gamut from
punctured organs to general frailty. However, these accounts fail to take in the
individuality of the wearers, and assume that all women are equally affected by wearing
corsets. One doctor stated, frustrated, “Just about everything is now blamed on the corset,
as though the individuals involved differed only with respect to how much or how little
they used corsets; and as though differences in their constitutions, their physical strength,
their lifestyles, their hereditary traits, their illnesses, their race, etc. were not equally
capable of providing causes for the dissimilarities between them.”58
Steele, 5.
Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits, (New York: Knopf, 1994), 141.
57 Sex and suits, 138.
58 Fontanel, 62.
55
56
81
�In looking at contemporary accounts of corsetry, it is also easy to find women
espousing the idea. Corset maker Roxey A. Caplin wrote in her book Health and Beauty;
or corsets and clothing constructed in accordance with the physiological laws of the
human body (1854) that “the strong and perfect feel the benefit of using them; and to the
weak and delicate or imperfect, they are absolutely indispensible...it is natural that ladies
desire to retain as long as possible the charm of beauty and the appearance of youth”59
Corsetry was a way for women to feel respectable, presentable, and attractive.
Clothing “reveal[ed] more clearly than speech express[ed], the inner life of heart and soul
in a people, and also the tendencies of individual character,”stated Sarah Hale in her 1868
book Manners; or Happy Homes and Good Society All the Year Round. When worn
properly, most corsets were minimally invasive, and it was thought that “tightness by its
firm pressure on the body symbolized a firm control over the self.”60 Although it was not
always comfortable, corsetry
“demonstrated the primal and often sacred original purpose of dress, which is to
represent, in terms of self-imposed and noticeable body applications, the
imaginative projections and the practical sacrifices that divide self-aware human
adults from careless infants and innocent beasts.”61
In other words, corsets helped women feel like women- in control of themselves and their
bodies, and marked them as free-willed human beings.
Wearing a corset also helped women identify themselves in a class-based
society. Respectable women wore corsets- “to the middle class sensibility, the uncorseted
woman reeked of license; an unlaced waist was regarded as a vessel of sin.”62 Corsets
came to stand for modesty, the mark of an upstanding citizen, and the image of a well-put
together woman. In the late 1870s, writer Eliza Hawei penned, “People who refuse to
wear any corset at all look very slovenly.”63 And even though corsets were available at all
economic and social levels, they were still used as a tool to distinguish the classes from
each other. Les Domestiques, a cartoon from the 1870’s pictures a corporeal maid in a
corset and dressing gown holding up the dainty corset of her lady. The corsets are exactly
the same except for the sizing, implying that although the maid may aspire to be like her
lady, her lower class figure will never allow it (Fig. 5).
Steele, 41.
Summers, 84.
61 Sex and Suits, 9.
62 Hooked and Buttoned Together, 339.
63 Casey: 51.
59
60
82
�Conversely, corsetry also helped women express their sexuality. Corsets were
idealized and fetishized by men, but that does not mean that their erotic connotations
were disregarded by women either. “Men were not responsible for forcing women to
wear corsets,”64 and living in a sexually repressed society did not mean that women did
not want to express themselves in a sexual way. Cheeky cartoons from the period even
played on the sexuality of women wearing corsets. A common theme in cartoons was the
cheating wife- a cuckolded husband is untying his wife’s corset laces, and mutters a
confused exclamation. “That’s odd! This morning I made a knot and tonight there is a
bow!” (Fig. 6). The reader is supposed to realize that the woman has removed her corset
during the day in a tryst, a seemingly raunchy thought process for such a traditionally
stoic era.
One of the most commonly discussed phenomena in literature about corsetry is
the idea of tight-lacing. Tight-lacing is the practice, understandably, of lacing one’s
corsets or stays beyond the normal level of comfort required. Accounts of tight-lacing put
some grown women’s waists as small as thirteen or fourteen inches- one famous tight
lacer was the actress Polaire (Fig. 7).
Anecdotes of women who died from the process were common, although most
were vague and poorly documented, seeming to be morality fables rather than factual
accounts. In 1859 a Paris newspaper reported the following story:
A young woman, whose thin waist was admired by all her rivals, died two days
after the ball. What had happened? Her family decided to find out the cause of her
sudden death at such a young age and had an autopsy performed. The findings were
rather surprising: the liver had been pierced by three of the girl’s ribs! This shows how
one may die at the age of twenty-three, not of typhus or in childbirth but because of a
corset.65
In 1848, The Family Herald declared that “Women ought to measure from 27 to
29 inches round the waist, but most females do not allow themselves to grow beyond 24;
thousands are laced to 21, some to less than 20”66 The first wife of Liddell Hart was
required by him to tight lace- she wrote to him in a correspondence that “I don’t like
these... corsets because I am uncomfortable and they make me feel sick.”67 However,
although the modern perception is that tight-lacing was a common occurrence, it was, in
actuality, frowned upon.
Steele, 1.
Fontanel, 54.
66 Steele, 88.
67 Steele, 108.
64
65
83
�For example, many of the accounts of tight lacing that are currently archived are
found in a magazine known as the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, published from
1867 to 1874. Many of these letters, when read, can be found to have an undertone of
fetishism and sexual fantasy, from female and male writers alike. Such correspondence
included phrases such as “well-applied restraint is in itself attractive”, and “the tighter the
better.”68
“Many of the tight lacing letters have a pronounced sadomasochistic tone.
References to ‘discipline’, ‘confinement’, ‘compulsion’, ‘suffering’, ‘torture’,
‘agony’, ‘submission’, ‘martyrs’, and ‘victims’ abound- as do references to the
‘delightful’, ‘delicious’, ‘exquisite’, ‘exciting’, ‘pleasurable’, and ‘superb’
sensations experienced by tight lacers.”69
These letters, combined with the general scorn shown towards tight lacers, help
shed light on the fact that not only was Scarlett O’Hara’s seventeen inch waist atypical, it
may also have come from the sexual fantasies of a few young girls in a mid-century
magazine.
The actual standard for waist measurement was much higher, and most would fit
an average young woman’s figure. In the Victoria and Albert Museum, “the
majority...measure between 52-67 cm laced closed, and since most women wore their
corsets laced fairly wide at the back we should add at least 5 cm.”70 Corsets were
typically advertised in sizes from 18 to 30 inches, with larger sizes available for a higher
price.71 And many recorded waist measurement sizes are inaccurate, since as stated in
The Dress Reform Problem, “Young girls, especially, derive intense satisfaction from
proclaiming the diminutive size of their corset. Many purchase eighteen and nineteen
inch stays, who must leave them open two, three, and four inches.”72 Just like modern
‘vanity sizing’, the measurements attached to the garment may not give a true indication
as to the size of its wearer.
In the nineteenth century, doctors considered the normal size of a female waist
to be between 27 and 29 inches. Museum corsets are generally found between 20 and 26
inches, so “it seems that many women laced two or three inches smaller than their natural
waists, while some may have laced four, five, six inches smaller.”73
Steele, 92.
Steele, 92.
70 Lynn, 73.
71 Steele, 102.
72 E. Ward & Co. The Dress Reform Problem: A Chapter for Women. (London and
Bradford: Hamilton, Adams & Co.; John Dale & Co., 1886).
68
69
84
�Author Siri Hustvedt was an extra on the set of the film Washington Square, and
was dressed in mid-19th century clothing for eight days during shooting. She stated,
“Wearing a corset is a little like finding oneself in a permanent embrace, a hug around the
middle that goes on and on. This is pleasant and vaguely erotic- a squeeze that lasts.”74
According to Hustvedt, “The corset helped to create a notion of femininity, and the lines
it produced have gone in and out of fashion ever since.”75
Corsetry was used by many as an ally in their quest for femininity, and although
problems with the garment did exist, there were definite psychological benefits to their
use. Just like a modern training bra, corsetry “provided concrete (if private and symbolic)
recognition of the transition between pre-adolescent years, puberty, and adulthood.”76 It
was a way for women to mark themselves as women, to don something so significant and
integral to their femininity.
This was reflected in the ads of that period as well. In modern times, a woman is
inundated with media messages about staying thin and in shape, having perfect hair and
teeth, exercising, dieting, and wearing beautiful clothing and makeup. In the Victorian era,
these ‘feminine ideals’ were attained with the proper corsetry. Advertising played a large
role in this construction- one popular theme was the ‘before’ and ‘after’ story. In one
popular advertisement from the late 19th century, a woman looks sadly in the mirror at her
disheveled figure, mourning how horrible her corset is. But then she purchases a Madame
Warren corset, is admired by all, and ends the story with a happy marriage (Fig. 8).
Corsets allowed women to seek perfection, which allowed them to fit into
society and to feel more confident about themselves. “The judicious use of corsetry
enabled women to construct a femininity that reflected middle class ideals and
expectations of female gender.”77
Physical Experience of Corsetry as Research
First person documents are a useful and convenient tool for accessing the private
and public lives of individuals in history. But reading documents and viewing images is
just one facet of interpreting historic details. Corsets were not just written about- they
were created, worn and physically experienced by women. I felt that in order to establish
a well-rounded view of my subject, I needed to experience corsetry for myself. In that
Steele, 103.
Siri Hustvedt, “Pulling Power”, New Statesman (2006): 41.
75 Hustvedt: 41.
76 Summers, 77.
77 Summers, 78.
73
74
85
�way, I would be viewing history not only through the lens of those who wrote or spoke
about it at the time period, and those who reinterpret that information in a modern
context. I would actually be able to share at least a fraction of the physical experience of
corsetry with Victorian women.
With this viewpoint in mind, I constructed, from start to finish, two Victorian
corsets. The first was a pair of 1830’s corded stays, and the second was a fully boned
1890’s corset. I did not set out to create exact reproductions, but replicas, commonly
defined as a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. I
felt that in using modern sewing techniques and occasional substitutions, it would not
compromise the integrity of the appearance, silhouette, or feel of the corsets.
I was not concerned with using period appropriate thread, buttons, or even
material. The 1830’s corset, which would have been jean or linen, was constructed using
an old polyester tablecloth. Similarly, when some of the steel boning I purchased for the
1890’s corset was too short, I substituted with modern zip ties. These are not substitutions
that greatly affect the objects themselves: the white tablecloth has a similar weight and
drape as linen, and the zip ties are encased with material, so they are not seen. However,
these substitutions made creating corsets on a budget in a dormitory much simpler and
more accessible.
The methods and materials I used in construction differed, sometimes greatly,
from what would have been in use at the time. I used materials bought at a local crafts
store or mined from my attic, and a home sewing machine propped on my dormitory
desk. This method of construction looks nothing like what would have been used to
create either corset.
In the first part of the 19th century, corsets were hand sewn, as the first
commercial sewing machine would not appear until the 1850’s. My 1830 corset would
have been put together without the aid of a machine, probably by the woman who would
end up wearing it. Commercial patterns were not yet available, so crude diagrams were
offered in books such as The Work Woman’s Guide- these were boxy and created to
conserve fabric. A woman at home would have had to do quite detailed measurements
and conversions to change a crudely drawn set of squares and triangles into a functional
corset. However, she also would probably have had the aid of older female relatives or
acquaintances to help her, a luxury that, as one of the only sewing-accomplished young
women I know, I did not have.
Even with the aid of a machine, creating this corset was labor intensive. The
amount of hours that must have been spent back-stitching hundreds of cording channels
by hand is unimaginable. There is, however, a similarity between myself and the woman
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�who created this corset almost 200 years ago. The corset would have been sewn on
breaks between other, more important activities such as chores and baking, or at night
after children had been put to bed. Similarly, I balanced my schoolwork, job, and social
life, and found the cracks in between to sew the corset. This was probably the most
realistic time frame in which to construct the corset, because it certainly wouldn’t have
been put together in a few days like it would be if it was created in a modern costume
shop.
The 1890’s corset would have been created on the other end of the spectrum.
By the end of the 19th century, corsets were being mass produced in factories. The corset
I created on my home sewing machine is a replica of one sold by R & G corsets in 1898.
In the Ladies Home Journal of March 1898, R & G stated “When the R & G Corset has
been cut and stitched and boned, it is dampened. Then it is stretched on a steam-heated
hollow iron form... The iron form is just right. It is modeled after a perfect human
figure.”78 I had no such technology at my fingertips, so instead of molding my body to
the perfect form, I was able to adjust the measurements of the corset to better fit my
body. Like today’s store-bought clothing, it must have been difficult to find a good fit in
a factory-made corset. Sizing is still not standardized, and when the corset you are
wearing is molded to ‘the perfect body’ but yours has human flaws, it must have led to
some frustrations. I was able to circumvent those by taking in and letting out as
necessary. It was interesting to note as I was making this corset, that those who would
actually be wearing it in 1898 would not have had the experience of putting it together.
Like a modern coat, it came ready-to-wear, and I would venture that little to no thought
was wasted about the construction by the wearer.
I made both corsets using commercially available patterns, which were created
from original garments. Unfortunately, my history with commercial patterns has been one
fraught with problems, and these corsets were no exception. After carefully measuring
myself and using the correct sizing as listed, the 1830s corset came out too small for my
figure, and the 1898 corset was too large. I found ways around these difficulties, but they
were still frustrating. My smaller-framed neighbor became the model for the early
Victorian corset, which fit her well. I was able to size down the 1898 model before
finishing, but not enough. Corsets are supposed to have a gap in the lacing, known as
‘spring’, of about 2 inches. In order to get full support from my corset, I needed to lace
the back completely closed. A corset that fit me properly would have been about 2” or 3”
smaller around in circumference. I was still able to experience the feeling, however, and
ultimately the sizing issues did not ruin the experience.
78
Altman, 1.
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�Once they were finally constructed, it was time to experience them for
ourselves. I began by fitting the 1830’s corset to my neighbor Sutton. The cording created
a stiff surface that held in her stomach and allowed the corset to be pulled tight using the
back laces. However, the material was pulled to a certain point and then would go no
further, even though Sutton said she felt like it could be pulled more tightly. Without
boning, especially on the outside of the lacing holes, there was nothing to aid the corset in
being overly restrictive. It reduced Sutton’s waist by 1”, and could go no further. The
spring at the back was almost exactly 2” (Figs. 9-11).
By contrast, my 1898 corset was laced completely closed. The steel framework
of the corset aided in creating a garment that could forcibly become smaller and smaller. I
could feel myself being caught off balance as the strings were pulled and the steel
compressed my waist. Even though my waist was reduced by 2”, I felt that the corset
could have become even smaller. The only thing stopping that from happening was the
fact that the corset itself was a few inches too big for my figure (Figs. 12-14).
Sutton’s physical reaction to wearing the 1830’s corset was almost
underwhelming in its casualness. Several times she compared the garment to a sports bra,
and stated that she felt snug and supported in it. She reported no discomfort, although she
had to alter her breathing so that she breathed from her chest instead of her diaphragm.
She also laughed that the busk in the front was probably the reason for inventing the
chaise longue, because it was so difficult to sit down normally. When I asked her about
how she would feel doing heavy labor in the corset, she stated that it would have to be
loosened slightly, but that it would feel supportive and not restrictive. Once the garment
came off, she said she could feel the difference in her body. All in all, the experience of
wearing an 1830’s corset didn’t seem to be much more dramatic than that of a woman
wearing Spanx to a formal event, except with the addition of a wooden busk.
My experience with the 1898 corset yielded more dramatic results. After the
corset was cinched closed, I was at first disappointed that it was too large, because I had
hoped to significantly reduce my waist, thus ‘authenticating’ the experience. I felt that,
had the corset been smaller, my waist could have been reduced even more. However, I
remembered a note in “Fashion in Detail” about waist sizes- the majority of the corsets in
the V & A are from 52-67 cm laced closed (remembering, of course, that there is a 5 to
10 cm gap in the lacing when worn). Mine, laced closed, measured 65 cm. This means
that if I wore a properly fitted corset, it would be closer to 55 cm laced closed. Both of
these measurements fall in the most common sizing range, meaning that although I didn’t
reduce my waist in the extreme, I still achieved a figure that was an average size for the
period.
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�I then remembered another mention of lacing. “Corsets: A Cultural History”
reminded me that most women laced two or three inches smaller than normal, making my
experience completely in line with an average 1890’s Victorian woman. Even I, who
have done so much research on the subject, am still blindsided by the popular notion of
tight lacing, when in fact most women had waists that, when corseted, were not
significantly smaller than our own.
I mention earlier a woman who wore a corset for a historical film, and described
it as being like a constant hug. Her description is accurate, and picturing it is the best way
to visualize the feeling of wearing a tight corset. It was tight but oddly comforting- the
support of doing hundreds of crunches without all the work. Although binding, it was not
painful in the least- I felt like it could have been several inches smaller before I started to
feel any discomfort. I didn’t worry about slouching, or my stomach sticking out- those
things were impossible! Superficially, my body was feeling no ill effects from the corset.
However, my body, so used to breathing freely from my diaphragm and being
able to pursue physical activity without fear of repercussion, was sometimes caught off
guard by the corset. My breathing was altered significantly. I had to breathe from very
high in my chest, and taking a deep breath took coordination, even to the point of having
to place a hand on my sternum to compress it slightly so air could flow properly. I
painted my nails while wearing the corset, and as I blew on them to dry, I began to feel
light-headed and had to stop. My movement was restricted- bending down required an
entire body’s focus, instead of just bending at the waist. I felt the effects of the corset
after its removal- the feeling of a phantom hug for a few minutes after taking it off, and
the lingering marks of steel boning on my stomach. Modern studies done on leggings
have revealed that their compression on women’s bodies actually causes the muscles in
their stomach and legs to relax, decreasing muscle tone. This was a common problem
with corset wearers as well, and after wearing one for just a few hours it is easy to see
why- when the corset does all the work for you, you can feel the rapid decrease in your
muscle tone.
The most interesting thing I noted when the corsets were being worn was the
sexualization of the one from the later period. While Sunny compared hers to the
traditionally unsexy sports bra, I got compliments, a joking request for my number, and a
suggestion that I wear the garment out to a bar. The reduction in my waist and the
subsequent exaggeration of my hips sparked a conversation about the ‘ideal’ waist to hip
ratio in women. Apparently it is .7- before the corset mine was a .73, and after it was
reduced to a .68. I felt not only comfortable in my corset, but sexualized. And this led to a
whole new set of questions- was this sexualization a recent development? Today corsets
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�are fetish wear and lingerie- when they are worn they are worn specifically to be sexy.
The hourglass figure created by the 1898 corset is also highly coveted in today’s society
as the ultimate in Victoria’s Secret model sexuality.
But to what extent was a corset sexualized in Victorian Society? We know from
books of the period that underwear often stood as a substitute for a woman’s nudity, but
the true extent of corset sexualization is not something that can be found in literature. Just
like the comments I received when walking around in a corset, sexualization could have
been verbalized, or expressed in gestures or other non-written communication. The
pervasiveness of the Victorian’s sexualization of corsetry is impossible to determine
without actually living in their society, especially since sexual desire was not widely
discussed in public forums.
And this ambiguity extends beyond just sexuality. In donning a Victorian corset
I experienced one tiny fraction of a Victorian woman’s life. I was able to physically
experience the 1898 corset, and hear the physical experience of someone wearing the
1830’s corset. Yet I was still wearing the garment in a modern context, and most of the
surrounding ideologies of corsetry remained inaccessible to me, hidden in the unwritten
experiences of women who lived in a corset every day and could not, as no one can,
express adequately all the factors that created their experience.
Constructing and wearing a Victorian corset helped to put me, however briefly
in the physical shoes of corset-wearing women from the past. Yet in adding a physical
element to my research, I created even more questions for myself, most of which are
unanswerable. The fact remains that modern historians can interpret the experience of
corsetry in a multitude of ways using primary sources, and I can make and don an
accurate period corset to experience the physicality of corsets, but we will never be able
to construct the environment in which Victorian women actually experienced corsetry
every day. Therein lies the beauty of costume history- by perusing the subject from every
possible angle, we can try to pin down the humanity of past cultures. But the terrible and
fascinating complexity of human society means that even the significance of something
as simple as undergarments will remain elusive to all but the Victorians themselves.
Conclusion
Though the field of costume history is recently emerging, scholars have already
produced vast quantities of literature on the Victorian corset. The garment is an
unfamiliar one to modern audiences, and the ideals it represented in its 19th century
heyday can be interpreted in countless ways. Many factors contributed to making the
Victorian corsetry the monolithic presence that it is in modern minds, including the
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�simple currents of fashion, the industrialization of the clothing industry, and the repressed
sexual atmosphere that surrounded such a garment. The costume history field, with roots
in the Women’s Liberation movement, has been generally derogatory of the corset,
proclaiming it a dangerous tool of the patriarchy in promoting the oppression of women.
However, when corsetry is examined through a lens incorporating contemporary feelings
of women who wore them, the social and cultural atmosphere surrounding the Victorian
era, and the physicality of wearing corsets themselves, a much more balanced and
complex picture emerges, of the corset as a means for women to assert their femininity in
an era where being feminine meant being anything but assertive.
Works Cited
Altman, Sandra. “Fully Boned Victorian Corset, circa 1898”, Past Patterns, (2000).
E. Ward & Co. The Dress Reform Problem: A Chapter for Women. London and
Bradford: Hamilton, Adams & Co.; John Dale & Co., 1886.
Finch, Casey. “Hooked and Buttoned Together: Victorian Underwear and
Representations of the Female Body”. Victorian Studies, (Spring 1991): 337-363.
Fontanel, Beatrice. Support and Seduction: the History of Corsets and Bras. New York:
Abradale Books, 2001.
Hollander, Anne. Seeing Through Clothes. New York, University of California Press, 1978.
Hollander, Anne. Sex and Suits. New York, Knopf, 1994.
Siri Hustvedt, “Pulling Power”, New Statesman (2006): 40-42.
Lynn, Eleri. Underwear: Fashion in Detail. London: V&A Publishing, 2010.
Miller, Marla R. “The Last Mantuamaker: Craft Tradition and Commercial Change in
Boston, 1760- 1845”. The McNeil Center for Early American Studies (2006): 372-424.
Murphy, Michael J. “Jane Farrell Beck and Colleen Gau, Uplift: The Bra in America; and
Valerie Steele, The Corset: A Cultural History” Wintherthur Portfolio, Vol. 36 (2003):
151-159.
Patmore, Conventry. The Angel in the House, 4th ed. London: Macmillan Publishing Co.,
1866.
Pomeranz, Kenneth. “Social History and World History: From Daily Life to Patterns of
Change.” Journal of World History Vol. 18 (2007): 69-98.
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�Roberts, Helene. “The Exquisite Slave: the Role of Clothes in the Making of the
Victorian Woman.” Signs, Vol. 2 (Spring 1977): 555-569.
Salen, Jill. Corsets: Historical Patterns and Techniques. New York: Batsford, 2008.
Steele, Valerie. The Corset: A Cultural History. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2001.
Summers, Leigh. Bound to Please: a History of the Victorian Corset. New York: Berg,
2001.
Waugh, Nora. Corsets and Crinolines. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Fig 1: Late 1820’s/early 1830’s stays,
white sateen. (Waugh, 82)
Fig. 2: Mid 1890’s corset, black coutil.
(Waugh, 76)
Fig. 3: Uncorseted and corseted illustration of a woman’s
skeleton. From 1898 Tetoniana, Witkowsky. (Steele, 69)
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�Fig. 4: A khaki Pretty Housemaid corset (center front), along with
other corsets revealing the range of sizes and styles available. (Steele, 48)
Fig. 5: “Les Domestiques”, an 1870’s cartoon by A. Grevin. (Steele, 48)
93
�Fig. 6: 1840’s cartoon by Gavarni depicting a cuckolded
husband untying his wife’s corset laces. (Steele, 45)
Fig 7: 1890 portrait of actress and tight lacer Polaire. (Fontanel, 55)
94
�Fig. 8: Advertisement for Madame Warren Corsets. (Steele, 134)
Top left: “Oh! How horrible I look in this old corset.”
Bottom left: “What an improvement the Madam Warren Corset and
how comfortable.”
Top right: “How delightful to be admired by everybody.”
Bottom right: The Happy Result!
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�Fig. 9: Sutton before corset.
Fig. 10: Front of 1830’s corset, white
polyester with gusset inserts at hip and
chest, cording, and wooden front busk.
Fig. 11: Back of corset, with zip tie
reinforcement, metal eyelets, stay laces.
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�Fig. 12: Myself before corset.
Fig 13: Front of 1898 corset, purple
sateen with black lace edging, hook
and loop closure, and steel boning.
Fig 14: Back of corset, with metal
eyelets and corset lacing.
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�A Dynamic and Progressive View of Autism Across Life
Stages as seen in After Thomas, The Curious Incident of the
Dog in the Night-Time, and Temple Grandin
Ananda DiMartino1
General behaviors and characteristics that coincide with the disease autism can
be defined, but a specific child, adolescent, or adult with autism cannot be placed strictly
inside those generalities. Living with autism, a person is sensitive to certain stresses and
situations that usually cause a tantrum, and has his or her own way of coping with these
stimuli. The general behaviors and characteristics that coincide with autism, as author
Grace Baron et. al. lists, are “…attachment to objects, repetitive isolated play and
activity, lack of eye contact, and flat affect make it difficult for the child or adult with
autism to form social relationships” (17). These definitions pertaining to autism make it
particularly hard for outside people to understand how the person with autism is feeling,
how they can be aided, and how they can interact with them. The different challenges,
similarities, and differences between the spectrums of autism, in children, adolescents,
and adults, can be observed in depth through the film After Thomas, the novel The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and the docudrama Temple Grandin. Not
only the challenges and successes of each main character are explored, but also the
challenges and successes of these characters’ caregivers are portrayed, all playing a vital
role in one another’s lives.
The challenges for a young child with autism, Kyle, in the movie After Thomas,
are demonstrated with his narrow vocabulary range as a result of insensitivity to concepts
and feelings of other people; his rejection of change as a result of requiring a routine and
familiarity; his solidarity as a result of not understanding other people’s actions or
emotions; his dislike of being touched, and the overstimulation of his senses. The film
After Thomas, by Simon Shore, demonstrates that for a child with autism and his or her
parents, in the childhood stage, living with autism is the hardest. One of the reasons that
the childhood stage of autism is so difficult is because a child with autism may barely
speak, or not speak at all, until they are around five, even with hands on guidance,
attention, and teaching from caregivers. Living with autism, Kyle doesn’t like being
Written under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Kiss and Dr. Carolyn Oglio for the team taught
ILC Child Psychology: Children in Film and Literature.
1
98
�touched or interacting with others, so he comforts himself by rocking, as in his classroom
when he sits alone and rocks; he is affected by certain stimuli which cause him stress,
like the word “okay,” or “school,” and throws tantrums in response; he does not
understand or respond to his caregivers, his father saying the museum is “closed,”
because he lacks language and rationalization skills; and, lastly, he doesn’t understand
concepts or emotions because he has nothing to relate to, which is where the dog,
Thomas, comes in (After Thomas).
The biggest challenges for Kyle’s parents are stress due to feelings of
inadequacy, having no life, and identifying themselves simply as “objects” that give Kyle
what he needs. Author Orsmond supports this when he states that, “Raising an adolescent
or adult child with a developmental disability can be stressful and confers exceptional
caregiving challenges on parents” (551). For Kyle’s mother, stress and bad feelings stem
mostly from a lack of acknowledgment and physical contact, or love, from Kyle, and the
lack of any connection, even a conversation or being called “Mum”. His mother, Nicola,
spends all her time trying to push him, teach him, and challenge his autism. When Kyle’s
parents decide to get Thomas, they prepare him for the change, with no direct result, and
eventually bring the dog home.
The first night the puppy, Thomas, is home with the family, Kyle already
demonstrates the benefit of having a dog by going downstairs and talking to Thomas,
saying, “Bedtime Thomas” (After Thomas). After this, every day Kyle’s language skills
develop substantially, which is seen from him repeating what his parents have said to
him, not right away, to Thomas. This demonstrates how “Treatment to relieve symptoms
of autism involves early education,” along with repetition and a supporting medium, in
this case Thomas the dog (Berger 332). Dogs are simple, without spoken emotion or
social interaction pressures, so Kyle can relate to Thomas; thus, he teaches Thomas and
learns through him as well, about the objects and people around them. The biggest
success for Kyle and his parents is the development of Kyle’s understanding of emotions
and figuring out his own emotions. The most prominent and advanced example of this is
in the end of the movie, when Kyle says that, “Thomas loves his Mum. And Kyle loves
his Mum” (After Thomas). Finally, Kyle has overcome many of his initial challenges, and
has progressed past the expectations of any of his caregivers.
Commonly, adolescents with autism, with the right responses and attention paid
to each specific case, have progressed since childhood in their abilities and understanding
of themselves and their disease. In the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, Christopher, a fifteen year old with autism, demonstrates that general
behaviors and characteristics of autism continue throughout life, but he shows that there
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�is no limit to the number of new obstacles he can overcome. Living with autism as an
adolescent, Christopher demonstrates the general behaviors and characteristics:
specifically, he does not like being touched; he does not like looking at people’s faces
because he doesn’t understand emotions or facial expressions, and he has certain stimuli
that cause him stress, like the colors brown and yellow. When he feels unsafe or upset,
like every child with autism, he has a coping method, which is covering his ears while
groaning or listening to white noise, and rocking back and forth. This is a specific
example of how “Children typically find ways to compensate: they learn effective
strategies to work around their deficiencies” (Berger 330). Another one, in Christopher’s
case, would be having a special food box that only he can touch, and also, with a food
that he likes, but if it is brown or yellow, he has food coloring to put on it so he can eat
the food.
Christopher is developing mentally, attending school, and is extremely smart
when it comes to science, math, puzzles, and word definitions; despite this, he still does
not understand people, but in an educated way where he explains that this is because
people lie, use metaphors, and have pictures of things in their heads that aren’t real. New
people and places are still a challenge for Christopher, along with communication in
general. Christopher goes to a special needs school and talks to his advisor, Siobhan,
every day; she answers his questions, helps him understand facial expressions, drawing
them on a piece of paper for him to consult, and teaches him how to react in
uncomfortable situations, by counting from 1 to 50, along with other things. Christopher
is familiar with Siobhan, seeing her every day and knowing her, so he trusts her and
listens to what she tells him, which shows how “Individually tailored programs can
include behavior modification…” (Gavin, Meduri, and Lyness 2). One area of a
challenge that both Christopher and his Father have is communication. Whenever
Siobhan explains something, Christopher clarifies that, “When she tells me not to do
something she tells me exactly what it is that I am not allowed to do. And I like this”
(Haddon 29). Christopher’s father, even when he thinks he does, does not explain things
to Christopher specifically enough. This causes disagreements about Christopher minding
his own business, not investigating who killed Wellington, the neighbor’s dog, and about
the mystery novel Christopher is writing.
Christopher’s biggest success in overcoming aspects of his autism and things
that challenged him are all bundled together into one big trip. Christopher decides he is
going to live with his mother as soon as he decides he can’t trust his dad because he lied
about his Mom dying and lied about killing Wellington. This journey entails Christopher
running away from home and overcoming things he doesn’t like as a result of something
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�he doesn’t like even more, which at this point is his father. For his trip he had to ask
strangers for directions, hold onto his yellow train ticket, be around a lot of people in a
crowded area, and use a public toilet. To accomplish all of these things, Christopher used
the skills Siobhan had taught him and said how he sat in the train station, “And then I
Formulated a Plan. And that made me feel better because there was something in my
head that had an order and a pattern and I just had to follow the instructions one after the
other,” before he began traveling (Haddon 132). As a result, he was brave, got to London
and found his mother, solved the mystery of who killed Wellington, and later got an A on
his A Level Maths exam, accomplishing things he never would have imagined.
In the film Temple Grandin, Temple demonstrates the amazing success and
growth of an adult with autism. She demonstrates the general behaviors and
characteristics of a person with autism, but to a much less extreme and in a way that does
not compromise her life out in the world. Temple is extremely interested, efficient and
knowledgeable in the fields of science and math because she thinks in concrete, realistic
pictures where she can see the moving and static geometry of any object. She is able to
speak almost normally, meet new people, try new and unfamiliar things, and can have a
conversation with someone. She still, like all people with autism, has a hard time
understanding people’s emotions and facial expressions in response to her or other things,
like girls’ goofy responses to boys, but she just ignores them. Stimuli that cause her stress
often have to do with changes in her direct life or environment, like the sign on her room
with her name on it falling off the door, and these over-stimulate her senses and her brain.
She thinks in pictures and connects the pictures to understand objects or concepts, so
when she cannot picture everything that is going on because there is too much, she is
over stimulated and goes into a tantrum caused by stress and anxiety.
Temple’s initial challenge was dealing with the change and newness of going to
college, leaving her old school and Dr. Carlock, the science teacher she connected with.
These were also challenges for her mother because Temple had a few tantrums, but
giving Temple space calmed her down. Another struggle that Temple and her mother
share is the lack of physical contact and affection on both their sides because Temple
isn’t comfortable with it as a normal part of her autism, but she still wonders about the
feeling. Her largest success in the film overcomes this challenge and calms her in times
of stress or a tantrum throughout the rest of her life. Structured after the cow-calming
device on her Aunt and Uncle’s ranch, used when cattle are being vaccinated, Temple
designs her own hugging machine that works for her. It succeeds in calming her down
and, as she explains, “I’ve always wanted to understand the gentleness that other people
feel by being hugged by their mothers. And now I’ve made a machine that lets me do
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�that. It feels like a wire gets reconnected. Like something gets repaired” (Temple
Grandin). The other thing that helps her is the image that Dr. Carlock suggested to her of
thinking of a new challenge as “just another door,” and all she has to do is open it.
With the use of her hugging/calming machine and the idea of each challenge as
just a door that needed to be opened, Temple’s successes were ongoing. Unlike many
adults with autism, Temple graduates college with her BA in science, gives her
graduation speech, writes a successful Masters Thesis and gets her Masters Degree, lives
by herself in an apartment, understands kindness and love, has a car and job, and designs
a cattle bed that is still widely used today, thanks to the pushing and support from her
mother and Dr. Carlock. Through all of this, she understood her disease, used it to her
advantage and embraced it, knowing that she could do things that many other people
couldn’t imagine. The most powerful way that Temple understands her disease is
knowing that she is “Different but not less” (Temple Grandin). All of this leads to the
culmination of the film and her greatest success of all when she is at the autism
convention with her mother and begins telling people her story. Everyone is really
impressed and intrigued by her so they ask her to tell them her life history and how she
got to this point. This is a success for her mother also because here Temple publically
acknowledges the efforts her mother made for her throughout her life and admits she
wouldn’t be the amazing person she is today without her mother’s sacrifices. Her mother
saw how much Temple had overcome because she wasn’t bothered by the stimuli that
used to stifle her. Once handed the microphone to go on stage in front of many people,
Temple pictured a door, opened it, saw the many others she had walked through already,
and told people her story.
The different challenges and successes of people with autism… a child, an
adolescent, and an adult…are witnessed in depth through the film After Thomas, the
novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and the docudrama Temple
Grandin. While Kyle, Christopher, and Temple were all in different stages of life and
their autism, there are still many similarities among them that are observed as a result of
the definitions of general behaviors and characteristics in a person with autism. All three
of them exhibited understanding of feelings and gaining physical contact through
animals; they all displayed the necessity for a general routine or schedule; each had
his/her own specific food rules and needs, and they each had a certain way of coping with
stimuli that caused stress. Differences among the three of them were the actions they took
to handle their stress individually. All three of the characters shared the challenge of
being in a space with a lot of people, which proves true how in people with autism,
“Their heads are large, and parts of the brain are unusually sensitive to noise, light, and
102
�other sensations,” so they are easily over stimulated. This over stimulation is a result of
brain sensitivity, but also, for all three, the challenge of dealing with new people, things
and changes (Berger 331).
Kyle, Christopher, and Temple all utilized the process of referencing other
objects to understand reality. Kyle, as a child, accomplished this in a simple way,
referencing “Thomas the Tank Engine” and then Thomas the dog to develop his language
skills, parental acknowledgement, thoughts and feelings, and to form a friendship. For
Christopher and Temple, the process of using or referencing other objects to understand
reality is more complex, similar to each other, and both different from Kyle. In the novel,
Christopher describes every detail of every thing he sees now and can tell you every
detail of every thing he has seen in the past. The reason for this is the way he sees things,
thinks of them, and processes them; he explains, “I see everything,” and this is unique
because, “Other people have pictures in their heads, too. But they are different because
the pictures in my head are all pictures of things which really happened” (140, 78).
Temple also sees everything and can explain every detail of things in the present or of
something she saw in the past. Her way of seeing, thinking about and processing is
similar to Christopher’s; she states in the beginning of the movie Temple Grandin that,
“My name is Temple Grandin. I’m not like other people. I think in pictures, and I connect
them”. Both Christopher and Temple relay a common way that both adolescents and
adults with autism see, think about, process and remember things, also using these picture
memories as references for concepts or reality.
In a child with autism who is growing into adolescence and adulthood, observed
in Christopher and Temple’s cases, the autism disease itself does not always limit
academic achievement and excellence. Christopher’s and Temple’s special way of
thinking and being able to recall pictures of everything they have seen actually enhances
their abilities; both are very good at math and science. The fact that Christopher and
Temple were so smart and functioning while being diagnosed with autism, leads to the
possibility that they both had a different form of autism called Asperger syndrome.
Berger supports the reason behind this possibility because “…those with Asperger
syndrome, are called ‘high-functioning,’ which means that they are unusually intelligent
in some specialized area and that there speech is close to normal. However, their social
interaction is impaired” (331). Christopher and Temple both demonstrated strong abilities
in the understanding of and the use of language, high capabilities in math and science, but
still struggled with understanding different emotions, facial expressions, and social
contexts.
103
�The exploration of people with autism in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood
brings to light that it is essential for a person seeking to understand and interact with an
autistic person to explore beyond the defined and rigid list of general behaviors and
characteristics that coincide with autism. Every person with autism is unique, with
individual stresses, coping mechanisms, ways of thinking, and socializing. If we seek to
understand and help someone with autism, it is important to know the background
information on autism and then approach a situation or interaction with that person
without any preconceived or concrete ideas. With patience, experimentation, repetition,
and support, we can strive to understand and connect with a person with this
misunderstood disease.
Works Cited
After Thomas. Dir. Simon Shore. Perf. Keeley Hawes, Ben Miles, Sheila Hancock,
Andrew Byrne. London: Hartswood Films, 2007. DVD.
Baron, Grace M., et. al. Stress and Coping in Autism. New York: Oxford University
Press, Inc., 2006. Print.
Berger, Kathleen Strassen. The Developing Person Through Childhood. 5th ed. New
York: Worth Publishers, 2008. Print.
Gael I. Orsmond, et al. "Trajectories Of Emotional Well-Being In Mothers Of
Adolescents And Adults With Autism." Developmental Psychology 47.2 (2011): 551.
PsycARTICLES. Web. 7 Dec. 2011.
Gavin MD, Mary L., Meduri MD, Anne M., and Lyness PhD, D’Arcy. “About Autism
and Pervasive Developmental Disorders.” KidsHealth. The Nemours Foundation, 1995.
Web. 7 Dec. 2011.
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage
Books, 2004. Print.
Temple Grandin. Dir. Kick Jackson. Perf. Claire Danes. New York: HBO Home
Entertainment, 2010. DVD.
104
�“For Richer, For Poorer?” : Gender, Money, and Marriage
Victoria Felix (Psychology)1
"I, ___, take you, ___, for my lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold from
this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until
death do us part” (Catholic Wedding Vows, n.d.). As I watched my father pack up the
trunk of the U-Haul truck, taking every last material item that belonged to him, including
the package of napkins on our kitchen table, I began to question the seemingly arbitrary
nature of these vows. My father’s absence immediately resulted in a number of questions.
Who will dictate our family unit? Is mommy going to be allowed to make the family
decisions now? How will our material lifestyle change? Can we still afford to live in our
house? Interestingly, not a single question concerned the emotional trauma from losing
our father in the household. His roles included establishing norms for acceptable behavior
and providing material wealth; we did not know that a father could have any other role.
It was through this (non) union, dictated under these vows, that I learned how to
define sex, gender, and sexuality. Through watching the disintegration of my parents’
marriage, and in using evidence from Amadiume (1987), Austen (1996), and empirical
research, I have formulated a definition of marriage as a union devoid of romance or
love. It may seem as though these three worlds (Amadiume, Austen, and my family) are
too different, too disconnected to be able to formulate a common definition of sexuality
and relationships. It is important to note the historical connection that exists between
these three worlds. Amadiume describes the Igbo culture in West Africa, while Austen
describes the lives of white upper class families in England. Amadiume’s West Africa
was primarily used by Austen’s England for enslaved human labor. These two cultures,
connected through the political economy, helped to formulate the normative culture in the
United States, including what we came to know about the importance of labor and how it
should happen in society. This then places my family’s story within Amadiume and
Austen’s shared history. Through connecting these histories, marriage can be
conceptualized as an institution that teaches sex and gender roles through establishing
norms for “acceptable” behavior, and can be defined through cultural materialism as an
adaptation to secure resources.
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley for honors seminar SO213: Sexualities and
the Social.
1
105
�Marriage can be viewed as an institution that develops and maintains normative
gender roles. It was through my parents’ marriage, and particularly my father’s actions,
that I was taught the acceptable and normative ways to be female within my family.
Dictated by patriarchy and embodied by the mind/body split gender ideology, my father
held all of the power in the household, and my mother’s purpose was to serve his every
whim. My father’s familial roles were associated with the mind: working, financial
responsibilities, and decision-making. My mother’s familial roles were associated with
the body: maternal roles, domestic duties, and sexual gratification for my father. My
mother was treated as though she was my father’s property. Their violent marriage firmly
established a cycle of gender inequality, teaching my brother that he was entitled to
power because he is a male, while teaching my sister and me that our purpose was to be
servants to males. We learned that sex and gender were intertwined, and that the
foundation for a female’s sexuality should be based on pleasing a male’s wants and
needs.
My parents’ marriage created a vehicle through which my father’s sexist gender
ideals could be expressed and maintained. Chen, Fiske, and Lee’s (2009) research
supports this argument, finding that male dominance can be maintained through marital
relationships. Chen, Fiske, and Lee (2009) hypothesized that males who hold beliefs
consistent with hostile sexism (hostility toward women who do not conform to traditional
gender norms) will be more likely to use marriage as a way to maintain traditional gender
norms. Results supported the hypothesis, finding a positive correlation between a male’s
hostile sexism ideologies and the degree to which unequal gender norms within a
marriage were condoned. My father’s behaviors in his marriage illustrated the results of
this research.
Although the definitions of sex, gender, and marriage in Amadiume’s (1987)
description of the Igbo society differ from that of my family’s culture, it is interesting to
find a similarity in the way that marriage maintains their gender roles. In Igbo culture,
male and female roles were given at birth and were carried out through marriage. At
birth, a male baby’s hair was buried under a kola-nut tree, symbolizing authority, wealth,
and status. A female baby’s hair was buried under a palm tree, symbolizing that her
wealth would depend on the exchange of prosperous palm wine to her husband at her
marriage. A male acquired authority, wealth, and status through the accumulation of land
and wives. A female acquired wealth and security through being industrious and hardworking when maintaining her husband’s land. The dictated gender roles were not
possible without a marital union.
106
�Furthermore, the flexibility of the Igbo gender system supports that gender roles
are maintained through marriage. Amadiume (1987) describes that biological sex and
gender roles are not intertwined within this culture, allowing females to embody male
gender roles. If a male son does not exist to inherit land, a female daughter can go
through a ritual to become a male daughter, inheriting male gender roles. This allows a
biological female to take a male role and own land. The male daughter is then expected to
marry female wives to carry out female gender roles, including upkeep of the land. The
marital union still acts as the vehicle through which gender norms are maintained.
Jane Austen’s (1996) Mansfield Park represents the epitome of gender roles
being dictated by and defined through the prospect of marriage. Austen (1996) begins her
novel by identifying the importance for women to marry men with large incomes and
grandiose estates. Through juxtaposing Fanny’s character with Maria and Julia Bertrum’s
characters, normative gender roles for women were expressed. Fanny, being from a lower
social class than the Bertram daughters, was described as lacking a glowing complexion,
lacking education and interest in music, and only owning two sashes (Austen, 1996, p.
30-32). The Bertram daughters, being described as “fully established belles,” (Austen,
1996, p. 48) were beautiful, educated, well dressed, and possessed talents in music. These
characteristics represented normative gender roles for women who wanted to successfully
marry a wealthy man with an estate. It may be argued that women’s gender roles were
defined by teaching them ways to be marketable for marriage.
Through understanding the motive that underlies women’s gender roles, the
importance of wealth accumulation in normative male gender norms is also expressed.
This society, similar to my parent’s marriage, focused on male patriarchal ideologies. Sir
Thomas Bertram represented the patriarch of the Bertram estate, and arguably was the
character that represented the normative male role during this time period. He dictated the
affairs at Mansfield Park, and when he needed to leave for Antigua, his son, Edmund,
was given the responsibility of managing the estate. While he was in Antigua, his
daughter Maria could not be married, and Edmund could not be ordained as a clergyman.
Upon his return, the play that was being developed and rehearsed by the inhabitants at
Mansfield was cancelled because he deemed it an improper affair. Sir Thomas Bertram
represented a successful husband through his execution of these roles (Austen, 1996).
A common theme that has developed through evaluating marital gender roles is
the purpose of the political economy in defining these roles. Across time periods,
geographical spaces, and cultures, it can be argued that marriage is defined through
cultural materialism as an adaptation to secure resources. When evaluating my parents’
union, the gender roles that were created served the purpose of keeping my father in the
107
�workplace and my mother in the home. The American ideology that deems the husband
to be the “head of the household” and the “breadwinner” conveniently justified my
father’s dominance in the financial realm. My mother needed to rely on my father for
income, asking him to write her a check every month to go grocery shopping. Marriage
became my mother’s only resource for income, and the adaptive function of this union
became highlighted when resources depleted through my parents’ divorce.
Prior to my parents’ divorce, I never considered the role of money in my
mother’s decision to prolong her marriage. As a child, I would watch my father beat my
mother and strangle my younger sister. I remember being so angry with my mother
because she allowed my father to continue his abusive behaviors. I could not understand
why we did not just run away. It was not until my father left our house that I learned why
mother tolerated his actions. My father severed all economic ties to our family the
moment he drove away in that U-Haul truck. Our new reality? Eviction notices on our
front door because the mortgage was not being paid, an empty refrigerator, applying for
food stamps, graciously accepting hand-me-down clothing, and losing medical insurance.
Kalmuss and Straus (1982) provide evidence to support my mother’s actions. In
order to assess the role of marital dependency on toleration of abuse, Kalmuss and Straus
(1982) conducted interviews with wives. Findings illustrate that wives who tolerated
severe abuse were economically dependent upon their husbands. Kalmuss and Straus
(1982) discuss that a wife with a high dependency on her husband for resources may be
left with few alternatives to the abusive marriage. My mother sacrificed her happiness
and safety for thirteen years to protect us from the reality of poverty that my father
purposely created. Marriage secured our financial lifestyle, and my mother adapted to a
violent marriage to secure that lifestyle.
Unlike economical roles in my parent’s marriage, husbands and wives within
the Igbo culture played critical roles to secure that the political economy was functioning
(Amadiume, 1987). As previously described, gender norms within a marriage defined
that males acquired power through authority and status, while females gained power
through up keeping her husband’s land. In Igbo culture, the agricultural economy was not
profitable; it was through the exchange of goods in the market economy that wealth was
accumulated. It can be argued that Igbo marital culture sprang from the definition of their
economy, with males controlling the production of profitable goods, while females were
placed in control of subsistence crops.
The economic division of labor was enmeshed within the definition of
normative gender roles, and was carried out through the marital union (Amadiume,
1987). The Igbo marriage ritual was characterized by the husband gaining access to his
108
�wife’s palm tree. This was significant because the palm tree produced marketable goods,
and it was through rituals associated with palm oil and wine that a male gained power.
Once married, the husband controlled the production and circulation of yam and palmwine, while his wife was responsible for subsistence crops including cassava and
cocoyam. A husband married many wives to increase his workforce on his land. Wives
were expected to be industrious because they were given access to their husband’s
gardens and farmland. If a wife was exceptionally industrious, she could earn the title of
female husband. This title would allow the female wife to take the gender norms of a
husband. This allowed her to perform rituals and control yam production, and she could
marry wives to fulfill land upkeep duties. Without the female husband title, it was
through marriage that a woman could contribute to the economy. The ways in which the
political economy functioned made it necessary for women to use marriage as an
adaptation to secure resources.
While the Igbo political economy formulated marital gender norms that needed
husbands and wives to work, the British political economy formulated marital gender
norms that excluded women from this domain. Although the Igbo and British political
economies were different, the accounts by Amadiume (1987) and Austen (1996) seem to
parallel that women needed a husband in order to access resources. The evidence from
Austen’s (1996) Mansfield Park further supports that marriage was an institution that
guaranteed resources, and that choosing companions was not based in finding love. This
is made clear through the juxtaposition of Lady Bertram’s marriage to Miss Frances’
marriage. Lady Bertram is described as a fortunate woman who was able to marry herself
into a wealthy class that came with a “handsome house and large income” (Austen, 1996,
p. 23). Unfortunately for Miss Frances, she married a man without wealth or societal
connections, leaving Miss Frances in desperation because she is now in a lower social
class. This illuminates that the political economy, which was based on social hierarchy,
was used to define a “successful” marriage.
This idea that women relied on marriage as a way to access wealth was
commonly portrayed throughout Austen’s (1996) novel. When Maria Bertram was
introduced to Mr. Rushworth, she immediately began to analyze his potential as a
husband. After deciding that his income was more than what her father’s income could
provide, and that she would be guaranteed to be a member of his estate, she decided that
it would be her duty to marry him. Mary Crawford expresses similar reasoning when
mocking Edmund for becoming a clergyman. She begs him to reconsider his profession,
possibly becoming a lawyer, because she is interested in marrying him but does not want
to live on the minimal wealth of a clergyman.
109
�Through the definition of marriage that has been created by my parents’ divorce
and supported by evidence from Amadiume (1987) and Austen (1996), I have developed
my own hopes, dreams, and fears about the potential role of marriage in my own life. I
want to believe that this definition of marriage is an example of one of the possible ways
in which marriage can be defined. I want to believe that marriage does not always need to
dictate hierarchical gender roles, and that it does not need to be based on economical
advantage. At my current place in time, I do not believe that marriage is an aspiration for
my future. I have defined sexuality as a way to make myself vulnerable to this type of
institution, and would not want to further continue the cycle of abuse that stems from
marriage. On the contrary, I believe that the only way to maintain gender equality for
myself would be to avoid marriage. I hope that one day I may meet someone who
disproves every argument that I have found evidence to support, but until then, I do not
believe that marriage would provide me with a lifestyle lacking subordination and
violence.
Works Cited
Amadiume, I. (1987). Male daughters, female husbands: gender and sex in an African
society. London: Zed Books.
Austen, J. (1996). Mansfield Park. New York: Penguin Books.
Catholic Wedding Vows. (n.d.). Wedding Vows. Retrieved September 30, 2011, from
http://www.myweddingvows.com/traditional-wedding-vows/catholic-wedding-vows
Chen, Z., Fiske, S., & Lee, T. (2009). Ambivalent sexism and power-related gender-role
ideology in marriage. Sex Roles, 60, 765-778. doi:10.1007/s11199-009-9585-9.
Kalmuss, D. S., & Straus, M. A. (1982). Wife's marital dependency and wife abuse.
Journal of Marriage & Family, 44, 277.
110
�The Legal Evolution of Jim Crow: Separate and Unequal
Tyler Seling (International Affairs)1
The United States of America is known for having one of the first modern and
just legal systems in the world. After the American Revolution, the founding fathers
sought to create a system to fight for “Liberty and Justice for all.” However, this modern
system included one of the worst blemishes in the history of the modern world:
segregation. Laws studied as endorsing and facilitating legal segregation have come to
be known as ‘Jim Crow Laws.’ The term Jim Crow originated from a song and dance
called “Jim Crow” by Thomas D. Rice in 1832, who performed the role of a Negro in
blackface.2 Dozens of cases have passed in front of the court system regarding
segregation of whites and blacks, though few have enough of an impact to be
acknowledged as vital for understanding the evolution of segregation and Jim Crow laws.
Landmark cases such as Roberts v the City of Boston (1848-49), Plessy v Ferguson
(1896), and Brown v The Board of Education (1954) have guided the course of the legal
system through the problem that was segregation; however, numerous smaller cases were
instrumental in developing the modern legal and social system without it. The twelve
cases highlighted, Van Camp v the Board of Education, State v McCann, Cory v Carter,
Gong Lum v Rice, Buchanan v Warley, Shelley v Kraemer, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v
Canada, Sipuel v Board of Regents, Mitchell v U.S., Henderson v U.S., Sweatt v Painter,
McLaurin v Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, will serve to demonstrate the
challenges to segregation on the grounds of validity and equal opportunity. These cases,
which became a part of the battle against the ‘Separate but Equal’ standard, cover the
various areas affected by segregation, the most notable being public education and public
transportation.
The first major case in the long battle of segregation occurred in pre-Civil War
era Boston, before the 13th or 14th amendments were passed in 1865 and 1868
respectively, giving slaves freedom and citizenship, and long before Plessy v Ferguson.
The case known for initializing the phrase ‘Separate but Equal’ was the infamous case of
Roberts v the City of Boston. Benjamin Roberts, a black printer, attempted to enroll his
Written under the direction of Dr. Demetrios Lallas and Dr. Rita Reynolds for the team
taught ILC African American Cultural Voices.
2 Woodward, C. Vann and McFeely, William S. (2001), The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
p. 7
1
111
�five-year-old daughter at their neighborhood school, though it was a school for white
children. State law at the time required students to attend the school nearest their
residence, and families could recover damages if they were “unlawfully excluded from
public schools.”3 Roberts attempted to sue the city; however, school officials contested
that arrangements had been made for black students, as they sustained a racially
segregated district. According to Horton and Moresi, Roberts’ attorneys, abolitionist
Charles Sumner and Robert Morris invoked:
…‘the great principle’ embodied in the Constitution of Massachusetts, they
asserted that all persons, regardless of race or color, stand as equals before the
law. More specifically, they argued that racially segregated schools and equality
of education are mutually exclusive, that segregation is unconstitutional because
it infringes on the civil rights of individuals, and that it is socially and
emotionally damaging to both black and white students.4
These arguments were denied by the State Supreme Court Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw
because he felt that the argument of classical equality was pure theory and not viable
when applied to the American environment.5 He elaborated his opinion on the matter by
stating racial intolerance “is not created by law, and probably cannot be changed by law.”6
This law, creating separate but equal7 conditions for blacks and whites, became the
underlying precedent to nearly all of the Jim Crow laws passed by states.
A second case that foreshadowed Plessy in Antebellum America was Van Camp
v the Board of Education (1859). In the state of Ohio, the question of mixed blood
residents drew attention to rights. A man who tried to enroll his children in public school
under the assumption that they were white. They were denied acceptance to the school
“…due to alleged African ancestry of very remote origin.”8 Under the court’s opinion
voiced by Justice William V. Peck, ‘colored people’ were defined as any people who
were black, having African heritage or being of mixed lineage. His argument is
interpreted by Bishop to mean that the tone of the person’s skin didn’t matter, because
Horton and Moresi, Roberts, Plessy, and Brown: The Long, Hard Struggle Against
Segregation, 14.
4 Ibid. 14
5 Bishop, Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation, 128.
6 Ibid. 128
7Bernstein goes on to highlight in a footnote Charles Sumner’s argument that the
“separate school is not and could not be an equivalent” for integrated schools, for it
“brand(s) a whole race with the stigma of inferiority and degradation” to identify the
common use of the term ‘separate but equal.’
8 Bishop, Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation, 128.
3
112
�whites were unwilling to be associated with anyone who had a “perceptible mixture of
African blood.”9 This case, in correlation to Dred Scott v Sanford, was the precedent in
identifying the extent of what qualified for ‘black’ in America. Bishop further identifies
it as a social definition, not a biological one that is used in the American legal tradition.
The 13th and 14th amendments were passed in the 1860s, prohibiting slavery and
granting African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law, respectively.
It is after this point that the multitude of cases against segregation began to amass. In the
1870s, two cases were brought forth to challenge segregation in schools: State v McCann
(1871) and Cory v Carter (1874). Both cases used “legal reasoning that racial
classification was similar to classification based on sex or age.”10 In State v McCann the
Ohio court confirmed that permitting racial segregation in schools wasn’t a diminishment
of the privileges or immunities a citizen of the state would benefit from, nor was it a
denial of equal protection under the law.11 The Indiana case of Cory v Carter was
shadowed by a pre-Civil War state constitution which held that blacks were regarded as
detached, disparate and substandard by the law.12 The Civil War amendments (the 13th
and 14th) gave blacks citizenship they had not previously held in Indiana; however, these
amendments did not limit the power the states had been given through the 10th
amendment (that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the
states by the Constitution are reserved, respectively, to the states or the people13). As
Bishop observes, “Segregated education, like slavery, was a purely domestic institution
of a state to be protected by the federal Constitution as reserved rights for the states.”14
One of the most infamous cases in the history of the United States, which legally
permitted segregation around the country, was Plessy v Ferguson. Homer Plessy, a black
man of mixed blood (mulatto) that appeared light in complexion15, purchased a ticket
from New Orleans to Covington Louisiana on June 7, 1892. Carefully selected to
challenge Louisiana’s Separate Car Act (1890), Plessy performed civil disobedience by
entering the “whites only” car. Bishop states, “The entire case revolved around the
constitutionality of a Louisiana statute.”16 A brief was filed, by Plessy’s attorney Albion
Ibid. 128 (see footnote 17 in Bishop)
Ibid. 129
11 Bernstein, Case Law in Plessy V. Ferguson, 193.
12 Bishop, Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation, 129.
13 United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, 10th amendment
14 Bishop, Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation, 129.
15 Horton and Moresi, Roberts, Plessy, and Brown: The Long, Hard Struggle Against
Segregation, 14.
16 Bishop, Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation, 127.
9
10
113
�Tourgee, stating that Homer Plessy was seven-eighths white, having a singular greatgrandparent who had been black. The brief argued that Plessy was therefore permitted all
of the same civil liberties and protections under the law sustained by white people. A
side argument made by Tourgee was that “the reputation of one who belonged to the
dominant (white) race in a mixed community was property in a sense of inheritance being
property.”17
The court’s decision mirrored that of the Roberts v City of Boston case,
exacerbating perception among whites that the races were somehow essentially
dissimilar, unalterable by law. The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Henry Billings
Brown, did acknowledge that the property argument permitted a white man’s assignment
to a black coach; however, he wrote that a black man did not enjoy the lawful status of a
white man.18 “If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United
States cannot put them on the same plane,” remarked the court.19 This case set
precedence in several of the following Jim Crow law cases that attested segregation was
unconstitutional. This decision was upheld in the 1927 case of Gong Lum v Rice, which
found racial segregation of public schools valid on the same grounds that had been used
in Plessy20, though neither case had directly covered equal standards for blacks as
necessary criteria for segregation as it was later interpreted. Kauper points out that all of
the following cases “in regard to segregation in education turned on the question of
equality of treatment within the pattern of segregation.”21
The next case worthy of mention was the first significant case to overrule
segregation, though it pertained to a residential zoning law. Buchanan v Warley (1917)
challenged a community decree that created separate residential neighborhoods for blacks
and whites. This law was found unsound “under the due process clause of the 14th
amendment as an arbitrary interference with property rights.”22 A coinciding case in
1948, Shelley v Kraemer23, held that the execution by a state court of a deterrent
agreement preventing the use of residential property by blacks was a denial of the equal
protection of the laws, thereby confirming segregation in regards to housing
unconstitutional.
Ibid.
Ibid.
19 Horton and Moresi, Roberts, Plessy, and Brown: The Long, Hard Struggle Against
Segregation,16.
20 Kauper, Segregation in Public Education: The Decline of Plessy v. Ferguson, 1145.
21 Ibid. 1145-46
22 Ibid. 1143-44
23 Ibid.
17
18
114
�Two cases in the battle against segregation at the collegiate level pertained to
law students: Missouri ex rel. Gaines v Canada and Sipuel v Board of Regents, in 1938
and 1948 respectively. The claim in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v Canada was that the
state’s educational system worked to discriminate against him, stating the state of
Missouri had bestowed a law school for white students at its state university while it did
not meet its obligation to supply such a school for black students in state, and more so in
refusing to pay their out-of-state tuition. The Court’s opinion was that equal protection
applied within the state’s own borders24, and that sending the student out of the state
wasn’t relevant because the state still failed to meet the equal standards. In Sipuel, the
Supreme Court ruled that because Oklahoma refused to admit black students to the state
university’s law school, it violated equal protection under law, as there was no alternative
law school available for black students.25 These two cases further chipped away at
segregation as they continued to challenge the necessary equality standards by which
segregation had been built.
The equal facilities standard was further attacked in the 1941 case Mitchell v
U.S. Mitchell was a United States Congressman from Chicago, who had bought a firstclass ticket with sleeping accommodations from Chicago to Hot Springs, Arkansas.
When the train crossed into Arkansas, the conductor awoke Congressman Mitchell and
informed him that he was required by state law to move to the Jim Crow coach for the
remainder of the trip. Mitchell pursued the railway in court and through the Interstate
Commerce Act (ICC). The ICC sided with the railway, and when the case was brought to
the U.S. Supreme Court, he won in a unanimous decision. However, the Court “did not
rule that segregation was illegal; it determined merely that Rock Island’s failure to offer
exactly identical accommodations to both blacks and whites was illegal.” 26 This marked
a substantive change in railway policy, which went on to desegregate its first class
accommodations to avoid the high costs of creating a second first class coach. In 1950, a
coinciding case, Henderson v U.S., the court again ruled in favor of the black traveler at
the expense of the railroad because he had not been offered equal accommodations in the
dining car. Osborn notes that:
The United States Justice Department filed a brief in support of Henderson’s
position, asserting that separate but equal was a “constitutional anachronism”
and that the court should overturn the 1896 decision that originally encouraged
Ibid. 1146
Ibid. 1146
26 Osborn, Curtains for Jim Crow: Law, Race, and the Texas Railroads, 408.
24
25
115
�the South on its statutory course of segregation…The Court decided for
Henderson but declined to overrule Plessy.27
This case set up the further attack on Jim Crow laws in railways, as well as
foreshadowing Brown v the Board of Education. The willingness of the Court to
continue to hear cases regarding segregation and the separate but equal standards
continued to show the openness of the Court and the determination of black legal
activists.
The two cases leading directly to Brown v the Board of Education pushed the
Court to overrule Plessy v Ferguson, permanently invalidating the separate but equal
standards. In both Sweatt v Painter (1950) and McLaurin v Oklahoma State Regents for
Higher Education (1950) the court was able to determine that the black students involved
underwent unlawful prejudice “within the framework of the segregation pattern
established by the state since they did not in fact enjoy equality in the educational
opportunities offered by the state.”28 In Sweatt, a black student tried to enter the
University of Texas Law School while another institution was offered for black students
within the state. The Court decided that the law school provided for blacks was not equal
in terms of:
…the reputation and prestige of the university law school, the position and
influence of the alumni, the opportunity for interplay of ideas, [and the]
exchange of views and association with students who would eventually
constitute the larger part of the legal profession with whom the petitioner would
be dealing…29
This criterion was scrutinized by the court in an attempt to avoid a ruling that would
dismiss Plessy. In McLaurin, a black student had been accepted to graduate studies at the
University, but the university authorities forced several limitations to keep him apart
from other students. These limitations were found to be discriminatory and therefore a
refutation of the equal protection of the laws.30 These two cases seemingly set the ground
for Brown v the Board of Education, creating a feeling within the Court that the
challenges would continue to become more expansive and diverse.
The most successful and relevant case in the history of Jim Crow laws was the
one to end segregation altogether by overruling the verdict given in Plessy v Ferguson:
Ibid 418
Kauper, Segregation in Public Education: The Decline of Plessy v. Ferguson, 1138.
29 Ibid. (1146)
30 Ibid.
27
28
116
�Brown v the Board of Education. The cases that were consolidated in Brown came from
the District of Columbia and the South—Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware
—all of which regarded lower levels of public education, from elementary to high school.
These cases got back to the original concept of Roberts v the City of Boston, in that they
were about what was best for the development of children. Kauper emphasizes that
“These cases were heard and decided on the assumption that the separate educational
facilities furnished Negro students were either equal to those furnished white students or
were in the process of being equalized.”31 The Court based its hearing upon two primary
questions:
1.
2.
What evidence was there that the Congress…contemplated or did not
contemplate, understood or did not understand, that it would abolish
segregation in public schools?
If neither Congress…nor the States…understood that compliance with it
would require the immediate abolition of segregation in public schools, was
it nevertheless the understanding of the framers of the Amendment: a. that
future Congresses might…under section 5 of the Amendment, abolish such
segregation, or b. that it would be within the judicial power, in light of
future conditions, to construe the Amendment as abolishing such
segregation of its own force?32
Though other important questions were asked, these two laid the groundwork for
furthering the others. These questions guided the Court to a unanimous decision, which
was delivered by Chief Justice Warren, who argued that racial segregation in public
schools upheld by the states disadvantaged “the children of the minority group equal
education opportunities and hence denied to them the equal protection of the laws as
required by the 14th amendment.”33 This decision completely struck down Plessy v
Ferguson and the separate but equal standard that had been so strictly applied for
generations.
Though Kauper goes on to claim that “the decision in Brown v the Board of
Education applies only to segregation in state supported schools,”34 following cases
brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
against a conglomerate of railway corporations with the ICC. Osborn points out that the
Ibid.
The questions for the Court can be found in footnote nine of Kauper’s article, where he
lists all five questions and their subsidiary contingencies.
33 Kauper, Segregation in Public Education: The Decline of Plessy v. Ferguson, 1139.
34 Ibid.
31
32
117
�Court had further ruled that “any language in Plessy v Ferguson contrary to this finding is
rejected.”35 This line thereby invalidates any precedent set in other cases on the legal
application of segregation. After considering the case brought forth by the NAACP, it
decided adjacently in favor of the NAACP, saying “that segregation violated the law…
[and] completely rejected the separate but equal approach and ordered the railway
companies to abandon all of their Jim Crow rules.”36 This case was the first to follow
Brown in a pattern that dissolved segregation across the nation.
This history of American segregation has been a long, winding road from which
equality and opportunity have risen. The evolution of the arguments for and against Jim
Crow segregation – even those derived from science – were driven from legal, social, and
cultural ideals. As rationales shifted, one constant emerged: a separate but equal standard
was not viable through an equal protection under the law. As skin color grew less of an
issue than blood purity, the context in which segregation was challenged changed from
biological excuses to social concerns. The vast array of cases that spanned travel,
neighborhood districting, and, most importantly, education, prove that social and cultural
norms can be unacceptable. Racial intolerance may not have been created by the law, but
it certainly should never be enforced by it. With the ruling in Brown v the Board of
Education, a new era of legal integrity and social decency could commence.
Works Cited
Bernstein, Barton J. "Case Law in Plessy V. Ferguson." The Journal of Negro History,
1962: 192-198.
Bishop, David W. "Plessy V. Ferguson: A Reinterpretation ." Journal of Negro History
125-133.
Godsil, Rachel D. "The Politics of Law in the Jim Crow Era." Michigan Law Review,
2006: 505-557.
Horton, James O., and Michele G. Moresi. "Roberts, Plessy, and Brown: The Long, Hard
Struggle Against Segregation." OAH Magazine of History, 2001: 14-16.
Kauper, Paul G. "Segregation in Public Education: The Decline of Plessy v. Ferguson."
Michigan Law Review, 1954: 1137-1158.
35
36
Osborn, Curtains for Jim Crow: Law, Race, and the Texas Railroads, 420.
Ibid.
118
�Osborn, William S. "Curtains for Jim Crow: Law, Race, and the Texas Railroads."
Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 2002: 393-428.
Woodward, C. Vann and McFeely, William S. (2001), The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
p. 7
119
�
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Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research
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Volume 10, Number 2
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 2 The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish as a Model for a Listeria Monocytogenes Central Nervous System Infection / William Rivera -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Paper -- 28 No Boundaries? Understanding Risk of Human-Primate Disease Transmission / Jennifer Ida -- Section III: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 44 Double Vision: The Utilization of Metempsychosis and Dual Identity in Aura / Julia Zenker -- 53 Leasing: Past, Present and Future / Noreen Taylor -- 68 The Corset as a Construction of Femininity: Silhouettes in the Victorian Era / Kristen Haggerty -- 98 A Dynamic and Progressive View of Autism Across Life Stages as seen in After Thomas, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Temple Grandin / Ananda DiMartino -- 105 “For Richer, For Poorer?” — Gender, Money, and Marriage / Victoria Felix -- 111 The Legal Evolution of Jim Crow: Separate and Unequal / Tyler Seling
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��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled “The Natural
Sciences,” “The Social Sciences” and “Critical Essays.” The first two of these sections
are limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
The interested reader will find much on the pages that follow. The first section contains
the abstracts of papers and posters presented at the 66th Annual Eastern Colleges Science
Conference held in Wayne, NJ on April 14, 2012. The next contains a study on the
effects of ethanol on the activity level of Zebrafish. This is followed by an intriguing
comparison between the rate at which teeth erupt and skeletal growth in children of
prehistoric Peru. The results are indicative of the health of these children and shed
insight into the consequences of sociopolitical change. Moving on is an examination of
how Janine Antoni used art to convey messages about family, femininity, and the role of
motherhood. Also, be sure not to miss an exploration of religious fasting during the
Crusades and the critical essay written in Spanish on the surrealist painter Remedios
Varo.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Lauren O'Hare, Nursing
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
��Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference1
Abstracts
2
Remote Setting Oyster Spat; Artificial Reef/Reef Ball
John Andrejack, Kim Tetrault, and Dr. Donald Stearns
2
The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and other Plant Extracts on Bacillus
subtilis
Dilijeta Bajrami
2
The Digits of Pi
Andrea Gonzales and Dr. Otto Raths
3
The Effect of Garlic Extract on Quorum Sensing Pseudomonas Aeruginosa
John Augello
3
Selenium Supplementation and its Impact on Plasma Glutathione (GSH) among
Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh
Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta, Elena Stekolchik, Melanie Valencia, and
Dr. Mohammad Alauddin
4
Bacteriophage Therapy against Pan-Resistant Strains of P. aeruginosa
Benjamin Bustamante
4
The Effects of Green Tea Extract EGCG and Other Plant Extracts on Salmonella
and Citrobacter
Krista Carbonara
5
Analyzing the Effect of Phthalates on the Development of Drosphilia Melanogaster
Leonard Giordano and Dr. Heather Cook
5
Using Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) to Reconstruct Position Tracks Emanating
from a Source
Gia DeStefanis
5
Zebrafish as a Model Organism for Listeria monocytogenes Central Nervous System
Infection
Alina Guseynova, William Rivera, and Dr. Christopher Corbo
1
Papers and posters presented at the 66th Annual Eastern Colleges Science Conference held in
Wayne, NJ on April 14, 2012.
�6
Properties of a Classical Black Hole Solar System
Carrie Holt and Dr. Otto Raths
6
Photosensitivity of Instar 4 Mosquito Larvae (Aedes aegypti) to Different Light
Intensities
Thomas Iannacone and Dr. Donald Stearns
7
Capsaicin Induced Optic Nerve Damage in Zebrafish: A Model of Trans-neuronal
Degeneration
Maximillian Lucci, Michael Broe, Michael Gutkin, Dr.Zoltan Fulop, and
Dr. Christopher Corbo
7
The Regeneration of Blood Vessels in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Optic Tectum
Richard Morgan
8
The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Ten Other Plant Extracts on the
Growth of Staphylococcus
Julia Mullins
8
Digital Database and Interactive Microscopic Brain Atlas for Adult Zebrafish (Danio
rerio)
John Passantino, Prof. Linda Raths, Dr. Christpher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan Fulop
9
Effect of a Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Other Plant Extracts on the Inhibition of
Growth of Enterobacter aerogenes and Echerichia coli
Ashley Polizzotto
9
The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish Optic Tectum: A Model for a Listeria
monocytogenes Infection
William Rivera, Alina Guseynova, Michael Gutkin and Dr. Christopher Corbo
10 Morphological Analysis of Mast Cell Distribution of Surviving Organotropic Culture
of Adult Zebrafish Optic Tectum during the First Week
Deeksha Chawla, Elissa Troisi, Michael Gutkin, Prof. Linda Raths,
Dr. Christopher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan Fulop
10 Imaging Primary Cilia in Pancreatic Cancer Tumor Initiating Cells
Gina Auricchio, Dr. Jennifer Bailey, Dr. Florencia McAllister,
Dr. Anirban Maitra, and Dr. Steven Leach
�11 How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health Impacts of Sociopolitical Change in
Prehistoric Peru
Rose Tobiassen
12 Spectral Photosensitivity of the Fourth Instar Larval Stage of the Mosquito Aedes
aegypti
Rachel Tripp and Dr. Donald Stearns
12 Olfactory Sense and Species Recognition in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Alyssa Spivak
13 Sodium Selenite Supplementation and Plasma Glutathione Peroxidase Activity in
Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh
Elena Stekolchik, Lisa Schneider, Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta,
Nicole Deluzio, Melanie Valencia, and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin
13 Enhancing Plasma Selenoproteins through Selenite Supplementation in Arsenicosis
Patients in Rural Bangladesh
Melanie Valencia, Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta, Elena Stekolchik,
and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin
14 The Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo and Dr. Otto Raths
Section II: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Papers
16 The Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Activity Level
Ashley Nati
�Section III: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
36 How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health Impacts of Sociopolitical Change in
Prehistoric Peru
Rose Tobiassen
73 Stock Fading
Ryan Van Spronsen
Section IV: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
88 Antoni’s Touch: The Body and The Family in Janine Antoni’s Work
Nicola Andersen
102 The Fantastic Travels and Travelers of Remedios Varo
Alexis Makwinski
114 Starvation for a Cause: Religious Fasting During the Crusades
Antoinette McCarty
122 Intimate Partner Violence and Aggression Among Male Veterans with PTSD
Mary Beth Somich
128 A Total Work of Art: In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk
Erin Valerio
����Remote Setting Oyster Spat; Artificial Reef/Reef Ball
John Andrejack (Biology), KimTetrault (Cornell Cooperative Extension of Sulfolk, NY),
and Dr. Donald Stearns (Biological Sciences)
The Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is the main species of oyster we study at
Cornell Cooperative Extension on Eastern Long Island. This organism is capable of
developing large reef structures in the environment to provide water filtration, species
diversity, food source, and habitat. The process of remote setting oyster spat at our
facility allowed us to oversee the development of the oyster larvae to the proper stage of
growth. This process increased survival rate and allowed us to successfully transport the
spat on shell to the desired location. We were able to implement this structure into the
environment and observe its effectiveness by comparing test samples of water quality at
the reef.
The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG)
and other Plant Extracts on Bacillus subtilis
Dilijeta Bajrami (Microbiology)1
Bacillus subtilis is a gram positive, rod shaped bacterium that is commonly found in soil
as well as in outside environments such as in water and decaying plants. EGCG is
commonly found in green tea leaves. It is part of the family, catechins, which are a type
of antioxidants that are found in tea, wine and other products. Green tea has many
antioxidants present and protects the body’s cells. The objective of this experiment was
originally to examine if EGCG can inhibit Bacillus subtilis, and then was further
expanded to see if ten different plant extracts had any effect on the growth of the
bacterium Bacillus subtilis.
The Digits of Pi2
Andrea Gonzales (Mathematics) and Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
The most celebrated mathematical constant is probably Pi. This talk presents historical
facts and data about Pi. A Chi squared, and other statistical tests, are performed on the
digits of Pi.
1
2
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
Recipient of Excellence Award
2
�The Effect of Garlic Extract on Quorum
Sensing Pseudomonas Aeruginosa
John Augello (Microbiology) 3
It is seen that garlic extracts play a role in inhibiting quorum sensing in the formation of
P. aeruginosa biofilms. There are certain plant compounds that derive from garlic
extracts in which degrade specific auto-inducers that P. aeruginosa produce. Without
these auto-inducers the P. aeruginosa may not be able to form a sufficient biofilm to
cause serious infection. It may be possible that these plant compounds may be used
therapeutically to prevent P. aeruginosa infections. A direct measurement of the effect of
garlic extracts on P. aeruginosa quorum sensing and biofilm formation was conducted. A
basic M.I.C. (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) assay was executed involving two fold
dilution series of P. aeruginosa and garlic extract. From these M.I.C. series, dry slides
were created for visual evidence of the possible effects of the garlic extract on biofilm
formation of P. aeruginosa.
Selenium Supplementation and Its Impact on Plasma
Glutathione (GSH) among Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh
Ervila Behri (Chemistry), Stephanie Asusta (Chemistry), Elena Stekolchik (Chemistry),
Melanie Valencia (Chemistry) and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin (Chemistry)
Almost 97% of 150 million people in Bangladesh depend on ground water which is
reported to be contaminated with arsenic. About 100 million people in Bangladesh have
been exposed to arsenic above the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline level of
10 µg/l. Arsenic is carcinogenic substance and exposure to high level of As through
drinking water is causing adverse health effects in vast population. In a clinical trial,
sodium selenite supplements have been orally administered among arsenicosis patients in
Bangladesh to combat arsenic poisoning. Plasma Se level did increase after 24 and 48
weeks of supplementation. In one detoxification pathway As and Se is believed to form
As-Se-GSH complex and removed by biliary excretion. The glutathione (GSH) seems to
play an important role in arsenic removal. In this study we measured plasma (GSH) in
patients after Se supplementation. We will report findings from our ongoing study.
3
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
3
�Bacteriophage Therapy against
Pan-Resistant Strains of P. aeruginosa
Benjamin Bustamante (Microbiology)4
Hospital infections always propose a great risk to both patients and physicians alike. An
issue that is presented when dealing with these secondary infections is the overexposure
to antibiotics. Although antibiotics are one of most effective ways of treating a patient
with a bacterial infection, an underlying problem emerges and that is the development of
antibiotic resistant bacterium. P. aeruginosa is is an opportunistic organism that can
cause many different forms of infections and produce toxins that can cause cell necrosis.
This organism has mechanisms that allow it to become resistant to many different forms
of antibiotics making the eradication of this infection more complicated. In this study I
use Pseudomonas cultures isolated from local water sources then expose them to 11
different forms of antibiotics. From the same water source I isolate and purify
bacteriophages and perform double plaque assays against the antibiotic resistant cultures.
The Effects of Green Tea Extract EGCG and Other
Plant Extracts on Salmonella and Citrobacter5
Krista Carbonara (Microbiology)6
Epigallocatechin Gallate, better known as EGCG is a well known antioxidant. Its main
function is to protect cells from being damaged by detrimental molecules produced
during the digestion process. EGCG is most commonly found in green tea. Most
manufacturers produce many variations because of its supposed ability to inhibit bacterial
growth. The goal was to determine if it truly lived up to its reputation. Two microbes
chosen, Citrobacter and Salmonella were exposed to green tea to test if either would be
inhibited. After exposing these two microbes to the EGCG, it was found that both
bacteria had still grown despite its supposed “inhibitory” abilities. Other plant extracts
were then tested to determine their inhibitory effects on Citrobacter and Salmonella.
These extracts included, trans cinnamic acid, glycyrrhizic acid ammonium salt (licorice),
berberine chloride, tannic acid A.C.S, capsaicin, betulinic acid, papain, vitamin K,
phloretin, and giant sage. The same dilution series was carried out to test these new
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
Recipient of Excellence Award
6Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
4
5
4
�extracts and it was concluded that trans cinnamic acid has inhibitory properties against
both Citrobacter and Salmonella while glycyrrhizic acid showed slight inhibitory
properties against Salmonella. These plant extracts did not inhibit growth.
Analyzing the Effect of Phthalates on
the Development of Drosphilia Melanogaster
Leonard Giordano (Biopsychology) and Dr. Heather Cook (Biological Sciences)
EDCs consist of a diverse group of molecules that are both naturally occurring and
produced synthetically. The goal of this project was to determine whether phthalates
used to make plastics affect the viability and/or development of Drosophila melanogaster.
Our data indicate that tested concentrations do not affect fly development or viability.
Using Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) to
Reconstruct Position Tracks Emanating from a Source
Gia DeStefanis (Physics and Mathematics)7
A preliminary study of the development of a new detector using Gas Electron Multipliers
(GEM) to reconstruct position tracks emanating from a source will be presented. The
long term goal is to image tracks in three dimensions and generate a Position Emission
Tomography (PET) image.
Zebrafish as a Model Organism for Listeria
monocytogenes Central Nervous System Infection
Alina Guseynova (Microbiology), William Rivera (Microbiology), and Dr. Christopher
Corbo (Biological Sciences)
Listeria monocytogenes is a serious food-borne pathogen that has caused gastroenteritis,
meningitis, and septicemia. L. monocytogenes is also known to cause infections of the
central nervous system (CNS). Zebrafish are an excellent model organism because they
are easy to maintain and handle, but they also possess the central nervous system of a
This work was performed under the direction of Drs. Craig Woody and Bob Azmoon at
Brookhaven National Lab during a summer of 2011 Science Undergraduate Laboratory
Internship Program.
7
5
�vertebrate organism. In this study, zebrafish were inoculated with L. monocytogenes in
the gills, mouth, and eyes to see which site would be a likely entry point to eventually
lead to a central nervous infection. To see if the L. monocytogenes was able to enter the
CNS, these locations of the fish were inoculated with L. monocytogenes and the
zebrafish’s brain was plated out according to a time course. Oxford media, a selective
media for Listeria, was used to determine if L. monocytogenes was present in the brain
tissue. The eyes and the gills proved to be the sites that most often lead to central nervous
system infections. Approximately 70% of the fish came down with a CNS infection after
inoculation into the eye. This could be because the eye has direct contact with the optic
nerve that could have passed the infection to the brain. The gills closely followed with
64% while the mouth only had 25% of the fish positive for LM in the brain.
Properties of a Classical Black Hole Solar System
Carrie Holt (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
A theoretical model that calculates the properties of a classical black hole solar system
will be presented. Important parameters such as the event horizon, star and planet
densities, have been calculated.
Photosensitivity of Instar 4 Mosquito Larvae
(Aedes aegypti) to Different Light Intensities
Thomas Iannacone (Biology) and Dr. Donald Stearns (Biological Sciences)
Fourth- instar Aedes aegypti mosquito larvae were tested for their negative phototactic
behavior in response to light cues, compared with their behavior under the same
conditions but without exposure to light. Using a wavelength of 610 nm (orange light),
the trials were conducted using four different light intensities and compared with a dark
control as well as with each other. One-way ANOVA and Tukey testing were performed
to determine which light cues elicited negative phototactic responses that were
significantly different. In addition, χ2 testing was completed to compare the distributional
responses of the larvae under these different light conditions. High variability in percent
negative phototaxis per treatment resulted in most tested light cues showing no
significant difference (α = 0.05) when compared with the dark control. However, χ2
testing showed significant (p < 0.05) differences in the distributions of the test organisms
6
�compared with the dark control for the tested light cues. The larvae appear to be
extremely sensitive to very low light levels.
Capsaicin Induced Optic Nerve Damage in Zebrafish:
A Model of Trans-neuronal Degeneration
Maximillian Lucci (Biopsychology), Michael Broe (Biology), Michael Gutkin (Microbiology),
Dr.Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences), and Dr. Christopher Corbo (Biological Sciences)
The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the nature of capsaicin as a neurotoxin
in adult zebrafish. Capsaicin is the primary capsaicinoid of cayenne peppers, and it is
known to be a potent toxin to sensory neurons. Zebrafish were selected as the model
organism due to its easy maintenance, low cost and its vertebral central nervous system.
Capsaicin was injected into the zebrafish eye to develop a model of trans-neuronal
degeneration. In this model, the sensory neurons of the retina were killed by the
neurotoxin, and consequently, the connecting neurons in the optic tectum will be
damaged due to a lack of stimulation. We studied the effect of capsaicin on both the
retina and the optic tectum using light microscopy. At 24 and 48 hours post capsaicin
exposure, the presence of blood cells both in the ventricle and in the periventricular grey
zone was detected. Additionally, dead or dying cells were found to be present in both the
retina and the optic tectum. The presence of these dead cells suggests that this may be a
successful model to study trans-neuronal degeneration.
The Regeneration of Blood Vessels in
the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Optic Tectum
Richard Morgan (Biopsychology)8
Oil immersion light microscopy was used to analyze the blood vessels of a zebrafish
optic tectum from an organotypic culture at distinct time periods. The extraction of the
optic tectum and the production of slides occurred in previous experiments. The
regeneration of the blood vessels was distinguished via evaluation of the red blood cells
and the endothelium. Diminished nuclei of the endothelium and the red blood cells
indicate a debilitated blood vessel. A healthy blood vessel was established from intact
nuclei in the red blood cells and the endothelium. Healthy and debilitated blood vessels
8
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr.Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences).
7
�were distinguished at distinct time periods. The transition from a blood vessel that
consists of diminished nuclei to a blood vessel comprised of prosperous nuclei indicates
regeneration. The aggregation of red blood cells produced in the extracellular tissues of
the blood vessels replicate mechanisms evident in embryonic development. The analysis
supports the hypothesis that regeneration of the blood vessels in the optic tectum will
occur following extraction from the zebrafish.
The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Ten
Other Plant Extracts on the Growth of Staphylococcus
Julia Mullins (Microbiology)9
EGCG, or Epigallocatechin Gallate, as well as 10 other natural plant extracts are thought
to prevent the growth of 2 species of Staphylococcus: S. epidermidis and S. aureus.
These 10 additional extracts are Vitamin K, Weed pollens from Artemisia tridentate,
Capsaicin, Phloretin, Tannic Acid, Glycyrrhizic Acid, Betulinic Acid, Papain, Cinnamic
Acid, and Berberine Chloride. After performing 3 ten-fold dilutions for each of the 11
plant extracts, for each of the two species of Staphylococcus; it was found that for
Staphylococcus aureus, Cinnamic acid works best in inhibiting the growth of the bacteria,
followed by Tannic Acid and Berberine Chloride. It was also found that for
Staphylococcus epidermidis, Berberine Chloride works best in inhibiting the growth of
the bacteria, followed by Tannic Acid, and Glycyrrhizic Acid.
Digital Database and Interactive Microscopic
Brain Atlas for Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
John Passantino (Biology), Prof. Linda Raths (Biological Sciences),
Dr. Christpher Corbo (Biological Sciences), and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences)
The premise of this research was to create a database program for microscopic images of
the adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) brain. During the last few semesters we have been able
to compile and catalog an extensive neuromorphological material for the adult zebrafish
brain. Using advanced microscopic techniques, multiple images of the zebrafish brain
have been produced in the horizontal, coronal and sagittal views. The data have come
from relatively high resolution imaging of zebrafish brains on which neuroanatomical
9
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
8
�structures are well recognizable. Photoshop CS5 was used to mask, layer and color the
digital photographs in the atlas. Specifically, desired regions of the brain in each picture
were identified, colored-labeled and assigned a description in attempt to increase the
interactive ease of users. Microsoft Access 2007 was the basic application used to create
this digital database. It allows for the reduction of photographic storage space and the
production of visually appealing forms to present the data. The database program that we
have created allows for efficient storage of the photographic data, while making it easily
accessible and interactive for users.
Effect of a Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Other
Plant Extracts on the Inhibition of Growth of
Enterobacter aerogenes and Echerichia coli
Ashley Polizzotto (Microbiology)10
Echerichia coli also known as E.coli and Enterobacter aerogenes are gram negative
bacilli. Epigallocatechian Gallate EGCG has been said to be one of nature’s most
powerful antioxidants. The objective of this research was to determine which
concentration, if any, of EGCG and ten plant extracts could inhibit the growth of E.coli
and Enterobacter aerogenes. The concentration of EGCG tested in this experiment
ranged from 1260mg/ml to 0.00000126mg/ml. Results of this experiment showed that
EGCG has no antimicrobial activity against E.coli and Enterobacter aerogenes. As for
the ten other extracts, the highest concentrations had no effect except for Tannic Acid
(500mg), Cinnamic Acid (250mg) and Berberine Chloride (250mg).
The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish Optic Tectum:
A Model for a Listeria monocytogenes Infection
William Rivera (Microbiology), Alina Guseynova (Microbiology), Michael Gutkin
(Microbiology) and Dr. Christopher Corbo (Biological Sciences)
Listeria monocytogenes is a facultative, intracellular, gram-positive bacterium that may
infect humans following the ingestion of contaminated food. In this study, L.
monocytogenes was injected into the vitreous humor of the adult zebrafish eye to
determine if the organism could cause an infection of the optic tectum. Approximately 20
10
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Microbiology)
9
�adult zebrafish were injected in the eye with L. monocytogenes, and through plating
techniques as well as light and electron microscopy, the time course of the infection was
studied. The signs of infection were seen in the brain as early as four hours post injection.
We could detect the presence of L. monocytogenes in the periventricular grey zone of the
optic tectum by 7 days post injection.
Morphological Analysis of Mast Cell Distribution
of Surviving Organotropic Culture of Adult
Zebrafish Optic Tectum during the First Week
Deeksha Chawla (Biopsychology), Elissa Troisi (Biopsychology), Michael Gutkin
(Microbiology), Prof. Linda Raths (Biological Sciences), Dr. Christopher Corbo
(Biological Sciences), and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences)
In order to examine the distribution of mast cells over 7 days, we took montages or
compressed images of slides made from a previous study. These slides were created from
a simple Zebrafish brain surgery which sliced the optic tectum in 4 pieces. These pieces
were then deposited in a nutrient rich solution where they were kept for certain time
points. In total, 3 fish optic tectums were dissected and the time points were kept at 2, 4,
6, 12, 24, 48, 72, 96 hours and 7 days. The fragments of the optic tectums were then
stained and ready for observation after they had completed their respective time in the
nutrient solution. The slides were examined for mast cell development through a
Olympus 300 microscope under a 200x magnification. Mastocytes are rich in histamine
in addition to other neurotransmitters. These cells specialize in fibrosis or connective
tissue development. This in turn creates wounds and scarring at sites of damage. The
results showed that there was a steady distribution of mast cells and granules for the first
few hours but increased exponentially towards the end of the first week.
Imaging Primary Cilia in Pancreatic
Cancer Tumor Initiating Cells
Gina Auricchio (Microbiology), Dr. Jennifer Bailey (Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine), Dr. Florencia McAllister (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine),
Dr. Anirban Maitra (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), and Dr. Steven
Leach (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine)
10
�Primary cilia (PC) are microtubule projections eminating from the apical surface of
epithelial cells and are responsible for the transduction of growth factor and
morphogenetic signaling pathways. Observations in the field of pancreatic cancer suggest
the absence of PC in human pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) and pancreatic
ductal adenocarcinoma. However, PC have been noted in differentiated acinar cells
undergoing acinar to ductal metaplasia. This metaplasia is characterized in pancreatic
injury and accelerates tumor formation in the presence of acinar specific KrasG12D
mutations sponsoring the hypothesis that PC are maintained in pancreatic tumor-initiating
cells. To address this hypothesis, confocal microscopy (CFM) was used to quantify the
percentage of cells within human PanIN: on a tissue array of n=23, it was determined in
15% of PanIN lesions that 13-30% of the cells expressed a primary cilium. CFM was also
used to image mPanIN lesions from a mouse model that expressed KrasG12D: PC in
cuboidal epithelium was present in these transitional lesions. This data is informative
with regard to the earliest initiating events in pancreatic cancer.
How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health
Impacts of Sociopolitical Change in Prehistoric Peru11
Rose Tobiassen (Anthropology)12
The health of children is used as a proxy measure for quality of life. The rate at which a
person’s teeth erupt is determined by genetics, while skeletal growth is affected by
environmental factors; stress early in an individual’s life can result in stunted bone
growth relative to dental development. Using this idea, this study compares the skeletal
and dental age of 107 individuals from two sites in northern Peru in order to determine
the amount of stress experienced by children across time periods. The sites include Cerro
Oreja, occupied during the Salinar (400-1 BC) and Gallinazo (AD 1-200) periods and
Huaca de la Luna, occupied during the Moche (AD 300-400) and Chimu (AD800-1530)
periods. Cerro Oreja was an important urban center before the state-level society
developed. With the founding of the Southern Moche State, Cerro Oreja was abandoned
and Huaca de la Luna became the Moche state capital, which was later reused by the
Chimu Empire. Given the dating of these sites, understanding child growth can help us
track the health consequences of sociopolitical change. The sample sizes available were
small, and therefore made determining significant difference between time periods
11
12
Recipient of Excellence Award
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Celeste Gagnon (Anthropology)
11
�difficult. However it appears that the Salinar period children of Cerro Oreja suffered least
from environmental stress, and the Noche children of Huaca de la Luna suffered most. A
number of factors may have contributed to this stress, including changes in the economic
system, the rise of social inequality, and environmental changes.
Spectral Photosensitivity of the Fourth Instar
Larval Stage of the Mosquito Aedes aegypti
Rachel Tripp (Biology) and Dr. Donald Stearns (Biological Sciences)
The spectral photosensitivity of the fourth instar larval stage of the mosquito Aedes
aegypti was investigated. The setup allowed larvae to swim either towards a given
directional light cue (positive phototaxis) or away from it (negative phototaxis) as a
response. Each tested light cue was a combination of the light intensity 9.55 x 10-13µEm2s-1 and a particular wavelength. Thirteen wavelengths (450 – 710 nm) were tested at that
light intensity. For each trial, 10 dark-adapted larvae were placed in the center of a
horizontal test chamber, the stimulus light from a projector was turned on, and the
distribution of the 10 larvae was determined after the 30s stimulus period. For each of the
wavelengths used, 10 individual trials were completed with 10 organisms being tested per
replicate. There was also a dark control group treated the same way but not exposed to
light. Positive phototaxis was never observed. Degree of negative phototaxis varied,
depending on the light cue. Chi-square testing comparing the distributions, as well as
ANOVA and Tukey testing to compare percent negative phototaxis for the 14 different
groups, showed different photosensitivities to different wavelengths. This larval stage
was sensitive to a broad range of wavelengths, but not to 570 nm. These results were
compared with similar research involving other larval stages.
Olfactory Sense and Species Recognition
in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Alyssa Spivak13
Chemical sensory signaling is known to be an extremely advantageous ability and plays a
crucial role in eliciting behaviors in many species. Specifically, the ability of fish to
recognize conspecifics through chemical signaling and form social aggregations has
proven to reduce predation under natural conditions. In this study, the ability of zebrafish
13
Research conducted under the supervision of Dr. Brian Palestis
12
�(Danio rerio) to recognize conspecifics is examined through various behavioral analyses.
Zebrafish were placed in a tri-sectional aquarium and were presented with various
stimulus fish, conspecifics and heterospecifics (purple passion danios (Danio roseus)).
The location of the test zebrafish was then monitored for ten minutes and all time
intervals were recorded. A visual test, blind test, and scent test were all utilized to
relinquish the possibility of any visual cues during the experiment (olfactory cues were
available for each of the tests). Results show that test zebrafish did spend significantly
more time near conspecific stimulus fish when both olfactory and visual cues were
available. Possible reasons for such results are discussed as well.
Sodium Selenite Supplementation and Plasma Glutathione
Peroxidase Activity in Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh
Elena Stekolchik (Chemistry), Lisa Schneider (Chemistry), Ervila Behri (Chemistry),
Stephanie Asusta (Chemistry), Nicole Deluzio (Psychology), Melanie Valencia
(Chemistry), and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin (Chemistry)
About 100 million people of which 35 million are children in Bangladesh have been
exposed to arsenic above the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible level of 10
µg/l from drinking arsenic contaminated groundwater. Arsenic is a known carcinogen.
Many of the arsenic poisoning victims are showing skin lesions, melanosis, keratosis and
other adverse health effects. In a clinical trial, selenium supplements in the form of
sodium selenite have been given to arsenicosis patients in Bangladesh to combat arsenic
poisoning. Selenium is believed to play a role in detoxification of As by forming a As-SeGSH complex. However, Se is also incorporated in a number of selenoproteins.
Glutathione peroxidase (GPx), an important selenoprotein which acts as body’s defense
against reactive oxygen species (ROS). In our study we have measured GPx activity in
plasma after 0, 24 and 48 weeks of Se supplementation and we observe an increase in
plasma GPx activity with Se supplementation. In this presentation we will report our
findings.
Enhancing Plasma Selenoproteins through Selenite
Supplementation in Arsenicosis Patients in Rural Bangladesh
Melanie Valencia (Chemistry), Ervila Behri (Chemistry), Stephanie Asusta (Chemistry),
Elena Stekolchik (Chemistry), and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin (Chemistry)
13
�Vast population in rural Bangladesh have been exposed to arsenic above the World
Health Organization (WHO) guideline level of 10 µg/l through consumption of arsenic
laced groundwater for the last few decades. Arsenic is a slow poison and causes serious
health effects and various types of cancer. Selenium has been reported to counter As
toxicity. Orally administered Se may enhance a number of selenoproteins such as GPx,
thioredoxin reductase (TrxR) in blood. Both GPx, TrxR are body’s defense against
oxidative injury. In a clinical trial in rural Bangladesh Se supplements were given to
patients and controls received matching placebo. In a few patients thioredoxin reductase
(TrxR) an important selenoprotein has been measured. The TrxR, selenoprotein P are
observed to be mildly elevated in supplement group. Selenium seems to be an effective
antidote to As poisoning. We are extending the measurement of these selenoproteins to
more patients. Our recent findings will be reported in this presentation.
The Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths (Physics)
The Brachistochrone problem, solved by Jean Bernoulli, has been called the most
celebrated problem of the 17th century. This study presents a linear approximation, using
conventional calculus to the Brachistochrone problem. Possible methods of including
friction will be discussed.
14
��The Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Activity Level
Ashley Nati (Biology)1
In this study, the activity level of zebrafish across various ethanol concentrations was
analyzed. Along with quantifying locomotion, swim patterns such as freezing bouts,
erratic zig-zagging movements, and thigmotaxis were also observed. These swim patterns
were used to test the idea that ethanol has an anxiolytic or sedative effect on zebrafish.
This study did not exhibit any significant correlation between ethanol and activity level in
zebrafish. Throughout all treatments there was evidence of consistent freezing bouts,
erratic zig-zagging movements, and positive thigmotaxis suggesting that ethanol did not
have an anxiolytic effect. Although the study did not show significant patterns of activity
level of zebrafish in different concentrations of ethanol, it provided insightful information
on overall zebrafish swim patterns as well as suggestions and modifications for future
studies.
I. Introduction
Ethanol
Ethanol is a two carbon organic compound composed of an ethyl group with a
hydroxyl group. It is naturally produced through fruit or grain fermentation. Ethanol is
soluble in both aqueous and lipid environments and therefore has an effect on practically
all organs of the body (Lockwood et al., 2004). Especially, ethanol has a profound effect
on the central nervous system, affecting motor coordination, sensory perception, and
cognition (Duglos and Rabin, 2003).
Behaviorally, ethanol at low concentrations induces euphoria, relief from
anxiety and stress, relaxation, disinhibition, hyperactivity, and a neurostimulatory effect
(Phillips and Shen, 1996; Peng et al., 2009; Echevarria et al., 2011; Mathur and Guo,
2011). Ethanol in higher doses creates the opposite effect, including depressant,
hypoactive, and potentially sedative effects (Peng et al., 2009; Echevarria et al., 2011).
Overall, ethanol has a facilitatory effect at lower doses and an inhibitory effect at higher
doses (Gerlai et al., 2000), a dose-response curve known as hormesis (Calabrese and
Baldwin, 2003).
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Brian Palestis in partial fulfillment of the
Senior Program requirements.
1
16
�Zebrafish General Information
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a small vertebrate (3-4 cm long) that is an emerging
animal model for behavioral pharmacology, developmental biology, genetics, drug
discovery, chemical and environmental toxicity, neurobiology, neuropsychopharmacology,
and neurotoxicology (Gerlai et al., 2000; Parng et al., 2007; Blaser et al., 2010; Maximino
et al., 2010). The organism is a freshwater, cyprinid, teleost species whose behavior can be
easily studied in a controlled environment (Gerlai et al., 2000; Gebauer et al., 2011). It is a
preferred model organism, in some cases, over rodents, because of its low cost, low
maintenance, and (because it naturally prefers shoaling) ability to house large numbers of
organisms in confined spaces (Gerlai et al., 2006; Blaser et al., 2010; Gebauer et al., 2011).
Zebrafish produce hundreds of offspring per spawning, which can occur every
other day (Gerlai et al., 2003; Gerlai et al., 2006). Their offspring are transparent and
develop externally, which is useful in many in vivo studies (McGrath and Li, 2008).
Larvae and embryos are also highly susceptible to various toxins and can easily be used
as models of neurotoxicity throughout their development (Parng et al., 2007). Drugs can
be administered through diffusion or orally after seventy two hours postfertilization,
which is when zebrafish larvae are able to swallow (McGrath and Li, 2008). As early as
six days postfertilization, larvae are mature swimmers that have functioning motor and
sensory systems (Irons et al., 2010). These motor functions develop in a predictable
sequence which allows for the study of drug effects on locomotion starting from the
embryonic stage (Parng et al., 2007).
Zebrafish are increasingly studied as a model organism for behavioral
pharmacology, particularly when studying the effects of ethanol (Blaser et al., 2010).
Genetic studies with zebrafish have shown DNA sequence homologies between zebrafish
and mammals, especially in genes related to ethanol metabolism, indicating that zebrafish
are candidates for human models (Gerlai et al., 2006). Zebrafish have seventy to eighty
percent of their genes similar to those of humans (Gebauer et al., 2011). As early as 120
hours postfertilization, zebrafish develop organs and tissues, including brain, heart, liver,
pancreas, kidney, intestines, bone, muscles, nerve systems, and sensory organs, that are
similar to mammals anatomically, physiologically, and molecularly (McGrath and Li,
2008). Not only have there been similarities found between the neuroanatomy of the
zebrafish and mammals but also of other vertebrates (Turay, 2010). Also, since the
genome, transcriptome, and proteome of the zebrafish have been established (Maximino
et al., 2010), zebrafish can be examined side by side with its vertebrate and mammalian
counterparts in numerous behavioral and developmental studies. These advantageous
qualities of zebrafish larvae are beneficial to the studies of large-scale genome
17
�mutagenesis and gene mapping, transgenesis, protein overexpression or knockdown, cell
transplantation and chimeric embryo analysis, and chemical screens (Guo, 2010). With
all of these qualities conducive to in-depth study of zebrafish, studies on behavior and
locomotion in ethanol can easily be extrapolated to determine more widespread
comprehensive effects.
Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Central Nervous System
Zebrafish easily absorb ethanol into their blood stream. They intake the mixture
of ethanol and distilled water through the blood vessels in the gills and through the body
surface (Gerlai et al., 2006). In approximately one hour, the level of ethanol in the blood
of zebrafish is in equilibrium with that of the tank water (Duglos and Rabin, 2003;
Lockwood et al., 2004). These effects are evident when translated into the behavior seen
in zebrafish. Examples of the behavioral ramifications of ethanol are changes in
locomotor activity, social behavior, scototaxis (preference for darkness), thigmotaxis
(preference for the edge of a container rather than the center), and movement patterns. As
seen in humans, increased amounts of alcohol in the blood produces anxiolytic effects
and sedation, while small amounts of alcohol produces effects of disinhibition and
euphoria (Lockwood et al., 2004). This is similarly seen in zebrafish, where they express
suppressed locomotive activity when in high concentrations of ethanol, while in lower
concentrations exhibit hyperactivity.
Zebrafish share homologies in genes (with vertebrates and mammals) for
ethanol metabolism, as well as anatomical similarities (Gerlai et al., 2006). The basic
layout of the zebrafish brain does not fundamentally vary from that of vertebrate brains.
Zebrafish larvae and embryos are often used to perform studies on the effects of ethanol
on the central nervous system of zebrafish. It has been seen in mammals that ethanol
affects neuronal proliferation and motor neuron survival (Parng et al., 2007). These
effects have also been observed in larval zebrafish. Due to the transparent nature of
zebrafish development, specific neurons and axon tracts can be studied in vivo (McGrath
and Li, 2008). Zebrafish have an organized stereotypical vertical pattern of primary
motor neurons (Parng et al., 2007; McGrath and Li, 2008). Treatment with ethanol on
developing zebrafish larvae has significant effect on motor neurons. A study conducted
by McGrath and Li (2008) showed that treatment with ethanol produced primary motor
neuron loss in the somite region of zebrafish. A study by Parng et al. (2007) also showed
disruption of motor neurons with loss of primary motor neurons in the somite region.
Ethanol affects gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) receptors and N-methyl-Daspartic acid (NMDA) receptors in the zebrafish brain (Maximino et al., 2011). GABAA
receptors are predicted to be involved in the anxiolytic effects of ethanol, as well as the
18
�depressant effect of ethanol at higher doses (Gebauer et al., 2011). Ethanol acts as an
allosteric agonist for GABA. It induces the GABAA receptor to have a conformation
which increases the affinity for the GABA neurotransmitter for the GABAA receptor.
GABA binding to GABAA activates GABAA and sparks the entering of chloride ions into
the presynaptic membrane. This hyperpolarizes the neuron and causes an inhibitory
postsynaptic potential (IPSP), decreasing the chance of an action potential to occur. For
this reason, ethanol creates anxiolytic and sedative effects. Ethanol acts on NMDA
receptors as an uncompetitve antagonist. When NMDA binds to the active site of the
receptor, it usually creates an excitatory response. However, when ethanol also binds to
an allosteric site, this response is inhibited.
Ethanol also alters the adenyl cyclase mediated phosphorylation of extracellular
signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in the forebrain (Peng et al., 2009; Maximino et al., 2011).
The amount of phosphorylation of ERKs is an indicator for zebrafish behavioral
sensitivity to ethanol (Peng et al., 2009). At a low dose of ethanol, there is an increased
level of phosphorylated ERK and at a high dose of ethanol there are decreased
phosphorylated ERK levels (Peng et al., 2009). Dopamine and opioid systems are
involved in the stimulatory effects of low-dose ethanol treatment, while inhibition of
NMDA receptor and potentiation of GABA receptors plays a role in the depressive
effects of high-dose ethanol treatment (Peng et al., 2009; Maximino et al., 2011).
Ethanol affects the brain, vision, and motor function in humans and is consequentially
used for study of neuronal defects in zebrafish (Parng et al., 2007). The similarity of the
developmental levels of spinal cord development among zebrafish and other vertebrates
makes zebrafish an effective candidate for comparative study (Brustein et al., 2003).
Since the brain is more sensitive to ethanol than other organs, the observed behavioral
effect seen from ethanol treatment on zebrafish is likely due to its effect on the brain
(Mathur and Guo, 2011).
Ethanol Hormesis in Zebrafish
As noted above, hormesis is commonly exhibited in acute ethanol treatments
with zebrafish. Low doses of ethanol produce stimulation while high doses produce
inhibition (Kurta and Palestis, 2010; Irons et al., 2010). Ethanol influences zebrafish
behavior in a dose-dependent manner, enhancing certain behaviors with low to
intermediate doses and suppressing others at higher doses (Echevarria et al., 2011). This
hormesis creates an inverted U-shaped dose-response curve.
Various studies have shown the same trend of increased locomotion in lower
doses of ethanol and decreased locomotion in higher doses of ethanol. In a study by Irons
et al. (2010), low doses incited hyperactivity and high doses produced hypoactivity. A
19
�study by Maximino et al. (2011) also exhibited the inverted U-shaped dose-response
curve for locomotion, with increased locomotion at 0.5% ethanol and a nonsignificant
decrease at 1.0% ethanol. In a study by Gerlai (2003), 0.25% and 0.5% doses of ethanol
induced hyperactivity while 1.0% induced hypoactivity. Another study by Gerlai (2000)
produced the same results with 1.0% ethanol inducing depressive effects on activity even
lower than that of controls. These sedative effects were associated with general slowness
and impaired coordination of swimming (Gerlai et al., 2000). Although using higher
overall concentrations of ethanol, Peng et al. (2009), larval zebrafish exposed to 1.5%
ethanol exhibited increased locomotor activity while those exposed to 3.0% ethanol
displayed sedation. Not only do effects on locomotion demonstrate an inverted U-shaped
curves, but also on behaviors involving anxiety responses (Echevaria et al., 2011).
Zebrafish Kinetic Responses and Ethanol
In addition to studying the level of locomotion in zebrafish exposed to ethanol,
other behaviors can also be observed and analyzed. Frequent characteristic movements of
zebrafish include freezing and erratic movements or “zig-zagging.” These actions tend to
indicate fear or anxiety in zebrafish (Gebauer et al., 2011; Blaser and Penalosa, 2011).
The idea of ethanol acting on zebrafish as an anxiolytic would therefore reduce this
tendency to freeze and move erratically. However, although these behaviors typically
represent fear and anxiety drugs that have locomotor stimulant effects could affect these
behaviors independent of their state of anxiety (Blaser and Penalosa, 2011). This calls for
further analysis of the role of fear and anxiety in behaviors responding to ethanol
treatment.
Research by Gerlai et al. (2000) and Luca and Gerlai (2012) indicated that
ethanol influences the characteristic behaviors related to fear and anxiety, concluding that
ethanol could be acting on anxiety, perceptual, or motor mechanisms. Specifically, it has
been seen in studies performed by Gerlai et al. (2000, 2006) where ethanol was referred
to as an anxiolytic based upon findings that ethanol reduced fear inducing effects of a
predator stimulus. There are measures of fear and anxiety proposed for zebrafish. Actions
such as freezing behavior, bottom dwelling, and forming dense shoals are indicators of
zebrafish fear responses (Gebauer et al., 2011). According to Stewart et al. (2011),
freezing is defined as a total absence of movement except for the gills and eyes for two
seconds or longer. In a study performed by Maximino et al. (2010) zebrafish treated with
ethanol displayed freezing responses. Erratic swimming or zig-zagging movements is
locomotion interrupted by small directional or velocity changes with repeated rapid
darting behaviors (Maximino et al., 2010; Stewart et al., 2011). According to Maximino
et al. (2010), erratic swimming is a fear response by zebrafish.
20
�According to Gebauer et al. (2011), fear is defined as “a response to imminent
threat which in zebrafish has been studied as reactions to predators and alarm
pheromone.” In addition to fear, Gebauer et al. (2011) defines zebrafish anxiety as “a
response to future of possible threats, usually manifested as avoidance behavior.” In a
study by Gerlai et al. (2000), control fish with 0.0% ethanol displayed these fear and
anxiety reactions of freezing and erratic movement when placed in a novel environment.
In this case, alcohol could be acting on anxiety, perceptual, or motor mechanisms and did
so in an inverted U-shaped manner over the doses of 0.0% 0.25%, 0.5%, and 1.0%
ethanol treatment. Lower concentrations of ethanol (0.25% and 0.5%) induced
hyperactivity, however, along with freezing and erratic movement due to the novel
environment. At the higher concentration (1.0% ethanol), hypoactivity was seen. This
was due to the sedative effects of ethanol which induced impaired coordination as well as
slowed swimming. In a study by Luca and Gerlai (2012), zebrafish also demonstrated
freezing in a dose dependent manner with a higher percentage of time frozen in higher
concentrations of ethanol (0.75%) and a lower percentage of time frozen in lower
concentrations of ethanol (0.25%). This could have been due to ethanol having a
generalized hyperactivity of low doses of ethanol.
In a study by Echevarria et al. (2011) treatment with the lowest concentration of
ethanol (0.25%) zebrafish displayed the most erratic zig-zagging while at the highest
concentration of (1.0%) this ceased and was even lower than the controls (0.0%). Other
studies which introduce zebrafish to novel-environments show the elucidation of fear and
anxiety responses through the analysis of erratic movements and freezing. Another study
by Luca and Gerlai (2012) confirms that fear inducing stimuli increases erratic swimming
in a dose dependent manner. Low ethanol concentrations induced more erratic
movements as compared to control when a stimulus was presented. A study by Egan et
al. (2009), confirmed that the increase in these types of movement usually indicates
heightened anxiety.
Other Ethanol Related Studies with Zebrafish
Many studies have attempted to assess the levels of anxiety in ethanol-treated
zebrafish. Some of these studies include thigmotaxis, shoaling, and scototaxis. Ethanol
not only has an effect on the locomotor activity of zebrafish but also on other behaviors
such as thigmotaxis, shoaling, and scototaxis. These responses have been thoroughly
studied, often in junction with locomotive studies. They are additional indicators of
hormesis in ethanol studies.
21
�Thigmotaxis
Thigmotaxis is defined by Maximino et al. (2010) as a behavior where more
time is spent in the periphery than in the center of the apparatus. Thigmotaxis can be also
defined as “wall-seeking,” and, in studies with rodents, is indicative of anxiety
(Lockwood et al., 2004). A study performed assessing light/dark preference of zebrafish
treated with ethanol also demonstrated thigmotaxis in the zebrafish avoiding the light
area (Blaser et al., 2010). It can be extrapolated from data with rodents, that thigmotaxis
is also representative of anxiety in zebrafish also. In a study with zebrafish larvae by
Richendrfer et al. (2012), the larvae had a preference for the edge of the wells and
suggested that this was an accurate measure of anxiety in the larvae.
Shoaling
Shoaling is the natural social preference of zebrafish to swim in aggregations
with one another (Gerlai et al., 2000; Gebauer et al., 2011). This is a complex behavior
that is governed by foraging strategies, antipredator behaviors, and reproductive
behaviors (Gerlai et al., 2006). Shoaling behavior may be related to anxiety, and the
treatment with high doses of ethanol tends to reduce shoaling, and therefore anxiety
(Duglos and Rabin, 2003; Gebauer et al., 2011), while at low doses, zebrafish shoal more
tightly (Gerlai et al., 2000; Kurta and Palestis, 2010). According to Kurta and Palestis
(2010), ethanol may have changed shoaling behavior with the alteration of anxiety levels,
perception, and/or motor mechanisms. Ethanol’s anxiolytic effect leads to the decrease in
preference for group cohesion and preference for conspecifics and is correlated with their
level of anxiety or fear (Gerlai et al., 2000).
Scototaxis
Scototaxis is the preference for darkness. The natural habitat of zebrafish is in
silt-bottomed, well-vegetated pools and rice paddies, where they have a natural
preference to stay near the bottom in response to potentially harmful stimuli (Spence et
al., 2008; Mathur and Guo, 2011). This preference for dark environments can be useful in
analyzing the anxiolytic effects of ethanol. In a study by Gebauer et al. (2011), zebrafish
treated with ethanol strayed away from their natural preference for being in the dark zone
and increased their time in the light zone. It also found that they increased their time
spent in the light zone. This exemplifies the anxiolytic nature of ethanol on scototaxis.
In a study by Maximino et al. (2011), the time spent in the light zone increased with the
lower concentrations of ethanol (0.25% and 0.5%), but did not have effects at 1.0%
ethanol. Gerlai et al. (2000) found that in treatments with ethanol concentrations of 0.5%
and 1.0%, zebrafish avoided the dark zone. This would indicate that ethanol had an
22
�anxiolytic effect at the doses of 0.5% and 1.0% since they were uninhibited in entering
the white region of the tank. Since zebrafish naturally prefer the dark regions of their
habitat, keeping them safe from predators, their exploration of the light regions could
indicate the loss of fear and anxiety of predation. If ethanol at various concentrations
allows them to enter into the light region, it could indicate that ethanol has an effect on
the anxiety or fear level of zebrafish.
II. Materials and Methods
Pure ethanol was diluted with distilled water to concentrations of 1.0% EtOH,
0.5% EtOH, 0.25% EtOH, and 0.125% EtOH. These concentrations were chosen based
on previous research (Kurta and Palestis, 2010 and references therein). The control was
distilled water with 0.0% EtOH. The total volume of liquid in each trial was 300mL. Ten
trials were performed for each of these ethanol concentrations. The materials and certain
procedural steps were influenced by the study performed by Kurta and Palestis (2010).
Our facilities and procedures have been approved by the Institutional Animal Care and
Use Committee of the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental
Disabilities. The zebrafish, originally purchased from Animal Pantry in Staten Island,
NY, were contained in a fish tank filled with distilled water at Wagner College in the
Organismal Research Lab. Their tank was furnished with artificial plants, air stones, and
regularly filtered with standard aquarium pumps. They were fed daily using tropical fish
flakes purchased at local pet stores. All fish were contained under the same conditions in
the lab prior to testing. Individual fish were taken directly from their tank, where they
lived among other zebrafish, and placed into one of the five treatments. Each of the five
treatments were performed using round 1000 milliliter, 20 centimeter diameter glass
bowls with curved edges and flat bottoms which were placed over a 3 centimeter by 3
centimeter grid. The fish were kept in each treatment for 60 minutes undisturbed, and
then recorded for 60 seconds. The time period of 60 minutes was chosen, based upon
previous studies by Duglos and Rabin (2003), as the appropriate time for allowing
ethanol levels in the brain to reach equilibrium.
A Logitech ClickSmart 820 camera and Windows Movie Maker software were
used to record the zebrafish activity. We then counted the number of lines each fish
crossed during the recorded 60 seconds to determine their activity level under the effects
of different ethanol concentrations. The number of lines crossed was indicated by the
fish's head crossing the line, and the crossing of intersections of lines counting as one
line. The lines were counted using a Clay Adams Laboratory Counter. As similarly
performed in studies by Gerlai et al. (2000) and Duglos and Rabin (2003), movement
23
�within a segment, without the actual crossing of a line would not be recorded as a
measurement for overall locomotor activity.
The activity levels of the four experimental groups were compared to the control
group (0.0% EtOH) and to each other to note any differences and/or similarities. The
general location of where the fish remained while in the bowl along with the relative
speed of movement was noted in addition to number of lines crossed. The video was
slowed by four times the actual speed to accurately count the number of lines crossed,
and sped the video by four times to note the general location of the fish. The video was
watched at normal speed to determine the relative speed and particular detailed actions.
Fifty zebrafish were used in total for this experiment. After testing, the fish were placed
in a different tank to assure that they would not be used again for another trial.
III. Results
At the conclusion of the one hour incubation period for each of the zebrafish
trials, a one minute recording was taken. From this recording, the zebrafish movement
was recorded and quantified. Table 1 portrays the results from all trials including the
means and medians for each ethanol concentration.
[EtOH]
0.00%
0.125%
0.25%
0.50%
1.00%
17
94
0
132
9
0
0
11
4
37
86
0
0
0
0
69
12
26
76
0
36
27
0
38
0
98
74
0
24
77
70
0
0
36
0
0
0
0
51
68
59
81
0
73
98
1
46
24
0
0
Mean
43.6
33.4
6.1
43.4
28.9
Median
47.5
19.5
0
37
4.5
Table 1: Raw data for all trials performed. Indicated, is the number of lines crossed by
each zebrafish in the one minute recording period following the one hour incubation in
that particular ethanol concentration. The median was calculated in addition to the mean
in attempt to account for the skewed nature of the data.
24
�Figure 1 is an accurate graphical representation of the data, accounting for its
skewed nature. Since the data points were widespread, the median, indicated by the thick
black line, is an indicator for where the data actually lie, rather than an average of the
data. There were many zeros in some of the data, along with few very large numbers. The
large numbers brought up the average number of lines crossed greatly, therefore the
median is used a point of indication on the graph, rather than the mean. The length of the
box effectively indicates the general range of the data. It is evident that the majority of
the trials had lower numbers of lines crossed because the whiskers are above the 75th
quartile and hardly under the 25th. However, due to the large confidence intervals, there is
no significant pattern.
Figure 1: Box-plot indicating median, 25th and 75th quartiles, and maximum and
minimum data points.
To assess the zebrafish activity level, a Kruskal-Wallis Test was used. This was
because the numerical data did not form a normal distribution, and an ANOVA could not
be used. As seen in Table 1, the data was skewed due to the absence of movement in
25
�certain trials, contrasted by very high activity levels. Significance was defined as p<0.05.
The data, as seen in Table 2, was found to not be significant when analyzed with 4
degrees of freedom, a chi-squared of 8.15, and a p-value of 0.086.
lines crossed
Ranks
Treatment
0.0
0.125
0.25
0.5
1.0
Total
N
10
10
10
10
10
50
Mean Rank
31.00
26.60
15.40
30.60
23.90
Test Statisticsa,b
Lines Crossed
Chi-Square
8.147
df
4
Asymp. Sig.
0.086
a. Kruskal Wallis test
b. Grouping Variable: treatment
Table 2: Results of Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test for amount of lines crossed per
treatment.
In observing the zebrafish swim patterns, the fish preferred swimming at the
edges of the bowl, as seen in Figure 2. They also exhibited freezing and erratic, zig-zag
swim patterns. The freezing periods were analyzed for each of the treatment groups. For
those fish that remained frozen throughout the entire one minute of observation, the
location of the fish was noted. General observation of the fish's swimming location was
also noted.
For all of the treatments, the zebrafish that displayed movement and swimming did
so mostly at the edge of the bowl. This would be an indication of positive thigmotaxis. Six
out of ten control zebrafish exhibited freezing at some point in their one minute recording
period for at least 1.71 seconds. This includes those that showed no movement (two out of
ten fish), which were all positioned at the edge of the bowl. The swimming motions were
very fluid during all of the trials with movement. Seven out of ten zebrafish in 0.125%
ethanol exhibited freezing for three seconds or more, including the four fish that exhibited
no movement. One out of these four was in the middle with the rest at the edge. Zebrafish
26
�Figure 2: An example of zebrafish exhibiting thigmotaxis within a trial.
in the 0.25% ethanol trials exhibited the most freezing (ten out of ten) along with the lack of
movement in the majority of the trials (seven out of ten). Two out of seven were towards
the middle of the bowl, while all others at the edge. The other three trials consisted of
periods of freezing for 27 seconds or more. The trials with 0.5% ethanol had eight out of ten
fish (including the two that showed no movement) displayed freezing for at least five
seconds at a time. In this treatment, it was most prevalent for the zig-zag, erratic movements
to be observed. Seven of ten fish would freeze then make zig-zag motions along the edges
of the bowl before freezing again and repeating these motions. These fish did not cross an
extremely large number of lines because of their frequent freezing and erratic twitching
motions that did not cause them to cross over lines. When swimming, their movement was
extremely rapid, and if it was continuous, would have resulted in an immense amount of
line crossing. The periods of swimming required for the video to be slowed one-fourth to
one-sixth of its original speed to accurately count the number of lines crossed. Eight of ten
fish treated with 1.0% ethanol froze for eight seconds or more (including the five that did
not move). All of the frozen fish remained at the edges of the bowl. One exhibited erratic
twitching movements that were not large enough to move it out of one box (hence not
crossing any lines). A summary for this data can be seen in Table 3. This data was analyzed
using a Kruskal-Wallis test. Significance was defined as p<0.05; and with four degrees of
freedom, a chi-squared of 6.21, and a p-value of 0.184, the test was not significant (Table 4).
27
�[EtOH]
0.00%
0.125%
0.25%
0.50%
1.00%
51.24
3.03
60
0
54.14
60
60
48.68
56
25.52
1.71
60
60
60
60
22.85
23
51.53
18.73
60
8.16
6.52
60
48.67
60
60
0
60
52.01
0
0
60
60
40.58
60
60
60
60
12.44
8.56
0
0
60
60
0
59
0
27
50.11
60
Mean
32.296
27.255
54.721
39.854
38.822
Median
37.045
14.76
60
49.39
57.07
Std Dev
28.024
28.968
10.595
21.576
27.045
Table 3: Data for freezing bouts in each trial, in seconds. If multiple freezing bouts
occurred in a trial, they were added to produce a total amount of time for that trial. Since
the total recording period consisted of 60 seconds, zebrafish that exhibited no movement
are charted above as 60. Those that did not freeze at all are charted above as 0. It is
evident that freezing bouts were prevalent throughout the majority of the trials.
Ranks
lines
crossed
Treatment
0.125
0.0
0.25
0.5
1.0
Total
N
10
10
10
10
10
50
Test Statisticsa,b
Mean Rank
21.90
21.15
34.60
23.15
26.70
Chi-Square
df
Asymp. Sig.
Lines Crossed
6.209
4
0.184
a. Kruskal Wallis test
b. Grouping Variable: treatment
Table 4: Results of Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test for total amount of time frozen
per treatment.
28
�IV. Discussion
Analysis of the Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Activity Level
The lack of significance among the treatments was an unexpected outcome,
especially since many other studies (as noted earlier) have shown that treatment with
various concentrations of ethanol result in hormesis, especially when studying
locomotion. A possible explanation for the lack of significant variation in locomotor
activity among the trials could have been the temperature of the water. Although there
were heaters for the aquariums where the fish were normally contained, the distilled
water used for the ethanol dilutions were obtained from a different source, and could
have been colder than the temperature of the aquarium. This could have induced shock
for the fish, resulting in freezing for the one minute recording period.
In future studies, the temperature should be kept consistent in the aquarium
water as well as in the treatment water to reduce possible variability. If the water
temperature was the factor for the lack of significance in the activity level, then it could
be correlated with the overall low activity levels across all treatments. According to EEG
studies on goldfish (Carassius auratus) during seasonal changes by Laming (1981),
lower EEG readings in the telencephalon during the winter correlated to the lower
activity level of goldfish. This information could be used to infer that low water
temperatures reduce zebrafish activity level as well.
In addition to the lack of significance in zebrafish activity levels across ethanol
concentrations another unusual finding should be noted in trials performed using 0.25%
ethanol. While the activity level was predicted to be at its peak in this concentration, it
was, instead, the most depressed. The lack of overall movement along with high levels of
freezing bouts caused this treatment to have the lowest activity levels. Also, fish in the
control treatment were seen to have very fluid swimming movements. As ethanol was
introduced, the freezing bouts and erratic zig-zagging movements increased. At 0.5%
ethanol, especially, these movements were notably elevated. If the swimming was more
consistent at 0.5%, the number of lines crossed (activity level) would have dramatically
increased from the recorded values. If any of the treatments, 0.5% ethanol would be the
one in which the fish showed most activity and anxiety responses. A study by Luca and
Gerlai (2012) measured the amount of “jump frequency,” which would be analogous to a
zig-zagging swim pattern. They found that intermediate levels of ethanol increased
jumping frequency, similar to our findings with 0.5% ethanol treated fish. They,
however, attributed this to the novel tank environment, while this would be unexpected in
our study since the fish were given a 60 minute period to habituate to their environment.
29
�Another possibility for why this study did not provide significant results could be
extrapolated from an explanation by Echevarria et al. (2011) in attempts to determine
why their study did not correlate with another study by Lockwood et al. (2004). In the
study by Echevarria et al. (2011), although results indicated hormesis, their results were
partially different in comparison to the study performed by Lockwood et al. (2004). The
study by Echevarria et al. (2011) used concentrations of 0.0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, and 1.0%
and saw effects of hormesis, while Lockwood et al. (2004) used higher ethanol
concentrations for their treatments and saw hormesis. Lockwood et al. (2004) began to
see hyperactivity at 1.0% with hypoactivity at 4.0%. According to an interpretation by
Echevarria et al. (2011), this could have been attributed to the use of more hardy larvae.
Since there was no significant difference among treatments in our study, one possible
explanation could be extrapolated from Echevarria et al.'s (2011) explanation that our
fish were more hardy and unaffected by the low concentrations of ethanol.
Studies performed by Michael Garber in our laboratory similar to our control
trials showed that there was no consistent change in behavior due to time alone. He tested
fish in 0.00% ethanol, each for a 60 minute period. He would record the number of lines
crossed by the fish for 60 seconds at ten minute intervals. His results indicated that there
was a large variability within each fish, and no pattern among all the fish tested. Some
did not even move at all in many of his recording intervals, compensating for the
possibility that the fish were frozen either because of non-habituation in a novel
environment or getting tired after the swimming in the 60 minute period. These findings
add to the results of our study. If there was large variation within the movement patterns
of each control fish (0.00% ethanol), our lack of pattern could be due to this general
variability within the individual fish.
The sample size of our tested fish should have been larger, to make up for the
within-fish variability. It can also be noted that it is unusual for fish to be alone in a bowl.
Their natural behavior consists of shoaling with conspecifics. Being alone in the bowl
could have induced anxiety in them, different for each individual fish.
Analysis of the Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Swimming Patterns
The results of this study indicated that there was no pattern between difference
in ethanol concentration treatments and activity level in zebrafish. The ethanol therefore,
did not produce a significant anxiolytic or sedative effect on the zebrafish at any dose. In
the analysis of the swimming patterns of the zebrafish across all treatments the frequent
freezing, erratic movements, and zig-zagging patterns were seen in all trials. This
movement pattern is indicative of anxiety (Egan et al., 2009; Echevarria et al., 2011) and
hence it can be inferred that ethanol did not have an anxiolytic effect on the zebrafish.
30
�Positive thigmotaxis was also observed among all treatments. With the exception of three
of the 50 trials, all fish exhibited positive thigmotaxis, whether there was movement or no
movement. As another indicator of anxiety (Richendrfer et al., 2012), the observation of
positive thigmotaxis in all treatments can also aid in deducing that ethanol did not have
an anxiolytic effect on zebrafish in various ethanol concentrations.
Michael Garber also continued his studies (mentioned above), in our laboratory,
using the same protocol, except with a square container, instead of round. When in the
round bowls, we noted constant swimming around in circles against the edge of the bowl.
However, when Michael Garber used the square container, he saw less of the constant
edge-swimming around the bowl. Further studies on thigmotaxis could be performed
using different shaped bowls to see if there is any correlation with the shape of the bowl
and thigmotaxis.
General Conclusions
Overall, the purpose of this experiment was to identify whether or not an
alteration of activity level can be seen when zebrafish were exposed to difference
concentrations of ethanol. The predicted outcome was that the fish would be hyperactive
in low concentrations of ethanol (0.125% and 0.25%) and be hypoactive in the higher
concentrations of ethanol (0.5% and 1.0%). The swimming patterns of the zebrafish
would also correlate in a dose-responsive manner. Positive thigmotaxis would be
observed in lower concentrations, with decreased thigmotaxis at the higher
concentrations. Freezing bouts as well as erratic zig-zagging movements were also
expected to diminish as the ethanol concentrations increased. This would indicate that
ethanol had an anxiolytic or sedative effect on the zebrafish. However, the results of this
study did not correlate with the predicted outcome, as seen through the Kruskal-Wallis
non-parametric test p value of 0.086 (p<0.05). Therefore, zebrafish did not show any
pattern in relation to activity level and ethanol exposure. In future studies, the sample size
could be increased (larger than our n=10 for each treatment), to see if a significant trend
of hormesis can be seen.
Another suggestion for future studies would be to have a different system for
monitoring the fish activity levels. In this study, the fish were left alone during the hour
incubation period, a period of time based upon previous studies by Duglos and Rabin
(2003), which were found appropriate in allowing the ethanol levels in the brain to reach
equilibrium. The zebrafish were then monitored only for 60 seconds after the hour. To
obtain a more precise indication of their activity level, they should be monitored more
than once, to rule out the possibility that they were just still during the 60 second
recording period and moving at other times.
31
�V. References
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34
��How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health Impacts
of Sociopolitical Change in Prehistoric Peru
Rose Tobiassen (Anthropology)1,2
The health of children is often used as a proxy measure for the quality of life in
their societies. Because the rate at which an individual’s teeth erupt is determined
predominantly by genetics, and skeletal growth is more affected by environmental
factors; stress or poor health early in an individual’s life can result in stunted bone
development relative to dental development. Building on this idea, this study compares
the skeletal age (SA) and dental age(DA) of 106 individuals excavated from two
archaeological sites in northern Peru in order to determine the amount of stress
experienced by children during different phases. The sites sampled include Cerro Oreja,
which was occupied during Salinar (400-1 BC) and Gallinazo (AD 1- 200) phases and
Huaca de la Luna, which was occupied during the Middle Moche phase (AD 300-400)
and again later during the Chimu phase (AD 800-1530). Cerro Oreja was an important
urban center before the development of a state-level society. With the founding of the
Southern Moche State, Cerro Oreja was abandoned and Huaca de la Luna became the
capital. Huaca de la Luna was abandoned as the Southern Moche State went into decline,
but was later reused as a cemetery by individuals of the Chimu Empire. Given the dating
of these sites, understanding child growth can help us track the health consequences of
sociopolitical change.
The sample sizes available from each site were limited, and therefore it was
difficult to determine if there were any significant differences between the sites and
occupation phases. However it appears that the Salinar phase children of Cerro Oreja,
suffered from the least amount of stress. The Moche children of Huaca de la Luna, had
the most significant differences in skeletal and dental age, suggesting that they suffered
most from environmental stress. A number of factors could have contributed to this
stress, including changes in the economic system, the rise of social inequality, and
environmental changes resulting from devastating El Niño events.
Research for this Honors Thesis was supervised by Dr. Celeste Gagnon.
Received an Excellence Award when presented at the 66th Annual Eastern Colleges
Science Conference held in Wayne, NJ on April 14, 2012.
1
2
36
�I. Introduction
Subadult skeletons provide useful insight into important aspects of past
populations. In this study, the age of subadults as determined by long bone growth and
epiphyseal fusion is compared to the age as determined by the development of dentition.
Because teeth develop at a consistent rate, and long bone growth and fusion is affected by
stress and other environmental factors (Baker et al. 2005; Reppien et al. 2006), the
differences between these two ages can provide an understanding of the environmental
stress of past populations.
This study includes skeletal remains of individuals excavated from the Cerro
Oreja and Huaca de la Luna sites in the Moche valley of Peru (Figure 1). The sites have
occupations ranging from 400 BC-1530 AD, and include four different cultural phases,
some with a number of sub-phases as well. The earliest phase represented in the skeletal
sample is the Salinar phase, which dates from 400-1 BC, and had a key center located at
Cerro Oreja site (Gagnon and Wiesen 2011). Following the Salinar was the Gallinazo
phase, which consisted of three sub-phases, the Pre-structural, Structural, and Poststructural, each of which also maintained an important center at Cerro Oreja (Gagnon
2008). The Southern Moche state evolved out of the Gallinazo phase, and for the Middle
Moche phase, the state’s capital was Huaca de la Luna (Billman 1999). After the fall of
the Southern Moche state, the Chimu empire dominated the Moche valley, and although
its political center was located at Chan Chan, people still used the site of Huaca de la
Luna (Keatinge and Day 1973; Uceda et al. 1997). Subadult skeletal remains from the
Salinar and Gallinazo, and the Middle Moche phase, and from the Chimu empire were
analyzed for SA(skeletal age) and DA(dental age) in order to determine if, in certain
places and during certain phases children faced more environmental stress.
Due to the poor preservation and limited availability of skeletal remains from
the two sites, especially Huaca de la Luna, there is very little skeletal evidence available.
The small sample sizes of the different populations make it difficult to determine how
much a difference there really is between populations, however the data collected does
provide insight into what patterns seem prevalent, and would likely show large amounts
of difference using the same method if the sample sizes could be increased.
II. Age Determination of Subadults
Although the skeletons of subadults are generally poorly preserved, and
therefore often overlooked in research, there is much information that they can tell us
about past populations (Baker et al. 2004). When subadult skeletons are uncovered, the
first and most important step is age determination. Knowing the age at death allows
researchers to use subadult skeletons to understand a wealth of information about past
37
�populations. Most often subadults are used to determined the fertility rate of the
population (Buisktra et al. 1986); however, subadult remains are also incredibly useful in
understanding how environmental factors affected growth and development, how
civilizations treated children similarly or differently with regards to burial practices, the
demographic structure of a population, or the overall health of a population (Baker et al.
2004).
Long Bone Development
Bones are made up of both organic and inorganic material, with organic material
comprising a majority of bones in subadults, as opposed to only 24% in adults (Baker et
al. 2005). The organic part of bone consists predominately of collagen, which is elastic
and flexible. In infants and young children, some of the skeleton is still cartilaginous
membrane, and has not yet developed into bone. The cartilage forms a model of the
skeleton, and as subadults grow, bone slowly replaces the cartilage and connective tissue
membrane. As the bone grows and replaces cartilage, it develops first as woven bone,
before becoming lamellar bone, or mature bone.
In subadults, the bones have not yet completely fused together and so do not
appear as adult bones do. The ossification site, also known as the primary center, appears
during fetal development and birth (Baker et al. 2005). The secondary centers appear
after the primary center has developed, and sometimes fuse with the primary center, or in
many cases, develop into elements known as epiphyses. Epiphyses fuse to the main bone
as subadults grow, with each epiphysis fusing at different stages of development.
In long bones, the primary center of ossification forms as the shaft, and the
secondary ossification centers develop at the articular ends, allowing the bone to continue
growing in length (Baker et al. 2005). When the shaft is finished growing, the epiphyses
fuse on both ends at the epiphyseal surface, forming one primary center. Cartilage then
begins to form around the ends, where the bone articulates with other bones. After the
cartilage forms, the bone stops growing, and bone growth no longer aids in determining
age at death.
Similar to the long bones, cranial bones do not form completely during the fetal
development. The cranial bones have separate ossification centers that eventually fuse
together along suture lines once growth is complete (Baker et al. 2005). However, unlike
long bone growth, the suture lines of the cranial bones remain noticeable for much of an
individual’s lifetime, and only sometimes begin to disappear with age. Therefore, cranial
suture closures can still be used to age some individuals long after sub-adulthood.
38
�Dental Development
In addition to using the cranial and post-cranial bone growth and fusion to
determine the age at death of subadults, the dental development of individuals is useful
for determining the age of subadults. People have two sets of teeth, the first set includes
the deciduous teeth, and the second set includes the permanent teeth (Baker et al. 2005).
The deciduous teeth begin to develop during gestation, and are the first teeth to erupt
(Figure 2). Some permanent teeth also begin to develop during gestation, but do not
erupt until later in an individual’s life. As an individual grows, the permanent teeth begin
to erupt underneath the deciduous teeth, causing them to be shed. After a permanent
tooth erupts, the root begins to grow, and usually finishes growing around two years after
the crown is complete.
The gestation period for children generally lasts an average of 38 weeks, but can
range from anywhere between 34 and 42 weeks (Hillson 1996). The formation of teeth
begins at about 14 weeks, starting with the first deciduous incisor, and continues at a
consistent rate with teeth beginning to form every two weeks the next tooth being second
incisor and then to the canine. The molars develop on a different schedule, with the first
molar beginning at 15 weeks, and the second and third molars following three weeks
after. The permanent first molar also begins forming in the fetal stages, somewhere
around 28-32 weeks after fertilization.
After birth, the teeth continue to develop fairly consistently, with the lower
permanent incisors beginning development at three months, starting with the first incisors
followed by the second incisors (Hillson 1996). The permanent canine begins developing
around four months, and the upper permanent incisors start developing around the end of
the first year. The premolars and permanent second molars begin developing towards the
end of the second year. The crowns of permanent teeth begin to complete around three
years, starting with the first molar crowns. The incisor crowns are completed around four
years, the canine crowns and first premolar crowns around six years, and the second
premolar and molar crowns around seven years. After the crowns if the teeth are
complete, the root formation begins, and usually takes two to four years to finish. The
root formation of the permanent first molars and incisors is usually complete around 12
years of age, and the rest of the teeth follow, with root formation being completely at
consistent intervals. The only teeth that do not follow the pattern are the permanent third
molars, which do not even start root formation until all of the other roots are complete.
The rate at which teeth grow and erupt is fairly consistent, therefore, the tooth
eruption of an individual’s deciduous and permanent teeth as well as the growth of tooth
roots is very useful in determining the age at death of a subadult (Baker et al. 2005). In
39
�fact, it is considered to be the most accurate method when it comes to age determination
because tooth formation and eruption is much more closely related to genetics than bone
growth and ossification, and therefore not affected by environmental factors.
Variability of Age Determination:
Skeletal growth of subadults is variable, and many cultural and environmental
factors can affect the growth of an individual (Hoppa 1992). Often subadults in low
stress environments, who have an abundance of resources grow to be taller and overall
larger individuals, than those who are malnourished, and suffer from poor health. Studies
have shown that the largest contributing factor to stunted child growth is malnutrition,
followed by infection and disease. When a growing individual does not receive enough
nutrition, the bone continues to grow, but at a slower rate. This means that malnourished
children who are living in a high stress environment are overall smaller. The effect of
malnourishment is most severe during the first five years of a child’s life;
malnourishment in older children, when bone growth naturally slows and epiphyses start
fusing, has less of an effect on overall bone growth. Therefore, using long bone length to
determine the age at death of an individual may not be accurate because bone length
varies based on environmental factors; bone length is not necessarily a consistent factor
among all subadults in the same cohort.
Contrary to the variability of bone growth, tooth eruption determines the dental
age of an individual which is closer to chronological age. The development of dental
tissue is much less affected by nutrition, disease, or other factors than bone tissue
(Reppien et al. 2006). Tooth enamel is also incredibly resilient and often disintegrates at
a much slower rate than other bones, and teeth are therefore often better preserved,
providing a more accurate method for aging subadults, than long bone measurements and
fusion. Overall, dental development is much less affected by outside environmental
factors, than long bone growth, and is more accurate in determining the age of an
individual (Walker 1969).
There have been a number of studies that have tested this hypothesis, using
various skeletal populations. Walker (1969) looked at skeletal material excavated from
Yokem Mound in Pike County, Illinois. The dental age of each individual was
determined using a five-phase development model, and the long bones were aged based
solely on epiphsyeal fusion. The variability in the growth and fusion of the long bones
provided evidence for both periods of retarded growth as well as periods of rapid growth
among subadults of the Yoke Mound population.
Johnston (1962) also analyzed long bone growth among subadult remains, aged
to be five and a half years or less, from the Indian Knoll site. In this study, only long
40
�bone measurements were used for determining the skeletal age of individuals. Johnston
(1962) determined that the long bone growth of the Indian Knoll population was less than
that of his comparative sample of American white children. This decrease in long bone
growth was attributed primarily to differences in environment, and the effects of
environmental factors of subadult growth.
Comparing the skeletal age of an individual to the dental age can provide great
insight into the lives of past people and help in determining overall environmental stress
and disease. Based on the studies done by Walker (1969) and Johnston (1962), long bone
growth and development is clearly stunted by external, environmental factors. Therefore,
a large difference between skeletal and dental age assumes that the individual’s growth
was stunted, and therefore is indicative of a high stress environment, malnourishment, or
disease.
III. Background
Moche Valley Occupations
The Moche valley of northern coastal Peru (Figure 1), was occupied by various
peoples spanning a number of cultural phases. One of the earliest phases of occupation
was the Salinar, which lasted from 400-1 BC (Gagnon and Wiesen 2011). The Salinar
phase differed from the preceding Guañape phase, which lasted from 1800-400 BC, as
people moved from coastal sites to larger inland sites, such as Cerro Oreja.
Archaeological evidence from the Salinar phase sites suggests that subsistence strategies
slowly began to focus less on marine life and increase in domesticated llamas, used for
both meat and labor (Pozorski 1979). There is also evidence of expanding canal systems
during the Salinar, suggestions shift towards agriculture (Billman 2002; Gagnon and
Wiesen 2011). This shift in subsistence strategies towards meat from inland animals as
well the early establishment of agricultural technology allowed for an overall increase in
productivity (Pozorski 1979). While people from the Salinar phase still relied on protein
from the ocean, this movement towards inland meat, overtime, released the people from
their heavy dependence on marine animals.
The political organization during the Salinar phase consisted of eight
autonomous polities, separated by defensive barriers (Billman 1999). The main focus of
the Salinar was defense, due to the overwhelming threats of highland and intra-valley
aggression. Each individual polity had a two-tiered system of hierarchy in the early part
of the phase, however these tiers collapsed into loosely formed confederacy among all of
the polities by the later part (Billman 2002). Still, the Salinar polities were unable to
defend themselves against the highland armies, and collapsed, leaving one central polity
state located at Cerro Oreja, which controlled the northern coast (Billman 1999).
41
�The Gallinazo phase grew out of the Salinar, and people continued to focus on
defensive strategies in order to maintain power (Billman 1999). However, as opposed to
Salinar groups, who existed as independent, and sometimes hostile communities,
Gallinazo groups were more politically centralized(Billman2002). Warfare continued to
dominate the Moche valley during the Gallinazo occupation, in response small polities
came together, creating one large central polity centered at Cerro Oreja. The Gallinazo
polity had a primary three-tiered hierarchy system centered at Cerro Oreja, with eight
secondary polities located in the surrounding area. During the Gallinazo occupation of
the Moche Valley, structures were built as fortresses and for purposes of defense, as
opposed to monumental and ritual purposes, as is seen later during the Moche occupation
(Billman 1999). Overall, the ideological base of the Gallinazo polities was very weak.
The Gallinazo do not show archaeological evidence of any clear change in subsistence
strategy from the Salinar, however, human skeletal remains suggest that there was a large
increase in agricultural production (Gagnon and Wiesen 2011). This is evidenced from
data collected from the teeth of skeletal samples from the Gallinazo phase, which show
an increase in indicators of agricultural food consumption.
There is clear continuity between the Moche and Gallinazo occupations of the
Moche valley, and it appears that the Southern Moche state arose out of the Gallinazo
polity at Cerro Oreja (Billman 1999). The Moche (Bawden 1995), beginning during the
Early Intermediate period (Bawden 1995) and lasting all the way into the Middle Horizon
(Quilter 1990), existed from AD 100-800 (Donnan 2004).
During the Early Moche phase, Cerro Oreja was maintained as the political
center (Billman 1999). However, quite different from the Salinar and Gallinazo
occupations, the Southern Moche state shows a significant shift towards ideology as a
method for social integration as evidenced by the construction of public monuments. The
Southern Moche state also maintained a strong military regime, which led to many
military conquests, and the establishment of a state exceeding any that had preceded it, in
terms of size. Although the Moche had sites along the northern coast of Peru, as the state
began to expand, the state established its capital at Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna,
also called the Huacas de Moche (Millaire 2010). This site includes two large platform
mounds, which were used for civic and ceremonial rituals, separated by a spans of land in
between the two, which served as the urban sector where residents lived and went about
their daily activities. The Huacas de Moche was the dominant political and urban center
in the Moche valley from AD 200-800, which includes the climax of the Moche
civilization.
The continuity between the Gallinazo culture and Moche culture can be seen in
42
�the mound structures, the segmented architecture style and evidence of community based
labor, the similar configuration of ceremonial centers, the use of irrigation systems, and
the burial practices; however, there are some major differences between the two
civilizations which can be seen primarily in the art (Bawden 1995). Moche art is much
more formal and complex, with a focus on iconography. In fact, it is through this
complex artwork that most of the Moche culture is studied and understood. The Moche
civilization was also highly centralized, with a standardized system of weights and
measures, as well as a system for counting (Quilter 2002). Although it did not have a
written language, it did have an established spoken language called Muchik. Most
importantly, however, the culture was characterized by its elaborate art, which decorated
ceramics, structures, and its famous pyramids, called huacas (Quilter1990 and 2002).
The history of the Moche civilization is outlined in two different models to define the
stages and phases of the civilization. The most common theory is the five phase ceramic
sequence. This divides the Moche history into five phases: Moche I, Moche II, Moche
III, Moche IV, and Moche V (Bawden 1995). These phases are characterized by the
spout used on stirrup spout vessels, and the decorations used (Chapdelaine et al. 2001).
The exact dates for each phase has never been established, but it is assumed that each
phase lasted somewhere between100 and 200 years (Donnan 2004). In this model, the
Moche IV phase is considered the climax of the civilization, with the Moche III phase
marking the expansion of the civilization (Chapdelaine et al. 2001). In fact, transition
between the Moche III and Moche IV phases is so rapid, that the differences are difficult
to distinguish.
The other model proposed for the Moche civilization history is three-division
model, comprised of an Early, Middle, and Late phase(Chapdelaine et al. 2001).
Although this model is different from the five phase ceramic sequence, the five phases
overlap fairly consistently with the three phases. The Early phase encompasses Moche I
and Moche II; the Middle phase includes Moche III and Moche IV, and the Late phase
spans the same phase as Moche V.
The political structure of the Moche civilization is not know for sure, due to the
debated interpretations of the Moche artwork. The first model is the single state model,
which states that the Moche was one large and expansive state (Quilter 2002). This
political model also supports the argument that the Moche civilization was a conquest
state, and that the violent warfare depicted in their art is political rather than ritual.
Opposing the single state model is the argument that there was no centralized authority
among the Moche. Rather, each Huaca was a separate political court, and encompassed
its own ruling area. This theory is not as strongly supported as the single state model,
43
�only because the exact purpose of the Huacas is not known for sure. There is some
evidence that they were used for sacrificial rituals; some have argued that they were used
as tombs, and still others, such as those supporting the separate states model, have stated
that the Huacas were political centers.
In addition to those two theories, there are other models that have some
empirical support. The first is the federation model, which is similar to the single state
model, although it states that the Moche civilization is actually a group of states that
came together for a period of time to form a federation (Quilter 2002). However, using
this model makes it difficult to determine whether or not the Moche was a conquest state.
The other model has to do with geographical separation. It states that there were two
distinct Moche regions that existed separately of one another. The first state was the
Southern Moche state, which consisted of the Moche and Chicama Valleys (this includes
the Viru, Chao, Santa, Nepaña valleys), and the second was the Northern Moche, which
included Jequetepeque, Lambayeque, and Piura. In addition to geographical differences,
the Northern Moche state also had its own three phase ceramic sequence. However,
because there is controversy over exactly how far the Moche civilization extended, it is
difficult to support the geographical separation model. It is commonly believed that the
Moche spread up and down the coast, and therefore had a significant distinction between
north and south. Some argue that the civilization was simply a group of small polities all
inhabiting one valley and its surrounding area, which supports the single state political
model.
The Moche also had a complex economic system which shows a continuation on
the subsistence strategies that began in the Salinar phase (Pozorski 1979). By the time
the Moche occupation of the Moche valley began, there was an efficient subsistence
system that relied almost exclusively on inland meats, as opposed to the subsistence
strategies during the Salinar phase, which still included some protein gathered from the
surrounding ocean. Billman (2002) also found archaeological evidence of canals used for
irrigations, began earlier, and were expanding during the Salinar phase. However, it
appears that these canals provided insufficient amounts of water to meet the needs of the
Moche state, and were therefore rebuilt during the Middle Moche phase.
Although the Moche people no longer relied on the ocean for protein, they still
relied heavily on its expanding irrigation system for agriculture, which in turn meant they
still remained dependent upon the surrounding sources of water. It was the Moche
economic system’s heavy reliance on the oceans for irrigation that seems to have been
their biggest weakness (Quilter 2002). The variable climate of the coast due to El Niño
made their economy very unstable. The entire civilization was thrown into turmoil
44
�during times of natural disaster, and had to undergo major rebuilding in the aftermath.
The powerful Wari empire may have taken advantage of the weakened government
during and immediately following natural disasters, making repeated attempts to conquer
the Moche.
The social structure of the Moche civilization was a hierarchical, highly unequal
social system (Quilter 2002). These great inequalities were between the rich and the
poor, with a high degree of social tension between the two different classes. This social
distinction was so intense that walls were built to physically separate those of different
social classes, and there was constant internal conflict between the two. It appears that the
combination of natural disasters, internal revolts, and external attacks led to the eventual
downfall of the Southern Moche state, and made way for the rise of the Chimu empire.
The End of the Moche State
One hypothesis for the fall of the Moche state asserts that it was brought about
predominately by conquests from highland peoples (McEwan 1990). There are clear
changes in architecture, art style, and burial practice that support the conquest hypothesis.
Most notable, is the amount of Wari influence in these structural changes, as seen by
changes in burial positions from extended to flexed, the ceramic style from the distinctive
Moche style to Wari style, and the maiming of and replacement of Moche murals with
Wari murals. While it is believed that the Chimu eventually replaced the Moche, there is
a 400-year gap between the fall of the Moche and the rise of the Chimu. It appears that
the Wari, who were dominant in central Peru during this gap, made conquests on the
northern coast as well.
With the rise of the Chimu, in AD 800, came the end of the Wari conquest on
the northern coast of Peru (McEwan 1990). The center of the Chimu empire was located
at Chan Chan, however the occupation dominated the entire northern coast from AD 8001530 (Keatinge 1973).Chimu architecture is made up of cuidadelas, as opposed to the
Moche huacas, which are large structures that include courts, plazas, burial mounds, and
corridors, all surrounded by incredibly large adobe brick walls (Keatinge 1974). These
cuidadelas housed the administrative centers of the Chimu empire, where the rulers and
elite lived. With the rise of the Chimu came another transition in subsistence strategies in
the Moche valley (Pozorski 1979). Archaeological evidence suggests that llamas became
the main source of meat for people living outside of the state centers, but that the Chimu
employed subsistence strategy more similar to those used during the Salinar phases, and
the phases preceding it. The use of marine animals became popular again, and llama
meat was merely used to supplement protein coming from the ocean.
45
�Based on their subsistence strategies, it is clear that the Chimu empire was
characterized largely by its focus on land and water. The Chimu employed a hierarchical
socio-economic system, where the rulers maintained ownership over its prized land and
resources, especially water and the irrigation systems, and exploited laborers throughout
the Moche valley (Keatinge 1973 and 1974). Even the structure of the corridors in the
cuidadelas suggest that access and the circulation of people within them was strictly
controlled by the ruling and elite class (Keatinge 1973). Although the Chimu were
centered at Chan-Chan, evidence of Chimu burials have been uncovered on the platforms
of Huaca de la Luna, suggesting that the Huacas de Moche were utilized during the
Chimu occupation as a cemetery. In the 1500s the Incas came into power and began to
expand their empire up and down the entire coast of Peru, bringing an end to the Chimu
empire.
IV. Materials and Method
Materials
A total of 106 individuals were used for this study, however, due to insufficient
preservation not all could be aged based on both long bone growth and dental
development, thus only 97 individuals could be characterized by the difference between
SA and DA (skeletal age and dental age, respectively). The age-at-death for every
individual is represented in Appendix 1 and Appendix 2. Each individual was grouped
based on the specific phase during which he or she lived, which includes the Salinar, Prestructural Gallinazo, Structural Gallinazo, Post-structural Gallinazo, Early Moche,
Middle Moche, or Chimu. As well as his or her overall larger cultural division, which
consists of Salinar, Gallinazo, Moche, or Chimu, and the site from where he or she was
excavated, which includes Cerro Oreja or Huaca de la Luna.
There are a total of 77 individuals from Cerro Oreja, and 29 individuals from
Huaca de la Luna (Figure 3). Representing Cerro Oreja are a total of 10 individuals from
the Salinar phase, 31 individuals from the Pre-structural sub-phase of the Gallinazo, 21
individuals from the Structural sub-phase of the Gallinazo, three individuals from the
Post-structural phase of the Gallinazo, and one individual from the Early Moche phase
(Figure 4). Representing Huaca de la Luna are 21 individuals from the Middle Moche
phase, and seven individuals from the Chimu phase (Figure 4). There are 10 individuals
from the Salinar division, 66 individuals from the Gallinazo phase,22 individuals from
the Moche phase, and eight individuals from the Chimu phase (Figure 5). Breaking down
the occupation phases at the sites, we find that the sample sizes from each phase and
location vary quite a bit, which made comparing the samples difficult, and at times
certain phases could not be included in the calculations due to too small of a sample,
46
�including the Post-structural sub-phase of the Gallinazo phase, the Early Moche phase,
and the Chimu phase.
Skeletal Development
In order to determine the age of individuals, using post-cranial and cranial
bones, both bone measurements and epiphyseal fusion were collected. Johnston (1962)
correlates bone length measurements in millimeters to ages, ranging from the fetal stage
to five and a half years of age (Table 1). The post-cranial bones of individuals greater
than five and a half years were not used. The long bones measured include the three leg
bones, the femur, tibia, and fibula, and the three arm bones, the humerus, radius, and
ulna. Not all bones were present or measurable in each individual, but every complete
long bone was used when possible. The epiphyseal fusion of both the proximal and distal
ends of the long bones was also used when measurements were insufficient for aging an
individual.
The only cranial bone used to determine age was the basilar portion of the
occipital bone. The basilar portion is a separate unfused portion of the occipital bone,
located inferiorly near the foramen magnum. Both the width, which measures from the
anterior to the posterior end, and the length, which measures perpendicular to the width,
were used. Scheuer (1994)correlates the basilar portion measurements in millimeters to
ages ranging from two weeks to just over four and a half years (Table 2). The basilar
portion, due to its small size, is difficult to recover and not always present in individuals;
however, the basilar portion was present and measureable, and therefore used to aid in the
aging of 56 of the 105 individuals, a little more than 50% of the populations studied.
Individuals older than five years of age were aged solely on cranial suture closure.
Dental Development:
The original method for dental aging was developed by Gustafson (1939) and
involved an analysis of six areas of dentition, including: attrition, periodontosis,
secondary dentine, cementum apposition, apical resorption, and translucency of the tooth
root. Gustafson’s method was later modified by Lamendin et al. (1992), who turned the
focus primarily to periodontosis and translucency of the tooth root, and relating it to the
height of the tooth. Periodontosis involves the wearing away of the tissue around the
tooth, and can be observed just below the enamel, on the root of the tooth. This
regression of the soft tissue increases with age. The translucency of a tooth’s root begins
to appear around age 20, and is therefore useful in determining sub-adulthood.
However, neither of these methods is very exact in determining actual ages of
subadults. Therefore, Ubelaker (1989) established a method for aging subadults based on
dental calcification and eruption. Dental calcification involves the formation of the tooth,
47
�and stage of growth. Eruption involves determining how far the tooth has emerged from
the gum after it has formed. Based on these two factors, Ubelaker (1989)identified the
sequencing of various stages of the formation and eruption of teeth up to 35 years of age
(Figure 2). Although teeth generally stop growing around age 20, which is when
microscopic markers on the teeth start to appear, and become the main methods used for
aging.
V. Results
When possible, the SA (skeletal age) and DA (dental age)ranges, in months,
were calculated for each individual, and then the midpoint for each individual was
determined. The mean SA and the mean DA was the determined for each phase, cultural
division, and site. When comparing differences between phases, individuals six from the
Gallinazo phase who could not be dated to a specific sub-phase, and the one individual
from the Early Moche phase were excluded, but they were included in cultural division
and site level analysis. The means and medians of both the SA and DA where then
determined for each phase, cultural division, and site, and compared to one another. By
calculating both means and medians, the affect of outliers on the overall age differences
was observed.
The difference between an individual’s SA and DA was also determined and
compared by phase, cultural division, and site. In order to make these comparisons, box
plots were used. The box plot illustrates the lower and upper quartiles, any possible
outliers, as well as the median. Therefore, any significant difference between any of the
populations would be easily seen by very little overlap of the quartiles, as well as a large
distance between the medians.
Figure 6 shows a comparison of the mean SA and DA for each phase, and shows
a slight difference between mean SA and DA, with the DA being higher, in almost every
phase, with the exception of the Post-structural Gallinazo phase. However, the Poststructural phase also had the smallest sample size, which may have contributed to the
mean SA and DA being almost the same. The median SA and DA was also determined
based on phase, cultural division, and site in order to eliminate the possibility of outliers
affecting the mean. Figure 7 illustrates a comparison of the median SA and DA for each
phase. The median SA and DA for each phase shows a similar pattern to the means
except that they are all much lower. However, it is the SA that varies much more without
a consistent, recognizable pattern. The median SA is overall younger than the mean SA,
suggesting that there are a number of outliers that are affecting the mean. The median
DA is much older than the median SA in almost every phase, with the exception of the
48
�Salinar, Post-structural Gallinazo, and Middle Moche phases, where the median SA is
actually greater than the median DA.
Figure 8 shows the comparison of the difference between the DA and SA
medians for each phase. Based on the overlap between the quartiles, and similarity of the
median, there does not appear to be a significant variation in the difference between DA
and SA among any of the phases. However, in each Figure, the median difference for the
Salinar and Chimu phases are older than every other phase. There are also a number of
outliers for each phase, which would provide an explanation for the large differences
between Figure 6, which represents means, and Figure 7, which represents medians.
Figure 9 illustrates a comparison of the mean SA and DA for each cultural
division. Figure 9 shows consistency in the differences between mean SA and DA in each
division, with the DA always being slightly higher. This suggests that the inconsistency
of the Post-structural phase in Figure 6 had very little affect on the overall differences
between the mean SA and DA for the entire Gallinazo division. Figure 10 shows a
comparison of the median SA and DA for each cultural division. Figure 10 shows a
similar pattern to Figure 9 when comparing the median SA and DA by division. The
median SA is still greater in the Salinar and Moche phases, however not as much as in
Figure 7. The median DA remains consistently greater than the median SA in the
Gallinazo and Chimu phases, similar to the pattern shown in Figure 9.
Figure 11 shows the comparison of the difference between the DA and SA for
each cultural division. Figure 11 is similar to Figures 8, except that the Moche children
have slightly younger ages, suggesting that there is little difference between the phases
and cultural divisions. Individual who are outliers are also consistent between the phase
and cultural division analysis.
Figure 12 is a comparison of the mean SA and DA for the two sites. Figure 12,
similar to Figure 9, also shows that the SA is still slightly below the DA. Figure 13 is a
comparison of the median SA and DA from each site. In contrast with Figures 7 and 10,
Figure 13 shows DA to be consistently older than SA. Figure 14 shows the median
difference between DA and SA for each site. The medians, as well as the upper and
lower quartiles overlap almost entirely. Because the sites include larger populations,
there are a number of individual outliers, however, the individuals are the same as the
outliers in Figures 8 and 11.
Statistical calculations were also done in order to understand the significance of
differences in the calculated ages between the groups. The analysis of variance
(ANOVA), with Sheffe’s test, failed to identify differences among phases, cultural
divisions, or sites in the average difference between DA and SA.
49
�Pearson’s r was calculated to measure association between SA and DA for each
phase, cultural division, and site (Table 4).The results of Pearson’s r calculations were
then used to calculate FZT, to determine if there were any significant differences in the
level of association of SA and DA. Table 5 shows the results of FZT comparing
Pearson’s r for each phase to one another, Table 5 shows the FZT results comparing
Pearson’ r for each cultural division to one another, and Table 6 shows the results of the
FZT comparing Pearson’s r for the two sites.
All of the Pearson’s r values are high for each phase, cultural division, and site,
suggesting that there is a strong, positive correlation between SA and DA. However, the
FZT analyses show that the Middle Moche phase and Moche cultural division are
significantly less strongly associated than all other phases and cultural divisions. The
most significant difference appears to be between the Middle Moche phase, and the Prestructural Gallinazo and Salinar phases.
VI. Discussion
For the most part, there are little statistical significances among the different populations,
at the phase, cultural division, or site level. This is possibly the result of the overall small
sample size. I hypothesize that larger sample sizes would yield a larger statistical
significance, based on the small differences that are seen between the populations. In
Figure 6, the mean DA is almost always greater than the mean SA, with the exception of
the Post-structural Gallinazo phase, which had a very small sample size (N=3). However,
Figure 7 has much more variation when comparing the median DA to the median SA.
This suggests that there are a number of outliers that are affecting the mean.
When looking at Figure 6, it is clear that median DA is older than median SA in
most cases, with the exception of the Salinar phase, where the SA was quite a bit older.
This suggests that during the Salinar phase, there was little environmental stress, and
quite possibly surplus and abundance, which allowed for rapid skeletal growth. The Prestructural Gallinazo phase had the greatest difference between SA and DA, with the DA
being much larger. This would imply that the Pre-structural Gallinazo phase was a time
of great environmental stress, which affected skeletal growth.
However, when looking at Figure 9 and Figure 10, which compare mean and
median SA and DA for each cultural division, the results are quite different. Figure 6
illustrates that the mean DA is, in all cases, older than the mean SA. However, Figure 10
indicates that during the Salinar and Moche cultural divisions, the median SA is older
than the median DA. Similar to Figure 7 though the Salinar phase has a higher median
SA than DA. Also consistent with Figure 7, Figure 10 suggests that the Structural
Gallinazo and Chimu phases were similar in the difference between SA and DA.
50
�Overall, Figures6, 7, 9, and 10 seem to suggest that the Salinar phase had the least
amount of environmental stress, and may have, considering that the median SA is older
than the median DA, experienced abundance. The data also suggest that the Gallinazo
and Chimu phases had the most environmental stress, with the Pre-structural Gallinazo
phase having slightly more environmental stress than the Structural and Post-structural
Gallinazo phases, and the Chimu phase.
The box plots show little significant difference when comparing the different
populations. The most noticeable difference can be seen in Figure 8 and Figure 11where
the median difference between DA and SA for the Salinar and Chimu are slightly higher
than all of the other phases and cultural divisions. However, all of the quartiles overlap,
and so these differences are not significant. However, Figures7and 10, which show that
the direction of difference in Salinar and Chimu samples is not the same. In the Salinar
the median SA is older, whereas in the Chimu the median DA is older.
In addition to looking at the overlap of the medians, the box plots are also useful
in identifying the outliers, of which there are a large number. This explains the
differences between the bar graphs comparing the mean SA and DA (Figure 6 and Figure
9) and median SA and DA (Figure 7and Figure 10).It is also interesting to note that the
individuals who are the outliers are consistent among phase, cultural division, and site
level analyses.
The largest number of outliers occur during the Gallinazo phase, specifically the
Pre-structural phase, and most significantly, the Cerro Oreja population. This suggests
that there is more variability in the experience of children during this phase, than during
others.
The significance of these differences, however, can be seen in the ANOVA,
Pearson’s r, and FZT calculations. ANOVA suggests that there are no statistically
significant differences in the mean of the difference between DA and SA. Pearson’s r
shows a strong association between SA and DA, however, when FZT is calculated using
Pearson’s r there are some statistically significant differences between some of the
groups. Table 4 shows that there is a significant difference when the Moche phase is
compared to every other phase with sufficient sample size. The same can be seen in
Table 5, where the Moche population shows a significant difference when compared to
all of the other divisions. This suggests that there was a large amount of environmental
stress affecting individuals from the Moche phase, and more specifically, the Middle
Moche. However, there is no significant difference between the two sites, which
suggests that the significant differences are not necessarily related to the exact
environment, but rather to the phase and culture in which the individuals lived.
51
�VII. Conclusions
Overall, according to both the bar graphs and box plots comparing the SA and DA of
individuals from the different phases, cultural divisions, and sites it appears that the
Salinar phase had the least amount of environmental stress, compared to the Gallinazo
phase, especially the Structural Gallinazo and Chimu phases, which had the most amount
of environmental stress. According to the statistical analyses of the data, however, it
appears that the Moche, and especially the middle Moche, had the most statistically
significant difference in SA and DA suggesting that they suffered from the most
environmental stress.
It seems that overall, it is difficult to analyze the data due to the small sample
sizes, especially with regards to the two sites, where the Cerro Oreja population is almost
three times as large as the Huaca de la Luna sample. This can likely be the cause of the
inconsistency between the graphs and the statistical analyses of the data. The statistics,
however, seem to follow a pattern, which suggests that with a larger sample size, a more
statistically significant difference would be seen among populations that are already
showing a slight significant difference. The Chimu phase, because it only consists of
eight individuals, most likely is not consistent with the total population, and with a larger
sample size, would produce very different results. The Gallinazo phase is actually one of
the larger sample sizes, however, it does not show an incredibly large difference
considering the sample size of the populations.
It is hypothesized that with larger and more similar sample sizes from all of the
populations, including phase, cultural division, and site, the Gallinazo and Chimu phases
would have less difference between SA and DA, and the Moche would show even more
statistically significant difference, suggesting a large amount of environmental stress at
Huaca de la Luna. The Moche already showed the most statistically significant difference
with populations of the largest sample sizes, including the Salinar and Gallinazo phases,
and therefore, were the sample sizes for all populations larger, it is likely that the
differences would become even more statistically significant.
However, the fact that the Salinar, the earliest phase, suffered from the least
amount of environmental stress, and the Moche phase, one of the later phases, and the
first phase to develop a state-level society, suffered from the most environmental stress
has a number of implications with regards to the sociopolitical and economic structures
of each phase. In the Salinar phase people began shifting towards agriculture, however,
they still relied on inland animals for meat, whereas the Moche people expanded their
irrigation system and relied almost entirely on agriculture for food. This heavy reliance
on a irrigation system, especially in an environment where there were periods of drought,
52
�may have led to a more stressful lifestyle, than the mixed agriculture lifestyle of the
Salinar people.
Even more important to note, however, is the development of the state which
came about contemporaneously with the start of the Moche phase. The Moche was a
strong, conquest state, centered at Huaca de la Luna, which was often engaged in warfare.
Almost all of the Moche remains studied in the sample were excavated from Huaca de la
Luna, suggesting that life at the capital of the state was very stressful. This study
provides insight into the amount of environmental stress from which the citizens of a
powerful and developed state suffered. With the development of state-level society also
came and increase in stress among the people of the state, especially those residing at the
political center.
VIII. References
Baker, Brenda, with Tosha Dupras and Matthew Tocheri. 2005 The Osteology of Infants
and Children. Texas: University Anthropology Series.
Bawden, Garth. 1995 The Structural Paradox: Moche Culture as Political Ideology. Latin
American Antiquity 6(3):255-273.
Billman, Brian R. 1999 Reconstructing Prehistoric Political Economies and Cycles of
Political Power in the Moche Valley, Peru. In Settlement Pattern Studies in the
American: Fifty Years Since the Viru. Brian Billman and Gary Feinman, eds. Pp. 131159. Washington: Smithsonian Institution and Press.
Billman, Brian R. 2002 Irrigation and the Origins of the Southern Moche on the North
Coast of Peru. Latin American Antiquity 13(4):371-400.
Buisktra, Jane, Lyle Konigsberg, and Jill Bullington. 1986 Fertility and Development of
Agriculture in the Prehistoric Midwest. American Antiquity 51(3):528-546.
Chapdelaine, Claude, Victor Pimentel and Helen Bernier. 2001 A Glimpse of the Moche
Phase III Occupation at the Huacas of Moche Site, Northern Peru. Antiquity 75:361-372.
Donnan, Christopher. 2004 Moche Portraits from Ancient Peru. Texas: University of
Texas Press.
Gagnon, Celeste Marie. 2008 Bioarchaeological Investigations of Pre-State Life at Cerro
Oreja. In Arqueologı a Mochica: Nuevos Enfoques. L.J. Castillo, H. Bernier, G. Lockard,
and J. Rucabado eds. Pp. 173–185. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cato lica del Peru.
53
�Gagnon, Celeste Marie and Chris Wiesen. 2011 Using General Estimating Equations to
Analyze Oral Health in the Moche Valley of Peru. International Journal of
Osteoarchaeology.
Gonzalez-Colmenares, G, M Botella-Lopez, G Moreno-Rueda and J FernandezCardenete. 2007 Age Estimation By a Dental Method: A Comparison of Lamendin’s and
Prince & Ubelaker’s Technique. Journal of Forensic Science 52(5):1156-1160.
Gustafson, Gosta. 1950 Age Determination on Teeth. Journal of The American Dental
Association 40(1)45-54.
Hillson, Simon. 1996 Dental Anthropology. Great Britain: University Press, Cambridge.
Hoppa, Robert. 1992 Evaluating Human Skeletal Growth: An Anglo-Saxon Example.
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 4(2):275-288.
Johnston, Francis. 1962 Growth of the Long Bone of Infants and Young Children at
Indian Knoll. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 20(3):249-254.
Keatinge, Richard. 1974 Chimu Rural Administrative Centers in the Moche Valley, Peru.
World of Archaeology 6(1):66-82.
Keatinge, Richard and Kent Day. 1973 Socio-Economic Organization of the Moche
Valley, Peru, during the Chimu Occupation of Chan Chan. Journal of Anthropological
Research 29(4):275-295.
Lamendin, H, E Baccino, JF Humbert, JC Tavernier, RM Nossintchouk and A Zerilli.
1992 A Simple Technique for Age Estimation in Adult corpses: The Two Criteria Dental
Method. Journal of Forensic Sciences 37(5):1373-1379.
McEwan, Gordon. 1990 Some Formal Correspondences Between the Imperial
Architecture of the Wari and Chimu Cultures of Ancient Peru. Latin American Antiquity
1(2):97-116.
Millaire, Jean-Francois. 2010 Primary State Formation in the Viru Valley, North Coast of
Peru. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
107(14):6186-6191.
Pozorski, Shelia and Thomas Pozorski. 1979 An Early Subsistence Exchange System in
the Moche Valley, Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 6(4):413-432.
54
�Quilter, Jeffrey. 1990 The Moche Revolt of the Objects. Latin American Antiquity
1(1):42-65.
Quilter, Jeffrey. 1997 The Narrative Approach to Moche Iconography. Latin American
Antiquity 8(2):113-133.
Quilter, Jeffrey. 2002 Moche Politics, Religion, and Warfare. Journal of World History
16(2):145-195.
Reppien, Kirsa, Brigitte Sejrsen and Niels Lynnerup. 2006 Evaluation of Post-Mortem
Estimated Dental Age Verses Real Age: A Retrospective 21-Year Survey. Forensic
Science International 159:S84-S88.
Scheuer, Louise and Sue McLaughlin-Black. 1994 Age Estimation from the Pars
Basilaris of the Fetal and Juvenile Occipital Bone. International Journal of
Osteoarchaeology 4:377-380.
Ubelaker, Douglas H. 1989 Human Skeletal Remains: Excavation, Analysis,
Interpretation. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Uceda, Santiago, E. Mujica, and R. Morales. 1997 Proyecto Arqueologico Huacas del Sol
y de la Luna. Trujillo: Facultad de Ciencias Sociales Universidad Nacional de Trujillo.
Walker, Paul. 1969 The Linear Growth of Long Bones in Late Woodland Indian
Children. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy for Science 1968 78:83-87.
55
�Table 1- Long Bone Measurements for Children Birth to Five and a Half Years
Estimated Age in Years
Humerus
Radius
Ulna
Femur
Tibia
Fibula
Fetal
56.78
47.2
54.8
61.68
55.5
50
NB-.5
67.77
55.05
63.7
78.84
69.28
65.38
.5-1.5
93.14
73.96
82.86
115.63
96.87
92.44
1.5-2.5
113.57
91.33
99.2
148.13
120.57
113.8
2.5-3.5
125.64
97.86
18
166.73
138.2
137.17
3.5-4.5
136.78
108.5
120.63
183.82
154.3
144.71
4.5-5.6
154.67
120
132.75
213.67
178.43
171.67
Johnston (1962)
Table 2- Basilar Portion Measurements for Children Two Weeks to Four Years Seven Months
Documented Age
Width
Sagittal Length
2 Weeks
14.5
11.3
3 Weeks
16.9
12.7
4 Weeks
25.6
12.6
7 Weeks
15.5
11.6
3 Months
15.4
13.8
5 Months
18.4
13.4
8 Months
21
13.8
9 Months
20.5
13.9
11 Months
22.3
14
1 Year
18.3
13.9
1 Year 1 Month
22.1
14.8
1 Year 2 Months
22.7
15.8
1 Year 3 Months
23.6
16.8
1 Years 4 Months
18.6
14
1 Year 6 Months
21.9
15.5
1 Year 8 Months
22.6
15.7
1 Year 9 Months
22.7
16.8
2 Years 3 Month
24.4
18.1
2 Years 5 Months
25.8
17.5
2 Years 6 Months
24.2
17.5
2 Years 7 Months
25.9
17.4
56
�2 Years 9 Months
24.2
16.4
3 Years 2 Months
23.2
16.6
3 Years 4 Months
27.6
16.6
3 Years 5 Months
26.1
18.1
3 Years 7 Months
27.8
17.5
3 Years 8 Months
27.3
15.5
4 Years 3 Months
25.9
16.4
4 Years 7 Months
26.2
15.3
Scheuer (1994)
Table 3- Pearson’s r Values
Phase
Pearson’s r for
SA and DA
*.993
Division
Salinar
Pearson’s r for
SA and DA
*.993
Pre-structural
Gallinazo
Structural
Gallinazo
Post-structural
Gallinazo
Early Moche
*.982
Gallinazo
*.972
Moche
*.875
Middle
Moche
Chimu
*.878
Salinar
Site
Cerro
Oreja
Pearson’s r for
SA and DA
*.976
*.966
*.756
n/a
Huaca de
la Luna
*.994
Chimu
*.968
*.995
* Designates Significance- p < .01
Table 4- FZT Calculations for Phase
Phase
Salinar
Pre-structural
Gallinazo
1.056
Structural
Gallinazo
1.691
Salinar
Pre-structural
Gallinazo
Structural Gallinazo
1.056
1.691
1.066
Middle Moche
*3.115
*3.310
*2.012
.109
.909
1.402
Chimu
1.66
* Designates Significance- p < .01
57
Middle Moche
Chimu
*3.115
.109
*3.310
.909
*2.012
1.402
*2.473
*2.473
�Table 5- FZT Calculations for Division
Division
Salinar
Salinar
Gallinazo
Moche
Chimu
1.626
*3.122
.395
*2.854
1.676
Gallinazo
1.626
Moche
*3.122
*2.854
Chimu
.395
1.676
*2.968
*2.968
* Designates Significance- p < .01
Table 6- FZT Calculations for Site
Site
Cerro Oreja
Cerro Oreja
Huaca de la Luna
Huaca de la Luna
.62
.62
Figure 1- Map of the (Cerro Oreja and Huacas de Moche Marked) Moche Valley
(Courtesy of Billman)
58
�Figure 2- Dental Development for People Aged Five Months to 35 Years
(Ubelaker 1989)
Figure 3- Number of Individuals by Site
59
�Period # Key
1-Salinar
2- Pre-Structural Gallinazo
3- Structural Gallinazo
4- Post-Structural Gallinazo
5- Unknown Gallinazo
6- Early Moche
7- Middle Moche
8- Chimu
Figure 4- Number of Individuals by Phase
Figure 5- Number of Individuals by Division
60
Division Key
A- Salinar
B- Gallinazo
C- Moche
D- Chimu
�Figure 6- Mean SA and DA by Phase
Figure 7- Median SA and DA by Phase
61
�Figure 8- Difference Between DA and SA Medians by Phase
Figure 9- Mean SA and DA by Division
62
�Figure 10- Median SA and DA by Division
Figure 11- Difference Between DA and SA Medians by Division
63
�Figure 12- Mean SA and DA by Site
Figure 13- Median SA and DA by Site
64
�Figure 14- Difference DA and SA Medians by Site
65
�Appendix 1- Skeletal Age (SA)
66
�68
�69
�Appendix 2- Skeletal and Dental Age
70
�72
�72
�72
�Stock Fading
Ryan Van Spronsen (Business)1
Stock fading is a trading strategy that looks to capitalize on short-term
opportunities in the market. These opportunities have an optimal closing window of ten
business days, as shown by data analysis. The most advantageous fading opportunities
are created by daily price percentage gainers driven by 1) financial news, 2) the release of
an SEC form 8-K, or 3) no apparent reason for the price breakout, and 4) price percentage
losers caused by financial news. Following breakouts of this nature, short positions
should be opened for durations of ten business days. Beyond ten days, the correlation
between the initial breakout and the current stock price deteriorates due to many
additional factors, rendering the strategy unreliable.
The idea behind fading is that when a breakout happens, the emotions of
investors cause a run on the market, pushing the stock price past the actual valuation.
Following the perfect markets theory, this overvaluation should return back to
equilibrium, creating an advantageous opportunity to profit on the discrepancy. This
research project's findings suggest that by following these four opportunities, fading will
produce an average of 12.68% return every ten days. Compounding this rate of return for
the twenty-five periods of this length in a fiscal year, an idealistic 1,608.25% can be
returned annually. However, this number does not account for limitations caused by
insufficient volume or availability of the securities. Stock fading has concrete supporting
data that is rooted in theoretical concepts from both fundamental and technical analysis,
which makes it a viable short-term investment strategy for the exceptionally risk tolerant
investor.
I. Introduction
Stock fading is a term referring to a seldom talked-about stock trading strategy.
The basic idea is that the most outstanding price percentage gains or losses from the
previous day will reverse their fortunes in the days following their breakout. My
hypothesis is that there is a trend to be uncovered concerning the activity of the market’s
top price percentage movers in the days following their breakout, based on the publicized
news why they spiked in the first place.
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Cathyann Tully in partial fulfillment of
the Senior Program requirements.
1
73
�II. Methodology and Data Collection
The methodology used was manual data entry for each business day of July
2011 in which the name of the firm, their ticker symbol, the reason for the breakout,
closing price, and closing price for the trailing business days 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 following
the breakout were recorded. Data was retrieved using Yahoo! Finance, and the Wall
Street Journal Online US Market Statistics page. During a data test group in February of
2011, a similar method was used. This trial indicated possible relationships between
relevant news for the breakout compared to stock price movements. Furthermore, it
suggested that the correlation between breakout reason and subsequent days’ closing
price deteriorated beyond ten business days due to new information and developments
relevant to each firm. Therefore, the trailing business days one, two, three, five, and ten
following the breakout were used for the July 2011 analysis. The top five price
percentage movers on both the gainers and losers side for twenty business days produced
100 sets of sample data for both sides, of which 90 gainers were usable and 95 losers
were usable. The unusable points are due to the de-listing of stocks for various reasons
such as mergers and acquisitions, failing to meet exchange requirements, or privatization.
These unusable points did not provide data for some or all of the business days trailing
the stock price breakout, so they create a possible hole in the validity of the overall data.
One of the major shortcomings is that the number of usable data points for gainers (90)
and losers (95) are different, so the overall results cannot be fairly compared. Averaging
the price percentage movements in the following days was the next most accurate method
of comparison, but still failed to take the weights of the different data points into account.
III. Previous Research
Previous research includes several articles discussing various stock trading
strategies and methods. From this wealth of knowledge, basic principles are derived to
support the theory behind stock fading and the potential financial gains to be made.
Overall, there is a lack of information pertaining strictly to stock fading. This could be for
two reasons: 1) the strategy has been tested and holds no validity and has been rendered
useless, or 2) nobody publishes their stock fading method because their opportunity to
profit would be lost.
Art Collins describes the use of fading the eight-day moving average to exploit
biases in stock indexes. He conjectures that “Unlike the Japanese yen, which can trend
for months or even years, the [American markets] tend to be mean-reverting. That is, they
tend to come back off overextended high or low levels.” (Collins, 1) The eight-day
method involves taking large deviations from the most recent eight-day’s average price of
74
�the stock, then assuming that the volatile spike will revert back towards the eight-day
moving average rather than continuing further away from it.
A study conducted by stock researchers in Taiwan used a method of Data
Envelopment Analysis to find that they could classify stocks into four categories: Value,
Monitor, Speculative, and Avoidance. The most interesting point from their research is as
follows:
The value of a stock purchase depends on whether its price is rational, which is
determined by assessing the gap between the stock price and the true stock
value. When the stock price exceeds true stock value, it indicates that the stock
is overvalued and thus it is not worthwhile to purchase it; conversely, when the
stock price is below the true value, the stock is undervalued and so its purchase
is worthwhile. Whether a stock price is above or below its true value is a relative
concept, and is determined by a firm’s financial performance and stock price
performance relative to comparable firms and stocks. (Shiuh-Nan, Wang-Ching,
Yi-Chieh, 2)
As it pertains to stock fading, the concept of analyzing the gap between market value and
true value is very important. It is not logical to assume that a top price percentage
mover’s true value will change along with the change in market price. Therein will be a
gap that can be capitalized on for a profit. The idea that the true value of a firm will
change as drastically as their market share price in the same one day period is incorrect,
because the market price is influenced by human factors such as supply, demand, and
human emotion while the true value of an organization is not. Thus, the previous stock
price is a more accurate representation of the true value, rather than the closing price after
the volatile spike. Furthermore, an average from multiple previous closing prices, such as
the eight-day moving average mentioned previously, will be an even more accurate
representation of the firm’s true value. Ergo, a spike in stock price does not accurately
reflect an equal spike in the firm’s true value, which is likely closer to the moving
average from previous days. Ceteris Paribus, the market should theoretically correct itself
after a spike in price to reflect the true value over time, which will entail a reversion
closer to the previous moving average instead of further volatility. This is where fading
comes in; buying stocks that were large one-day losers to profit on their return up to the
moving average, and short selling stocks that were large one-day winners to profit on
their decline back towards the moving average. A study from Ahmed, Schneible, and
Stevens of Syracuse University provided evidence of the effects of online trading on
stock price and trading volume reactions to quarterly earnings announcements. Their
study found that online trading brought an increase of naïve and uneducated investors to
75
�the market, which caused a decrease in average investor competency and therefore more
volatility in the overall market. The study’s most relevant finding concerning stock
fading was that:
A firm’s stock price reaction to their quarterly earnings announcement depends
on two major factors: (1) the average precision of pre-disclosure or prior
information, and (2) the precision of the earnings. The greater the average
precision of predisclosure information, the lower the expected price reaction to
the earnings announcement. Intuitively, traders with more precise prior
information rely less on the announced information. (Ahmed, Schneible,
Stevens, 8)
The reaction severity of the stock price following an earnings announcement depends on
investor’s prior knowledge, known information, and the precision of the earnings in
accordance with professional analyst projections. This means that as more and more
investors join the online trading arena, there is an increase in proportionate naive and
uneducated investors, which causes a larger reaction to quarterly earnings. The result is a
panicked scramble by uneducated investors following out of the ordinary quarterly
announcements, which causes human factors such as trading volume, supply, and demand
factors to distort the stock price change and amplify the percentage change. This causes a
wider gap between market price and true value of the company, as aforementioned.
During this process, a wider gap for potential financial gain is created by widening the
market-true value spread. Reverting back to the principle that markets correct themselves
over time, this gap should be closed over time, which will pull the spiked price back
closer to the previous day’s moving average. This research reinforces the idea that stock
fading theoretically works by taking the human factors of uneducated investors into
account, and hints that the advantageous gaps created by uninformed investors will
expand as the easily accessible online personal investing industry grows.
IV. Timing
In terms of data collection, the sources and dates have already been discussed.
After gathering data, each trailing day was compared to the close on the original day of
unusual activity using the formula ((T+n)/T)-1 where T is the closing stock price on the
breakout day, n is the number of business days following the breakout, so (T+n)
represents the closing price on the business day ‘n’ days following the breakout. The
result is a decimal indicating a percentage change in the stock on the day T+n compared
to T. A positive number indicates how much the stock has increased, whereas a negative
number indicates how much the stock has decreased compared to T. Upon completion of
76
�the spreadsheet, totals are added and then divided by the number of usable data points (90
gainers, 95 losers) to show the average increase or decrease for each time period.
Immediately, a trend can be seen in Figure 1.
Gainers
Losers
Day 1
0.72%
0.28%
Day 2
-0.27%
-0.32%
Day 3
-0.50%
-0.71%
Day 5
-3.81%
-2.51%
Day 10
-10.83%
-6.95%
Figure 1: Average Returns
Upon breakout, average prices hover within a percent of their breakout price before
falling; regardless of whether their breakout was on the positive (gainer) or negative
(loser) side. An average decrease of 3.81% and 2.51% are seen on day five by gainers
and losers, respectively. More alarming is the average decrease of 10.83% and 6.95% on
day ten which suggests there is considerable money to be made by short selling price
percentage gainers or losers with a short term focus of ten business days. Again, trial data
indicates that a timeframe longer than ten days allows new information and developments
to affect the price, so this strategy should only be used within ten business days of the
price percentage breakout.
V. Causes of price Jumps
Breaking down the averages shown in Figure 1 into the various reasons for price
breakouts provides a clearer picture of advantageous opportunities to invest in. Following
completion of the data tables (Tables 1 and 2), five clear reasons appeared to be the
driving forces behind the majority of price percentage breakouts: 1) the release of a
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) form 8K, 2) Quarterly financial releases, 3)
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) announcements, 4) Drug study results, and 5) drastic
price changes driven by no apparent or publicly available news. Typically, stocks that
showed a large price percentage increase also had spikes in volume on the same day, but
that is due to the scramble of investors mentioned earlier reacting to publicized
information that caused the price change. One such recent example of a scramble is the
run of investors and customers alike away from Netflix, the popular media-streaming
company, after an unfavourable press release concerning customer retention. Analyst
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�Michael Corty of Morningstar says that “certain stocks dazzle investors because they
don’t seem to ever go down. But as soon as there’s even a whiff of bad news, investors
run”. (Krantz) He continues to say that “Investors may have bought Netflix because they
liked the service. But that strategy often disregards the critical step of valuation, or how
much you pay for the shares. The idea that you like the product so you buy the stock is a
silly idea. Some people are finding that out for the first time”. (Krantz) This is a perfect
example of uneducated or uninformed investors causing the market to be more volatile by
mass-selling Netflix stock and causing a saturated supply in the market; forcing the price
down. Had the public been more aware of the information on a gradual basis or been
aware of the decline in Netflix clientele during the one month period leading up to the
press release, the price would have decreased gradually instead of 35% in one day
because the sudden influx of supply on the market would have been avoided.
Returning to the five main reasons that caused stocks to show extraordinary
price percentage changes in July, a summary of the average percentage change on the
tenth day following the breakout signals a development of trends in the marketplace
following breakouts. Since the tenth day was shown to be the most drastic day of
deviation from the spiked closing price, the tenth day is used to compare results of
different causes for breakouts.
The first section is news concerning drug studies because it contains the least
amount of data points. Of the two stocks that changed due to press releases concerning
drug studies, both prices were adversely affected after their breakout day, and both
continued their downward trend following the negative breakout. Their average decline
after the tenth day is 14.5%, as shown in Figure 2. The probable cause for the continued
decline is because market stock prices represent the value of all current earnings and
those to come in the foreseeable future. Negative drug trials severely impact the future
financial outlook of their company, so this explains the continued decline in stock price.
Reason
% Change
(Tenth day)
% Change
(Tenth day)
Gainers
Data Points
Losers
Data Points
Form 8K
-11.70%
13
-4.29%
8
Financials
-14.37%
19
-11.40%
30
M&A
0.94%
19
-4.95%
2
Drug
0.00%
0
-14.50%
2
-13.27%
24
-0.84%
32
No Reason
Figure 2: More Average Returns
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�The second section is stocks that posted large percentage changes for no
apparent reason. No information or press releases were available on multiple websites.
The trend for gainers in this section is to continue to decline, 13.27% on average, by the
tenth day following the breakout. This trend is not nearly as severe when the initial
breakout is on the losing side, with less than a percent average decrease by the tenth
trailing business day. In terms of stock fading, the 24 data points in the gainers section
provides a comparatively solid basis to conjecture that if a stock shows a large percentage
gain for no reason, there is a data-supported opportunity to profit by short selling the
stock and covering the position after the tenth trailing day. While the thirteen percent is
merely an average of the 24 data points, only four of those stocks showed further gains
after ten days, which mitigates the risk of taking a loss on the short position.
The third section is mergers and acquisitions causing a large price percentage
change. The losers only contained 2 data points, averaging to a 5% loss, but there are too
few data points on which to base an argument for effective fading. On the gainers side, 19
data points averaged to an increase of almost one percent by the tenth day, which is not
sufficient deviation from the breakout price to justify a short-term investment that
contains so much risk. The risk-reward principle suggests that a stock fader’s money
could be invested more productively elsewhere.
The fourth section is financial news and press releases. Overall, the majority in
this section was due to second quarter results because the data was collected in July. This
is the most outstanding section as it relates to stock fading. In the gainers section, 19 data
points averaged to a 14.37% decrease by the tenth trailing day. Such a large decrease is
supported by a high ratio of data points to overall data points, and creates a solid basis to
fade stocks by short selling breakout gainers on financial data. If an investor is able to
make a fourteen percent gain for themselves every ten days, the yearly return on this
strategy is astronomical, and will be shown later. On the financial news losers side, thirty
data points averaged an 11.4% loss on the tenth trailing day, which also provides an
advantageous opportunity for stock faders. While the average potential to gain is less, this
is supported by more data points and adds increased security on which faders can base
their investments. Macroeconomic factors may be one of the main underlying causes for
the results in the financials section. The current economy seems to be in limbo, and many
organizations released Quarter 2 financial data in July that showed profits, but fell short
of expectations. This shortcoming causes market prices of stocks to decline because the
previous market price or moving average was partially influenced by analyst projections
for the fiscal period. The final section prevalent in the data was abnormal price
percentage changes due to the release of an SEC form 8K.
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�VI. SEC Form 8-K
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) form 8-K is “the ‘current
report’ companies must file with the SEC to announce major events that shareholders
should know about.” (USSEC) In addition to filing quarterly reports, corporations must
also disclose certain material corporate events on a more current basis. This increases the
transparency of our financial system. Examples of events requiring the filing of an 8-K
form are financial information, registrant’s business and operations, trading markets,
matters related to accounts, corporate governance, asset-backed securities, and financial
statements. While this seems like an overload of reports to be filed, the purpose of the 8K is to report major changes in organizations and pertinent information which will have
an effect on investor’s behavior. In this way, aggregate market volatility is reduced
because quarterly reports do not contain an overload of information causing mass selloffs or runs on specific stocks. It is critical that organizations maintain compliance by
filing the 8-K forms because it keeps investors current on important material events that
impact the organization’s outlook for the foreseeable future.
VII. Advantageous Opportunities
On the gainers side, an average loss of 11.7% was shown by 13 data points by
the tenth day. In terms of the breakout losers, a further decline of 4.29% on average was
produced by eight data points. While there is less evidence to support this section than
two previous sections, there is still a large enough reward for shorting the breakout
gainers to justify the increased risk of less data points. In terms of losers, eight data points
may not be worth the potential average gain of four percent compared to higher potential
and more supporting evidence found in other sections.
In summary, certain reasons for breakouts provide more concrete supporting
data and higher returns that appear to justify the risk a fading investor would take on.
Three of the four opportunities appear after a stock posts a large price percentage
increase. On average, 11.7% can be made in ten days by shorting gainers driven by the
release of an 8K form. Similarly, 14.37% can be made in the same timeframe by shorting
gainers due to financial news. Lastly, 13.27% can be made by shorting gainers with no
apparent reason or information pertaining to the gain. These are all perfect examples of
stock fading that now have empirical evidence to support the theory. The final
opportunity to make money is by shorting price percentage losers driven by financial
news. This case is contrary to the stock fading theory, because the losing trend is
continued. However, with this evidence of sustained decline in market price, there is still
an opportunity to profit from capitalizing on the proven trend. The data suggests that an
80
�average of 11.4% can be made from short selling the price percentage losers driven by
financial news within a timeframe of ten stock exchange trading days.
VIII. Sector Conclusions
To conclude the sector discussion, the best time to initialize a stock fading
strategy is immediately following a price breakout, whether on the gaining or losing side.
From the breakout day’s closing price, the largest price percentage movements are found,
on average, ten business days following the breakout. This tenth day is the optimal point
to close out the fading position. There are four main advantageous opportunities to profit
from fading stock breakouts. All four are capitalized on by taking short positions. If there
is a positive breakout driven by the release of an SEC form 8-K, financial news, or no
apparent reason, or if there is a negative breakout driven by financial news, shorting any
of these breakouts will result in investor profit after ten days. The average return gained
by each reason is outlined in figure 2, and the average return of those four averages is
12.68%. The implications of this number are significant; following the four strategies
outlined above will produce a 12.68% return every ten days. This figure is astronomical
compared to the S&P 500 index’s average annual return of 8-10%. As long as the correct
information is available pertaining to the primary reason for a price breakout in either
direction, a stock fader has the opportunity to profit on the forecasted price movements in
the following days. Fading will not always produce the desired results. However, the four
reasons for price breakouts previously discussed will produce the most credible data for
maximizing the consistency of a short-term return. If these four methods are invested in
equally, fading has the potential to produce an average of 12.68% return in each ten
business day period. Noting that these results are not consistent is important when
considering the sample calculation about to be shown, because compounding the different
returns will inflate or deflate the final annual return, depending on each ten days’ results.
IX. Potential Return
If 12.68% return every 10 business days holds true for an annual fiscal period,
there are 25 turnover periods in a year containing 10 business days. For example, if an
investor started with $1,000, and paid the typical online trading fee of $9.99 per trade,
they would multiply their money by 12.68% , or 1.1268 every period (minus the trading
fees). After 25 compounding periods with this decimal, the original thousand dollars will
be worth $16,082.5, for an annual return of 1,608.25%. This is an unheard of annual
return. If the same holds true and no money is withdrawn from the account, the original
thousand dollars grows to $316,404.27 after the second year. These are obviously optimal
81
�numbers; therefore an alternative calculation was created for a worst-case scenario.
Instead of using idealistic numbers, the worst case numbers according to the data are used
for the alternative calculation. A ten-day return of 11.40% is combined with a double
online brokerage fee of $9.99; once for opening the position, and once for closing. The
results remain staggering compared to traditional annual market returns. The one-year
return is 1,093.29%, and after two years the original value of $1,000 is valued at an
astounding $159,797.50. Notice the magnitude of the difference between the two
scenarios. The best-case is almost double the worst-case after only two years. This
discrepancy underscores one of the flaws of stock fading; an unknown factor of investor
return, which hinders investor ability to plan for the future, and therefore represents risk
in and of itself. This point leads to further limitations of the strategy.
X. Limitations
The shortfalls associated with stock fading are few, but they are imminently
present within most fading opportunities. Due to the nature of the initializing price jump,
it is far more likely that smaller and lesser-known organizations’ stock prices make outof-the-ordinary price percentage changes in one day. This is because they are less
“sturdy” stocks, and generally have lower prices. This makes significant news very
influential on the stock price, and low-volume stocks can be overwhelmed with demand,
which exacerbates the price inflation. Since many price percentage leaders are penny
stocks- stocks with a market price under $5 per share, there are often very low levels of
relative trading volume held by these stocks. This can hinder an investor’s ability to open
positions of the desired magnitude in these stocks. One example is WowJoint Holdings
Ltd, trading under the symbol BWOWU. This stock has an average daily trading volume
of 1873 shares per day and a trading price consistently under 60 cents per share
(wsj.com), thereby limiting investors to opening maximum positions of around $1,000.
This increased volume alone will have an effect on the price. Volume limitations such as
BWOWU are common amongst the penny stocks that appear in the top five price
percentage daily movers. Therefore, the theoretical opportunities outlined previously are
bound by these constraints. Stock faders must select their positions with this in mind,
which limits the traders’ options. The availability of these smaller stocks is also an issue,
as large stakes purchased in small cap corporations may cause the investor to become one
of the larger investors in the company, which some boards have restrictions in place to
prevent. If majority shareholder status is gained by opening a large position in a small cap
company, the fader would essentially take control of the stock price for the short term ten
day period intended to close the position. Ergo, stock faders must be aware of the volume
of stocks that appear on the price percentage movers list, and select their opportunities
82
�accordingly. Higher volume means easier accessibility and freedom to close the trade at
will, and keep the effects of the fading position minimal in terms of shareholder
percentage.
XI. Connecting Fundamental and Technical Analysis
Historically, advocates of fundamental analysis have never gotten along with
advocates of technical analysis. Fundamentalists look at the inner workings or corporate
organizations. “Also known as quantitative analysis, this involves looking at revenue,
expenses, assets, liabilities, and all the other financial aspects of a company.” (McClure)
On the other hand, technical analysis ignores the ‘value’ of a stock. Instead, technical
analysts “are only interested in the price movements in the market. Despite all the fancy
and exotic tools it employs, technical analysis really simply studies supply and demand in
a market in an attempt to determine what direction, or trend, will continue in the future.”
(Janssen, Langager, and Murphy) The difference in methodology creates a friction
between the two groups of thought, and many fundamentalists view technical analysis as
‘hocus-pocus’, due to the lack of quantitative evidence to support investment decisions.
Technical supporters attempt to understand the emotions behind the market by studying
the overall market, rather than individual market components or corporations.
The underlying principles of stock fading are rooted in both of these analytical
methods. On the fundamental side, large price breakouts are not supported by
fundamental analysis because it is impossible for the long-term valuation of a stock to be
upwards of 25% different from day to day. The valuation grows over time; not overnight.
Therefore large price percentage increases are not supported by quantitative evidence, so
the fading notion should hold true: gainers should come back down, and losers should
regain a portion of their loses. On the technical side, breakouts are driven partly by news
developments, and partly by the emotions of investors making a run on a particular stock.
Due to the emotional factor, market sentiment changes on a day-by-day basis, so
breakouts should reverse their fortunes in subsequent trading days as the initial
‘honeymoon’ factor of the breakout wears off. Furthermore, one of the tools that
technical analytics employs is the use of Bollinger Bands, which are indications of
“whether prices are high or low on a relative basis.” (Bollinger) This ‘relative basis’ is
important because it relates each stock to other stocks in the industry, as well as previous
performance. A combination of horizontal and vertical analysis, the Bollinger Bands
suggest that as stocks ‘push the envelope’ of the bands in either direction, they will
recede to a less extreme position in the near future. The Bollinger Bands also give a
visual aide that shows a trading range for each stock. There is a band on the top and a
band on the bottom of this range, suggesting a limit to the stock’s relative value. The
83
�nature of breakouts tracked for fading purposes almost always pushed the market value of
the stocks beyond this limit, so it was no surprise when the fortunes were reversed and
the stocks fell back into the Bollinger trading range. (wsj.com) Day-to-day valuation
consistencies and Bollinger Bands are a great example of how stock fading blends the
theoretical concepts from fundamental and traditional analysis to show daily
advantageous opportunities in the stock market.
XII. Conclusion
In conclusion, stock fading is a short-term trading strategy that capitalizes on
discrepancies between actual valuations of organizations and the ramifications of overall
investor emotions. The optimal time period to execute a fading strategy is ten business
days from opening to closing a position. Specific reasons for price breakouts are the
determining factor when deciding which opportunities should be pursued. If price
percentage gainers for a given day are driven by the release of an SEC form 8-K,
financial news, or the breakout occurred for no apparent reason, then stock fading should
be initialized by opening a short position in the equity. Similarly, if a negative price
percentage leader is driven by financial news, a short position should be opened.
Essentially, current market conditions and macroeconomic health indicate that most
financial releases undercut analysts’ predictions, which is why stocks driven by financial
news see a significant aggregate decline in the ten days following the press release. This
research project shows that by basing a trading strategy on these four opportunities, stock
faders can receive an average return of 12.68% every ten business days. By compounding
this figure for the twenty-five ten-day periods in a business year, this strategy returns an
idealistic 1,608.25% in annual return. A less optimistic calculation still returns 1,093.29%
annually, which means that stock fading is a strategy that should not be overlooked.
While the strategy has limitations such as availability and volume constraints, it remains
a viable option because it has concrete supporting data that is theoretically rooted in both
fundamental and technical analysis.
XIII. References
Ahmed, A. S., & Schneible, R. A., & Stevens, D. E. (2003). “An Empirical Analysis of
the Effects of Online Trading on Stock Price and Trading Volume Reactions to Earnings
Announcements.” Contemporary Accounting Research, 20(3), 413-439. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.
Bollinger, John. “Trading Bands”. Bollinger.com. Article, Available Online. Dec. 4,
2011: http://www.bollingerbands.com/services/bb/
84
�Collins, A. (2008). “Going with one average, fading another.” Futures: News, Analysis &
Strategies for Futures, Options & Derivatives Traders, 37(13), 36-39. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost.
Diether, K. B., Lee, K., & Werner, I. M. (2009). “Short-Sale Strategies and Return
Predictability.” Review of Financial Studies, 22(2), 575-607. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Jacob, N. L., & Smith, K. V. (1972). The Value of Perfect Market Forecasts in Portfolio
Selection. Journal Of Finance, 27(2), 355-369.
Janssen, Langager, and Murphy. “Technical Analysis: Introduction”. Investopedia
Article. Available Online. Dec. 4, 2011:
http://www.investopedia.com/university/technical/#axzz1fUkmDTZ8
Krantz, Matt. News article: “Netflix stock plummets 35%.” USA Today. October 26,
2011.
McClure, Ben. “Fundamental Analysis: Introduction.” Investopedia Article. Available
Online. Dec. 4, 2011:
http://www.investopedia.com/university/fundamentalanalysis/#axzz1fUkmDTZ8
Shiuh-Nan, H., Wang-Ching, C., & Yi-Chieh, C. (2010). “Formulate Stock Trading
Strategies Using DEA: A Taiwanese Case.” INFOR, 48(2), 75-81.
doi:10.3138/infor.48.2.075
USSEC Staff. “Form 8-K”. United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Corporate Website. Available online. Nov. 30, 2011:
http://www.sec.gov/answers/form8k.htm.
XIV. Daily Manual Data Retrieval
Wall Street Journal. U.S. Indices Historical Market Stats. Record of price percentage
gainers. Available online, July-August 2011: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/
2_3021-gainnysegainer.html?mod=topnav_2_3000
Wall Street Journal. U.S. Indices Historical Market Stats. Record of price percentage
losers. Available online, July-August 2011:
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-losenyse-loser.html?mod=topnav_2_3021
85
�Yahoo! Finance. Daily summary of largest price % gainers on all U.S. stock indexes.
Available online, July-August 2011: http://finance.yahoo.com/gainers?e=us
Yahoo! Finance. Daily summary of largest price % losers on all U.S. stock indexes.
Available online, July-August 2011: http://finance.yahoo.com/losers?e=us
86
��Antoni’s Touch: The Body and
The Family in Janine Antoni’s Work
Nicola Andersen (Art History)1
A chewed chunk of lard, a bucket of hair dye, an imprint of a nipple, a silver
cast sculpture of the mouth: Janine Antoni uses such objects, along with meticulous
analysis of the body, to convey messages about family, femininity, and the role of
motherhood. Some of her productions, including Gnaw (1992), Loving Care (1993),
Wean (1990), Momme (1995), Cradle (1999), and Umbilical (2000) are particular
manifestations of Antoni’s use of the body or view of family. It is evident through these
oftentimes personal works that she is not critical of the gender role ascribed to women by
society, but rather embraces the position she holds as a woman and mother in
contemporary culture. Contemporary women artists have often been categorized as
essentialist or constructionist; Janine Antoni, in fact, belongs to neither of these
categories. A reading of her works with a concentration on themes of the body, family,
and gender roles reinforces such an assertion.
Antoni’s unique perspective was shaped by her early life circumstances. Born in
Freeport, Bahamas in 1964, the artist was raised in a Catholic home with her parents. Her
mother, an investment consultant, and father, a plastic surgeon, supported her in various
artistic pursuits, including 11 years of dance classes (Larson 1). After being sent to a
Catholic boarding school in Florida in 1977, Antoni attended Sarah Lawrence College in
New York, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (Heartney 15) (Dreishpoon
1). Following her undergraduate career, she studied at the Rhode Island School of
Design. In 1989, she received the Masters of Fine Arts in sculpture from the Rhode
Island school. Throughout these formative years, Antoni became absorbed in the issues
surrounding contemporary women and the female body. The artist recurrently deals with
ideas of femininity by taking quotidian objects and actions that are easily identifiable as
cultural and gender signifiers and redefining them for her own use (Lindner 3). Currently,
she lives in New York City with her husband, contemporary artist Paul Ramirez Jonas,
and continues to explore art in innovative ways. After giving birth to a daughter in 2004,
Antoni has been even more concentrated on family dynamics and femininity today
Written under the direction of Dr. Laura Morowitz for AH491: Contemporary Art, Theory,
and Criticism.
1
88
�(Dreishpoon 1-3). From her earliest work to her present day undertakings, these themes
have been consistently confronted in her art.
Continually recognized for her contribution to the art world, Antoni cites several
past cutting-edge women artists as inspirations for her own creations within performance,
sculpture, and photography. Feminist performance art of the 1970s and onward,
feminism, conceptualism, abstract expressionism, classicism and minimalism have acted
as stimuli for the artist’s oeuvre. Specifically, artists Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse,
Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, and Hannah Wilke have
been cited by Antoni as influential (Lindner 11). Similarly, many of their works, like that
of Antoni, demonstrate their concerns with the body, femininity, and beauty (10). Antoni
acknowledges the artistic and social choices she can now decide upon were unavailable
to her predecessors and this matrilineage has permeated the concepts in her own work.
For example, such a connection can be seen in her Loving Care (1993) performance,
frequently compared to Ukele’s 1969 Maintenance Art (Lindner 13).
Over the course of her career, the artist has presented internationally; Antoni has
displayed solo exhibitions in North America and Europe and been a part of group shows in
North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. She has been featured in the Whitney Biennial,
New York City, the Venice Biennale, International Istanbul Biennial, Museum of
Contemporary Art Biennial, South Korea, and Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa, among
others. Antoni is a recipient of the MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships and is
internationally regarded as one of the most important contemporary artists (Dreishpoon 1).
The Body
It is apparent through Antoni’s present oeuvre that the utilization of the body has
been essential in the production of the artist’s work. Through bodily examination and
experience, the artist has created Gnaw (Figure 1) and Loving Care (Figure 3), two of
several pieces which analyze the capability of the body. For Antoni, the body is a tool;
“By setting up situations that force her body into lithe contact with malleable materials
and spaces, she establishes tongue, eyelashes, and hair as evocative replacements for
chisels, pencils, and brushes,” (Horodner 48). In many instances, Antoni has attempted to
“push the body to physical limits” and for the aforementioned work Gnaw, was intrigued
by the “bite because it’s both intimate and destructive” (Weintraub 125 & 126).
Furthermore, the artist prefers to use the body because it provides an opportunity for selfrevelation throughout the art-making process. She states:
When my work takes my body to a physical and sometimes
psychological extreme, it becomes a complex relationship. It makes me
face certain things about myself which are hard to deal with; I find
89
�something incredibly valuable about bringing the body to that edge.
Something happens physically in the work, but also psychologically
that I believe in and count on. There is a point where I’m actually
feeling the repercussions of the object on my body. My hope is to have
that happen psychologically as well. Then it’s almost like the ideal
relationship- not only in art. […] Because my work is repetitive and
accumulative, many people ask me “When do you know something is
done?” It has nothing to do with the way it looks or formal
composition. It’s done when the work embodies the complex
relationship (Horodoner 51).
Gnaw, executed in 1992, is a quintessential manifestation of Antoni’s work with
the body. When describing the execution of Gnaw, she stated that “rather than describing
the body, I would use the body, my body, as a tool for making art,” (Lindner 22). As
Figure 1 demonstrates, the sculptural artwork has been altered by Antoni’s persistent
gnawing. Two bulky 600 pound cubes, one of chocolate and the other of lard, function as
representations of the artist’s body. Although Antoni does not literally depict the physical
body, the traces of missing chunks and bite marks remind the audience of the body’s
presence and effort. As Findlay describes, Antoni’s “warm trace reveals the body yet
conceals it” (14). The work was an arduous process, involving the construction of the
blocks through stacking, heating, and cooling thin layers of each material. Naturally after
the construction process, Antoni “carved” the media using her mouth as her primary
utensil (Weintraub 125).
“She navigates between a raw, female, primal desire to gnaw as a means of
knowing (as a baby puts things in its mouth to explore them, and as Eve bit the apple)
and as a culturally structured expression of (sexual) desire in candies and red shiny lips”
(Heon 5). Gnaw highlights the body and extends its function to cultural and social
discourse. After Antoni gnawed at the chocolate and lard, she decided to use the chewed
remnants to form 45 heart-shaped packages for chocolate and 400 lipsticks made with
pigment, beeswax and chewed lard, removed from the lard cube (Luhring Augustine
Gallery). Called Lipstick/Phenylethylamine Display (Figure 2), Antoni was not
necessarily critiquing notions of beauty and contemporary rituals, but calling attention to
the irony of consumer culture, which “chews up and then spits out what it values and
discards what it does not” (Lindner 19). The lipstick symbolizes the cultural expectations
of beauty, its social value, great appeal, and practice that accompany its existence. In
contrast, the unattractive cubes of lard and chocolate are undesirable materializations of
things bordering on the grotesque. “There is a tension, a friction if you like, between what
attracts and what disgusts” (Findlay 15).
90
�Another work which uses the body to a great extent is Loving Care (1993)
(Figure 3), a performance piece. The work involved the artist mopping the gallery floor
with her own hair, which had been dipped in hair dye. When interviewed about the
performance, she said she was interested in figurative sculpture and decided that instead
of “just describing the body,” she would use the body as a tool (Larson 1). Like Gnaw,
the remnants of Loving Care- a painted floor- are indicative of her bodily presence. In
terms of performance and using the body, the artist wanted to “think in terms of dance,”
specifying that the act of mopping the floor “is the opposite of ballet.” The artist does not
prefer doing performance art because of its vulnerability and power, but appreciates the
energy of executing such a piece. Antoni is intrigued by the imagination of the viewer,
which was certainly sparked by Loving Care (Lindner 8). About the performance,
Antoni asserted it was “about trying to be the model and the master at the same time.”
Moreover, she alluded to the notion of “painting with the model” instead of “painting the
model” (1 &2).
Some have also interpreted Loving Care as a manipulation of an ideal of beauty
or a greater statement about the mark of a woman (Zeglin Brand 6). Antoni stated: “It’s
really important you look at my work and know a woman did it” (Larson 1). Loving Care
also pays homage to contemporary women artists before her, like the pioneers of feminist
performance art- Caroline Schneeman, Hannah Wilke, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.
Antoni notes “I’m aware I’m not from the generation of women that mopped the
floor…I’m getting choices now that they didn’t have” (2). Perpetually tying her creations
to femininity and even family, the artist chose a dye shade which matched her mother’s
own hair color, “Natural Black.” Furthermore, the brand matches the title of the work, a
fitting name for the link between the work, the artist’s mother, and the domestic action
(Lindner 16).
One of the important and sometimes overlooked aspects of Antoni’s perspective
derives from her religious background. Raised with Catholic affiliation, Antoni’s primary
lessons about the body were established from the conservative religion. She has stated: “I
grew up Catholic and have been studying my whole life. I’ve secretly felt that all my art
at some level came from that place” (Horodoner 53). The themes she addresses- birth,
motherhood, and transformation- are each found in the narrative of the religion’s
scripture and teachings. Antoni has noted an affinity for bodily function in terms of
Catholicism. “I like the idea of eating, the notion of incorporation and for that matter,
communion…Then there is the washing, which brings us to Baptism and holy water, not
to mention Mary Magdalene drying the feet of Christ with her hair” (Heartney 15).
Though not a direct impact, the omnipresence of Catholicism in Antoni’s life can
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�undoubtedly be observed within her art. The tactile act of consuming communion, the
matrilineage of Mary and Anne, and Mary Magdalene’s hair can be compared to
consumption in Gnaw, family in Momme, and hair in Loving Care.
Antoni’s work tends to overlap the overarching themes of the body, femininity,
and family. In Gnaw and Loving Care, the intervention of the body is obvious, however
there are latent ideas about beauty and connections with Antoni’s mother beneath the
chocolate and hair dye. It is important to note that the artist’s focus on the bond between
mother and child acts as a reminder that a child’s first connection to the outside world is
through the mother’s body. Through non visual sensations, such as touching, suckling,
and smelling- all senses Antoni acts upon in the aforementioned and proceeding works- a
child is first introduced to the world. Antoni’s work is in large a measure to return to this
kind of knowing, a knowledge of the world through the body (Heartney 18). Touch is the
earliest sense formed in the human embryo, and our ability to relate through touch allows
for a deeper connection with the works that Antoni has touched (Findlay 15). Wean,
Momme, Cradle, and Umbilical all encompass some form of bodily intervention, and deal
with notions of motherhood and birth on an even greater scale.
Birth, Motherhood and Family
Wean (1990) (Figure 4) is a display of negative imprints made from plaster
impressions displayed on a wall. There are six evolutionary imprints: the first from the
left is an imprint of the artist’s breast. The next is of her nipple and the three following
are impressions from the artificial latex nipple of a baby bottle. Finally, the sixth imprint
is an imprint of the package of the baby bottle nipple from the side- a sort of “crosssection” impression. Considered by Antoni as her “first major breakthrough,” Wean
provides commentary about motherhood through unsurprising utilization of the body
(Horodoner 8). The artist explores the separations from our own bodies, exhibiting the
process of “weaning” from the mother’s nipple to the artificial baby bottle (Findlay 15).
The concept is reinforced by the negative impressions; they emphasize the absence of the
breast, nipple, and artificial nipple.
Although the separation process can be depicted in a number of ways, Antoni
carefully chose the breast, a typically sexualized body part to express the abstraction.
Wean presents an image women are able to easily recognize, encouraging them to
“create…a matrilineage outside of their own, outside the privilege of the phallus and
patriarchal culture” (Lindner 58). Rooted in feminism, the sculpture was primarily
produced for the female population. Only a mother could truly identify with the
experience of birthing, nursing, and the physical independence and codependence
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�associated with each event. Wean is considered one of the most crucial of Antoni’s
creations because it is often acts as a reference point for subsequent pieces, namely
Cradle and Umbilical.
Antoni’s 1995 photograph Momme (Figure 5) is a unique piece which addresses
motherhood and the overall parent-child relationship. Momme, measuring 35” X 29 1/3,”
appears at first glance to be a very serene piece (Luhring Augustine Gallery). The
composition consists of an image of a woman, Antoni’s mother, seated on a refined settee
in a plainly decorated room. She looks out a window that provides a great deal of sunlight
into the room, a light only matched by the quiescent, white floor length dress Antoni’s
mother wears. It is the attention to the dress which startles the viewer and distorts the
sedate nature of the picture. Peeking out of the subject’s dress are three feet: two belong
to the artist’s mother and the other belongs to the artist. Eerie and unnatural, Antoni’s
foot is not the only allusion to matrilineage; on the table alongside the subject’s seat is a
frame which displays the artist’s maternal grandmother (Heartney 16).
Momme presents quite a clear message about the eternal need for the mother; the
artist, although fully grown, still hides underneath her mother’s dress as a child might do.
The mother and daughter are reunited physically and psychologically, almost in the same
way they were united for nine months of pregnancy. The notion is again mirrored in
Antoni’s mother’s display of a picture of her own mother. Embedded in the matrilineage
portrayed in the image is the theme of femininity. While describing the piece, Antoni has
revealed her attraction toward the theme: “There’s always the temptation to hide
behind…femininity because it still works” (Princenthal 127). Momme epitomizes
Antoni’s exploration of the roles of motherhood and childhood in the same setting.
Cradle (1999) exemplifies a different approach to familial commentary. Created
from two tons of steel, the work is a bulldozer bucket filled with six subsequently smaller
“scooping” objects such as shovels and spoons. Each object is cradled and cradles the
next smaller object. Cradle (Figure 6) was made from a construction tractor bucket cut in
half, with one half forming the outer vessel and the other eight parts made from the
melted down metal of the other half. Paradoxically, the artist alters an object that
functions to destroy, into an object of nurture. “Each piece acts as the host for the
previous piece, and each symbolically represents the functions of carrying, holding,
giving, serving, and feeding—all of which closely parallel the caregiving actions of
motherhood” (Lindner 62). According to Princenthal, Antoni here focuses on “themeslike birth for example- that cry out for viscera and spilt blood" (125). Cradle
demonstrates the artist’s “avoidance of mess” despite the expression of such organic and
emotional content through cold metal material.
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�Not unlike Wean, Cradle confronts notions of separation and nurture. The
smallest of the objects is a baby spoon, certainly an allusion to nurture. The cast objects
are an agricultural bucket, an escalator bucket, a snow shovel, a garden shovel, a fireplace
shovel, a serving spoon, a soupspoon, and a baby spoon (Lindner 62). As the objects
progress in size, motherly assistance is no longer necessary; the baby spoon makes way
for the soupspoon, therefore connoting independence of the individual and separation
from the mother. It can even be suggested that Cradle is a continuation of Wean in the
development of the child. From breast feeding to bottle feeding to the use of a spoon, the
development of a child lessens the bodily connection to the mother.
Umbilical (2000) is probably the most obvious representation of the motherchild relationship. Shown in Figure 7, the work is a cast of the artist’s mother’s hand
imprint attached to a spoon, attached to Antoni’s mouth. Produced from silver, the
sculpture outwardly represents one of a mother’s most important tasks and displays the
physical connection which symbolizes the emotional and familial bond as well; it can
even be considered a magnification and extension of Cradle. The expensive and durable
medium too conveys the significance of a mother feeding her child. Described by Lindner
as a “relic,” Umbilical can be likened to fossil cast in silver; it is also compared to
precious family keepsakes (63).
Umbilical is a combination of the artist’s personal history, art history,
psychology, and biology (Princenthal 125). The spoon is actually a replica of a piece of
family silverware, finished with the family pattern and monogram, suggesting the everpresent theme of family lineage. The title reminds its viewers of the physical, and even
emotional, connection between the mother and child. Lindner proposes that Umbilical is
about independence: “As the biological umbilical is cut, and the child is weaned and
learns to feed itself, it becomes independent of the mother. While the physical bonds
weaken, the emotional bonds strengthen; made manifest in silver, the bonds are durable
and cannot be severed; her mother’s willingness to participate is also notable in its
affirmation of this bond’s strength (63-64).”
Essentialism and Constructionism
A thorough examination of Antoni’s work that most predominantly encounters
themes of mother-child relations, femininity, and the body, proves that Antoni does not
stand as an essentialist or constructionist. According to Heartney, the 1980s marked an
era when the approach to feminist art split into two discernible categories (10). Since
then, contemporary women artists have often been placed into the “Essentialist” or
“Constructionist” groups. Either group differed in their perspective on gender and the
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�political implications of the body (11). The essentialists pursued the existence of a
“distinctive female nature grounded in women’s unique relationship to her body”
whereas the constructionists were founded in the belief that “gender was simply a ‘social
construct,’ and that the assertion of a unique female identity actually reinforces social
conventions that contribute to societal conventions of female inferiority” (11). Although
Antoni seems to confront these issues, especially because feminism has acted as a root
for her artwork, she does not take a clear stance on women’s position in society. She has
appeared to accede to the role ascribed to the gendered population.
Antoni is not an essentialist. Essentialists supported the celebration of female
sexuality through positive images of the female body created by female artists (Heartney
11). Antoni does celebrate the female body and, as exhibited, has used it multiple times to
convey various rather positive messages. She does not, however, ever really delve into
the glorification of female sexuality. In fact, she has substituted the function of
traditionally sexualized body parts to act for non-sexualized purpose. This transformation
is distinct in Wean. “The breast—a conspicuously objectified symbol of woman—is
represented in Wean as the human, functional body part it is, alongside its machine-made
substitute” (Lindner 57). If the impression of the breast and the nipple are at first viewed
in a sexual way, that very viewpoint is immediately re-contextualized when the latex
nipples come into view. The natural breast and nipple act as a contrast to the latex nipples
and their packaging, “which put cultural signifiers of the sexualized feminine and the
nurturing maternal in conflict with each other” (57). This allows viewers to speculate
about their own notions of what symbolizes Woman and Mother, and why society usually
separates the two roles (57). Furthermore, Antoni rarely explicitly depicts the body,
abandoning the actual female form and replacing it, rather, with traces of its presence.
Antoni is not a constructionist; she does not confront the issue of women as the
inferior, as Heartney’s definition indicates. It can even be argued that she depicts women
with great reverence, especially alluding often to her mother and the significance of a
woman’s role. The artist’s work does not align with Poovey’s explanation as well.
Poovey has written that deconstruction, in its simplest terms, states that "woman" is
only a social construct that has no basis in nature, that "woman," in other words, is a
term whose definition depends upon the context in which it is being discussed and not
upon some set of sexual organs or social experiences (52). Antoni, in fact, does define
“woman” and explores the many physical, emotional, and gender role aspects of the term.
She even shares a concern for her peers; about Gnaw she revealed “I satirize the women
at home binging. I laugh at myself. It is important to release that…I’m enacting what I’m
worried about in my society” (Weintraub 127). Lindner asserts that constructionists were
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�“afraid of the biologistic implications and dangers of the body” (26). The artist certainly
does not “shy away” from the potential of the body, as can be extracted from any of the
aforementioned works. Antoni is fully interested in the biological aspects of the body, as
shown most prevalently in Gnaw, Wean, and Umbilical specifically. The artist is
welcoming of the potential “dangers” of the body too; binge eating, for example,
associated with Gnaw was embraced by the artist despite its negative connotation.
Conclusion
How, then, can Janine Antoni’s art be categorized? It certainly can be situated
under the larger umbrella of feminism, however, it would be an over-simplification to
adopt any one label for the dynamic artist. She concentrates on the role of women, but
does not necessarily criticize inequality or make arguments against societal norms, as an
essentialist or constructionist might seek to do. Her artwork celebrates matrilineage and
the feminist artists who have worked before her. Antoni has verbalized a belief in female
equality (Heartney 21). Progressively, she has stated “I am looking at the split between
my mother’s generation and mine…She was a victim of certain ideas of beauty. I am
trying to dispel them because they are a problem in my life” (Weintraub 127). Antoni has
affirmed her debt to early feminist artists: “The humor, the process, the emphasis on
performance, the intensely visceral quality of their work. It was necessary for the 80s
feminists to exist for me to ‘return’ to the 70s. The 80s feminists used a language that was
already respected, and they put their content in it, whereas the 70s feminists were much
more extreme, and they paid for it by being dismissed” (Lindner 11). Undoubtedly, the
artist will continue to carry on with an overall feminist agenda.
From the beginning of her career, Janine Antoni has expressed an interest in the
body, femininity, and familial roles. The endless cycle of chewing and spitting out in
Gnaw and the execution of a traditional domestic chore in a completely novel way in
Loving Care exemplify the innovative ways in which the artist has produced artwork. In
addition to paying homage to earlier contemporary women artists, these works comment
on femininity in our contemporary culture in the same way Antoni’s Wean, Momme,
Cradle, and Umbilical do. Paired with the recognition of the significant job of
motherhood and the mother-child connection, these themes seem to perpetuate the artist’s
present oeuvre. Through the lens of Catholicism, Antoni’s work can be understood on a
religious level and assists in the understanding her own comprehension of the body.
The impulse to categorize the contemporary works of Janine Antoni is futile
because her work seems to refute any clear definition of “essentialist” and “constructionist.”
Her work is fundamentally feminist and not representative of any sub-class of the movement.
96
�Widely celebrated and internationally displayed, Janine Antoni still remains
unpredictable and only time will reveal the new methods she will use to discover
femininity, family, and unquestionably, the body. In regards to her future works, Antoni
has left us with the following:
The thing I am interested in right now is the experiential. I am
exploring how to communicate through experience…My goal is to
work in the broadest way possible, so that people won’t have
expectations as to what material or form I work with. I want to have the
biggest breadth of possibilities, whatever form is appropriate for what I
have to say. Also, I work in a variety of contexts so that I reach
different audiences. Context encourages me to make different kinds of
work; it’s another way to stretch (Horodoner 51).
Works Cited
Antoni, Janine and Stuart Horodner. "Janine Antoni." BOMB (1999): 48-54. Print.
Dreishpoon, Douglas. "Janine Antoni." Art in America (2009): 1-3. Print.
Findlay, Judith. "Press me, push me, feel me, find me: Judith Findlay discusses the
lingering senses of Janine Antoni." Women's Art Magazine (1995): 14. Print.
Heartney, Eleanor. "Thinking through the Body: Women Artists and the Catholic
Imagination." Hypatia (2003): 3-22. Print.
Heon, Laura. "Janine Antoni's Gnawing Idea." Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and
Culture (2001): 5-8. Print.
Lindner, Stacie M., "Janine Antoni: Finding a Room of Her Own" (2006). Art and Design
Theses. Paper 9. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/art_design_theses/9 \
Poovey, Mary. "Feminism and Deconstruction" Feminist Studies (1988): 51-65.
Princenthal, Nancy. "Janine Antoni: Mother's Milk." Art in America Sept. 2001: 125-129.
Academic OneFile. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.
Sacasa, Natalia. Janine Antoni. Luhring Augustine. Web. 28 Mar. 2012.
Weintraub, Linda. Art on the Edge. Litchfield: Art Insights, Inc., 1996.
97
�Zeglin Brand, Paul. "Beauty Matters." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
(1999): 1-10. Print.
Figure 1. Gnaw. 1992. 600 lbs. of chocolate and 600 lbs. of lard, 24 x 24 x 24 inches,
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/art_sculpture.html.
98
�Figure 2. Lipstick/Phenylethylamine. 1993. 45 heart-shaped packages made from chewed
chocolate and 400 lipsticks made with chewed lard, pigment, and beeswax,
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/antoni/art_sculpture.html.
Figure 3. Loving Care. 1993.
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�Figure 4. Wean. 1990. Plaster impressions in the wall,
http://www.sitesantafe.org/exhibitions/exhibitfr.html.
Figure 5. Momme. 1995. Cibachrome print, 35 x 29 1/3 inches,
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=64.
100
�Figure 6. Cradle. 1999. Two tons of steel, 60 x 60 x 60 inches,
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=64
.
Figure7. Umbilical. 2000. Sterling silver, 3 x 8 x 3 inches,
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=64.
101
�The Fantastic Travels and Travelers of Remedios Varo
Alexis Makwinski (Spanish)1
English Abstarct
Remedios Varo was a surrealist painter born in Anglés, Spain, on December 16, 1908.
From a very young age, she became an experienced traveler as her family relocated on
numerous occasions throughout Europe and Northern Africa, due to her father’s job as a
hydraulic engineer. The family eventually settled in Madrid, where Varo attended strict
Catholic schools, although she was eventually allowed to formally study Art. At the
onset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Varo fled to Paris, where she became acquainted
with many writers and artists that had formed the Surrealist movement. As the political
situation in Europe began to deteriorate, Varo decided to settle in Mexico, where she
remained for the rest of her life. It was during her years in exile that she painted some of
her best works. This paper focuses specifically on Remedios Varo’s representation of
travel and female travelers. Her paintings depict voyages – both real and imaginary –
with magnificent images of modes of transportation that allow her female protagonists to
discover new worlds or, on the contrary, entrap them within the vehicles themselves.
Viajes pictóricos: la vida y los viajes de Remedios Varo a través de su obra
“She said she didn’t have to go to the trouble of traveling because the
best and the most beautiful travel was within her imagination.”
Walter Gruen, esposo de Remedios Varo
La artista María de los Remedios Varo y Uranga nació el 16 de diciembre de
1908 en Anglés, España, hija de Don Rodrigo Varo y Zejalbo y Doña Ignacia Uranga y
Bergareche. Varo nunca llegó a sentir una conexión profunda con su lugar de
nacimiento, ni con cualquier otra región en España. Su familia empezó a desplazarse
desde la época de su infancia, debido el trabajo de Don Rodrigo como ingeniero
hidráulico. Sus obligaciones llevaron a la familia a varias regiones de España y también
a los países del Norte de África. Varo creció por lo tanto viviendo en sitios diversos y
aprendió mucho acerca de culturas diferentes desde una edad temprana. Su infancia era
una magnífica colección de espacios exóticos diversos. A pesar de las dificultades que
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Katica Urbanc for SP400: Spanish Expository Writing.
102
�presuponía el trabajo de Don Rodrigo Varo para la familia, esta figura tuvo una
influencia importante tanto en las ideas como en el estilo de la futura artista.
En 1917, la familia se desplazó a Madrid hasta 1923, época durante la cual Varo
asistió a escuelas religiosas y recibió una estricta formación católica. Su madre era una
católica devota, mientras que su padre era mucho más liberal. Aunque los ideales de su
madre pueden percibirse a través de su arte, especialmente en sus primeros cuadros,
Varo fue más influida por su padre, quien le enseñó las habilidades del dibujo mecánico y
la llevaba a museos y galerías para que conociera varios estilos de arte. En 1924, asistió
a la Escuela de Arte y Oficios en Madrid, y más tarde, a la Real Academia de Bellas
Artes de San Fernando, donde tomó una clase de dibujo científico. Llegó a conocer el
movimiento surrealista a través de una serie de conferencias y a través de las obras de
Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, y Federico García Lorca. En 1936 empezó una relación
con el poeta surrealista Francés Benjamin Péret, y ese mismo año, con la llegada de la
Guerra Civil, empieza también su vida en el exilio.
Varo, quien apoyaba fuertemente al bando republicano, huyó a París después del
asesinato del poeta Federico García Lorca. Allí, gracias a su relación con Péret, se hizo
miembro del círculo de surrealistas y conoció a Joan Miró, Max Ernst, André Breton ,y la
pintora Leonora Carrington. En 1941, Varo y su esposo fueron encarcelados: Péret, por
negarse a ingresar al ejército, y Varo, por razones desconocidas. Dada la situación en
Europa, la pareja decidió huir a México. Varo y Péret se casaron en 1946, lo cual le
permitió a Varo viajar libremente a través de América Latina. Después de la Segunda
Guerra Mundial, Péret decidió regresar a Francia, pero Varo viajó a Venezuela para
poder trabajar, y se reunió allí con su madre y con su hermano Rodrigo. Regresó a
México en 1950 y empezó a trabajar en el arte comercial. Conoció allí a Walter Gruen en
1952, un refugiado australiano con el cual se casaría más tarde. En 1956 tuvo con gran
éxito su primera exhibición de arte en la Galería Diana. Regresó a París en 1958 para
visitar a Péret, quien estaba enfermo, y volvió a México, ya de manera definitiva. Varo
murió de un ataque al corazón el 8 de octubre de 1963 a la edad de 54 años. A través de
su vida, la artista llegó a explorar una gran variedad de temas, especialmente en el exilio.
De hecho, fueron precisamente los viajes y los desplazamientos en su vida que le
influyeron en su arte. Todas las experiencias vitales de Varo le influyeron en la creación
de cuadros a través de los cuales expresaba sus ideas y sentimientos en torno al viaje, el
exilio, y la posición social de la mujer. Remedios Varo creó cuadros autobiográficos que
revelan tanto su fascinación por el viaje y el descubrimiento de mundos nuevos, como su
miedo profundo al desplazamiento.
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�El exilio de un artista, especialmente en el caso de Varo, da lugar a una nueva
vida. En esta vida, Varo pudo ser su propia persona y expresarse libremente sin las
restricciones políticas, religiosas y sociales que había enfrentado en Europa. Como bien
señala la crítica Linda Nochlin, el exilio abre nuevos horizontes y permite la
transformación del individuo:
Migration can generate new perceptions of place and, in some cases, of
the relationship between places. The same dislocation can also
facilitate personal transformation, which may take the form of
‘rewriting’ the self, discarding the lifelong habits of a constraining
social education and discovering new forms of self-expression (31819).
Esta cita describe bien la influencia del exilio en un artista, y se aplica específicamente al
caso de Remedios Varo al exiliarse a México. Aunque no fue una transición fácil, Varo
descubrió allí su estilo pictórico tan singular. La propia artista describe esta experiencia
y el importante papel que tuvo en su vida: “Soy más de México que de ninguna otra
parte. Conozco poco España: era yo muy joven cuando viví en ella. Luego vinieron los
años de aprendizaje, de asimilación en París, después la guerra (…) Es en México donde
me he sentido acogida y segura.” (14)
No cabe duda de que los padres de Varo le presentaron perspectivas muy
diversas acerca del mundo: su madre era una católica devota, mientras que su padre tenía
una mentalidad mucho más abierta hacia el mundo. A pesar de estas diferencias, Varo
recibió una educación católica y se sintió atrapada en “[a] world of routines – routines of
meals, of classes, of prayers, of group sewing and group confessions [that eventually]
triggered rebellion.” (Kaplan, 16) Hizo una serie autobiográfica de tres cuadros que
representan la época de su infancia en estas escuelas, hasta la hora del escape de la rutina
a través del casamiento con su primer esposo. Completó esta serie en México en 1961,
“… produc[ing] her most autobiographical work, reflecting on the
restrictive atmosphere of those early years in Spain and on her
rebellious schoolgirl yearning to escape. Using characters bearing
features as emblems for herself, she humorously mocked the
constraints of convent education in a revealing series of three paintings
that she thought of as a triptych.” (Kaplan, 18)
Hacia la torre (1961) (fig 1) es el primer cuadro de esta serie y contiene un
grupo de niñas idénticas que pasean en bicicleta, alejándose de una misteriosa torre que
se parece a una colmena. En este caso, el edificio en forma de colmena representa
“childhood in Europe, in Spain, in the beehive structure created by thousands of
enthusiastic souls, working hard to prolong traditions, to perpetuate” (Kaplan, 18). En la
vida de Varo, el peso de su familia y de las normas sociales la encerraron en las
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�tradiciones católicas de España. En el cuadro, Varo y sus “gemelas” salen de la colmena
hacia la aventura de una posible vida nueva. Los tonos grises y azules del cuadro
transmiten un sentimiento sombrío, representativo del mundo tedio y rutinario de una
vida tradicional. Sin embargo hay una niña que se destaca del resto del grupo. Situada
directamente detrás de la monja, no tiene la misma mirada perdida que sus compañeras.
Esta niña, que desafía al mundo con una mirada que se centra en el espectador, es una
auto representación de Varo, es decir un ser rebelde que desafía las reglas y el poder de la
tradición.
En la segunda pieza de la serie, Bordando el manto terrestre (1961), (fig 2),
Varo hace alusión a su vida mientras estudiaba en un convento católico. En el cuadro se
perciben seis mujeres en una torre. Hacia el centro, una misteriosa figura autoritaria las
vigila de cerca. Las mujeres cosen en un tejido que va creando la tierra debajo de la
torre, lo cual es irónico, porque éstas están atrapadas en la propia torre. Aunque van
creando “vida” para los demás, se mantienen aisladas y al margen de esta vida. Igual que
la mujer en Hacia la torre, hay en este cuadro una mujer que no se enfoca en su trabajo
como las demás. Ella cose una imagen secreta en el tejido: dos amantes entre los árboles.
Esta imagen representa una forma de libertad sexual que no conocen las demás mujeres
en la torre. El líder en el centro no tiene control sobre esta mujer, ni sobre lo que está
creando. Otra vez, se demuestra una forma de rebeldía a través de una mujer que no
sigue las reglas del convento, sino que crea su propio camino. El papel de la mirada en
ambos cuadros es significativo porque demuestra la posibilidad de contemplar otra
dirección en la vida y de llegar a una forma diversa de ver y entender el mundo. Esta
nueva dirección, abierta a ideas liberales, se opone a la tradición que Varo rechazó a lo
largo de su vida. Esta obra es la segunda de la serie porque representa la rebeldía en el
convento y demuestra la posibilidad de otro mundo. La fuga definitiva aparece en la
última obra de la serie.
La huida (1961) es la conclusión de esta historia, y representa el triunfo final de
la mujer que se escapa del convento y de la vida restringida. Volando por el aire en lo
que parece ser un gigantesco paraguas, su amante la lleva a las montañas a través de la
niebla. Esto nos recuerda la vida de Varo porque cuando tuvo 21 años, se escapó del
convento al casarse con su primer esposo, Gerardo Lizarraga, en 1930. Esta boda fue un
paso hacia la independencia dada la ley en España según la cual las mujeres solteras,
como Varo, sólo podían viajar con sus padres. Su matrimonio con un artista le dio la
oportunidad de conocer el progreso social y la libertad en todos los sentidos. El hombre
en el cuadro es la representación perfecta de Lizarraga, porque aparece como un ángel de
la guardia que lleva a la mujer a la salvación. Las tres piezas representan la historia del
105
�encierro y del escape en la vida de Varo, y el comienzo de una vida nueva. Al huir de
Europa en 1941, Varo empieza a explorar a fondo el tema del viaje y del viajero en sus
obras.
Exploración de las Fuentes del Río Orinoco (1959) (fig. 4) es el retrato de una
mujer solitaria que explora el río para descubrir “la fuente”. El magnífico vehículo rojo
representado en el cuadro tiene alas con una cadena atada a la chaqueta de la mujer,
limitándola al espacio del vehículo. La mujer tiene una expresión seria, y se enfoca
directamente en el río en frente de ella. Encuentra “la fuente” dentro del árbol, una copa
de vino en una mesa simple que escupe un líquido mágico y crea el río. Este viaje es
parecido al viaje de Varo a un bosque que fue inundado por el Orinoco en Venezuela,
donde se unió a una expedición para buscar oro. Los árboles parecen de oro, una
substancia importante porque representa la transformación en el mundo de los
alquimistas. Por lo tanto, este viaje puede percibirse como un viaje espiritual,
representado por la copa de vino, la sangre de Cristo, y por la idea del oro como
transformación en la vida espiritual. Sin embargo, a pesar del tema aventurero del
cuadro, la mujer está atrapada en el extraño vehículo por la cadena. Varo representa en
esta obra su viaje espiritual, así como el viaje real que hizo a Venezuela.
Para Remedios Varo, México fue el primer país con el cual se sintió realmente
identificada; allí tuvo la oportunidad de florecer libremente como artista. Una vez
establecida en México, sin embargo, dejó de viajar: “Once settled in Mexico City, she
developed a terrible fear of moving and rarely strayed outside of her neighborhood”
(Nichlin, 319). En sus propias palabras, “I am hopelessly superstitious, …so much so
that when I go out, even to a nearby place, I return as quickly as possible to shut myself
in the house as if someone were following me” (Kaplan, 155). Durante sus años en
México pintó dos cuadros, Caminos Tortuosos (1957) (fig.5) y Locomoción Capilar
(1959) (fig 6), donde se hallan mujeres atrapadas en el bigote o en la barba de un hombre.
Estos cuadros revelan el miedo al viaje de Varo.
En Caminos Tortuosos (1957), la mujer se ha convertido en máquina, con una
enorme rueda de bicicleta en lugar de sus piernas. Se percibe mucha angustia y tensión
en su cara mientras el hombre intenta atraparla con su largo bigote blanco. Sabemos que
Varo le tenía miedo al peligro de las calles, donde cualquier cosa podía suceder cuando
uno menos se lo esperaba. Es interesante que la artista haya tratado también el tema del
miedo en uno de sus cuentos cortos, descubierto en un cuaderno de dibujo: “Doña
Milagra is afraid of the dark. She is never sure that a grasping hand won’t dart out of
some place, grab her by her ankle and keep her nailed to the spot while a devouring fire
runs up her ankle to the rest of her body turning into a pile of ashes (Kaplan, 155). Estas
106
�palabras demuestran los sentimientos de miedo que sentía Varo. Además, el cuento
puede relacionarse perfectamente con el cuadro; el hombre le agarra el brazo a la mujer
desde el otro lado de la pared, y tiene la intención de controlarla completamente. La
mujer, por otro lado, está preparada para defenderse con un paraguas en forma de arma.
En un cuadro parecido, Varo demuestra a una mujer mucho más indefensa andando por
las calles.
Locomoción Capilar (1959) (fig. 6) demuestra a una mujer con la mirada
preocupada y el cuerpo rígido. El hombre en la ventana tiene el control sobre ella porque
ésta no tiene otra forma de transporte que sus pies. La quiere secuestrar, y no hay manera
de escaparse. Las aves en esta obra son símbolos de la libertad a la cual aspira Varo.
Estos animales tienen la libertad de escaparse a cualquier lugar, sin restricciones físicas.
En el cuadro, las aves representan la posibilidad de libertad y de escape frente a una vida
patriarcal asociada con el miedo, la violencia, y el poder absoluto. En definitiva, las aves
representan la idea del viaje libre, feliz e inocente.
El miedo desempaña un papel importante en la vida de Remedios Varo, y se
refleja en sus obras con la representación del anti-viaje. Para Varo, México fue la
destinación final y declaró que ya no quería viajar: “Una vez en México dejé dos veces el
país, una para ir a Venezuela en 1947, la última hacia Europa en 1957” (Varo, 133).
Además, para Varo, “searching for peace in a war-town world, exile meant, quite
literally, the end of all travel” (Nochlin, 319). El miedo al viaje se refleja en muchas
obras que representan a mujeres pasivas encerradas en ambientes domésticos. Aunque
Varo luchó de joven para deshacerse del papel pasivo tradicionalmente asociado con la
mujer, al llegar a México sintió la necesitad de encerrarse en sí misma. Sus obras desde
el exilio reflejan esta decisión consciente, a la vez que denuncian los peligros de la
pasividad para la mujer.
Mimetismo (1960) es una obra que demuestra perfectamente los peligros de la
pasividad y de la vida doméstica de una mujer. Es irónico que los muebles en esta obra
tengan vida, mientras que la mujer, un ser vivo, parece casi muerta. Los muebles
interactúan entre sí: la silla explora el armario mientras que la cesta para la costura
extiende su pierna alrededor de la pierna de una silla, y viceversa. Toda la actividad y la
energía del cuadro se perciben a través de los muebles y el tejido en la cesta. La mujer,
sin embargo, está perfectamente inmóvil, mientras el gato en el suelo expresa su sorpresa
ante la situación absurda. No sólo tiene la silla un control total sobre ella, sino que
además, la propia mujer se va transformando a su vez en silla. Su cara, sus manos y sus
pies han ido adquiriendo las formas y el patrón del mueble. Se siente paralizada y
107
�atrapada en un mundo en que cual no puede hacer nada excepto quedarse sentada y
observar. La pasividad femenina es, sin duda, una trampa peligrosa:
“[this is] an unsettling case of mimesis; this woman is lost in her
thoughts and has remained motionless for so long that she is turning
into the armchair, her flesh has become just like the cloth on the chair
and her hands and feet are already turned wood, the furniture gets bored
[…] and the cat, which went out to hunt, is frightened and astonished
upon returning as he sees the transformation” (Kaplan, 159).
Desde la época de su niñez en Europa, las experiencias vitales de Remedios
Varo están íntimamente asociadas con la idea del viaje. Pinta su vida a través de obras
que reflejan en una primera etapa el viaje como aventura y apertura, pero que más tarde
irán convirtiéndose en una fuente de miedo profundo. Durante la época de su exilio en
México, el viaje físico se convierte en un fabuloso viaje imaginario repleto de personajes
y espacios mágicos y místicos. El arte de Remedios Varo floreció durante sus años en el
exilio y llegó a adquirir una gran profundidad y originalidad. En sus obras aparecen
magníficos vehículos que llevan a otro mundo, o al contrario, hacen que el escape sea
imposible. Podemos también pensar que la trayectoria de su carrera artística es un viaje
en sí, desde los horrores de la guerra en Europa hasta las tierras acogedoras del paisaje
mexicano.
Obras consultadas
Cándenas, Inés F. "Reconfiguring the Surrealist Gaze: Remedios Varo's Images of
Women." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 88 (2011): 455-68.
Cueto, Mireya. “Remedios Varo. Artes plásticas.” Revista de la Universidad de
México 4 (1964) 30-31.
Duran, Gloria. “The Antipodes of Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and Remedios Varo.”
Symposium 42 (1989): 297-311.
Haynes, Deborah J. "The Art of Remedios Varo: Issues of Gender Ambiguity and
Religious Meaning." Woman's Art Journal 16 (1995): 26-32.
Kaplan, Janet A. "Remedios Varo: Voyages and Visions." Woman's Art Journal 1
(1981):13-18.
___. "Remedios Varo." Feminist Studies 13 (1987): 38-48.
108
�___. Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys. New York: Abbeville, 2000.
Kornbluh, Felicia. "Heretics of Surrealism." The Women's Review of Book 8 (1991): 9-11.
Mancebo, Fernanda. "La cultura del exilio." Fundación Instituto de Historia Social 13
(2004): 49-64.
Nochlin, Linda. "Art and the Conditions of Exile: Men/Women, Emigration /
Expatriation." Poetics Today 17 (1996): 317-37.
Orenstein, Gloria F. "Art History and the Case for the Women of Surrealism." The
Journal of General Education 27 (1975): 31-54.
Raaij, Stefan Van., Joanna Moorhead, and Teresa Arcq. Surreal Friends: Leonora
Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2010.
Varo, Remedios. Cartas, sueños y otros textos. Ciudad de México, Ediciones Era, 2000.
Zamora, Lois P. "The Magical Tales of Isabel Allende and Remedios Varo."
Comparative Literature 44 (1992): 113-43.
109
�Figura 1: Hacia la torre (1961)
Figura 2: Bordando el manto terrestre (1961)
110
�Figura 3: La huida (1961)
Figura 4: Exploración de las fuentes del Río Orinoco (1959)
111
�Figura 5: Caminos tortuosos (1957)
Figura 6: Locomoción capilar (1959)
112
�Figura 7: Mimetismo (1960)
113
�Starvation for a Cause:
Religious Fasting During the Crusades
Antoinette McCarty (Arts Administration)1
Fasting by definition is to abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink,
especially as a religious observance. By examining the history and psychological factors
behind fasting one can see the power struggle between Christianity and Islam during the
Crusades. This paper explores the origin of food traditions between these two religions
through their link to Judaism as well as the relationships built between them from this.
Christianity and Islam both harbor similar religious habits and beliefs (e.g. fasting to
express piety). However, the foods they limit themselves to, when they do it and for how
long, differs.
Christians and Muslims believe that fasting shows pureness, forgiveness and
faithfulness to God. The Crusades, for both religions, were a series of wars for the Holy
Lands and who had the ‘God given’ right to these lands. The Crusades became a pivotal
and important battle for religious power. Fasting was one facet of displaying power and
“from the religious concept of inspiration, or a ‘divine source’ of desire for change, …a
sense that such changes are really a matter of individual will, or a ‘will to power’….”2
Both Christians and Muslims use religious eating habits to show dominance and strength
both, intellectually and physically. From a religious point of view, since eating is a
human necessity, being able to overcome human needs shows a closer connection to the
divine. Having the will power to withstand petty human needs was a sign of a superior
being. Therefore, fasting during the Crusades, as a form of power, becomes significant
during this time period.
To understand why fasting became a valid source of power during the Crusades;
one must understand the history that ties these two religions together. History has shown
that these two religions draw their origins from Judaism. While this fact both related and
alienated them, it also led to a power struggle that would continue for hundreds of years.
Their similarities drove them towards the same goals and their differences stopped them
1 Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith for the Team Taught ILC entitled From
Table to Laboratory: Exploring Food Choice Past and Present.
2 Jo Nash, Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The ‘Fasting Body’ and the Hunger for
Pure Immanence”, Journal of Religion and Health 45, no. 3 (Fall 2006), 320.
114
�from ever understanding each other. It is understood, in Christianity’s relation to
Judaism, “when early Christians used the term “Judaism,” they did so to help define
themselves—“Judaism,” as they understood it, was necessary for them to tell the story of
“Christianity.””3 The Christian religion branches directly out of Judaism because the Old
Testament is composed of the writings of Jewish martyrs, saints, and visionaries. Both
Christianity and Judaism share many Bible stories that Christians celebrate and look
towards for moral guidance. These stories include, Noah and the Flood and the stories of
Abraham and Moses. Therefore, it is not surprising that they also shared certain rituals
and forms of prayer. Specific food practices such as fasting were, “…essential to the
religious life of Ancient Israel and the early Christian Church as an act of repentance,
contrition, atonement, mourning, prayer, supplication and devotion.”4 The practices that
Early Christians founded themselves on were based off Jewish practices, partially
because this was the only strong religious model available to them. Judaism was also the
only model with beliefs closest to their own. Since Judaism had such similar beliefs,
Christianity was able to use Judaism to help them develop their own religious direction.
Islam also has ties to Judaism, especially in the early years of its founding.
When Muhammad, the highest of all prophets in Islam, was still living he was friendly
with the Jews of Medina. Before Muhammad established Islam’s own rules of prayer, “
…the Muslims prayed in the direction of Jerusalem, the central shrine of Judaism …”5
alongside Jews. Though this came to change and Islam established their own central
shrine, Mecca, the idea of praying towards a specific place commenced with the Jews.
The Jews of Medina also influenced “…the establishment of Ramadan as the designated
month for Islamic fasting.”6
Christians and Muslims also shared religious figures as sources of information
for the founding of their religion. Both groups of people share an emphasis on the angel
Gabriel as a spiritual and religious figure. The angel Gabriel was said to be the one who
brought Mother Mary the news that she would bear God’s son, Jesus Christ. Gabriel also
serves as a source of information in the writings of the Quran. It was the Angel Gabriel
that first brought Muhammad to recite the first chapter or sura of the Quran. Gabriel
Michael L. Satlow, “Defining Judaism: Accounting for “Religions” in the Study of
Religion”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, no. 4 (2006), 842.
4 James E. Lindsay, Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 2005, 150.
5 Francis Robinson, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge, 1996, 7.
6 Lindsay, 151.
3
115
�continued to appear in visions to bring him passages of the Quran until the day
Muhammad died.
However, significant differences separated and defined Christianity and Islam as
distinct religions and cultures. Dietary laws between these two groups of people were
very different despite the fact that both groups believed in the practice of fasting. For
though “there are many similarities between Islamic and Jewish dietary laws, Islamic
dietary laws are generally less restrictive, than Jewish ones. (Most Christian traditions
abandoned Jewish dietary laws completely.)”7 Islam had specifically followed certain
kosher rules, but called them halal. Christians, on the other hand, abandoned Jewish
dietary rules and paved their own way in food traditions. In breaking their ties to Jewish
dietary restrictions, they “… saw themselves “liberated” from the dietary practices and
obligations … they also came to see themselves as non-Jews.”8 The idea of different
dietary restrictions also leads into a difference in religions involving fasting. While
Christians fast, they do not fully abstain from any food for the duration of ones whole
life. They fast, “…. not to fear or disdain from any food but simply to abstain for the
practical purpose of training one’s body”9 for religious purposes. Unlike Christians,
Muslims have certain foods they must always abstain from eating. They include, blood,
unjustly slaughtered meat, carrion, pork, certain types of fish, wine and other alcoholic
beverages. These differences in diet come to make each religion view the other as foreign
and barbaric. In the eyes of Christians, “the Muslims were held up to detestation as
worshippers of false gods and idols.”10 While Islam participates in long fasts with a very
limited amount of food, the Christians fast by limiting one food for a period of time.
Islam’s one big fast, Ramadan is “…kept with great strictness, and no food, and
sometimes, even, no drink, is taken all day long, but after … sunset …the faithful are free
to eat till the dawn of morning light.”11 Certain activities also could not take place during
the day while fasting during Ramadan. Christians fast before Easter, known as the
Paschal fast, which includes fasting on certain days, such as Friday and Saturday, in
preparation for the Eucharistic meal. Unlike Ramadan, which lasts a month with
Lindsay, 131.
Dianne M. Bazell, “Strife among the Table-Fellows: Conflicting Attitudes of Early and
Medieval Christians towards the Eating of Meat” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 65, no. 1 (Spring 1997), 86.
9 Bazell, 86.
10 Dana C. Munro, “The Western Attitude toward Islam during the Period of the
Crusades” Speculum 6, no. 3 (July 1931), 331
11 Mary M. Patrick, “The Ethics of the Koran” International Journal of Ethics 11, no. 3
(April 1901), 325.
7
8
116
�consistent fasting every day, the Paschal fast, allows regular activities to continue and
only certain days are designated for fasting. Christians also differ in fasting from the
Muslims because fasting is spread out over the religious year, breaking them up by
season and celebration, whereas Ramadan is one long, large fast.
In examining religious fasts and other aspects of life, it becomes evident that
food is a pivotal point of the crusades. Food, especially during medieval times, is
celebrated. It is used to bring people together and is usually incorporated in to religious
ceremonies. Christians and Muslims were not able to do this peacefully, causing further
tension. Not being able to come together and see each other as equals in the eyes of God
makes it hard for them to accept each other. Christians found themselves being led to
battle by the words of Pope Urban II, saying things such as the Muslims, “… destroy the
alters, after having defiled them with their uncleanness.”12 Religious figures of this time
used descriptive, violent language to make Crusaders feel as though Islam was defiling
Christian culture and beliefs. Muslims felt strongly as well; they felt as though their
culture and beliefs were being threatened by an inferior race. An unknown Muslim poet
reacts to the first crusade with this poem:
“Do you not owe an obligation to God and Islam, defending
thereby young men and old?
Respond to God! Woe to you! Respond!”13
The words of this poet express the feeling of frustration, sadness, and confusion felt by
the Muslims towards the Christians and their fight for religious dominance. The poem
also shows the willingness of the Muslim community to fight for what they felt was
rightfully theirs: devotional spiritual love from God and the power of being the one true
religion.
Psychologically, during the Crusades, both Christianity and Islam intended to
express piety through fasting and gain power through this feeling. They hoped to better
themselves in battle and drew strength from their respective religions and God. In fasting,
Christian crusaders showed discipline and devotion to God and their cause. History
shows that, “An important factor in the development of the Christian idea of fasting was
the stress laid on its meritorious character.”14 The Christians fought during the Crusades
under the belief that they were working towards salvation. They believed that their souls
Munro, 330.
Carol Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1999, 71.
14 Rudolph Arbesmann, “Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity.”
Tradito 7, (1949-1951), 39.
12
13
117
�and their families’ souls would be destined for heaven if Christianity regained the Holy
Lands. Christians and especially, “late medieval mystics borrowed from Scripture … the
notion of using images of food and eating to talk about the soul’s desire for God” 15. The
Eucharist, Jesus and Mother Mary were all religious symbols for fasting during medieval
times. The fasting comes to mean forgiveness and faithfulness to God and gives people a
“hunger” to fulfill the ideal Christian model. The Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ,
becomes this powerful image of soul fulfilling food. To survive on little to no food, but to
feel satisfied, becomes a significant symbol for the medieval people and the Crusaders.
Fasting is also seen as a way of purity and Christians believed that,
“…fasting, prayer and almsgiving are the three outstanding duties of a Christian
and that fasting, … like prayer and almsgiving was considered a preventative
against the temptations of the devil.” It is often mentioned in combination with
prayer because it possesses the power of strengthening prayer.”16
Fasting gave one the power to resist temptation and fight those who violated the Christian
religion. Crusaders used fasting as a way to strengthen their souls against the temptations
that the Muslim world offered. Purification through fasting was one way of battling evil;
killing Muslims and reclaiming the Holy Lands went along this same idea of purification
and forgiveness. Fasting became another way of fighting the Muslims as well as a way of
preparing themselves for battle. While many religious ideals and symbols, such as
Mother Mary, become feminine, there were those that stayed masculine. Earlier Christian
writings express, “…old age notions that God, mind, and power are male …”17 Christian
crusades strongly identified themselves with these symbols. They believed men had the
power to will their minds to fasting. Keeping this in mind, “fasting was most basically
something that brought Christians together” and that, “man’s choice of hunger is a choice
of self-control, and it arouses in nature an answering self-control”18 Christian crusaders
felt unified under the idea of fasting and war. Their religious practices gave them the
power to define themselves differently and against the other as, superior, stronger and
closer warriors to God. The Christian crusaders found power in their religious identity
and unity in their religious practices.
Caroline W. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to
Medieval Women. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2010, 150.
16 Arbesmann, 40.
17 Bynum, 294.
18 Bynum, 39.
15
118
�The Muslims also drew power from religious inferences and fasting. Muslims,
like the Christians, found themselves battling a people and religion they thought to be
evil. As stated in the Quran 2:183-87, in reference to the fast of Ramadan,
“Believers, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you;
perchance you will guard yourselves against evil … God desires your well being
not your discomfort. He desires you to fast the whole month so that you may
magnify God and render thanks to Him for giving you His guidance.”19
This passage from the Quran shows how fasting grounded Islam to God and their faith.
The Muslims believed that fasting brought them back to their morals and guided them in
the light of Gods path, for “prayer and fasting and reciting the Koran are decided
obligations of practical morality.”20 The ideas of the Koran also rest largely on justice,
morality, and oneness with God. By applying these ideas to the everyday Muslim life,
many Muslim crusaders felt a deep connection to their fellow community. When the
Christians invaded the Holy Lands, the Muslims drew from their deep connection to their
religion. Fasting was one source for this kind of power. It is also important to recognize
that the Muslims did not have a separation of church and state. Their religion was also
their law and their laws delegated power and established order among communities. It is
clear that, “Mohammad knew no distinction between church and state and the laws which
he gave as a revelation from God, were for the civil, and moral and religious
development of his people, and have since been so regarded.”21 Having such rigid
religious and civil beliefs made it hard for the Muslims to accept the Christians. Being
intimately connected to the community and Islam only further posed the Christians to be
viewed as others. The fast of Ramadan and general diet restrictions are a source of power
because they show devoutness to God and Islam. Ramadan was their way of specifically
defining themselves as special through their unique religious practices. Muslim people of
the Middle Ages believed, “the moral importance of the fast as an act of worship and
piety is amplified by a hadith according to which Muhammad said “Five things break the
fast of the faster—lying, backbiting, slander, ungodly oath and looking with passion” …”22
The Muslim people found strength in fasting to defend against these impure, sinful acts
and the Christians. Power was drawn for the Muslim soldier from moral control and
resilience. Islam found support within each other, and fasting was one way of uniting
them in religious practices. Because of this, fasting becomes a relevant source of power
Lindsay, 151.
Patrick, 325.
21 Patrick, 328.
22 Lindsay, 153.
19
20
119
�for this group of people during the Crusades.
As the Crusades demonstrated, religion has the power to bring people together as
well as tear them apart. Food practices during the Middle Ages helped Christians and
Muslims define themselves as individuals as well as, connect them to their culture and
religion. Fasting was a way to unite oneself to fellow crusaders, as well as express piety
and devotion to God. Both religious groups also used their food practices to differentiate
themselves from the ‘other’. These two groups of people allowed religion to define them,
and fasting is one source for religious definition. By examining these people, their
religion and culture, it becomes evident that fasting as a form of power is significant
during the Crusades.
Works Cited
Arbesmann, Rudolph. “Fasting and Prophecy in Pagan and Christian Antiquity.”
Tradito 7, (1949-1951): 1-71.
Bazell, Dianne M. “Strife among the Table-Fellows: Conflicting Attitudes of Early and
Medieval Christians towards the Eating of Meat.” Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 65, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 73-99.
Bynum, Caroline W. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to
Medieval Women. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2010.
Hillenbrand, Carol. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1999.
Lindsay, James E. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 2005.
Munro, Dana C. “The Western Attitude toward Islam during the Period of the Crusades”
Speculum 6, no. 3 (July 1931): 329-343.
Nash, Jo. “Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The ‘Fasting Body’ and the Hunger for
Pure Immanence.” Journal of Religion and Health 45, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 310-327.
Patrick, Mary M. “The Ethics of the Koran” International Journal of Ethics 11, no. 3
(April 1901): 321-329.
120
�Robinson, Francis. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World. Cambridge:
University of Cambridge, 1996.
Satlow, Michael L. “Defining Judaism: Accounting for “Religions” in the Study of
Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, no. 4 (2006): 837-860.
121
�Intimate Partner Violence and Aggression
Among Male Veterans with PTSD
Mary Beth Somich (Psychology and Sociology)1
In recent years, attention has focused on the links between intimate partner
violence and aggression and PTSD in military veterans. This literature review examines
the phenomenon of intimate partner violence and aggression and the symptoms of PTSD
associated with it, including avoidance/numbing and hyperarousal (Allen et al., 2010).
Additionally, ways in which intimate partner violence and aggression can impact
partners of veterans suffering with PTSD are explored, including the development of
secondary trauma stress (STS) (Ahmadi et al., 2011). Negligence of partners within
PTSD treatment plans is discussed and different forms of couples’ therapy are explored
within this paper. This examination of intimate partner violence and aggression among
veterans with PTSD suggests the need for therapeutic intervention and recognition of the
phenomenon in order to avoid the lasting and harmful consequences it can have on both
victim and perpetrator.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that arises after
being exposed to extremely stressful and traumatic events (Wilcox, 2010, p. 175).
Additionally, a diagnosis of PTSD can have a significant impact on the quality of
intimate relationships considering that symptoms of the disorder include anxiety, anger,
violence, and clinically significant levels of depression. Veterans who return from service
with PTSD exhibit exceptionally high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) as a
population (Taft et al., 2009, p. 466). This violence and aggression is committed
primarily by male veterans against their female, civilian counterparts. Intimate partner
aggression can have profound and lasting consequences for both the perpetrator and
victim and it is important that we expose the phenomenon in hopes of gaining greater
understanding about why it occurs.
Allen, Rhoades, Stanley & Markman (2010) sought to investigate the
relationship between active duty Army husbands married to civilian wives and effects of
recent deployment, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and marital
outcome. They point out that when studying deployment and its effects on marriage,
typical outcomes include divorce and domestic violence. Additionally, they attribute this
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Steve Jenkins for PS212: Psychopathology.
122
�negative effect on marriage to specific symptoms of PTSD including avoidance/numbing
and hyperarousal, which can be difficult for both partners to adjust to (p. 281). Allen et
al, (2010) sampled 434 couples and had them complete self-report measures separately
and privately without communicating with one another to assess their relationship quality
in relation to either their partner’s or their own PTSD symptoms. Measures included
deployment, PTSD symptoms, marital satisfaction, confidence, positive bonding,
parenting, dedication, satisfaction with sacrifice and negative communication (p. 283).
Results showed that husband’s current PTSD symptoms were associated with higher
levels of negative communication. This is useful in assessing the level of intervention
needed in the lives of military couples when one is suffering from symptoms of PTSD.
The correlation between PTSD symptoms and negative communication patterns
has been further studied by Ray and Vanstone (2009). Recognizing that the afflicted
veteran’s symptoms of emotional numbing/withdrawal and anger can negatively impact
family relationships, they recommend that treatment for PTSD include support of the
family (Ray & Vanstone, 2009, p. 846). Using interpretive phenomenology as their
research method, Ray and Vanstone (2009) conducted in-depth interviews with veterans
diagnosed with PTSD. Findings showed that emotional numbing as symptom of PTSD
can negatively impact familial relationships and cause further emotional withdrawal (p.
844). Powerful testaments of symptoms given by the veterans included statements like “I
was making my family and kids suffer with some physical and psychological abuse, I
was still so closed up in my head” (p. 842). Such admittance supports evidence that links
emotional numbing/withdrawal and intimate partner violence and aggression. Ray and
Vanstone (2009) also point out that fear of spousal anger and violence is a common
theme in the everyday experiences of women living with spouses who suffer from PTSD
(p. 844). Unfortunately, this fear extends well beyond the sample studied by Ray and
Vanstone (2009).
A nationally representative survey of Vietnam veterans showed that one third of
PTSD-diagnosed male veterans were identified as violent toward their female partners
(Taft et al., 2009, p. 462). This rate is almost three times higher than men without PTSD,
and is extremely discerning (p. 462). Like Allen et al, (2010) and Ray & Vanstone
(2009), this increased level of violence is attributed to symptoms of increased anger,
anxiety and arousal that are particularly strongly associated with aggression among male
veterans with PTSD (Taft et al., 2009, p. 462). Of 510 veterans surveyed, 33% of those in
intimate relationships reported perpetrating partner physical aggression in the previous
year, and 91% reported partner psychological aggression (p. 466). These elevated rates
are consistent with the research of Teten et al., (2010), who found that veterans with
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�PTSD compared to veterans without PTSD were almost six times more likely to have a
partner report sustaining an injury in the past year (p. 1620). Although they did not find a
significant difference between levels of intimate partner violence and aggression between
Vietnam veterans and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) veterans, as a population, both
samples exhibited significantly high rates of physical and psychological abuse when
compared to civilian populations (Teten et al., 2010, p. 1614).
Recent research has focused on how intimate partners of veterans suffering from
PTSD may influence the exacerbation of symptoms that correlate with violence and
aggression within the relationship. Renshaw and Campbell (2011) sought to find whether
partners’ perceptions of service members’ deployment experiences moderated the
associations of severity of service members’ overall PTSD with partners’ psychological
and relationship distress. Recognizing that spouses of veterans with PTSD are likely to
suffer more psychological and relationship distress in general, they aimed to explore how
partners’ own perceptions of the veteran’s experience may play a part (Renshaw &
Campbell, 2011, p. 953). The sample for their study consisted of 206 active duty service
members from the Utah National Guard and their spouses or romantic partners. A
majority of the veterans had been deployed to Iraq (67%), while 19.9% had been
deployed to Afghanistan, 6.8% to other locations in the Middle East, and 6.3% to other
locations. Participants rated the severity of their PTSD symptoms using the PTSD
checklist (PCL), a 17-item, 5 point Likert scale. Additionally, they completed the
Relationship assessment scale (RAS), a 7-item Likert-type scale in response to questions
about general relationship satisfaction, and the Depression, anxiety and stress scale
(DASS), designed to measure depression, anxiety and stress within a weeks time (p. 955).
Ultimately, bivariate analyses were performed and consistent with prior research,
partners’ relationship distress was positively associated with service members’ PTSD
symptoms, especially those of avoidance and numbing/withdrawal (p. 954). Additionally,
this association was moderated by partners’ perceptions of service members’ deployment
experiences (p. 954). In fact, negative association became nonsignificant and approached
zero as wives perceived higher levels of combat (p. 954). This implies that the more
understanding a spouse or intimate partner has of what their partner experienced,
especially combat exposure, the less relationship distress they will experience as a unit.
Yet, despite efforts to understand what their partner may have experienced that
led to the development of PTSD, in some cases, intimate partner violence and aggression
still occurs. This violence can have devastating effects on intimate partners of veterans
diagnosed with PTSD. Ahmadi et al., (2011) discusses how a veteran’s diagnosis with
PTSD can lead to the subsequent development of traumatic stress among their spouses,
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�who act largely as caregivers (p. 637). Like the previously discussed research conducted
by Ray and Vanstone (2009), Ahmadi et al. (2011) conducted interviews with their
subjects, the majority being spouses as opposed to afflicted veterans. One wife of a
veteran diagnosed with PTSD explains she felt she had to “walk on eggshells” in fear of
her husband’s erratic explosions (Ahmadi et al., 2011, p. 637). This sense of
hypervigilence in intimate partners is similar to what the veterans themselves feel as a
symptom of PTSD. Ahmadi et al. (2009) explore secondary trauma stress (STS) by
studying 100 veterans and their spouses using testing measures and questionnaires in
order to understand the prevalence and symptomatology of STS among spouses of
veterans with PTSD. They found that the duration of PTSD symptoms in intimate
partners did predict the severity of secondary trauma stress in spouses (Ahmadi et al.,
2011, p. 641). These results showed that spouses are often neglected within PTSD
treatment and management plans, and that they often suffer at the hands of their afflicted
partners.
To address the suffering of both veterans diagnosed with PTSD as well
as their intimate partners, treatment is necessary. First and foremost, social support is a
major factor in the success of treatment. In general, higher levels of support are
associated with lower levels of PTSD in veterans (Wilcox, 2010, p. 175). Thus, it makes
sense that couples therapy is often resorted to as a form of treatment, especially with the
added threat of violence and aggression towards intimate partners that is so prevalent
within the population studied. Two forms of couples therapy that have yielded positive
results include Structured Approach Therapy (SAT) and Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint
Therapy (CBCT) (Sautter et al., 2011; Fredman, Monson & Adair, 2011). Although they
are diverse approaches, both are aimed at preventing intimate partner violence and
aggression among military couples coping with PTSD.
Structured Approach Therapy (SAT) focuses on promoting empathic
communication in order to help couples improve their coping methods with the trauma
and anxiety related to a diagnosis of PTSD (Sautter et al., 2011, p. 63). It also uses a
multicomponent emotion activation program to help couples reduce symptoms of
emotional numbing (p. 63). This couple-based approach is highly recommended in order
to assist partners with discussing thoughts and feelings related to the deployment
experience and to return intimacy into their lives.
Similarly, Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT) can help to
address relationship difficulties that arise as a result of PTSD. CBCT consists of 15
sessions organized into three stages; 1. psychoeducation about reciprocal influences of
PTSD symptoms and relationship adjustment and conflict management skills, 2.
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�behavioral interventions that improve dyadic communication, and 3. cognitive
interventions designed to address maladaptive thinking patterns that maintain both PTSD
symptoms and relationship difficulties (Fredman, Monson & Adair, 2011, p. 121). After
taking part in CBCT, wives of veterans with PTSD reported significant improvements in
their partner’s symptoms and level of relationship satisfaction (p. 129). From a clinical
perspective, whether SAT, CBCT, or another form of therapy is utilized, therapists must
recognize the high risk rates of domestic violence in veterans suffering from PTSD, as
well as the tendency for partners to empathize with their traumatized partners and come
to believe the violence is a part of the diagnosis (Sherman et al., 2006, p. 487). This false
belief may lead partners to rationalize or even excuse the violent behavior, and therefore,
therapists must work to correct this notion.
Intimate partner aggression has harmful and lasting consequences for both
victims and perpetrators. Family dissolution, incarceration, injury, and even death can
result, exacerbating mental health issues and possibly even setting an intergenerational
cycle of violence into motion (Teten et al., 2010, p. 1613). Given the large number of
armed service members currently returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who could
potentially suffer from PTSD and/or become perpetrators of intimate partner violence, it
is a topic worthy of study.
Works Cited
Ahmadi, K., Azampoor-Afshar, S., Karami, G., & Mokhtari, A. (2011). The association of
veterans' PTSD with secondary trauma stress among veterans' spouses. Journal Of
Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma,20(6), 636-644.
doi:10.1080/10926771.2011.595761
Allen, E. S., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S.M., & Markman, H. J. (2010). Hitting home:
Relationships between recent deployment, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and marital
functioning for Army couples. Journal Of Family Psychology, 24(3), 280-288.
doi:10.1037/a0019405
Fredman, S. J., Monson, C. M., & Adair, K. C. (2011). Implementing cognitivebehavioral conjoint therapy for PTSD with the newest generation of veterans and their
partners. Cognitive And Behavioral Practice, 18(1), 120-130.
doi:10.1016/j.cbpra.2009.06.007
126
�Ray, S. L., & Vanstone, M. (2009). The impact of PTSD on veterans’ family
relationships: An interpretative phenomenological inquiry. International Journal Of
Nursing Studies, 46(6), 838-847. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2009.01.002
Renshaw, K. D., & Campbell, S. B. (2011). Combat veterans' symptoms of PTSD and
partners' distress: The role of partners' perceptions of veterans' deployment experiences.
Journal Of Family Psychology, 25(6), 953-962. doi:10.1037/a0025871
Sautter, F. J., Armelie, A. P., Glynn, S. M., & Wielt, D. B. (2011). The development of a
couple-based treatment for PTSD in returning veterans. Professional Psychology:
Research And Practice, 42, 63-69. doi:10.1037/a0022323
Sherman, M. D., Sautter, F., Jackson, M., Lyons, J. A., & Han, X. (2006). Domestic
violence in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder who seek couples therapy. Journal
Of Marital And Family Therapy, 32, 479-490. doi:10.1111/j.1752-0606.2006.tb01622.x
Taft, C. T., Weatherill, R. P., Woodward, H. E., Pinto, L. A., Watkins, L. E., Miller, M.
W., & Dekel, R. (2009). Intimate partner and general aggression perpetration among
combat veterans presenting to a posttraumatic stress disorder clinic. American Journal Of
Orthopsychiatry, 79, 461-468. doi:10.1037/a0016657
Teten, A. L., Schumacher, J. A., Taft, C. T., Stanley, M. A., Kent, T. A., Bailey, S. D. &
White, D. L. (2010). Intimate partner aggression perpetrated and sustained by male
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam veterans with and without posttraumatic stress disorder.
Journal Of Interpersonal Violence, 25, 1612-1630. doi:10.1177/0886260509354583
Wilcox, S. (2010). Social relationships and PTSD symptomatology in combat veterans.
Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, And Policy, 2, 175-182.
doi:10.1037/a0019062
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�A Total Work of Art: In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk
Erin Valerio (Arts Administration)1
In the words of German composer Richard Wagner, the ultimate work of art
draws from “an interest common to divers men at divers times and under divers
circumstances, and ever shaping itself afresh according to these diversities” (Wagner
194). The question, then, is how to create a pure and independent work of art that will
translate across time and circumstance. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, certain
artists thought that they could solve this dilemma through the concept of the
Gesamtkunstwerk. This term, which translates from the German as “total work of art,”
refers to a work which creates a complete experience by incorporating multiple artistic
media. Countless artists attempted to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, but the most complete
and worthy examples lie in the dramas of Richard Wagner, the symphonic poetry of
Claude Debussy, and the paintings of Gustav Klimt.
The fin-de-siècle period was not, however, the first to pursue the idea of fusing
artistic media. It is known that the earliest Greek dramas, including those of Sophocles
and Euripides, included song and dance as well as poetry; these gave rise to the concept
of the Greek chorus. During the Renaissance and the Baroque era, composers such as
Claudio Monteverdi employed the concept of “text painting,” in which a poem is set to
music that literally exemplifies its meaning; for example, the word “mountain” might be
sung on a high note, while the word “valley” would be assigned a lower pitch. This
technique fell out of fashion during the Romantic period, which reviled its blunt and
literal nature, but composers setting words to music still attempted to allow the text to
inform the music; the German Romantics’ lieder cycles, for example, used tonality and
tempo to reflect the atmosphere of the lyrics without directly portraying them.
The fin-de-siècle conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk began, though, a
generation before, in the writings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
Schopenhauer argues that music is the most universal art, since it can be understood
instantly. All other forms of art, such as the visual arts and poetry, must be decoded and
processed before we can truly understand them. These other art forms are incomplete,
Written under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the team-taught
honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-the-Century Paris,
Berlin, and Vienna.
1
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�says Schopenhauer, because an idea derived from the knowledge of the relationship
between signified and signifier is not the same thing as the essence of the idea itself
(Wagner 181). Simply put, when we read poetry, we must first parse the words and then
infer their meanings; when we look at a painting, we must recognize the actual images we
are looking at before we can understand the message of the work as a whole. Many finde-siècle artists were well-versed in Schopenhauer, and they took his ideas a step farther,
postulating that because the individual art forms cannot be fully understood without
inference, they could create a self-informing work of art by employing several art forms
which fed into one another.
Schopenhauer’s other major artistic standpoint is that art should overcome the
individual will. The ultimate goal of art is to make the observer temporarily forget
himself and join with the other artists and observers in a moment of absolute perception.
In his essay “The Artwork of the Future” (1849), Richard Wagner notes that at this
moment of perception, “no illusion is possible here, as in the daylight show, to make us
deem the essence of the world outside is not wholly identical with our own” (Wagner
183). To do this, art needs to stir something both deeper than individual identity and
common to each observer. Schopenhauer and Wagner each argue that art should not have
an explicit moral, social or political agenda, as positions on these issues change from
generation to generation and may not be universally relatable. The artist’s work, then, is
“indicated by the clearest human consciousness, the new-devised to answer the
beholdings of an everpresent life, the brought in drama to a show the most intelligible:
the mythos” (Wagner 193). Since art needs to awaken something deeper than the self to
truly move us, the most effective subject matter is myth, which draws upon a common
ancestral memory from which we are all descended. Armed with its mythical plot and
characters, the Gesamtkunstwerk can break down the barriers not only between the
various art forms, but also between performer and audience, to create a truly unified
artistic experience.
The unity of the arts exemplified by the Gesamtkunstwerk was felt to be
necessary because, in the early nineteenth century, artists began to feel that art was
becoming trivial and devoid of meaning. In the visual arts, too much attention was being
paid to style and not enough to substance and feeling; attending the theatre was becoming
more of an excuse to see and be seen than to experience art; and in music, the
ornamentation associated with the bel canto style was taking priority over pure
musicality. The early Classical dramas incorporated all forms of art, took on universally
relevant subject matter, and required the participation of the entire community – but, as
time went on, the arts began to separate and specialize, and the unity and purity of art got
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�lost amid progress and innovation (DiGaetani 71). In this new age, the basic artistic idea
of a piece was being “not so much stated or expounded and then developed as brought
forth by the…process in which it has a function to fulfill, and the…‘idea’ is the…process
itself, not the theme” (Dahlhaus 41). In the pursuit of the Gesamtkunstwerk, artists sought
to lessen the focus on the technical aspects of art, and draw attention back to the work’s
actual meaning and pure aesthetic merit. Art, they argued, did not need to be justified by
any worldly standards. Ideally, the true work of art would subscribe not to hard logic but
to a created “logic of feeling” (Wagner 187).
In Wagner’s plans for the future of the arts, he posits that the “music drama” is
the greatest and most all-encompassing medium. The Wagnerian music drama is
something of an inversion of traditional opera, and the blueprint of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
It incorporates all art forms: dance, gesture, facial expressions and lavish scenery provide
the visual component; the poetry of the libretto takes care of the written aspect; and the
music of the singers and orchestra cover the aural category. In “The Artwork of the
Future,” Wagner stresses the equal importance of all of these aspects: “Where the hearing
is to be roused to greater sensuous interest,” he argues, “the messenger involuntarily has
to address the eye as well: eye and ear must mutually assure each other of a higherpitched message before they can transmit it convincingly to the feeling” (Wagner 218).
He emphasizes that lyric poetry, gesture, orchestral music, and vocal music are all of
equal importance. Vocal and orchestral music are equal because, while vocal music
expresses the characters’ voiced feelings, the orchestra expresses a deeper level of
feeling, the “unspoken,” which cannot be put into words. Similarly, while characters can
speak their intentions through poetry, gesture and expression reveal things that words
cannot. The spoken and unspoken are two halves of a whole. Further, Wagner argues,
poetry and music are perfectly equal in drama: “poet and musician herein are like two
travelers who have started from one departure point, from thence to journey straight
ahead in the opposite direction. Arrived at the opposite point of the earth, they meet
again; each has wandered round one half of the planet” (Wagner 215). Poetry is the pure
expression of thought, music is the pure expression of feeling, and the two of them meet
in drama, the most complete form of art.
The staginess of bel canto operas, however, was repulsive to Wagner. He
deplored their artifice and the emphasis on plot over characters. In Wagner’s music
dramas, we see the iteration of a theme common to fin-de-siècle works of art: a
preoccupation not with the external relations between characters, but instead with internal
conflicts and matters of the soul; namely, the inner drama before the outer (DiGaetani
72). Wagner’s characters are remarkable not for what happens to them, but for what
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�happens within them. These internal conflicts are broader than external circumstance, and
therefore translate more easily over time and distance. Wagner used this universality of
experience, coupled with the deep ancestral power of myth and the harmony enforced by
the unity of the arts, to create his conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Each aspect of his
vision feeds into the whole, but also is the whole, creating a perfectly complete and selfinformed work of art.
Wagner’s ambitions were not realized, however, until later in the nineteenth
century. In 1876, the first Bayreuth Festival was given at Wagner’s custom-built
Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The Festival was the culmination of Wagner’s aesthetic vision
and designed to further enhance the experience of viewing one of his music dramas. The
mountain village of Bayreuth was chosen as the location because its isolated nature
would remove any hint of influence from the outside world, and allow the spectators to
feel truly at one with the work. The journey to Bayreuth in order to see the festival was
long and arduous, and meant to mimic a sort of religious pilgrimage. The Festspielhaus
was commissioned and built to serve Wagner’s purposes, with many revolutionary
enhancements designed to increase the level of audience immersion. Wagner
commissioned the first-ever covered orchestra pit – before his time, the orchestra had sat
directly in front of the audience and obstructed their view of the stage – and was among
the first to stipulate that the house lights should be turned off entirely during a
performance, eliminating any possibility of conversation or posturing among the
audience. The ultimate goal was to eliminate the boundary between performer and
spectator, making the audience equally as important as the stage. Early visitors to the
Festspielhaus spoke of a feeling of “suction” when they were seated in the theatre –
Wagner’s aesthetics were, just as he hoped, drawing them in (Bowman 435). Since every
aspect of the building was designed with a single artistic purpose in mind, it might even
be said that the Festspielhaus itself was an extension of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Wagner’s work caught on like wildfire in the French Symbolist circles. In 1861,
after attending a performance of Tannhäuser, French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote a
letter to Wagner in which he described his experience as follows: “At first it seemed to
me that I knew this music already, and later, in thinking it over, I understood what had
caused this illusion. It seemed to me that the music was my own, and I recognized it as
any man recognizes those things he is destined to love” (Hadlock 27). Baudelaire’s
moment of revelation is precisely the outcome desired by Wagner: Baudelaire, a
spectator with a minimal knowledge of music, is able to see one of Wagner’s dramas and
immediately feel as though he already knows it and it belongs to him. Baudelaire’s
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�individual will has been overcome and he has been drawn fully into the sway of
Wagner’s art.
It was not only Wagner’s music that enchanted Baudelaire – his poetry, too, was
well-received by the Symbolists. Wagner wrote all of his own librettos, and he employed
several literary devices which worked very well with Symbolist themes. His concept of
stabreim asserts that alliteration can be used to relate words through sound and concept;
for example, the phrase “the red rose” sounds stronger to us than “the red flower”
because red and rose begin with the same sound, and are thus related in our minds before
we even begin to parse their meaning (Wagner 211). The Symbolists were also enamored
by Wagner’s use of leitmotif. A leitmotif is a musical phrase which suggests some
character, object or idea, and recurs whenever its subject is called to mind in the work –
for example, in Wagner’s Siegfried (premiered 1876), the title character is represented by
a particular leitmotif which is repeated countless times throughout the opera. The
leitmotif suggests Siegfried’s character, and when we hear it, we think of him, even if the
actor himself is not onstage. This use of one thing to represent another plays perfectly
into Symbolist aesthetics. Each of Wagner’s works is a finely-constructed puzzle, and the
Symbolists delighted in attempting to decode them.
Not every Symbolist was a Wagnerian, however. Claude Debussy, as a young
man, adored Wagner’s work and even attended Bayreuth, but as he aged and matured as a
composer, he began to see the leitmotif system as too blunt and indelicate, and the dayslong Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876) as more tiresome than profound. He respected the
immersive power of Wagner’s work, but found it pretentious. In a later essay he notes,
with characteristic snark, that “it is hard to imagine the state to which the strongest brain
is reduced by listening for four nights to the Ring…It is worse than obsession. It is
possession. You no longer belong to yourself. You are but a leitmotif moving in an
atmosphere of tetralogy” (Vallas 117). Debussy commended the beauty of Wagner’s
music, but the “suction” the Bayreuth attendees spoke of seemed to him too tense and
restrictive. While Wagner’s work is intended to consume his audience, Debussy’s music
is loose and free. His respect for rhythm and tonality is tenuous at best, and he argues for
the concept of “open air art” – art as sinuous and unrestricted as the natural world. He
holds that art, being man’s most natural inclination, should follow nature’s example.
Since the first art was created by savages, artists must think like savages in order to create
true art. The true artist dispenses with formality and simply “feels what he sees,” and
synthesis of the arts occurs naturally as the senses bleed into one another (Vallas 8). In
his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), a musical setting of a poem by Stéphane
Mallarmé, Debussy, too, strives for a Gesamtkunstwerk, but of a slightly different nature.
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�The poem’s subject is mythical, like those of Wagner’s operas. Debussy agrees
with Wagner that the culture of the past is the most reliable subject for a universal
artwork, because it contains “the unextinguishable flame to which our present must
always owe a part of its splendor” (Vallas 21). His definition of “universal,” however,
differs from Wagner’s. A French Nationalist, Debussy argues that social and cultural
boundaries are very real, and that art from one culture cannot translate to another. When
he speaks of universal art, he means that which is universal to everyone within one
nation, not worldwide (Vallas 31).
The construction of Faune is also intrinsically different from Wagner’s music
dramas. Debussy’s piece is a tone poem, without words. In Debussy’s view, words and
music are two entirely separate animals, and should not be performed simultaneously. In
Faune, Debussy seeks instead to simply suggest the poem’s words through his music.
Instead of resorting to the blunt and literal symbolism of Wagner’s leitmotif system,
Debussy strives to “contain every nuance” of the poem by presenting a “general
impression” thereof instead of a literal translation (Code 508). In Debussy’s view, the arts
do not need to directly indicate one another in order to correspond. His “open air art” is
free of the constraints of form, composition and logic, and his Gesamtkunstwerk is
simply the natural result of the mingling of art forms.
Composers and dramatists were not the only ones striving for a
Gesamtkunstwerk. At the same time that Debussy was writing his music, Gustav Klimt
was beginning his career as a visual artist in Vienna. Klimt was well-versed in
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and even his early work shows signs of an understanding of
the Gesamtkunstwerk. In his early Academic works such as Auditorium of the Old
Burgtheater (1882), Klimt depicts scenes of the theatre, but he always makes a point of
portraying the audience in equal, if not more, detail than the stage. This suggests an
understanding of the idea that performer and spectator are joined through the creation of
art, and that both are of equal importance (Koja 13). In Music (1895), Klimt goes a step
further, attempting to create a visual representation of the idea of music – a sort of
reverse of Wagner’s dramas, which aim to express physical concepts through music. For
Klimt, Music was an ode to art as the organic solution to the artificiality of Viennese
society; his work represented “the cathartic and healing power of art, which he saw as the
only force capable of vanquishing the destructive powers that man had unleashed”
(Sarmany-Parsons 22). His Nuda Veritas (1899) depicts Art as a clarifying force, the only
absolute truth, holding up a mirror to civilization. Klimt saw art as mankind’s highest
achievement, and thus it only made sense that he, too, should pursue the
Gesamtkunstwerk.
133
�In fin-de-siècle Vienna, artists from all disciplines were beginning to feel
constricted and oppressed by their society’s archaic structure. They gravitated together
and worked in concert out of necessity. They sought to defeat society’s mundane power
through artistic catharsis; as Klimt said in his address at the Emperor Franz Josef’s 60th
anniversary celebration, “The progress of culture is based only on continual and
progressive impregnation of life as a whole with artistic goals” (Sarmany-Parsons 66). To
the Viennese Secessionists, life itself had to be a work of art – and no one exemplified
that ideal more than Ludwig van Beethoven.
In 1902, the 14th Vienna Secession Exhibition opened. The entire exhibition was
dedicated to works based upon Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Klimt painted a frieze
illustrating what he imagined might be the story told by the music. To the artists of the
Secession, Beethoven was the ultimate representation of artistic passion, and the triumph
of love and purity over evil. Their adoration of Beethoven elevated his art to a kind of
religion, and participating in the exhibition was the equivalent of going to church – not
unlike the Bayreuth pilgrimage (Koja 150). Klimt’s frieze employs pagan and Christian
religious imagery, which serves the triple purpose of reinforcing the churchlike nature of
the exhibition, falling in line with Schopenhauer’s idea of myth as the most universal
subject matter, and, through the repetition of the same symbols, calling to mind Wagner’s
system of leitmotifs. The aim of the exhibition was to portray “the artist as the redeemer
of man in his struggle for happiness” (Koja 13), and Klimt, in creating a visual mate to
Beethoven’s music, sought to create a Gesamtkunstwerk which would encompass not
only the art within the exhibition, but the very atmosphere and life around it.
The Gesamtkunstwerk is an elusive concept which has taken countless forms
over its evolution. In their attempts to realize it, artists such as Wagner, Debussy, and
Klimt have pursued different art forms and followed different creeds. The intent is always
the same, however: to create an elevating experience through the absorbing power of art,
for, as Wagner puts it, “he who cherishes this longing within the inmost chamber of his
powers, he lives already in a better life – but only one can do this thing: the artist”
(Wagner 235).
Works Cited
Bowman, Ned A. "Investing a Theatrical Ideal: Wagner's Bayreuth "Festspielhaus".
Educational Theatre Journal. 18 (1966): 429-38.
134
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Hadlock, Philip. "Baudelaire and the Unstaging of "Tannhäuser"." South Atlantic Review.
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Koja, Stephen, ed. Gustav Klimt: Landscapes. New York: Prestel Publishing, 2007
Sarmany-Parsons, Ilona. Klimt. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995.
Vallas, Léon. The Theories of Claude Debussy, Musicien Français. London: Oxford
University Press, 1929.
Wagner, Richard. Goldman, Albert, and Sprinchorn Evert, comp. Wagner on Music and
Drama. Unabridged ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1964.
1875 engraving of the Bayreuth Festival Theatre, by Eduard Schuré
135
�Gustav Klimt, Music (1895)
Section of Gustav Klimt’s 1902 Beethoven Frieze
136
�
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Volume 11, Number 1
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Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference -- Abstracts -- 2 Remote Setting Oyster Spat; Artificial Reef/Reef Ball / John Andrejack, Kim Tetrault, and Dr. Donald Stearns -- 2 The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and other Plant Extracts on Bacillus subtilis / Dilijeta Bajrami -- 2 The Digits of Pi / Andrea Gonzales and Dr. Otto Raths -- 3 The Effect of Garlic Extract on Quorum Sensing Pseudomonas Aeruginosa / John Augello -- 3 Selenium Supplementation and its Impact on Plasma Glutathione (GSH) among Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh / Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta, Elena Stekolchik, Melanie Valencia, and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin -- 4 Bacteriophage Therapy against Pan-Resistant Strains of P. aeruginosa / Benjamin Bustamante -- 4 The Effects of Green Tea Extract EGCG and Other Plant Extracts on Salmonella and Citrobacter / Krista Carbonara -- 5 Analyzing the Effect of Phthalates on the Development of Drosphilia Melanogaster / Leonard Giordano and Dr. Heather Cook -- 5 Using Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) to Reconstruct Position Tracks Emanating from a Source / Gia DeStefanis -- 5 Zebrafish as a Model Organism for Listeria monocytogenes Central Nervous System Infection -- Alina Guseynova, William Rivera, and Dr. Christopher Corbo / 6 Properties of a Classical Black Hole Solar System / Carrie Holt and Dr. Otto Raths -- 6 Photosensitivity of Instar 4 Mosquito Larvae (Aedes aegypti) to Different Light Intensities / Thomas Iannacone and Dr. Donald Stearns -- 7 Capsaicin Induced Optic Nerve Damage in Zebrafish: A Model of Trans-neuronal Degeneration / Maximillian Lucci, Michael Broe, Michael Gutkin, Dr.Zoltan Fulop, and Dr. Christopher Corbo -- 7 The Regeneration of Blood Vessels in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Optic Tectum / Richard Morgan -- 8 The Effect of Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Ten Other Plant Extracts on the Growth of Staphylococcus / Julia Mullins -- 8 Digital Database and Interactive Microscopic Brain Atlas for Adult Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / John Passantino, Prof. Linda Raths, Dr. Christpher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 9 Effect of a Green Tea Extract (EGCG) and Other Plant Extracts on the Inhibition of Growth of Enterobacter aerogenes and Echerichia coli / Ashley Polizzotto -- 9 The Cellular Response of Adult Zebrafish Optic Tectum: A Model for a Listeria monocytogenes Infection / William Rivera, Alina Guseynova, Michael Gutkin and Dr. Christopher Corbo -- 10 Morphological Analysis of Mast Cell Distribution of Surviving Organotropic Culture of Adult Zebrafish Optic Tectum during the First Week / Deeksha Chawla, Elissa Troisi, Michael Gutkin, Prof. Linda Raths, Dr. Christopher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 10 Imaging Primary Cilia in Pancreatic Cancer Tumor Initiating Cells / Gina Auricchio, Dr. Jennifer Bailey, Dr. Florencia McAllister, Dr. Anirban Maitra, and Dr. Steven Leach -- 11 How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health Impacts of Sociopolitical Change in Prehistoric Peru / Rose Tobiassen -- 12 Spectral Photosensitivity of the Fourth Instar Larval Stage of the Mosquito Aedes aegypti / Rachel Tripp and Dr. Donald Stearns -- 12 Olfactory Sense and Species Recognition in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / Alyssa Spivak -- 13 Sodium Selenite Supplementation and Plasma Glutathione Peroxidase Activity in Arsenicosis Patients in Bangladesh / Elena Stekolchik, Lisa Schneider, Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta, Nicole Deluzio, Melanie Valencia, and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin -- 13 Enhancing Plasma Selenoproteins through Selenite Supplementation in Arsenicosis Patients in Rural Bangladesh / Melanie Valencia, Ervila Behri, Stephanie Asusta, Elena Stekolchik, and Dr. Mohammad Alauddin -- 14 The Brachistochrone Problem / Vincent Lombardo and Dr. Otto Raths -- Section II: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 16 The Effects of Ethanol on Zebrafish Activity Level / Ashley Nati -- Section III: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 36 How the Children Grow: Tracking the Health Impacts of Sociopolitical Change in Prehistoric Peru / Rose Tobiassen -- 73 Stock Fading / Ryan Van Spronsen -- Section IV: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 88 Antoni’s Touch: The Body and The Family in Janine Antoni’s Work / Nicola Andersen -- 102 The Fantastic Travels and Travelers of Remedios Varo / Alexis Makwinski -- 114 Starvation for a Cause: Religious Fasting During the Crusades / Antoinette McCarty -- 122 Intimate Partner Violence and Aggression Among Male Veterans with PTSD / Mary Beth Somich -- 128 A Total Work of Art: In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk / Erin Valerio
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Wagner College Forum for
Undergraduate Research
Spring 2013
Volume XI, Number 2
��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. In the past the
journal has been broken into three distinct sections entitled The Natural Sciences, The
Social Sciences and Critical Essays. This issue experiments with a new look. It presents
the papers without any subdivisions for more continuity.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Lauren O'Hare, Nursing
Dr. Peter Sharpe, English
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
��Table of Contents
1
The Transmission, Co-Occurrence, and Impact of Family Violence: Case Studies of
the Dynamics of Intimate Partner, Child, and Animal Abuse
Courtney Heiserman
39 The Nude Female Body Redefined
Jessica Makwinski
56 “O serpent under femynynytee:” Patriarchal Power as Shown through Female
Competition and the Madonna-Whore Binary in Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale”
Rachel Zaydak
64 The Economic Role in Shaping the Modern Egyptian Family
Pakinam Mekki
70 Gustav Klimt: An Artist’s Evolution Through Freud’s Stages of Consciousness
Erik Arntzen
83 Female or Not? Relational Aggression, Mixed Gender Messages and Disability
Limitations
Danielle Lucchese
92 Commodifying the Gothic in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Michael Garamoni
��The Transmission, Co-Occurrence, and Impact
of Family Violence: Case Studies of the Dynamics
of Intimate Partner, Child, and Animal Abuse
Courtney Heiserman (Sociology and Psychology)1
The research surrounding intimate partner violence has recently focused on the various
dynamics of violence within families, how and why it occurs, and what can be done to
prevent and/or stop it within particularly violent families. Specific topics of interest
include the intergenerational transmission of violence within families, the co-occurrence
of intimate partner violence with other forms of family violence, the behavioral impact
that witnessing and being a victim of abuse has on children, and the influence that
children witnessing the abuse has on a victim’s decision to leave. Current literature on
these topics is reviewed, and four case studies of intimate partner violence are presented.
The experiences of the four survivors featured in the case studies are synthesized with
research and theories, and the dynamics of violence within families is analyzed and
discussed with emphasis on ending the cycle of violence.
I. Introduction
Violence within families is a common social issue within societies, yet it is often
overlooked or swept under the rug, deemed to be a ‘family problem,’ and not something
in which others should meddle. However, intimate partner violence (IPV), as well as the
child and animal abuse that commonly co-occur with it, is in fact a social issue at its very
core, with growing research suggesting that it is passed down from parent to child, since
it affects the children who witness it. It is important to note that the term IPV is broader
than the more commonly used term ‘domestic violence.’ The term domestic violence
comes with connotations that the two partners in the relationship are living together in
some form of a domestic partnership. However, IPV is all encompassing in that it
includes everyone in an intimate relationship even if they do not live together, such as a
dating relationship.
An honors thesis written under the direction of Drs. John Esser and Jean Halley in partial
fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
1
1
�An analysis of any form of violence must begin with a discussion of its various
characteristics, so that one is better able to view it as it truly is: an exercise of power and
control. As Kimmel (2008) states, IPV is largely dependent upon the balance of power
present in a relationship. Typically, and not surprisingly, IPV is more prevalent in
relationships in which the male partner holds more power over the female partner.
Where the power is equal and both partners are able to share decisions, the rates of
violence are incredibly low. This is not to say that only men are the abusers in all
relationships; there has been a growing amount of research and theory in regards to this
particular misconception. Kimmel argues that men report abuse by their female partners
less often due to shame, humiliation, and social stigmas. He, referring to the work of
Kersti Yllo (1993), goes on to assert that there is a difference in the dynamic of abuse
between heterosexual partners, explaining that:
Men tend to use domestic violence instrumentally, for the specific
purpose of striking fear and terror in their wives’ hearts, to ensure
compliance, obedience, and passive acceptance of the men’s rule in the
home. Women, by contrast, tend to use violence expressively, to
express frustration or immediate anger – or, of course, defensively, to
prevent further injury. But rarely is women’s violence systematic,
purposive, and routine. (P. 335)
It should also be noted that IPV exists within LGBTQ relationships as well; a
recent survey found that gay men and lesbians are more likely to be victims of IPV than
of homophobic hate crimes (Kimmel 2008). However, the present analysis will focus
solely on instances of family violence within heterosexual relationships, partly due to the
noticeably different patterns of abuse in hetero- versus homo- sexual relationships, and
also partly due to the lack of research surrounding the crossover and dynamics of
different types of family violence in male-female couples, let alone the LGBTQ
community.
For the purpose of clarity, the terms ‘abuser’ and ‘batterer’ will be applied
toward the male in the relationship, while terms such as ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ will be
used when referring to the female in the relationship. This is not a generalization made
out of ignorance, but rather one made, once again, for purposes of clarity and the ability
to better analyze the existing literature. Statistics support the theory that women are more
often the victims to men’s family violence. Kimmel (2008) recounts that:
2
�The gender imbalance of intimate violence is staggering. Of those
victims of violence who were injured by spouses or ex-spouses, women
outnumbered men by about nine to one. Eight times more women were
injured by their boyfriends than men were injured by girlfriends….
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women in the
nation, claiming nearly four million victims a year. Between one-third
and one-half of all women are assaulted by a spouse or partner at some
point during their lives. Between 30 percent and 40 percent of all
women who are murdered are murdered by a husband or a boyfriend,
according to the FBI. Every six minutes a woman in the United States
is raped; every eighteen seconds a woman is beaten, and every day four
women are killed by their batterers. (P. 328)
The numbers are astounding, especially in a country that prides itself on freedom, liberty,
justice and equality. However, the United States has some of the highest rates of rape,
IPV, and spousal murder in the industrialized world (Kimmel 2008). It is clear that
within American society, IPV has become an instrument through which men are able to
assert their power and control over the ‘lesser’ sex, simultaneously proving their
manhood and attempting to gain control over what they believe is rightfully theirs. As
Kimmel so elegantly states, “the numbers alone [should] tell the story…. From early
childhood to old age, violence is the most obdurate, intractable behavioral gender
difference” (2008:315).
II. Literature Review
One of the most important aspects of the dynamic of abuse within intimate
relationships was explained when the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (1984)
developed their now-famous and widely used Power and Control Wheel (Appendix A).
Based on months of focus groups, the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project created the
Wheel to symbolize the most common tactics abusers employ when dominating their
victims. The sections, or spokes, within the Wheel are the methods with which batterers
utilize their power and control. These tactics include using coercion and threats,
intimidation, emotional abuse, isolation, economic abuse, using children, male privilege,
minimizing, denying, and blaming. The rim around the outside of the Wheel contains
physical and sexual violence, which serves as a barrier holding in and keeping together
all of the other tactics. This visual aid has become an extremely popular tool of IPV
3
�service professionals, and therefore has been adapted into other Wheels for dating
violence and LGBTQ relationships. It was one of the first pieces of theory that truly
focused on the tactics of power and control as signifiers and causes of IPV, as opposed to
theories involving alcoholism, poverty, family violence, or victim and abuser personality
types.
Gortner et al. (1997) advanced the field of IPV research by studying and refuting
the traditional myths regarding victims of violent intimate partners and why they do or do
not leave. Common belief insisted that IPV victims rarely leave their abusive husbands
(or partners), are passive and self-defeating, and usually leave due to physical abuse. By
utilizing interviews, coding systems, inventories, questionnaires, and scales, Gortner et al.
were able to dispel all three of these clinical fallacies by utilizing data from 60 couples
who reported severe husband-to-wife violence from Jacobson et al.’s 1994 study.
The first myth was that IPV victims are unlikely to leave their husbands (or
partners). However, after a five-year follow-up with participants, the researchers asserted
that over half of the couples separated or divorced, with the wife initiating the split in
every instance. When factoring in that the lifetime divorce rate is 50%, Gortner et al.
suggest that most victims do leave at some point and usually do not return.
The second myth stated that victims are usually passive and self-defeating,
which was also shown to be incorrect. Results illustrated that the women who were most
intolerant of their husbands’ abuse at initial testing were the wives who were most likely
to leave by the follow-up visit. Gortner et al. eloquently summarize that “women who
were more likely to leave showed remarkably courageous levels of assertion in an
environment where such behavior contains enormous risks” (1997:350).
Finally, the third myth stated that physical violence was the greatest predictor of
a victim leaving her abusive husband. In fact, the researchers found that emotional abuse
was a stronger predictor, an effect that they believed had to do with the initial pairing of
physical violence and emotional violence. Over time, the abuser simply emotionally
abuses the victim while still controlling her, due to the potential risk of physical violence
associated with emotional abuse.
Another important finding regarding what causes a victim to leave a violent
situation came from Meyer’s (2010) study of IPV victims with children. Meyer found
that “While the involvement of unborn children (i.e., abusive experiences during
pregnancy) had no effect on victims’ help-seeking decisions, children who resided with
the victim and directly witnessed the abuse had the largest effect on all examined helpseeking decisions. Victims’ perception that their children had to witness any violent
4
�incidents even increased the likelihood of approaching sources that are usually
significantly underutilized, such as the police and refuges or transition homes” (p. 724).
Meyer questioned whether women seek help because they are aware of the effects
violence can have upon their children, or whether the violence had begun to be directed
towards the children. As was the case with Gortner et al., Meyer’s research helps to
dispel myths that wrongly paint mothers who experience IPV as irresponsible or
negligent parents.
Pollak’s (2004) intergenerational model of domestic violence (IMDV) further
explains the dynamics of abusive relationships in detailing how the propensity to act
violently within a relationship, or to stay in a violent relationship, is passed down from
parent to child. Within the explanation of his proposed theory, Pollak states that the
phrase ‘cycle of violence’ is common within the IPV literature, yet there are very limited
attempts by researchers to analyze how exactly this cycle occurs. Like most other
researchers and literature, he assumes that there is a specific pathway of transmission –
namely, that the probability of perpetrating or being the victim of IPV later in life is
dependent upon witnessing IPV within the person’s childhood family. He theorizes three
main assumptions of the IMDV:
The probability that a husband will be violent depends on whether he
grew up in a violent home. The probability that a wife will remain with
a violent husband depends on whether she grew up in a violent home.
Individuals who grew up in violent homes tend to marry individuals
who grew up in violent homes. (P. 311)
Pollack’s IMDV, while not perfect in its exclusion of important variables such
as economic, social, cultural, and policy factors, creates a very basic outline regarding the
transmission of violent tendencies within families. He further explains that the influence
of personal rational choices, in conjunction with economic, policy, and social or cultural
factors, alters the model. Regardless of its shortcomings, practitioners and researchers
can utilize the IMDV as a starting point for determining causes of IPV within
generationally violent families.
Levendosky et al. (2003) determined that although research has been done
regarding the effects of IPV upon children, most of these studies have suffered from
design problems regarding the sample size, lack of ethnic diversity, and inclusion of
shelter-only participants. Based upon existing research, Levendosky et al. sought to
answer four main hypotheses regarding: the effects of IPV on maternal psychological
5
�functioning, parenting, and attachment; the influence of mother-child variables on
children’s behavioral functioning; the effects of IPV, both directly and indirectly, on
children’s behavioral functioning through those mother-child variables; and the effects of
other variables, such as social support, life stress, and maternal childhood trauma, on
maternal psychological functioning. Levendosky et al. (2003) utilized 103 mother and
preschool-aged child pairs that were diverse in their ethnicities, education levels, and
incomes. They measured IPV, maternal childhood trauma, social support, life stress,
maternal psychological functioning, parenting, attachment, and children’s behavioral
functioning through various scales and questionnaires, as well as a 25-minute, videotaped
play-interaction between mother and child.
The researchers found support for an attachment theory framework, explaining
that IPV was directly related to attachment, parenting effectiveness, and maternal
psychological functioning. “The current study may reflect [a] compensation for the
violence by more attention and responsiveness to the child, which could be reflected both
in the mother’s parenting and in her child’s attachment to her” (Levendosky et al.
2003:282). They alternatively hypothesized that those results also may have stemmed
from a defensive response to parenting questions, allowing the mother to feel like a better
parent in spite of the occurrence of violence within the family. Furthermore, they found
that “effective and authoritative parenting was positively associated with the child’s
attachment to the mother” (2003:284). In conjunction with Meyer’s findings that showed
women will be more likely to leave if their children witness the abuse, the research
justifies that victims of IPV with children are not neglectful parents, as many people
commonly assume, but rather that they compensate for the violence as best they can and
are likely to leave when the violence directly affects their children.
Letourneau, Fedick, and Willms (2007) explain that recent research such as
Levendosky et al.’s suggests that “mothers of preschool-age children exposed to domestic
violence may be more sensitive and responsive to their children than other parents” (p.
649). Furthermore, other research has found that there is an over-representation of
preschool-aged children under five years of age in households in which women
experience IPV. Due to these findings and other gaps in the literature, Letourneau et al.
hypothesized that mothers who experienced IPV will differ in their reported parenting
behaviors (positive discipline, warm and nurturing parenting, and consistent parenting)
from mothers who have not experienced IPV. The researchers utilized data from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), detailing which
responses they interpreted for their analysis of parenting behaviors. They also
6
�determined predictors and covariates such as exposure to IPV, social support, family
function, maternal depression, maternal education and socioeconomic status, and the
child’s sex.
Letourneau et al. (2007) found that mothers exposed to IPV initially scored
lower on all three parenting behavior scales, but that these behaviors changed over time.
Mothers whose children were exposed to IPV, in comparison to mothers whose children
were not exposed to IPV, exhibited a greater increase in positive discipline parenting
behaviors and a smaller decrease in warm and nurturing parenting behaviors. This data
supports other studies that found that “mothers exposed to domestic appear to
compensate in parent-child interactions by being very attentive and sensitive to their
children; in this case, with more Positive Discipline, Warm and Nurturing, and
Consistent parenting” (2007:656). Other results found that maternal depression
decreased levels of positive discipline, family dysfunction decreased the levels of all
three of the parenting behaviors, and maternal education and higher socioeconomic status
increased levels of consistent parenting. The researchers also determined that there was a
sex-based link within their findings, noting that:
Female children experience lower initial levels of Warm and Nurturing
parenting and higher initial levels of Positive Discipline than male
children, but a steeper increase in warmth and nurturance from their
mothers as the children age. Moreover, exposure to violence in
combination with being a female child produced less positive discipline
over time. (Letourneau et al. 2007:657).
Not only does IPV affect children because they witness violence within their
families and it impacts the roles of their parents, but there is also considerable research
surrounding the impact that violence has on children. Numerous studies have found that
children exposed to either child abuse, IPV, or both had higher levels of behavior
problems in adolescence than children who were not exposed to violence. Children who
witnessed IPV and were also the victims of child abuse were “more consistently at risk
for the entire range of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems investigated than
those who experienced only one form of violence exposure” (Moylan et al. 2010:59).
Specifically, females will more commonly exhibit internalizing behavior problems, such
as being withdrawn, anxious, and depressed, and/or having somatic complaints, while
males will more commonly exhibit externalizing behavior problems, such as delinquent
and aggressive behaviors.
7
�Once the intricacies of IPV are understood, one can begin to apply the same
concepts to the realms of other forms of abuse, such as child and animal abuse. “Women
are injured or humiliated by violent partners, children are abused or neglected by parents
or older siblings, and the elderly are maltreated or economically deprived by adult
children or grandchildren. Violence pervades families in our society” (Onyskiw 2007:8).
In each of these familial relationships, as diverse as they may be, the abuser has some
form of power and control over the abused. Due to this commonality, one can begin to
understand the connection that materializes between the various forms of family violence
and how they influence the dynamic of violent families. Onyskiw (2007) claims that one
type of family violence does not always exist detached from its other various forms, but
rather that they each act as red flags, signaling the possible existence of other forms of
violence within the same household.
Many researchers have concluded that many different forms of violence will
often take place within the same household, but the co-occurrence of IPV and child abuse
is the most commonly studied. McKay (1994) summarized in her compilation of past
research that 45-70% of women utilizing IPV shelter services report instances of child
abuse as well. Furthermore, McKay cites Stacey and Shupe (1983), who found that child
abuse is 15% more likely in families that experience IPV, as well as Stark and Flitcraft
(1988), who found that two-thirds of abused children have a mother who is also abused.
Child sexual abuse is another form of abuse that can also occur in conjunction
with IPV and is influenced by various factors. Avery, Hutchinson, and Whitaker (2002)
analyzed the case records of 570 children from a battered women and children’s agency
to determine the intergenerational rates of child sexual abuse. They found that 93% of
the children were exposed to IPV, 41% were physically abused, and 11% were sexually
abused. This statistic was much lower than the average base rate of child sexual abuse of
25%. However, if nonaffending parents (typically the mother) were sexually abused as
children, their children were 1.89 times more likely to also be sexually abused. Avery et
al. (2002) summarized:
Though nonaffending parents are not to blame for their children’s
abuse, there may be an empirical relationship between the two
variables. The current study seems to suggest an intergenerational link
in the incidence of childhood sexual abuse…. In a qualitative study
involving 40 women, Armsworth and Stronck (1999) found a
significant intergenerational effect on parenting skills, abilities, and
8
�attitudes of individuals who suffered child sexual abuse, especially
incest. Perhaps the intergenerational effects of child abuse can be
found in both the adaptations victims make in order to survive the
trauma and in the serious impact their experiences have on their
physical, intellectual, and emotional development. (P. 85)
There is also growing evidence that animal abuse commonly occurs in
conjunction with IPV and/or child abuse. Ascione (1998) conducted one of the most
widely referenced studies on this topic when he surveyed 38 women seeking shelter
services. He found that 71% of pet-owning women claimed that their partner had
threatened, hurt, or actually killed their pet, while 32% of women with children claimed
that one of their children had hurt or killed a pet. This statistic may reinforce the research
that suggests witnessing abuse may increase a child’s chances of developing behavioral
problems. Expanding upon previous research, Carlisle-Frank, Frank, and Nielsen (2004)
determined that 48% of IPV victims delayed seeking help because they were concerned
for their pets and 25% of them returned to the abuser because of their pets. Very few IPV
shelters allow animals, leaving the victim with few options for protecting their pets, who
are arguably thought of as members of the family.
When considering all of this research, it seems as if there are certain trends that
occur within violent families. Namely, IPV tends to be transmitted intergenerationally
through families; it also commonly co-occurs with animal abuse, child abuse and child
sexual abuse; witnessing and/or experiencing abuse increases the likelihood of behavior
problems in children; being a victim of abuse affects the way women parent; and finally,
the presence of children who witness the abuse increases the likelihood of a woman
leaving a violent situation. Through a series of in-depth case studies, these hypotheses
will be tested and the dynamics of violence within families will be analyzed.
III. Methods
Data was collected through in-depth interviews with four survivors of IPV.
They were all female, yet varied in age, ethnicity, marital status, and socioeconomic
status. The small sample size was chosen to obtain a more rich and thorough case study
analysis of IPV in relation to other family dynamics. Specifically, there was a focus on
children either witnessing or being the victim of abuse and the impact it had on them, as
well as the presence of violence with other family members. The validity of having a
larger sample size was sacrificed to achieve more qualitative and personalized stories
9
�from the survivors interviewed, as a means of truly hearing the voice of a survivor, as
opposed to statistically analyzing more quantitative results. While the methods of the
current study may offer a more detailed look into the family dynamics surrounding IPV,
it did have flaws as well. In addition to the lowered validity of a study of only four
participants, the experiences of each survivor proved to be unique and dense, making
them difficult to condense and relate to one another. However, the synthesis of all four
case studies provided an interesting cross-section of the ways in which IPV affects family
dynamics.
The survivors were found through referrals from urban victim’s service
advocates and agencies in a large city in the northeast region of the United States. A
general protocol, confidentiality form, and interview question list were handed out to
advocates who attended meetings focused on IPV, who were then given the opportunity
to clarify any details with the researcher. Advocates later passed on the contact
information of their interested clients to the researcher. After agreeing to a meeting,
survivors read and signed the confidentiality form that explained the nature of the
interview and its intended use (Appendix B). The form stated that names would be
changed, along with any other details that may lead the survivor to be identified, such as
age, location, and occupation. They were also given the option to tell the researcher what
additional details they wanted changed or omitted at that time or during the process of the
interview. The researcher asked for permission to sound record the interview, as a means
of focusing on the conversation and allowing for the freedom to take more detailed notes
at a later time, and all participants agreed. At any point during the interview the survivor
had the option of pausing or stopping the interview altogether, to allow for autonomy and
comfort when speaking about their traumatic experiences.
The interviews were held in a private and casual setting in an IPV advocacy
agency. If travel was an issue, the researcher offered to conduct a phone interview, but
no one needed to accept this offer. At the start of the interview, survivors were
encouraged to speak freely about their experiences, which happened without much
prompting. While the researcher did have a general interview guideline (Appendix C),
the conversations flowed more naturally, allowing for the survivors’ comfort and ease in
telling their stories. The interview guideline contained questions such as “How did the
violence begin?,” “When and how did the violence affect your children?,” and “How did
you seek assistance?” Questions aimed at clarifying or elaborating on specific details
were inserted when necessary. Specific clarification questions utilized were “How did
your child respond to witnessing that violence?,” “Were you married at this point in the
10
�relationship?,” and “Were you aware of the violence between other family members at
the time?” Because the interviews were all sound recorded, the researcher did not take
notes concurrently with the interview and could instead focus on creating rapport and
understanding all aspects of the survivors’ stories.
Following the interviews, the recordings were transcribed, both in general points
and direct quotes, at the discretion of the researcher. Recordings were then deleted from
both the recording device and the personal computer on which they were stored. The
interviews were developed into case studies to assist in the explanation of the family
dynamics surrounding IPV; the case studies specifically focused on the intergenerational
transmission of violence, the co-occurrence with other forms of family violence, its
impact on children, and the victims’ decisions to leave. The researcher paid particular
attention to variables such as the presence of children during violent situations, the
history of IPV in the survivor’s own family, the behavior of children who witnessed or
experienced abuse, and the changes in the family dynamic before, during, and after the
survivor was in the abusive relationship.
IV. Results
Case Study 1 – Janet
Janet’s story of abuse began 35 years ago when she met her current ex-husband
Harry. She had been married and divorced already with three-year-old twins, and that
first marriage had also been abusive. Janet and Harry knew each other from around the
neighborhood, and began seeing each other while he was still married to another woman.
They did not live together or get married immediately, but his controlling and abusive
behaviors escalated as time went on. Due to Janet’s past, she was raised with the
assumption that gender roles were rigid and wives were submissive and obedient.
“One of his biggest things was, ‘A husband comes home from work
and there’s no dinner on the table?! You piece of garbage,’ c-word,
everything, before he left in the morning. And he still expected dinner
on the table because I did it for years. I mean really, I was abused to
the point where, if he did something horrible, the next night we would
have sex. I hate to say it but that’s what I did. And he can’t even
11
�imagine that I don’t want to go near him. You know, when I see what
happened in my life, I see that I was brought up like that. I catered to
him, I used to lay out his clothes, iron them, pick them out for him
because he was colorblind. I was brought up to be like that. My father
was an alcoholic, and my mother was like that. So I thought that’s
what you did. My mother did that and we all thought that’s what you
do. Harry’s definitely a narcissist. Even when we went to therapy at a
marriage counselor, the therapist told me, ‘Your husband is a
narcissist,’ just by talking to him. But, you know, I thought I was in
love. And then he always belittled me, made me feel like I was
horrible. I was his Stepford Wife.”
Not only was Janet controlled by Harry’s expectations of her, but she was also
financially dependent on him, having to ask for money and explain what she spent it on.
Janet eventually got custody of her daughter’s young son, Zachary, due to her daughter’s
drug addiction. Because of Zachary’s connection to his grandfather and his need for
stability, Janet could not leave.
“But then I got custody of Zachary, my grandson, eight years ago. My
twin daughter was a drug addict, and she still is. And I still took it,
because Zachary loved him. I mean, he is good to Zachary, but you
don’t talk like that to me in front of Zachary. You don’t do that. And I
was still so scared to leave. What am I going to do? I’ve always had
somebody my whole life. I worked for awhile but mainly he took care
of everything, and the thought of just being on my own – I was scared.”
Harry understood the complex relationship between Janet and her daughter,
utilizing it against her as he wanted. He realized that even Janet’s grown children wanted
a father figure in their lives and he would give them things or side with them in
arguments to be on their good side, casting Janet in a bad light in the process.
“My husband didn’t support me in my situation with my daughter.
‘You call the cops. You do this.’ I was put in a position to be strong
for Zachary. I didn’t see it when I had my children, but I’m not going
to be guilty about that. I was in a situation, it was wrong, I stayed, my
kids were young too, but I had a chance to do it again. He always tried
to make me the bad guy and always wanted to be their friend. But they
12
�took it as him being weak, because he let them get away with things.
He’s my daughter’s best friend when she’s doing drugs, because he
wants to be the hero. He needs credit for everything.”
Because Janet’s daughter was on drugs when she was pregnant with Zachary, he
has behavioral, sensory, and speech problems, which require him to have a strict schedule
and diet, something that Harry rarely abided by. Harry used this form of bribery with
Zachary as well, although Janet thinks he always knew what was going on even though
he was so young.
“He used to act up when my husband was around, and turn on me,
because he knew he would get away with it, talking to me like that and
be fresh whenever I was there with my husband. Harry would protect
him and he was testing me. I still wouldn’t let him not get a time out. I
was persistent with him. He told his teacher, ‘Grandma gives me time
outs because she loves me.’ He tests you. Kids do that, definitely.”
It was apparent that Zachary wanted his grandparents to be happy together, and
Janet felt bad for sending him mixed signals. When he would make them lie in bed
together and show affection towards one another they would humor him, but she never
felt comfortable lying to him. Even though Harry never physically abused Janet’s
children or Zachary, they all witnessed the verbal abuse and degradation, which later
caused behavioral problems with Zachary. One specific incident stayed in Zachary’s
mind for years.
“I knew something was bothering him right after this happened,
because he had to leave his school because he was having emotional
problems. He was hitting teachers. He was doing so many horrible
things. We didn’t really realize why. One night my husband was
upstairs with Zachary. He was holding him and it was time for bed.
Zachary has structure, he has a lot of things he has to do because of his
problems, and it was time for bed and he was giving him something
sweet. I had done an organic diet. You have to do certain things and
you have to be strict about it. And he would always go against me. So
I told Zachary, ‘Come on, you have to go to bed now.’ He looked at
Harry and said ‘Grandpa I want to stay’ but it was late. So I said
‘Harry come on, we have to put him to bed.’ And he started flipping
13
�out with Zachary in his hands. He threw me on the bed while Zachary
was in his arms and watching the whole thing.”
It was not until two years later, when Zachary told this story to his therapist, that
Janet understood that experience to be the root of the behavioral problems that forced him
to change schools.
“He told his therapist and she called me and she said, ‘Zachary wants to
tell you something.’ He said, ‘Grandma I remember that day when
Grandpa threw you on the bed.’ That was inside him and bothering
him for so long. I don’t think Harry was a danger to Zachary in any
way except in front of me, with him, that kind of thing. He would
never physically hurt Zachary. Emotionally he did and he wouldn’t
look at that in that way. But I’ve moved on from that.”
When Janet began to realize that she had to leave, Harry caught on and
continued to use her children to undermine her even more. He utilized her daughter’s
addiction to become close with her, even though her presence in the house was a danger
to Zachary. Even when Janet’s daughter would be in the house using drugs and there was
a risk of her son seeing her high, Harry would do everything in his power to get Janet’s
daughter on his side.
“He knew that I didn’t want to be with him anymore. I was in the
process of really thinking about getting out of there. So he became
friends with my daughter. He always did that though. She was the
addict and she was his best friend, and if she did something, I was the
one that was disappointed and the bad guy. And he would tell her
horrible things. I was bad, raising her son wrong, whatever, in front of
Zachary.”
One night in particular served as the catalyst for Janet’s final decision to leave.
Harry made an excuse for why he was going to be out late, as was common, but also
proceeded to tell Janet that he was turning his cell phone off, which he rarely did. Janet
was suspicious but still had a big dinner waiting on the table when he got home.
“When he walked in I had dinner ready and I smelled perfume. But I
let him eat his dinner before saying anything. When I did ask him
about it, he flipped out like you can’t imagine, because I dare accuse
14
�him of anything like that. And he took all the clothes and threw them
all over the place. ‘You pick them up!’ That whole bit, I went through
that for years and years. And I was devastated because I was taking
care of my sick cousin at the time and he was telling people ‘Oh she’s
so good’ and then he goes and does something like that, and it just did
something to me. I said, ‘No, I can’t do it anymore.’ So really from
that time on I knew I couldn’t be with him anymore. And he’s going
berserk because he doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He doesn’t
realize that what he did was horrible. Horrible. And I wasn’t keeping
Zachary there to know or think that’s how you treat people.”
Even though her sisters wanted her to leave immediately, Janet did not think that
would be best for Zachary, and created a plan that would get her out of the house, on her
own terms. Although it took a long time and it was tough, she eventually succeeded in
leaving Harry in the exact way she had planned.
“For seven years after my cousin died, I started, whatever money I had,
to put it away. I started putting it away because I knew I had a plan. I
couldn’t do it without the plan. I couldn’t bring Zachary to a shelter,
although I was thinking about it. Maybe I would lose him. So I
avoided Harry, I tried not to be there when he was there, and if he was
there I wouldn’t interact with him or anything. I finally got real estate.
I found an apartment. You have no idea how perfect everything is now.
You have no idea, the freedom and the peace. So I got an apartment
and I thought Zachary was going to have problems with it because his
mom and dad left him and now his grandfather isn’t around, even
though he loved him, but he has the peace too. He has the peace too.”
Case Study 2 – Danielle
Danielle’s story of abuse differs from the other case studies in that it centers on
childhood sexual abuse and addiction, which were both transmitted intergenerationally
through her family. Danielle’s father, a pedophile who began molesting her while she
was still in diapers, was the son of a brutal alcoholic who most likely molested him. Her
mother’s mother died when she was nine, at which point her father dropped her off at a
convent. Danielle’s mother admitted to her that she had been sexually assaulted in her
15
�past, but refused to give details, claiming that ‘We don’t talk about old things,’ a trend of
covering up the unhappy truths that continued throughout Danielle’s whole life.
“My older brother and sister, and then my brother-in-law, all abused me
as well. They were doing what was done to them. And then when I
was 15 it escalated from my father just coming in my room at night and
forcing me to perform oral sex on him, to threatening to kill me if I told
when he brutally raped me and left me in my bed beat up.”
Danielle had turned to alcohol and drugs when she was 11-years-old, to cope
with the sexual abuse from her various family members, and by the time her father raped
her she was well into addiction. Her addictions included alcohol and cocaine, and she
also shifted back and forth between anorexia and overeating. Her father was incredibly
manipulative and did a remarkable job of isolating Danielle from her mother and siblings.
His isolation, emotional abuse, and degradation can undoubtedly be considered the
grooming behaviors seen in many pedophiles.
“My father would take me out of the house, pretend to give me special
attention, give me chocolate bars. We would come home and my
siblings would hate me because I was getting special attention. I think
I was isolated the most, being the youngest, but the probability that it
was happening to everyone at some point is high. It was very clear that
you don’t talk about incest in my family. There was nowhere to go.
He would give me extra food at the diner table to keep my mouth shut.
After choking me in the basement I’d have to sit next to him and eat
and pretend everything was nice. So I just stopped eating at one point.
That was my only power. Then I got to be 200 pounds. It’s been a lot
of work to survive this family.”
Her parents’ relationship itself was incredibly strained, and Danielle often had to
act as the gofer for them. This furthered her father’s ability to utilize her relationship
with him to his advantage. Danielle describes her mother as turning a blind eye to the
incest that was occurring in the family, but she was incredibly vigilant when it came to
other people. Along with the incest and constant denial that anything bad was happening,
there was also an overwhelming trend of alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental health
problems throughout her entire family.
16
�“My father was awful towards my mother. They hated each other. But
she was dedicated to him. So dedicated that she died on his birthday.
They were always just horrible. I was in the middle, so it was always
‘Go tell your mother’ or ‘Go tell your father.’ He wouldn’t talk to her,
he would talk about her, and they didn’t sleep in the same room. My
father’s alcoholism was periodic. My mother was so tough that she
wouldn’t let him drink. The first drink that I ever had was given to me
by my father when my mother was out shopping. He snuck a drink out
and I caught him so he said, ‘Have some and don’t tell your mother.’ I
was little and it was always all these secrets that I had to keep from my
parents. I was pulled out of line from my mother very young by my
abuser. I had to love him to survive. I had to do whatever he wanted to
survive. The mind games were incredible and she was just out to
lunch. She was not helpful, but look where she came from: a convent.
My mother was very careful with us in other ways, with other people.
But not with her own husband. She made sure we didn’t have
sleepovers, because she didn’t want us to be sexually abused, because
she knew she had been sexually abused. But she was looking in the
wrong direction.”
The family that Danielle grew up in affected the ways in which she related to
other men. She claims that she has never had a positive relationship, always picking men
who were inappropriate for her, either in the way they treated her, their age, or their own
addictions. She believes that never letting in a good and healthy person was her way of
never having to come to terms with her past.
“I married a guy who was in jail for raping a teenager and I just pawned
it off as ‘Oh the girl was loose.’ I believed him, because I hadn’t done
enough work on myself or my life to stay out of trouble with men. I
put up with a lot in the marriage. I went to nine therapists with him to
try to fix him, because I felt bad for him. The codependency is so
wrapped into all of this. I watched my mother protect and take care of
my father, who was an animal. And I repeated it.”
Danielle and her husband had a daughter together, who was born premature and
sick due to what Danielle explains as being unable to emotionally cope with being
pregnant. He was abusive to both her and her daughter throughout the relationship, but
17
�Danielle was still in such a state of deep codependency that she did not allow it to affect
her.
“He picked me up by the throat one time, and I’m embarrassed to say
this, but I just begged him not to leave me. It went back to my
childhood. Children that are abused attach to the abuser. I just
transferred that abuse and attachment to my ex-husband. And he
wasn’t the first, he was just the one I married.”
Eventually Danielle realized that she no longer wanted to raise her daughter in
such a violent situation and began the process of getting a divorce from her husband.
One night Danielle and her soon-to-be-ex-husband had to go to mediation, but her
babysitter cancelled at the last minute. Danielle’s 19-year-old nephew offered to watch
her two-year-old daughter while she was gone. Her nephew had been exposed to
Danielle’s father, his grandfather, and was also most likely molested by him in Danielle’s
opinion.
“I was so careful with my daughter. My nephew was working with my
ex-husband doing construction at the time, and he offered to stay with
her. That night at mediation my husband, and in several other different
therapy sessions with professionals, threatened to kill me. He told me
how he was going to blow my brains out and leave me dead and
bloodied. I just sat there, detached, looking at the books on the
therapist’s shelf, thinking he’s not going to do any of that. I went home
that night, told the kid to go home, and the next morning my daughter
clearly told me what happened. She pointed at her vagina, made a
gesture with her mouth, and said my nephew’s name. This is what
happens to women in domestic violence though – I was so shot and
disconnected from trying to survive and get him out of the house, that I
just didn’t address it, and that’s probably what my mother did too.”
Danielle eventually wrote to her nephew’s college and tried to talk to her family
about it, but they all shunned her for bringing it up at all. A few years later, Danielle’s
ex-husband had a phone conversation with his cousin that sparked memories. He realized
that his grandfather had abused him when he was six-years-old. Two weeks later,
Danielle’s ex-husband molested their six-year-old daughter during one of her visits.
Danielle’s daughter, now in her pre-teen years, is slowly beginning to understand the
18
�dynamics involved within their family, and having a mother with experience with
childhood sexual abuse helps her cope.
“She’s still angry. She’s still hurt. She doesn’t know how her dad
could hurt her. It’s ongoing and sometimes I want a break, but there’s
no break. I can’t say ‘It’s 9:30, it’s your bedtime. We can’t talk about
this now.’ So I have to lay with her and make her feel safe. She’ll ask
me ‘Did your dad ever do that to you? Dad choked me and then
watched The Simpsons. What kind of monster does that?’”
Due to their pasts with childhood sexual abuse, both Danielle and her daughter
have been affected greatly in their daily lives. Danielle has been sober for nearly two and
a half decades now, and has been in therapy to deal with her past as a victim of incest for
about eight years, which also helped to relieve her of her eating disorders. She credits
Eye Movement Desensitization Response Therapy (EMDR) with her recovery progress,
as it focuses on bringing the trauma to the surface and allowing her to ‘unfreeze.’
However, certain aspects of her life are slow to change.
“Trust issues and intimacy are so scary. Because I was so young when
the abuse started. And it went on for so long and no one ever
interfered. It really does affect every inch of your life. And people just
go, ‘Oh you were abused? Let it go. You still carry that around?’
They don’t get it. So I don’t share with a lot of people. And they’re
critical of me, why I don’t work full time, why I don’t have a better job.
I stopped trying to explain myself to people.”
Danielle’s daughter is also working through her recovery, which tends to affect
her through surges in memories and dreams, each feeding the other. Danielle is clearly
proud of how clever and open her daughter is with her, which has made the process easier
for the both of them, but understands the trauma that her daughter will have to work
through for the rest of her life.
“She feels different because she doesn’t have a dad. She wants me to
remarry so she can have a family, like every kid. In elementary school
she had a problem and the teacher called me and said ‘What happened?
She’s not herself today.’ I’m not about to tell the public school system
what’s going on, so I just had to say that she’s in counseling and her
dad isn’t in her life. But he wasn’t all bad like my dad. That’s what I
19
�have to tell my daughter too. ‘There were parts of daddy that were
good. We don’t have to hate.’ We’re moving towards not letting him
matter to her anymore. It’s not going to hurt as much. There will be
bumps but we’ll move on.”
Case Study 3 – Marlena
When Marlena first met her boyfriend Tommy, little things kept happening that
felt suspicious, but Tommy was always able to explain them away. He had just been
released from prison when he suddenly moved out of town and asked Marlena to go with
him. Once they were settled, he refused to get a job and told her he could not apply for
food stamps because his mother was already claiming him on hers. It was not until a
short while later that Marlena found out Tommy had another warrant out for his arrest,
which is why he fled and tried to remain off the radar. Even Marlena’s parents
disapproved of him from the beginning, and she claims that they must have sensed it all
along.
“When we were beginning, I noticed a few things with him. Like he
liked to drink a lot. We used to drink and smoke and everything, and I
would notice he would get a little hyper and stuff like that. He was a
totally different person drinking. He would accuse me of looking at
other guys and make up these scenarios in his head and I’d say, ‘I
wasn’t even thinking that. You have the craziest imagination.’ I was
thinking it was too much togetherness after we were living together. I
ended up getting fired from my job because he kept coming around,
picking me up, giving the manager dirty looks because he was talking
to me. I was like ‘Tommy, he’s my manager. He has to talk to me.’
When I would go pick up my checks – they were paying me cash there
– he’d want to hold it and I would never see my money again. It started
like that. When I would go out, even if I would go to a store, he used to
hide behind cars, and the store was literally only 50 feet away. He
would hide behind the cars, make sure nobody followed me.”
The controlling behavior continued to escalate, and eventually Marlena was not
even allowed to go to the bathroom or shower without Tommy following her. She had no
privacy or alone time. Tommy constantly believed she was cheating on him and would
verbally abuse her to lower her self-esteem and make her more vulnerable. Furthmore,
20
�he would always take the money Marlena earned or had saved and would spend it all in
one day. Eventually he began strangling her and throwing her against the wall,
sometimes with no warning or reason.
“I forget when was the first time he hit me. He hit me so much. One
time he strangled me so hard I had a bruise on my neck in the shape of
his hand for days. I never could go anywhere either because my family
would see the bruises and cuts.”
When his aggression started escalating, Marlena would fight back or try to
leave, but was never able to go far because he would follow her or go to every one of her
relatives’ houses to try to find her. As is common in IPV, Tommy would follow his
violence with gifts and apologies, a popular strategy that some theorize causes the victim
to associate the physical or emotional suffering with love and devotion.
“Every morning he would bring me breakfast, he would cook for me to
say sorry. Everyday, even if we didn’t argue, he would always bring
me a rose, or bring me a card, or write a note for me. He wrote me
poems and would try to make it up to me, selling me the stars and the
moon and everything. He was sweet in that sense, so maybe that kept
me thinking, ‘Well, maybe he is sorry.’ I had relationships before but
never like him. He can meet you and you’ll give him your car. He has
that talk. He’s extremely charming.”
Tommy further isolated Marlena, who was already on bad terms with most of
her family, by making her stay home and babysit his younger siblings. When they would
fight and he hit her, his older sister and mother, who they both lived with for awhile,
would never interfere. Marlena knows that both women were just as violent as Tommy,
and she believes that IPV is something that ran in the family. When one of Tommy’s
younger brothers tried to stop him from strangling her once, he received the brunt of
Tommy’s physical aggression.
“We just got into another argument. I don’t remember what it was
either. But me and him started fighting, like fist fighting, and his little
brother was there. His little brother started crying and was like
‘Tommy, stop! Tommy, stop!’ Tommy grabbed me by my neck,
picked me up, threw me on a deep freezer that we had, and started
21
�choking me. Tommy’s little brother hit him, and Tommy just pushed
him.”
Eventually, Marlena got pregnant, something that made Tommy extremely
excited. He knew she was pregnant weeks before she did, and even guessed that it was a
girl immediately. While Marlena was hopeful that this would spark a change in him, her
family was much less supportive.
“When I called my mom and my sister, my sister hung up on me and
my mom told me she was disappointed in me. The pregnancy was the
only time the physical violence almost stopped. He pushed me against
the wall twice, but he never hit my stomach. He used to force me to
have sex with him though, which I didn’t want to do because I was so
pregnant and uncomfortable. Even if I would cry he would tell me that
I had to because that’s what he wanted. He used to always tell me I
looked pretty when I cried. He was sick.”
Before Marlena gave birth to the baby, Tommy was arrested again. He wanted
to get married as soon as he was released, but Marlena began having doubts, which
caused Tommy to accuse her of cheating on him even more. She had their baby girl
while he was in jail and when he got out she bought him everything that he needed. He
took her help for granted and blew through her savings immediately. It was at this point
that she started thinking about the prospect of leaving him.
“I was looking for work because, again, he was holding the money. He
didn’t want to give me anything and he would complain about buying
diapers. I had about $2,000 saved and he spent it all. On what, I don’t
know. He spent it in a day. While he was in jail I had realized I didn’t
need his help for anything. When he got home he would not help me at
all. When it was time to change the diaper, he wouldn’t do it. He
didn’t want to give her a bath. He said ‘I feel awkward giving her a
bath because she’s a girl.’ So he really wouldn’t help me. He would
just teach her bad things. Babies soak up everything. He would teach
her to rock back and forth in her chair and I was like ‘Tommy, she’s
going to fall.’ I know he wants to have fun, but damn, teach her the
ABCs.”
22
�Marlena realized the source of Tommy’s constant suspicion of her cheating on
him when she found out that he had been sneaking around with other women behind her
back. One day she accidentally took his phone, which was identical to hers, when she
went to visit her family. While she was gone a girl called asking for Tommy, saying she
had met him the night before.
“I got home and told him I accidentally took his phone and he got
scared and said he was looking for it. And then it rang again with a
different number and a different girl’s name. I picked up and told him
to say hello but he wouldn’t. I said, ‘If you have nothing to hide you’re
going to talk.’ And he just said, ‘No. No.’ He started twisting my arm
behind my back, trying to grab the phone out of my hand. And my
daughter is in the crib and she starts screaming. So he was grabbing
my arm, twisting it back, and I was grabbing the phone. He snatched
the phone out of my hand, and he smacked me with it across my face.”
She took her daughter and left him to move back in with her parents. Since they
never liked or trusted Tommy, they set strict rules about not being in contact with him
and not allowing him in the house. One night after calling Marlena hundreds of times in
a row, he snuck into the house on his own. While they were fighting, Marlena’s mom
came into the room. Tommy lied to her and said that he had been invited, which she
believed. Marlena eventually got him to leave, but was kicked out of her parents’ house
regardless.
“I said, ‘Tommy get out.’ He wanted to grab his stuff but it was all
outside. I packed it. Every single shred of his clothes, anything that
was his. You know what he goes and takes? My daughter’s piggy
bank. It says My First Piggy Bank on it and I was filling it up for her.
He went and took the piggy bank and said, ‘This is mine. I’m leaving.’
I just thought, ‘He really took my daughter’s piggy bank? What a
bum.’”
Since Tommy convinced Marlena’s mom that she had snuck him in herself, they
were now both homeless. They got married immediately so that they could go to the
shelter as a family, but they did not end up staying. Their violent relationship continued
while they were living with Tommy’s aunt, and eventually their daughter got in the
middle of the physical violence.
23
�“Him and I started arguing. We started fighting. It was like five
o’clock in the morning and I was coming home from my job. We
started fist fighting and we were fighting into the bedroom. I got into
the room and I saw my daughter sitting up and whimpering. So I went
and picked her up and told him to get away from me. I started feeling
my daughter and she was hot as hell with a fever. I wanted to leave
with my daughter so I grabbed our bags. I had the baby on my right
side and he started hitting me on the left side. My daughter started
screaming and hugging me, while he was hitting me on one side. He
was like ‘Give me my daughter’ and was pulling her out of my hands.
I saw that he would hurt her so I just let him take her. She was crying
and grabbing onto me but he was pulling her. I thought he was going
to end up either pulling her really hard and hurting her or dropping her,
so I just let him take her. I couldn’t do that to my kid.”
The deciding factor to leave came when Tommy pushed Marlena down the stairs
so hard that her shoes fell off. Their daughter had become more and more involved in
their fights and it was no longer a safe place for her. The fighting had even began
affecting Marlena’s daughter’s behavior.
“One time when he pushed me I almost hit my daughter as I was
falling. Her playpen was there but I moved my hand and just fell onto
the floor. I ran into the kitchen then to get him away from her. He
would have blamed me if I fell into her. Even though he was the one
who was pushing me, it would have been my fault. She was around the
fighting too much and it affects her. My daughter used to never hit
people, but she started swinging and she was only one. She started
hitting. I opened my eyes after I had my baby and saw that he didn’t
change. I knew that after being in prison for a whole year, nothing’s
going to change him at all.”
After she left him, Marlena’s mother sent her to visit family out of the country
as a way to completely cut ties with him. When she got back she found out that he was
still claiming Marlena and their daughter on his food stamps, but was spending them on
his new girlfriend and her baby. Marlena asked him to buy a gallon of milk for their
daughter, which was much cheaper than the formula he was buying for his girlfriend’s
baby, but he refused. She eventually began getting storeowners who knew her well to
24
�charge her milk to his food stamps, because it was apparent that Tommy had completely
neglected his responsibilities to his daughter.
“My daughter had gotten sick while we were out of the country and I
asked him for twenty dollars to see the doctor and buy medicine
because I had nothing. He said, ‘No screw you. You left with my
daughter. Screw you and the baby.’”
When she saw Tommy and his girlfriend for the first time after she left, he tried
throwing Marlena in front of a car, causing a witness to call the cops. Even though she
had an order of protection against him, she did not have it on her and the cops refused to
try to find him. Eventually Tommy was arrested again, which gave Marlena enough time
to move and change her phone number to better distance herself and their daughter from
him.
“He used to tell me that if I left him he would throw acid on my face so
nobody would want me. He used to tell me he would stab me. Stuff
like that. He was crazy. I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to
be with him again. No matter how much I might think he changed,
he’s not. When I went to get my order of protection, she read me a list
of ten domestic violence signs and he had done each and every one of
them. I had never thought about it like that before. I thought everyone
fights. My mom and dad fought when I was growing up. But she’s the
one that pointed out how controlling he was and made me realize that
that’s domestic violence. I’m not trying to have my daughter see that at
all. I don’t want her growing up thinking it’s ok for a man to hit her. I
think I would not want that for my own daughter, so why would I want
it for myself? So that’s why I went back to school, and I’m working
two jobs. It’s hard, handling everything, but at the same time, it’s not
impossible. My child is worth it.”
Case Study 4 – Alana
When Alana first met her boyfriend Richard, they did not go on dates because of
their work schedules, so their relationship was confined to his house from the beginning.
When Alana was telling her mom about the man she had met, her mom was not happy
and warned Alana about the issues that could accompany dating older men.
25
�“I mentioned his age, which was 15 years older than I am, and my mom
was in a relationship like that where she dated someone with the same
age difference. She told me, ‘You’ve seen what I went through and
you know that it’s never a good idea to date someone that much older
than you are.’ Her relationship was abusive too. She met my stepdad
when I was about three-years-old and the abuse started when I was
nine, so I witnessed everything.”
Alana began to notice that Richard was very possessive of her and commonly
yelled at any other man who looked at her, even if she did not think anyone was looking
at her. His controlling behavior carried over into her relationships with friends and
coworkers as well.
“I wasn’t admiring any other guys or anything like that. I was just
looking around, watching people in the restaurant. He was like, ‘I need
to put sunglasses on your face when we go out because you’re always
looking around.’ I didn’t even know that was a form of abuse until
after I decided to get help. He would question me and call me at my
job. He even questioned my friends and coworkers when they
answered the phone.”
Sara broke up with Richard shortly after they began dating because she became
aware of his sudden change in attitude and the way he treated her. She says that
everything about him changed. Regardless of what she said or did, Richard did not stop
trying to contact her over those months apart, utilizing their sexual relationship to shame
her.
“He never stopped calling. Every single day and night, day and night,
he was leaving me disgusting messages. He would leave me messages
about whatever we had done sexually, like ‘You’re a nasty, disgusting
whore. You let me do this to you.’ Anything we did he would use it
against me and disrespect me and make me feel like less of a person.”
Even though Richard continued to manipulate and control Alana in this way,
they eventually got back together. He began trying to control Alana’s finances and
would get mad when she tried to send money to her sick grandmother. Even after her
grandmother died, Richard was unsupportive and did not seem to care. One day when
26
�Alana mentioned that someone had chased her with a gun in the past and she was now
afraid of them, Richard took his gun out of the drawer.
“I told him to put it away but he started smiling. I distanced myself
from him and he came closer with it. When I ran away he chased me
back and forth around the house with the gun. After that happened, I
don’t know if it was a panic attack or anxiety, but I started breathing
hard and I told him. He said ‘Oh you’re just looking for attention.
There’s nothing wrong with you.’ I started crying and he just took me
home. I had to call the ambulance when I got there and at the hospital
they told me it was a panic attack.”
Alana kept trying to limit contact with Richard, but he would show up at her
house unannounced. He continually convinced her to work things out and she eventually
moved in with him. Richard’s controlling behavior and constant suspicion that Alana
was cheating on him turned into controlling behaviors such as his checking her
underwear when she came home and forcing her to have sex to determine if she had been
with anyone else. This behavior ultimately turned into violent and painful sexual assault.
“If I was going to my mom’s house or work, he would try to have sex
with me the night before. It would be really, really rough painful sex.
He would say, ‘Well if you’re going to try to be with someone else,
you’re not going to be able to now.’”
When Alana started to think she might be pregnant, Richard was mad and
denied the possibility of her being pregnant with his child. He already had two older
children and refused to believe he would have a third, even though they had never used
any form of pregnancy prevention. His control led to Alana cutting ties with her friends
and changing whatever she could to appease him.
“That’s when everything really started. He said, ‘If you’re pregnant,
it’s not mine. You’re probably sleeping with someone else.’ Before I
knew I was pregnant, he had seen me getting dressed in a matching bra
and panties and accused me of cheating then too. My mom told me it
was abuse and he was controlling but I was trying to do the best I could
to not get him upset. I was doing what he was asking, I limited my
male friends, I got rid of everybody. Because if he’s getting upset, and
we’re in a relationship, maybe I shouldn’t have male friends. I was
27
�trying to be the perfect girlfriend for him. If he didn’t want me to dress
a certain way, I wasn’t going to. If he didn’t want me to have that
friend, I wasn’t going to.”
Richard continued to deny that the child was his and told Alana and her parents
that he would have nothing to do with Alana or her child. She went to her appointments
on her own while she was living with her parents and looking for an apartment to raise
the baby alone. He contacted her again and they would see each other from time to time.
When she moved back in with him a few months later, the abuse continued. Alana lived
in constant fear that she would lose the baby.
“He was never concerned about the health of the baby. He was hoping
that I had a miscarriage. Throughout the time that we were intimate, he
used to be really rough. After we were done he would ask if I was
bleeding and mention that people have miscarriages after sex. It’s like
he was trying to make me miscarry.”
When Alana started to go into labor, Richard told her she was being stupid and
was not having the baby. She had to call a cab to get to the hospital, even though Richard
had two cars parked outside. While Alana was in the hospital, Richard went to work like
nothing was happening and only sent his mother to the hospital once a nurse called him.
Richard eventually showed up for the birth of the baby, and even though Alana did not
want him in the room, she felt like she could not kick him out because of the possible
consequences later. The first day home, Alana realized just how detrimental Richard
would be when it came to raising the baby, as well as Alana’s need to heal from her
episiotomy.
“My cousin and I had been sterilizing bottles and we left the pot of
water on the stove. When he came home at two o’clock in the
morning, he dragged me out of bed to empty the pot of water. He
yelled, ‘Just because you have a baby, you think you’re going to be
lazy and not keep my house clean. You’re going to get up and make
my house right.’ I had to crawl on my knees, because I was in so much
pain from being cut open down there, to get to the kitchen to dump the
pot. It was just water. He could’ve just dumped it in the sink and put
the pot away without even washing it.”
28
�Alana was barely eating from the pain she was in, but Richard would make food
for himself, not offer her any or ask how she felt, and would not even pick up the baby.
When Alana would try to go to her mother’s house to rest and get help taking care of the
baby, Richard accused her of cheating on him, regardless of the fact that she was still in
pain and healing from the surgery. Alana invited her brother and his girlfriend to sleep
over one night after they had been visiting and it got late, and Richard interpreted it as
another sign that she was cheating on him and avoiding having sex with him.
“That night he choked me. This was the first time that he actually
physically abused me, but he had always sexually abused me before
this. We were arguing on the couch and he jumped on top of me and
was choking me. He started hitting me so I folded up into a ball to
prevent him from hitting me harder. When I got up I realized my lip
was bleeding and so I called the cops. He went into the kitchen and I
followed him to see what he was doing. He took the biggest knife and
started slashing his own arm, and he said, ‘This is what you did to me.
When the cops come, if you tell them what happened, you’re going
down with me. They’re going to take away your baby and ACS is
going to get involved. It’s best if you call it off.’”
Because of Richard’s threats about the cops taking her baby away and deporting
her, when they finally arrived Alana told them everything was fine and that it was just a
misunderstanding. That night, Richard took his aggression out on Alana sexually. Over
the next few months, Alana and the baby went into a shelter numerous times, but
someone always convinced her that it was unsafe and that things would change if they
returned home. Richard continued to neglect their baby and abuse Alana.
“He was yelling at me, calling me a low-life immigrant and a lazy
mother. That whole night, it was just arguments and arguments, like he
was trying to get a reaction. At one point he acted like he was going to
hit me with a bat. So I jumped up and grabbed the bat before he could
get to it. I hit the door with it and that’s when he stepped back and left
me alone, because whatever reaction he was looking for, I guess he got
it. I thought I was scaring him away, but then I realized that he had a
tape recorder recording everything.”
Due to Richard’s deception, Alana was arrested and is now in a custody battle
for her daughter. The custody battle is incredibly stressful for Alana, especially because
29
�she cannot be sure of how well her daughter is being tended to. Richard never took care
of her or even acknowledged that she was his daughter, so now Richard’s mother takes
care of her while he has primary custody.
“He always said that nothing in his life would change because of our
baby. He said, ‘Whatever changes have to happen have to happen with
you, because I never wanted her to begin with.’ He never wanted her
so he thinks he shouldn’t be affected by her coming into this world,
because she wasn’t supposed to be here. That’s what he always said. I
had to do pretty much everything. So now his mom is the one that
takes care of her. She’s with the grandmother all the time and she
pretty much does everything.”
Now that Richard has sole custody of their daughter, he tells her things about
Alana that cause her to question her mother. When their daughter asked about the scars
on his arm from when he cut himself, Richard told her that Alana was the one who cut
him. Both Richard and his mother tell Alana’s daughter the negative things she should
tell the attorney. Alana tries to explain the truth, but she thinks her daughter is very
confused due to the conflicting stories she hears. The abuse she witnessed while Richard
and Alana were together has also impacted their daughter’s behavior.
“Sometimes when he woke up in the morning he wanted to have sex
with me even though she was in the room. He just didn’t care. And
she was around three-years-old at the time so she was old enough to see
and understand what was happening. She used to act out sexual stuff
with teddy bears and things like that. She would be kissing them and
humping them. She used to see these things because it was a one
bedroom apartment.”
Richard’s disregard for his own child did not stop at refusing to feed or take care
of her. By forcing Alana to have sex with him in front of their child, he has created a
negative impact upon their daughter as well. Richard was not only neglectful with his
own daughter and abusive towards Alana, but he also showed aggression towards his
mother’s pet dog.
“His mom used to have pets and he never liked the dog. He used to
kick it and chase it away and stuff like that. He doesn’t like animals
30
�too much. When it would rub up against him he would kick it and say
he was going to let it out so it could go get hit by a car.”
While Alana continues to fight for custody of her daughter, she has come to
realize that she must take care of herself before she will be allowed to take care of her
daughter. While the legal system can offer survivors of IPV many benefits, Alana is one
example of how it can be used against the victim in a negative way.
“She’s my only daughter and I’ve never really been away from her like
this. When they first took her away I didn’t care for myself at all. I
lost a lot of weight and I’d wear the same clothes over and over and go
out without even combing my hair. But I learned that I have to take
care of me first before I can do anything for her. If I’m not healthy I
can’t do anything for her. One day at a time. And it’s very frustrating.
I never knew that the court system was going to be like this.”
V. Discussion
All four of these case studies offer different ways of viewing the transmission,
co-occurrence, and impact of violence within families. While diverse in their specific
details, the experiences of Janet, Danielle, Marlena, and Alana each offer a universal way
of viewing various dynamics that occur within violent families. It is apparent that
violence tends to get passed down from parent to child within families, pointing to an
intergenerational learning model. The violence also tends to co-occur with other forms of
violence, from child neglect and sexual abuse to animal cruelty. When children witness
violence, they are more likely to have behavioral problems later in life. Children
witnessing the violence also cause the victims to be more likely to leave. All of these
factors of family violence were exhibited within the case studies, and even if the results
are limited and difficult to apply to an entire population, they offer important insight into
the dynamics that occur within violent families.
Janet and Alana offer the most vivid examples of the transmission of violence
through the generations of a family. Janet firmly explained that her mother treated her
father subserviently, which led her to believe that that was what was expected in
marriages. Alana’s mother had also been in an abusive relationship with an older man
and warned her to be careful. In both cases, the women saw their mothers involved in
31
�abusive relationships, and through learning and modeling, they came to think of that as
the appropriate way intimate relationships work. Even Marlena recounts how Tommy’s
mother and sister were both the abusive parties in their relationships. While Pollak’s
(2004) model of IMDV argues that IPV is transmitted in a gender-based way, this
particular example proves that that is not always the case.
As numerous researchers have suggested, there is also a strong tendency for
various forms of violence to co-occur in conjunction with IPV. Danielle’s story offers an
interesting example of the overlap between IPV and childhood sexual abuse, which is
reinforced by the intergenerational nature of the childhood sexual abuse in her family.
Avery et al. (2002) found that if a woman was sexually abused as a child, her children are
1.89 times more likely to also be sexually abused. This was apparent in the relationships
between Danielle’s mother and herself, as well as between Danielle and her own
daughter. All three were sexually abused as children, which may suggest that childhood
sexual abuse is another aspect of family violence that is passed down intergenerationally.
Physical child battering was only seen in Alana’s case study, even though the
other women expressed that the fathers neglected their children. Alana’s daughter was
never fully acknowledged by her father Richard, who would hit her occasionally. He also
ignored her constantly, leaving her in a dirty diaper in her crib for hours until Alana came
home to care for her. While the rest of the case studies did not exhibit a clear pattern of
child abuse, it could be argued that Tommy neglected his daughter with Marlena. He left
their daughter at home alone, taught her dangerous habits, and once Marlena left him, he
continued to receive food stamps for his daughter but refused to spend them on her basic
necessities.
The other common link of family violence involves IPV and animal abuse,
which was underreported in this selection of case studies. The only incidence of animal
abuse occurred in Alana’s experience, when Richard would kick his mother’s dog and
threaten to leave it out so that it would get hit by a car. All three of the other women,
when asked whether their batterer ever abused animals, reported something to the extent
of, ‘He treated animals better than me.’ One reason for this underrepresentation of
animal abuse as it is linked to IPV may be due to the findings of Carlisle-Frank (2004).
They determined that 48% of battered women delayed leaving a violent situation, while
25% returned to a violent situation, both out of fear of what would happen to their pets.
Since the survivors in these case studies were referred through social service agencies
that provided them with assistance, this sample would arguably not include the victims
who are remaining with their abusers because they will not leave their pets behind.
32
�Another dynamic of IPV that was exhibited in most of these case studies was the
existence of behavioral problems in the children who witnessed the abuse. Janet,
Marlena, and Alana all reported that their children acted out in some way during or after
the abusive situations. Janet’s grandson began hitting teachers after seeing his
grandfather push Janet onto the bed, something that she only found out had affected him
when he told his therapist about it. Marlena’s daughter has been hitting people more
often than she used to, which contrasts Moylan et al.’s (2010) findings that girls tend to
experience more internalizing behavior problems, yet confirms their behavior problem
theory regardless. Finally, Alana’s daughter has reacted more to witnessing her parents
having sex than to the physical violence, and is mimicking sexual scenarios with dolls
and stuffed animals. In all three of the case studies, the children who witnessed abuse
acted out in various ways following the experience.
Finally, IPV affects the ways mothers react to abuse in the presence of their
children. Every one of the survivors stated that they thought much more seriously about
leaving the abusive situation once children were involved. They were all incredibly vocal
about not wanting their children to witness what they were going through, as well as not
wanting them to think that their relationships were examples of the way you should treat
another person. Overwhelmingly, the decisions to seek help for leaving their abusive
partners stemmed back to the desire to protect their children. This seems to disprove the
commonly held belief that victims of IPV are passive or weak in the face of abuse at the
expense of their children. In reality, each of these survivors was incredibly strong in how
they handled the IPV they experienced.
Future research should continue the study of the various dynamics of violence
within families; namely, why violence occurs and how society can react in a way that
would better assist in ending violence within families. Most social service agencies have
specific focuses, which benefit those receiving the personalized care. However, those
narrow focuses hinder collaboration and cross-reporting amongst agencies. Enacting
policies that would cause IPV, child, and animal welfare agencies to cross-report their
findings would enable providers to utilize various forms of violence as red flags for other
forms of violence or potential issues. By becoming more aware of the dynamics of
violence within families, there is a greater chance that policies and social beliefs can be
altered to assist IPV victims even more.
While IPV seems to be transmitted intergenerationally, co-occurring with other
forms of abuse, and strongly impacting to the women and children that experience it,
there are ways in which IPV can be stopped. Each of the women featured in the case
33
�studies fought to leave the abuse behind, hopefully ending the cycle of violence that
happened in their own families. Future contributions to the literature, such as expanding
this study with more case studies, will assist in determining the different ways in which
violence occurs within families, and therefore how that violence can be stopped.
VI. References
Armsworth, Mary W., and Karin Stronck. 1999. “Intergenerational Effects of Incest on
Parenting: Skills, Abilities, and Attitudes.” Journal Of Counseling and Development
77(3):303-14.
Ascione, Frank R. 1998. “Battered Women’s Reports of Their Partners’ and Their
Children’s Cruelty to Animals.” Journal of Emotional Abuse 1(1):119-33.
Avery, Lisa, K. Dianne Hutchinson, and Keitha Whitaker. 2002. “Domestic Violence and
Intergenerational Rates of Child Sexual Abuse: A Case Record Analysis.” Child and
Adolescent Social Work Journal 19(1):77-90.
Carlisle-Frank, Pamela, Joshua M. Frank, and Lindsey Nielsen. 2004. “Selective
Battering of the Family Pet. Anthrozoos 17(1):26-42.
Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. 1984. “The Duluth Model – Wheel Gallery.”
Retrieved on March 2, 2012 (http://www.theduluthmodel.org/pdf/PowerandControl.pdf).
Gortner, Eric, Sara B. Berns, Neil S. Jacobson, and John M. Gottman. 1997. “When
Women Leave Violent Relationships: Dispelling Clinical Myths.” Psychotherapy
34(4):343-52. DOI: 10.1037/h0087647
Jacobson, Neil S., John M. Gottman, Jennifer Waltz, Regina Rushe, Julia Babcock, and
Amy Holtzworth-Munroe. 1994. “Affect, Verbal Content, and Psychophysiology in the
Arguments of Couples with a Violent Husband.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology 62(5):982-88.
Kimmel, Michael S. 2008. The Gendered Society. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
34
�Letourneau, Nicole L., Cara B. Fedick, and J. Douglas Willms. 2007. “Mothering and
Domestic Violence: A Longitudinal Analysis.” Journal of Family Violence 22(8):649-59.
DOI: 10.1007/s10896-007-9099-6
Levendosky, Alytia A., Alissa C. Huth-Bocks, Deborah L. Shapiro, and Michael A.
Semel. 2003. “The Impact of Domestic Violence on the Maternal-Child Relationship and
Preschool-Age Children’s Functioning.” Journal of Family Psychology 17(3):275-87.
DOI: 10.1037/0893-3200.17.3.275
McKay, Mary McKernan. 1994. “The Link Between Domestic Violence and Child
Abuse: Assessment and Treatment Considerations.” Child Welfare 73(1):29-39.
Meyer, Silke. 2010. “Seeking Help to Protect the Children?: The Influence of Children on
Women’s Decisions to Seek Help When Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence.”
Journal of Family Violence 25:713-25. DOI: 10.1007/s10896-010-9329-1
Moylan, Carrie A., Todd I. Herrenkohl, Cindy Sousa, Emiko A. Tajima, Roy C.
Herrenkohl, and M. Jean Russo. 2010. “The Effects of Child Abuse and Exposure to
Domestic Violence on Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problems.”
Journal of Family Violence 25:53-63. DOI: 10.1007/s10896-009-9269-9
Onyskiw, Judee E. 2007. “The Link Between Family Violence and Cruelty to Family
Pets.” Journal of Emotional Abuse 7(3):7-30.
Pollak, Robert A. 2004. “An Intergenerational Model of Domestic Violence.” Journal of
Population Economics 17:311-29. DOI: 10.1007/s00148-003-0177-7.
Stacey, William A, and Anson D. Shupe. 1983. The Family Secret: Domestic Violence in
America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Stark, Evan, and Anne Flitcraft. 1988. “Women and Children at Risk: A Feminist
Perspective on Child Abuse.” International Journal of Health Services 18(1):97-118.
Yllo, Kersti. 1993. “Through a Feminist Lens: Gender, Power, and Violence.” Pp. 47-62
in Current Controversies on Family Violence, edited by R. J. Gelles and D. Loseke.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
35
�Appendix A: Power and Control Wheel
36
�Appendix B: Authorization for Release of Personal Information
I, ______________________________, allow that the personal information regarding my
experiences with family violence discussed during this meeting be used for the purpose
of case study research for Courtney Heiserman’s undergraduate thesis. My name and any
other details that may compromise the confidentiality of my identity will be changed in
all versions of this thesis (written and oral) to maintain my safety and privacy. I also
understand that this article may be printed in an academic journal. Any other nonidentifying information I discuss may be included as data in the thesis, unless I
specifically tell the researcher that I would like it excluded. In this case I will note the
exclusion in the section at the bottom of this form. The interview will be tape-recorded
for the purpose of utilizing direct quotations and maintaining correct information. Only
the researcher will listen to the recording, which will be deleted as soon as all information
from it is obtained. Any questions or concerns I have can be directed at Courtney
Heiserman (xxx-xxx-xxxx or courtney.heiserman@wagner.edu) or Dr. John Esser (xxxxxx-xxxx or jesser@wagner.edu). If I feel uncomfortable at any time during the meeting
I am allowed to request to stop the interview and leave.
_____________________________
Printed Name
_____________________________ __________
Signature
Date
Please exclude the following information:
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
37
�Appendix C: Interview Question Guideline
When and how did your experience of intimate partner violence begin?
How did the violence begin? How did it progress?
Was the violence indirect (manipulation, control) or direct (hitting, verbal)?
When and how did the violence affect your children? Pets? Other family members?
Did you feel like this made it harder or easier to leave?
How did you seek assistance? What safety steps did you take?
How often did your partner:
Act jealous or possessive?
Accuse you of flirting or cheating?
Check your phone or computer?
Control what you did or whom you saw?
Criticize or humiliate you (especially around others)?
Threaten to hurt you, your family, pets, friends, or him-/herself?
Pressure or force you into having sexual relations?
Verbally or emotionally degrade you?
Hit, shove, strangle, or physically hurt you?
Hurt or threaten your children?
Hurt or threaten your pets?
38
�The Nude Female Body Redefined
Jessica Makwinski (Arts Administration and Art History)1
Introduction
The female nude, more than any other subject, “connotes art” as argued by art
historian, Lynda Nead (Meagher 36). Dating back to our earliest known forms of tangible
expression, the female figure has been explored on multiple levels and in a variety of
fashions. The shock value of the undressed female body has faded especially in
contemporary Western culture because of the endless accessibility of images in cyber
space, cinema and advertising. Though representing a large portion of the subject matter
in both high art and popular culture, the depiction of women has been dominated by a
masculine discourse. The female figure has been objectified for centuries from the
perspective of the voyeuristic male gaze. Portrayed as young, attractive, voluptuous and
ideal, women have embodied seduction and beauty to please a male audience.
Working as a postmodern painter in direct opposition to the concept of female
eroticism and the inferiority of women, Jenny Saville challenges the male gaze and works
to re-appropriate the female figure by painting voluminous forms that dominate the
pictorial space. Saville forces the viewer to reconsider the trajectory of the patriarchal
mold of perfection in the visual arts by exaggerating the female body and its grotesque
features. She empowers her subjects not only by painting them as gigantic figures, but by
countering the male gaze with a personal confrontation of the viewer.
The following paper will discuss the ways in which the female figure has been
commonly interpreted by various types of male voyeurs; define the male gaze; rebut the
patriarchal vision of women based on Saville’s feminist approach; analyze three of
Saville’s paintings of the nude female, and present the artist’s use of a traditional medium
to illustrate an unconventional and often unexplored subject.
The Trajectory of the Female Figure throughout Art’s Histories
Male artists have dominated the tradition of art both in terms of who has
produced a majority of the works and what has been accepted in terms of content. The
Written under the direction of Dr. Laura Morowitz for AR491: Contemporary Art, Theory,
and Criticism.
1
39
�white Western male perspective has been unconsciously supported as the viewpoint of art
historians who have analyzed works from the eyes of those creating them. But already by
1971, Linda Nochlin famously asked the question: why have there been so few women
artists in the history of art compared to their male counterparts? In her essay, “Why Have
There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971), Nochlin recognized not a lack of talent
found in women artists but an insufficient investigation into their works (Nochlin 3). For
one, the arts education system has been dominated by males not because women are less
competent, but because white, bourgeois men have had the luxury to receive proper
schooling (Nochlin 3). Women were accustomed to being looked at and took on the role
as an object and were portrayed this way in art. The viewer plays an important part in
processing the female nude, and generally takes on one of three roles: the confronted
voyeur (the viewer is directly confronted with eye contact from the female in the work),
the pure voyeur (the viewer secretively watches the women although she is unaware of
his presence), or the secondary voyeur (the viewer witnesses another male watching the
female nude within the work).
One example where viewer makes contact with the female model in the work is
in Titian’s Venus of Urbino, 1538 (Figure 1). The woman is lying in the standard position
of the reclining female nude with her body fully exposed to the viewer (Kleiner 610). The
female figure, whether divine or mortal, embodies ideal womanly beauty in terms of male
desire. She is the primary focus in the work, and is perfected to seduce the intended male
viewer. The work was painted for Guidobaldo II, the duke of Urbino, who commissioned
a painting of a female nude which he could enjoy privately (Kleiner 610). In this
painting, the figure is aware that she is being looked at, but she promotes invitation with
her sensual expression and erotic hand placement. Though she is making eye contact with
the viewer, she plays the role of the sexualized object and openly welcomes attention.
Another way the male viewer has been accounted for is through a pure
voyeuristic approach. In Gustave Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot, 1866 (Figure 2), the
recognizable model appears preoccupied with the bird, making her unaware that she is
being watched. Seemingly set in a private setting, the idealized nude lays fully exposed to
the viewer without establishing a direct connection to him. She becomes, once again, an
object made for male sexual pleasure.
An additional example where the female nude is put on display can be seen in
Eric Fischl’s Bad Boy, 1981 (Figure 3). The male viewer acts as a secondary voyeur who
watches the women become the surveyed subject. The ideal spectator is always assumed
40
�to be male and the image of the female body is meant to satisfy his desires, and in this
case the female nude is pleasuring two male figures (Berger 64).
In each of these examples, the nude female becomes a sexual object. Her body is
put on display according to the male viewer, and rather than having anything to do with
her sexuality, all the works are made to appeal to his sexuality (Berger 54). Spanning a
period of over 400 years, these examples are only a few of the extensive list where artists
have depicted the female nude in order to please a particular audience. The female nude
in the history of art has revolved almost entirely around the concept of the male gaze.
The Male Gaze
Both man and woman are created equally in terms of their ability to internalize
the world through visual perception. However, the outward expressions of these
subjective interpretations have often been weighted heavily on the basis of a male bias, or
the male gaze. Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist, discussed the male gaze as the
objectification of women in film based on who was in control of the camera: heterosexual
men (Mulvey 7). The female body, according to Mulvey, is represented through the male
perspective and becomes an erotic being for the characters within the film. The man
always emerges as the dominant power while women remain passive objects built for
pleasure.
The inequality of men and women in film can also be discussed in terms of the
female gaze, where women see themselves through the eyes of men and conform to
norms established to benefit men (Mulvey 10). “Women displayed as sexual object is the
leit-motif of erotic spectacle... she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire”
(Mulvey 10). Mainstream film combines narrative with pure visual stimulation through
the sexualized female figure. Though speaking in terms of cinema, Mulvey’s theories on
the male gaze can be applied to the fine arts, where the discourse has also been
dominated by men.
Sigmund Freud associated the Greek term, scopophilia or love for looking,
“with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze”
(Mulvey 8). Scopophilia becomes “the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another
person as object. At the extreme, it can become fixated into a perversion, producing
obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms” (Mulvey 8). Viewing an individual, or in this case
a woman, as an object implies that her physical body is more important than her intellect.
The female body is conventionally framed and explored as an object and an
objectified possession of the implicitly male viewer. An object body is a
41
�body abstracted from concrete lived reality; it’s a body that has been quite
literally turned into an object- unchanging, external, immanent. It’s a body
that is the ultimate in passive contemplation, existing merely for admiration
and disinterested contemplation. (Meagher 36)
Stripping her of a mind and a soul, the male gaze has diminished what it means to be a
woman by simply praising the body as a pretty item purposed for sexual encounters.
The male gaze is, in part, responsible for high standards of appearance in
contemporary Western culture. Mulvey’s concept of the female gaze (women viewing
and presenting themselves according to heterosexual male standards) has led to women
taking on the “exhibitionist role” where their bodies “connote to-be-looked-at-ness,” and
encourage male observation (Mulvey 9). Women therefore, have become display items
not by choice or through self-interest but to appear attractive to a specific audience. “The
notion of a ‘tightly managed body’ has come to represent contemporary Western
feminine beauty and attractiveness” and can be seen in all outlets of media and
entertainment (Meagher 36). The focus on aesthetics is a product of the unrealistic
standards set by the male gaze in both high art and popular culture.
In terms of the visual arts, how artists have chosen to depict women reflects the
same sexualized portrayal found in film. John Berger compares the women’s expression
in Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque, 1814 (Figure 4) with a model for an advertisement in a
contemporary magazine. He comments on the similarity in seductiveness as “a woman
responding with calculated charm to the man whom she imagines looking at her-although she doesn’t know him. She is offering up her femininity as the surveyed”
(Berger 55). Whether her facial expression was the model’s discretion or a decision made
by the photographer, the male gaze has encouraged women to behave and appear as
erotic objects in order to attract a heterosexual male audience.
Saville’s Feminist Backlash
Jenny Saville was born in Edinburgh in 1970, and won numerous awards and
scholarships before graduating with honors from the Glasgow School of Art in 1992
(Holmes 1). She owes her initial success as a young artist to Charles Saatchi, who tracked
down and bought paintings she had previously sold and then commissioned a body of
work for himself (Mackenzie 4). Saatchi granted Saville the freedom and the funds to
create works concerning the body that she wanted to make for a long time.
“[Saville attributes the early ‘fascination with fat’ to sitting on the floor
watching her piano teacher,” carefully examining the way her thick thighs never parted
42
�and how the flesh would rub against the tights (Mackenzie 4). She likes art that
concentrates on the rawness of the human figure, but she was also influenced by
feminism and the way women have been depicted in the media. Her works combine a
mix of awe and intimacy while exploring the physical attributes of the body that conjure
psychological implications of tradition and culture concerning of the female nude.
Saville works to scrutinize the established traditions of the female nude in art.
“By shifting the female body’s position from an object of male delectation, and thus
deconstructing the male fantasy projected for centuries on it, Saville is able to question
the female body’s representation through art history” (Noël 2). Though the content in
Saville’s work is consistent with the works previously discussed (always the female
nude) her stylistic interpretations challenge the typically desirable portrayal of women.
As writer Charles Darwent points out, historically “[o]ne genre of painting that has not by
and large lent itself to large-scale treatment, though, has been the female nude [...] Given
the need of male viewers to reinforce their masterly role by looking at things smaller than
themselves, oversized pictures of women were clearly a bad idea” (Noël 3). Evidently not
at all concerned with offending male viewers who long to feel superior over women,
Saville not only paints her subjects in a dominating size and scale, but she deals directly
with and even accentuates disturbing features of the female figure.
It also makes a difference that Saville is a woman painting the female nude
rather than a male depicting his desires of the female nude. Writer Donald Kuspit feels
that “[Saville] reclaims female subjectivity by emphasizing woman’s potent flesh... but it
makes all the emotional difference that it is a woman who is rendering her own body”
freeing it from the discourse of patriarchy (Noël 5). Though the artist uses herself as a
model, her paintings deal with issues concerning women collectively in both the past and
present. Saville states, “It’s such a male-laden art, so historically weighted. The way
women were depicted didn’t feel like mine, too cute. I wasn’t interested in admired or
idealized beauty” (Mackenzie 5). Saville investigates the concept of disgust as a backlash
towards the biased traditions in art.
Painting the physical body in a confrontational way allows Saville to explore
internal issues concerning the female figure based on Western societal expectations.
“Although it is clear that Saville thinks of herself more as a painter of flesh than as a
feminist activist, her exploration of the female figure goes beyond aesthetics in order to
address deeper issues related to the social constructions of the body” (Noël 2). Though
the female nude is and has always been a primary subject in art, fat or obese women have
been often kept taboo. “Saville’s work is a provocative site for the emergence of an
43
�aesthetic of disgust that can propose new modes of thinking about feminine embodiment”
(Meagher 24). Dealing directly with the abject, “Saville’s work sets up a context in which
spectators can begin to come to terms with gut feelings of disgust” rather than
suppressing these feelings based on cultural standards of beauty (Meagher 29). She urges
contemporary Western women to confront the familiar feelings of disgust one has with
herself when comparing one’s physical appearance to unrealistic body ideals constructed
through cinema, advertising, television and also art history. “Saville’s paintings suggest
that the abject female body isn’t merely a fat body, but a body that refuses to comply with
the contemporary ideals of a tightly managed feminine form” (Meagher 38). This
rejection of societal standards encourages the viewer to reconsider past depictions of the
female nude. While women are generally displayed according to male sexual desires,
Saville paints dominating forms that challenge art historical traditions but also
contemporary Western standards of beauty.
Saville directly attacks and rejects the male gaze by giving her subjects the
power to confront the viewer. “In a reversal of the traditional nude, wherein a female
figure passively displays her body for the pleasure of an implicitly male gaze, the figures
in Saville’s paintings return the spectator’s stare with an appraising gaze of their own”
(Meagher 38). Her works often present an accusatory yet empowering stare that
highlights her purpose of re-appropriating the female figure from an alarming, not
idealized feminine perspective.
Detailed Analysis of Propped, Reflective Flesh and Plan
Saville works to re-appropriate the nude female figure by emphasizing rather
than disregarding its grotesque features. Propped, 1992 (Figure 5), Reflective Flesh,
2002-03 (Figure 6) and Plan, 1993 (Figure 7) entice the viewer to examine each aspect of
the enlarged female flesh. She does not paint the female figure as a sexualized toy, but
she empowers her female subjects by challenging the male gaze through a personal
confrontation with each viewer.
In Propped (Figure 5), Saville “rejects the patriarchal clichés of female
representation” in terms of both content and form (Holmes 146). The female subject, who
resembles the artist herself, is balancing on an impossibly tiny stool clutching her
colossal thighs. The sharp foreshortened angle creates a distorted perspective that allows
the subject’s knees and thighs to spill overwhelmingly outward. The scale of the figure’s
body is meant to be challenging and it forces the viewer to reconsider not only the beauty
idealized in art, but social and cultural expectations concerning the female figure.
44
�The reversed quote inscribed onto the figure comes from feminist Luce Irigaray
and reads: “If we continue to speak in this sameness, speak as men have spoken for
centuries, we will fail each other again” (Holmes 146). “Following Irigaray’s call for a
feminine symbolic, Saville’s paintings reclaim the female body from centuries of maleproduced art that have defined women’s bodies and women’s beauty. ‘We need,’
[Saville] explains, ‘a new language, a women’s language, so that we don’t have to take
on maleness to be successful’” (Meagher 25). The figure’s body is facing fully forward
suggesting that the viewer is aware she is being watched. Unlike Titian’s Venus of
Urbino (Figure 1), the subject does not invite the male viewer through seduction and
beauty, but rather calls women to action to take a stand against the objectifying male
gaze.
This is an image, as one reviewer wrote, that no woman wants to have of
herself: “It conjured up every woman’s worst nightmare of how she might look with no
clothes on: huge expanses of quivering milky blubber filled with water blue veins scored
by stretch marks bore down on spectators like some like-sucking blancmange” (Meagher
25). The reversal of the inscribed quote suggests that the witness is looking at a mirror
image. Saville personalizes the taboo subject by making her the viewer’s own reflection,
whether male or female. The viewer’s connection to the work through the reversal of the
quote enhances the emotional baggage induced by this enlarged female body.
Contrasted with the previously discussed paintings of the female nude, it is clear
that Saville’s aims as an artist are not to satisfy a male audience. The female subject is
nude, but she is far from sexualized. The size of the painting alone, 6 feet by 7 feet,
challenges the masculine discourse in art history by expanding the meaning of the female
body both literally and symbolically because the male viewer is no longer superior to the
dainty female subject. The color of the subject’s flesh evokes a sense of disgust compared
to the traditional depictions of smooth, seamless complexions of film and advertising.
Titian’s Venus of Urbino (Figure 1) and Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot (Figure 2) both
present subjects with glorified and glowing exteriors while Saville highlights the lumpy
mounds of excessive and fatty flesh.
Reflective Flesh (Figure 6) is another example of Saville’s works that is
confrontational to the viewer and challenges the concept of the sexually pleasing female
nude. This work can be compared to Gustave Courbet’s Origin of the World, 1866
(Figure 8). Both reveal the openly exposed female genitalia to the viewer; however the
woman in Courbet’s painting is faceless, setting the pubic area as the only focus in the
work. Saville’s painting is much more confrontational, not only because the subject’s
45
�body includes her head, but her expression is stern and domineering. The figure in Origin
of the World is displayed as an object solely purposed for sexual reproduction and
pleasure. The subject is idealized and young but dehumanized, leaving her unaware of the
male audience examining her body. In Reflective Flesh, the genitalia is also the focus of
the work but is not present to create a beautiful image, instead it reveals a woman’s
reality. Not only is the genitalia duplicated by the mirrors on the floor, but the angles of
the subject’s torso and thighs direct our gaze toward the figure’s vagina, making this the
center of our attention (Noël 6).
The subject, who was modeled after Saville herself, is gazing back at the viewer.
“This dominating stare creates a juncture between the objectified body and the rational
human face, increasingly in this since this particular gaze is confrontational” (Noël 6).
While the nude in Courbet’s work lays comfortably and ignorant of her audience, the
subject in Saville’s work is positioned in a way that exposes open flesh. “The model is in
control of the situation and seems to purposefully flaunt her bushy, imperfect genitalia at
the viewer, not in an effort to seduce him, but as if to announce reality” (Noël 6). The
viewer is compelled to encounter the subject’s genitalia while he or she is simultaneously
challenged by the subject’s own gaze.
Besides the subject’s dominant expression and stance, the size of the work also
connotes the deconstruction of the male gaze. The work measures 10 feet tall by 8 feet
wide, preventing any sense of comfort or sexual desire to be found in the viewer. This
work announces feminine power literally through its massive size but also symbolically
through Saville’s choice to break tradition. Origin of the World is intimate and continues
the notion of male superiority. The work is small and painted according to proper human
size diminishing any hope for intimidation or power expressed through the female body.
Once again, Saville experiments with a mirrored image to make implications
about the subject. In art, the mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of women
(Berger 51). But “the real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the
woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight” (Berger 51). It is
appropriate to say that Saville’s carefully arranged setup of mirrors allows the subject to
be looked at as a ‘sight’. But unlike past usages of the mirror, where beauty and
idealization were multiplied for the viewer, Saville’s reflections of the open genitalia
present various angles of its grotesque features. The use of the mirrors can be seen “as a
renewal of the female space, as well as an attempt of the artist’s to break down the
phallocratic definition of woman by offering different perspectives regarding the female
subject” (Noël 7). The female nude exerts her power in Reflective Flesh by exposing
46
�herself in an unpleasing manner in order to deconstruct the underlying purpose of the
traditional nude: to project masculine desires onto the female figure in an effort of
seduction.
Plan (Figure 7) is an additional example where Saville’s formal decisions create
a shocking and untraditional image of the female nude. The perspective forces the viewer
to examine the subject’s body before making contact with her face. “It’s a late-20thcentury Venus of Wildendorf seen in ant’s-eye perspective” which makes the subject
appear even larger than the 9 feet by 7 feet canvas suggests (Holmes 145). “For the
viewer who has already gawked at the body, it’s decidedly uncomfortable to arrive at the
face and confront the psychological presence of this thinking and feeling human being”
(Holmes 145). The psychological implication that is created by the subject’s stare
reminds the viewer how the male-dominated discourse of art history has accustomed its
spectators to look at the painted female body: as an object of entertainment deprived of a
thinking mind (Noël 4). This angle of vision, though grotesquely enlarged, directly forces
the viewer’s contact with the imperfect and expansive flesh of the nude female while also
presenting the psychological entanglements of the nude female in art history.
Saville also examines the concept of cosmetic plastic surgery in this work, a
phenomenon she has studied in great detail. When discussing the Western interest in
plastic surgery, Saville states:
In the ‘50s or ‘60s, plastic surgery was used for cases of extreme
deformation, whereas from the ‘90s on, the majority of patients already have
what might be considered normal bodies. Yet women entered this space
believing they were mutant and came out normalized- streamlined, to better
match our culture’s notion of what the most perfect, natural form for a
woman should be. Many surgeons I worked with really do consider
themselves to be the Michelangelos of flesh. (Holmes 146)
Saville’s use of line traced on the outer surface of the body alludes to the surgeon’s plan
of areas to cut during liposuction. Though the exaggerated perspective makes the
subject’s body appear larger than it is in actuality, this vision of the female body
represents how many contemporary Western women feel about themselves. She
“represents bodies rarely appreciated in contemporary Western culture. In a cultural
climate that encourages women to conceal, if not excise, those parts of their bodies
considered fat, jiggly, out of control, and excessive, Saville insists upon revealing
precisely these features” (Meagher 24). Inspired directly from witnessing plastic
surgeries and studying medical textbook imagery, Saville counters the contemporary
47
�Western ideals of the perfect body by presenting overwhelming and often disturbing
images of the nude female.
Oil Paint: A Traditional Medium Used for an Unconventional Subject
Saville’s ability to create such untraditional images through her carefully
calculated use of formal elements helps her to re-appropriate the female nude from the
patriarchal discourse of Western society. However, despite her exploration of newness in
terms of style, she uses perhaps the most traditional medium in art: oil paint. No other
medium evokes academic art and conventionalized depictions of the female nude more
so, but Saville has in a sense reinvented the material to speak in a new way concerning
the topic.
Saville has experimented with other materials such as photography in her series
Closed Contact 1-15 (Figure 9) where the artist collaborated with Glen Luchford in 1995
(Holmes 146). She flattened her body on a sheet of transparent Perspex, pushing each
area of her skin forcefully against the surface to demonstrate the malleability of flesh by
posing nude (Holmes 146). She quickly found that photography could not capture the
rawness of flesh she was attempting to achieve. “I realized that those glossy, perfect
surfaces [of photography] are all the same, whether for a department-store catalogue, a
poster, or art. Painting is about the unique surface- and in the end it restored my faith” as
an art form, says Saville (Holmes 146). Whereas photography captures a single moment
in time, painting is an evolutionary process that can be manipulated, just like the flesh of
the human body. According to Saville, part of her aesthetic project is “trying to make
paint behave in the way flesh behaves” (Meagher 37). She treats her paint as liquid flesh.
Oil paint helps Saville reveal the vulnerability of the human body, compared to
earlier academic paintings that depicted idealized and immortal figures. She is able to
capture the interior body such as the sense of blood underneath the skin, and how these
stains can be confused with shadows on the exterior surface of the skin (Mackenzie 6).
Saville is interested in the stories that imprint themselves on the body, whether it’s a fat,
injured, or scarred body, it has undergone a journey to get there, and painting allows her
to best reveal these stories of deterioration (Holmes 144). She’s not interested in idealized
beauty, but rather she uses the outer surface of the flesh to explore interior emotions and
struggles females have with their appearance.
48
�Conclusion
Jenny Saville’s paintings of the female nude aim to free the naked body from the
male-dominated discourse in art. By giving her subjects the power to attack the male gaze
with a gaze of their own, she rejects the patriarchal clichés of female representation by
countering established Western traditions. Fat bodies and other taboo subjects are brought
to the surface in often a very confrontational manner, enhancing her ability to challenge
the viewer’s understanding of the female nude in art. Through oil paint, Saville manages
to explore the inner emotions women face concerning their appearance while treating the
outer flesh as a vulnerable vault which reveals our imperfections to the world.
Works Cited
Berger, John, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb, and Richard Hollis. Ways of
Seeing: Based on the BBC Television Series with John Berger. London: British
Broadcasting Corporation, 1990.
Gray, John. “The Landscapes of the Body: Ballad, Bacon and Saville.” Jenny Saville.
New York: Rizzoli International Publication, 2005.
Holmes, Pernilla. "The Body Unbeautiful." ARTnews Nov. 2003: 144-47.
Kino, Carol. “Jenny Saville at Gagosian.” Art in America 92 no.1 (2004): 103-104.
Kleiner, Fred S., and Helen Gardner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History.
13th ed. Boston, MA: Thomson Higher Education, 2009
Mackenzie, Suzie. "Under the Skin." The Guardian. 21 Oct. 2005. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.
<guardian.co.uk>.
Meagher, Michelle. "Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust." Hypatia 18.4
(2003): 23-41.
Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen 16.3 (1975): 6-18.
Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Women, Art, and
Power and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. 145-178.
49
�Noël, Laurence. "Concordia Undergraduate Journal of Art History." Jenny Saville: The
Body Recovered. 7 Mar. 2012.
Schama, Simon. “Interview with Jenny Saville.” Jenny Saville. New York: Rizzoli
International Publication, 2005.
Sylvester, David. “Areas of Flesh.” Jenny Saville. New York: Rizzoli International
Publication, 2005.
Valdez, Sarah. "Naked Truths." ARTnews Mar. 2003. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
<http://http://www.artnews.com/2003/03/01/naked-truths/>.
50
�Figure 1: Titian. Venus of Urbino, 1538
Figure 2: Gustave Courbet. Woman with a Parrot, 1866
51
�Figure 3: Eric Fischl. Bad Boy, 1981
Figure 4: Ingres. La Grande Odalisque, 1814
52
�Figure 5 :Jenny Saville. Propped, 1992
Figure 6: Jenny Saville. Reflective Flesh, 2002-03
53
�Figure 7: Jenny Saville. Plan, 1993
Figure 8: Gustave Courbet. Origin of the World, 1866
54
�Figure 9: Jenny Saville. Closed Contact, 1995
55
�“O serpent under femynynytee:” Patriarchal Power as
Shown through Female Competition and the MadonnaWhore Binary in Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale”
Rachel Zaydak (English and Anthropology)1
The ‘woman question,’ encompassing evaluations of female subjectivity,
agency, societal roles and any challenges to these concepts, is a lively topic in scholarly
criticism concerning Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The madonna-whore binary is one of
the many critical feminist topics concerning the portrayal of women in the Canterbury
Tales. Feminist critique understands the madonna-whore binary as a mechanism of
power that serves the patriarchal hegemony. As such, the binary necessitates womanagainst-woman relationships, effectively preventing a unified female alliance that can
obtain political agency. This binary and its resultant combative female relationships are
especially apparent in Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale. Throughout the narrative,
Custance embodies patriarchy’s idea of the ideal madonna, or ‘good girl,’ and the
Sowdanesse and Donegild represent the opposing whores, or ‘bad girls.’ Good Custance
is portrayed as a Christ-like, virtuous, and passive; meanwhile, the bad Sowdanesse and
Donegild are portrayed as murderous and power-hungry heathens who seek to injure the
good Custance’s well-being and standing in society. Also, considering the familial
relationship between Custance and her two bad girl mothers-in-law, these womanagainst-woman relationships are particularly rich in telling us about how patriarchal
power mechanisms operate within the tale.
An examination of the good and bad women in The Man of Law’s Tale is
undeniably bound to discussions of religiosity. As a Christian work, the tale is didactic,
displaying exaggerated examples of faithful Christians and detestable heathens. In her
article “Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale: Teaching through the Sources,” critic Christine
Rose discusses Nicholas Trevet’s Les Cronicles, one of Chaucer’s main sources for the
story of Custance. A study of Custance’s section of Les Cronicles leads to interesting
contrasts between it and Chaucer’s version of Custance. In Les Cronicles, Custance “is
Written under the direction of Dr. Anne Schotter for EN303 Chaucer: A Study of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales.
1
56
�literate, learned, quick-witted, resourceful, and even physically strong” (Rose 157).
Trevet dedicated Les Cronicles to Edward II’s sister Princess Mary, a nun. More than
just standing as an example of feminine and Christian purity, here, Custance “provides
the physical and moral center of a book written for the entertainment and edification of a
worldly nun” (158).
With this in mind, Rose argues that The Man of Law’s Tale disempowers
Custance’s character, making her “more feminized (here read as ‘passive’) and more
reliant upon the power of God for her authority and her worldly fortune” (159). This
version of Custance’s character is far less bold and assertive than Trevet’s, and thus, her
powerlessness is accentuated throughout the tale. The tale shows Custance as an example
of the only proper heroic status thought available to women during its time—one of a
beautiful young woman who maintains her Christian faith through perilous trials, all the
while assenting to male authority. Her glad acceptance of male authority is echoed in the
narrator’s call: “O Emperoures yonge doghter deere,/ He that is lord of Fortune be thy
steere!” (ll. 447-448). Custance’s heroism is accentuated by the presumed anti-heroism
of her evil mothers-in-law who are not Christian and breach male authority: “she hirself
[the Sowdanesse] wolde al the contree lede” (l. 434).
The binary relationships of good Custance and her bad mothers-in-law are even
further emphasized in this Christian light. Custance is the embodiment of womanly
virtue, representing a Virgin Mary figure. Custance’s acceptance of her role as the
mother of a royal heir mirrors Mary’s acceptance of her role as the mother of Christ
(Rose 160). This comparison is also alluded to when Custance prays to Mary to take pity
on her and her baby after Donegild sends her off on a boat in Alla’s absence. Both
Custance and Mary obtain power through their “submission to the will of God” (160).
The merchants’ report to the Sultan about Custance emphasizes her holiness and clearly
demonstrates the comparison between Custance and Mary:
To alle hire werkes vertu is hir gyde;
Humblesse hath slayn in hire al tirannye.
She is mirour of all curteisye;
Hir herte is verray chamber of hollynesse,
Hir hand, minister of fredam for almesse (ll. 164-168)
Amply contrasting with this, Custance’s mothers-in-law represent the devil on
earth. They are explicitly not Christian and are against conversion to Christianity. The
narrator’s description of the Sowdanesse is telling: “O serpent under femynynytee,/ Lik
57
�to the serpent depe in helle ybounde!” (ll. 360-361). This description occurs after the
Sowdanesse meets with her council and conspires to murder her son and the other
Christian converts at the feast. Directly following this, the narrator blatantly highlights
the pitting of Custance against the serpentine Sowdanesse: “O feyned woman, al that may
confounde/ Vertu and innocence, thurgh thy malice,/ Is bred in thee, as nest of every
vice!” (ll. 362-364). Even more explicitly, the narrator later calls the Sowdanesse an
“instrument” of the devil (l. 370). Donegild is also portrayed as an instrument of the
devil, engaging in heathen activities and generally disliked by everyone: “The mooder
was an elf, by aventure/ Ycomen, by charmes or by sorcerie,/ And every wight hateth hir
compaignye” (ll. 754-756).
The madonna-whore binary is evident in the realm of secular patriarchal control
as well in The Man of Law’s Tale. As the good woman, properly married and watched
over, Custance does not pose a threat to Alla and his rule in his absence. Alla’s trusted
male friends, the constable and bishop, protect and watch over Custance. As critic
Gerald Nachtwey points out in his article “Geoffroi de Charny’s Book of Chivalry and
Violence in The Man of Law’s Tale and The Franklin’s Tale,” Custance’s actions reflect
her non-threatening good girl status; “Now faire Custance, that is so humble and meke,/
So longe is goon with childe, til that stille/ She halt hire chamber, abiding Cristes wille”
(ll. 719-721). Her character is “humble and meke,” as opposed to a more bold character
that would not quietly assent to patriarchal will. As critic Carolyn Dinshaw points out in
the section, “Misogynist Constance, Feminist Constance” of her article “New Approaches
to Chaucer,” Custance’s humble and meek demeanor reflects how she is comfortable
with relying on patriarchal power: “the image of Constance on the sea in a rudderless
boat conveys the sense of her inner stability in settings of extreme contingency and lack
of control” (277). Her bowing to patriarchal control is exemplified as she accepts that
she must leave her native land and family to marry the Sultan; she says that women are
born “to been under mannes governance” (l. 281).
By assenting to “mannes governance,” in her arranged marriage to the Sultan,
Custance also assents to the ideals of patriarchal chivalric marriage. Additionally, in
Alla’s absence Custance keeps herself quietly tucked away, not taking advantage of the
power vacuum and avoiding any sexual threats. By cooperatively accepting her
husband’s trip and piously waiting his return, Custance allows Alla to fulfill the
expectations of a knightly chivalric career that entail going on war campaigns and
defeating enemies (Nachtwey 112). In abiding by the codes surrounding chivalric
marriage, Custance reinforces her status as the good girl within the patriarchal system.
58
�On the contrary, the Sowdanesse and Donegild take advantage of their sons’
absences, attempting to gain power. Their actions stem from an envy of patriarchal
power: “Like Satan, both of the mothers in this tale are ultimately envious of their sons’
power; this envy manifests itself in their desire to ruin the Christian marriages of their
sons” (Natchtwey 113). Unlike Custance, they are clearly not comfortable with humbly
assenting to patriarchal control and their own lack of control. They are doubly at fault in
a chivalric sense—they are no longer bound to chivalric marriages and they seek to
destroy their sons’ chivalric marriages. Also, in the case of Donegild, she ruins her son’s
attempts of chivalric war pursuits by troubling the stability of his kingdom while he is
away (112-113).
Furthermore, considering the context of female heritable rights to rule in
England and France during the Medieval ages and Chaucer’s time, the madonna-whore
binary as enacted by mother and daughter-in-law in The Man of Law’s Tale is particularly
interesting. In her article, “A Mooder He Hath, but Fader Hath He Noon,” critic Angela
Florschuetz investigates gender politics surrounding the French and English crowns
during the fourteenth century. During this time, with the dubious influence of Philip of
Poitiers, brother of Louis X and future Philip V, French lawmakers made a law that
women could not rule in their own names. This law effectively disinherited Philip’s
niece, Jeanne, so that he would then become the ‘rightful’ heir to the throne (26).
Previously, the question of female eligibility had never been so closely considered and
challenged. As Florschuetz points out, the misogynist anxiety over female inheritance
and influence over the crown showed itself in the science of the time: “prominent medical
discourses based in Aristotelian biology” supported Phillip “by suggesting that only men
could inherit and transmit bloodlines” (25-26).
Florschuetz argues that in The Man of Law’s Tale, “Chaucer draws attention to
the patriarchal fantasy of autonomous male reproduction of patriline, the desire to
imagine male lineages as self-reproducing without the interference of maternal influence”
(26). The relationships in The Man of Law’s Tale reflect the desire for a male-centered
royal inheritance and the anxiety concerning female influence upon rule during the
fourteenth century by posing Custance and her mothers-in-law against one another in a
madonna-whore binary: “Oppositional juxtapositions of maternity between mothers-inlaw and Custance set up…a dichotomy of ‘bad’ versus ‘good’ mothers” (50). The
madonna-whore structure serves to perpetuate this exclusion of women from possession
of and influence over the throne. Florschuetz states, “The maneuverings of both France
and England around the question of the potential for the female transmission of a
59
�bloodline reveal…the political difficulty of establishing precedents and mechanisms for
excluding women’s transmission of bloodline and thus birthright” (27).
In the context of this anxiety, the good girl continues the male patriline while the
bad girl’s existence and power threatens it. With this perspective, it is not surprising that
Custance enjoys the position of good girl in The Man of Law’s Tale. She is young and
fertile, and thus her existence has the greatest potential to continue the patriline by
providing her husband with male heirs. In this light, it is all the more devastating to the
throne of Northumberland when Donegild sends Custance off in Alla’s absence, for
Custance’s departure eliminates the potential for the creation of additional heirs and
estranges Alla’s only living heir. Also, at several points later in the tale, Maurice’s
uncanny resemblance to his mother is pointed out. Florschuetz argues that this inclusion
and Maurice’s eventual acquisition of the Roman throne display Chaucer’s favoring of
the maternal influence in the bloodline (55). However, it is more plausible that Maurice’s
unmistakable resemblance to his mother is only a necessary link that facilitates the
rediscovery of a suitable heir that can continue the patrilines of the two kingdoms, for
Custance’s eligibility for the Roman throne is bypassed for that of her son, and the
Northumberland bloodline has secured a patriline with the eventual reuniting of Alla and
Custance. We can see what Florschuetz viewed as a preference for the maternal
bloodline instead as a necessary bending of the ideal for the continuity of patrilineal rule
on a grander scale.
Likewise, the patrilineal ideal also lends insight as to why the Sowdanesse and
Donegild are portrayed as evil in the tale. At the time of the tale, their husbands are
already deceased and they can no longer produce heirs, and so their potential to continue
the patriline has also diminished. Therefore, their influence over the crown is viewed
suspiciously as no longer being constructive. Concerning royal woman such as the
Sowdanesse and Donegild, there was “an obsessive anxiety that maternal influence will
manifest in the heir to an overwhelming degree, displacing paternal influence altogether”
(Florschuetz 26). The Sowdanesse and Donegild are manifestations of this anxiety, and
thus, it is not surprising that they are portrayed as inherently evil. Their influences upon
their royal sons are threatening and murderous. As Florschuetz notes, the narrator
compares the Sowdanesse to Semiramis and Eve, both figural mothers who proved
damaging to their offspring (51). Their threatening presence as unsupervised royal
widows is shown when they are overlooked by their king sons. When his mother feigns
the desire to covert to Christianity, the Sultan is pleased and wrongly believes that there
is no reason to watch over her. He even lets her greet Custance, deliver her to the palace,
60
�and plan a grand feast, without his input or supervision. Additionally, after
consummating their marriage, Alla travels to Scotland to fight his enemies, also leaving
his royal mother without supervision. As demonstrated by the ensuing events of the tale,
“leaving his kingdom while his reign was still in a vulnerable position” was a grievous
oversight on Alla’s part (Nachtwey 112).
Additionally, drawing from Gayle Rubin and Lévi-Strauss’s work on the role
that the exchange of woman plays within the social unit, Dinshaw points out another
contrast between good Custance and her bad mothers-in-law. Custance accepts her role
as an object of exchange, most visibly as a precious gift unifying West and East through
her arranged marriage to the Sultan of Syria (Dinshaw 278). In this role, Custance is a
crucial tool in strengthening patriarchal rule, and is thus portrayed as the good girl. On
the other hand, women such as the Sowdanesse actively destroy attempts to fortify and
link patriarchal powers. By destroying the Sultan and Custance’s union and forcing
Custance to sail the perilous seas in a rudderless boat, the Sowdanesse causes Custance’s
father, the emperor of Rome, to attack Syria in retaliation. Due to the Sowdanesse’s
violent rejection of the exchange of Custance as a means for a patriarchal alliance
between West and East, she is positioned as one of the tale’s bad girls.
It is no coincidence that the two women portrayed as evil are those that are most
easily disposable. In this competitive binary, divides exist between women, forcing them
to stand alone within the royal family, so that they are more easily blamed, replaced, and
eliminated. In particular, the Sowdanesse and Donegild’s age and widowhood makes
them very vulnerable to replacement. However consciously, the Sowdanesse and
Donegild react to Custance as a threat because her presence emphasizes this status.
Custance will replace them as the woman who has the most influence and power over the
crown. In this way, the patriline structure perpetuates the madonna-whore binary by
pitting women against one another. Florschuetz attributes Donegild’s active disruption of
Alla and Custance’s marriage to her perception of Custance as a stranger without a
knowable past and lineage that may contaminate the royal line’s “dynastic integrity” (49).
However, considering Donegild’s desperateness as an easily replaceable widowed
woman, we can expect that her offense at Custance’s ‘strangeness’ is only a guise for her
internal fear of being replaced and losing influence. Within the woman-against-woman
structure that the patriline mandates, the female must act self-centeredly for the sake of
her relevance and survival. The Christian Custance is also an outsider in her planned
marriage to the Sultan, thus it is not surprising that the Sowdanesse reacted in the same
way that Donegild later does.
61
�The madonna-whore binary is an integral part of the ‘matter of woman’ in
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as it is evidently present throughout several of the tales,
including in The Knight’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and The Clerk’s Tale. In
particular, the Wife of Bath emphasizes the madonna-whore binary in her prologue when
she tells her fellow pilgrims that one of her husbands used to taunt her by reading from
his “book of wikked wyves” (l. 685).
Commenting on this she says, “For trusteth wel, it is an impossible/ That any
clerk wol speke good of wyves,/ But if it be of hooly seintes lyves” (ll. 689-690).
Beyond doubt, Custance is like one of these ‘hooly seintes’ in her unwavering Christian
faith, humble acceptance of male power, status as an asset to the patriline, and reflection
of chivalric values, and thus, will gain favor under a patriarchal perception of goodness.
Additionally, under this view, the Sowdanesse and Donegild are exaggerations of the rest
of womanhood that easily falls to the devil’s folly, disrupts patriarchal power, and is
portrayed as disposable and replaceable within the patriline. The Man of Law’s Tale
reflects the historical and cultural conflicts concerning female power that would have
been fresh in the minds of Chaucer and his contemporaries. The tale also facilitates a
deeper understanding about how the madonna-whore binary operates within society to
create competitive female relationships, preventing female unity and perpetuating a
system of patriarchal power.
Works Cited
Dinshaw, Carolyn. “New Approaches to Chaucer.” The Cambridge Companion to
Chaucer. Eds. Piero Boitani and Jill Mann. Cambridge University Press, 2003. 270-289.
Print.
Chaucer, Geoffry. The Man of Law’s Tale. “The Canterbury Tales Complete.” Ed. Larry
D. Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. 71-85. Print.
---. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. “The Canterbury Tales Complete.” Ed. Larry D.
Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. 71-85. Print.
Florschuetz, Angela. “‘A Mooder He Hath, but Fader Hath He Noon.’ Constructions of
Genealogy in the Clerk’s Tale and the Man of Law’s Tale.” The Chaucer Review 44.1
(2009): 25-60. Project MUSE. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.
62
�Nachtwey, Gerald. “Geoffroi de Charny’s Book of Chivalry and Violence in The Man of
Law’s Tale and The Franklin’s Tale.” Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003): 107-120.
Project MUSE. Web. 11 Oct 2012.
Rose, Christine. M. “Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale: Teaching through the Sources.”
College Literature 28.2 (2001): 155-77. MLA International Library. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.
63
�The Economic Role in Shaping
the Modern Egyptian Family
Pakinam Mekki (Biology)1
The economy often has an influence on the family institution (Olmsted, 2011).
In particular, during the first half of the twentieth century, the Egyptian economy
depended heavily on agriculture and many Egyptians were farmers (Nagy, 1972). In rural
households, children held an economic value, as they helped their parents cultivate crops,
maintain livestock and assist in the home. The advent of low-cost agrarian technology to
Egyptians in the 1940s considerably reduced the amount of labor needed to be performed
by both children and adults (Levy, 1985) As a result, many children and young adults
moved from rural regions to metropolitan cities, like Cairo and Alexandria, in pursuit of
education and employment (Levy, 1985). In addition, the discovery of oil in Egypt
boosted the Egyptian economy, creating numerous factory jobs for unskilled workers.
These finite opportunities led to the influx of rural workers in Cairo, which limited the
availability of resources and jobs to the unskilled laborer (Olmsted, 2011). Faced with
severe economic tribulations, like lost wages, many women were adamant to enter the
work force to not only help their families but to gain independence. With time, female
employment became a norm in modern Egyptian lives; women were no longer confined
to child-rearing or domestic labor (Ibrahim, 1981). In response to economic conditions,
my maternal grandmother, Amal El-Zahaby, embraced new familial norms in the
twentieth century (Olmsted, 2011; Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20,
2012).
Prior to the advent of low-cost agrarian technology to small farmers, Egypt had
been a rural state, where child labor was essential (Nagi, 1972). Consider a family, which
consists of a husband, a wife, an eight-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter, who own
a small parcel of land. The man and his son would maintain their crops manually by
irrigating the land, distributing seeds, removing weeds, and harvesting crops. On the
other hand, the woman and her daughter would maintain a clean house and barn, milk
cows and goats, and make various cheeses and butters. In this labor-intensive household,
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley for SO301: The Family.
64
�unpaid child labor held an economic value and was integral for family survival (Neveen
Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). For that reason, many families had up
to twelve children. In fact, a 1960 census revealed that ninety percent of child laborers
were working in agriculture (Nagi, 1972).
Nagi (1972) argued that while child labor in rural areas was prevalent in Egypt,
it was steadily decreasing. In 1957, ninety-two percent of individuals between six and
nineteen years of age living in rural areas were employed. In contrast, that figure
decreased to seventy percent in 1960 (Nagi, 1972). Levy (1985) argued that the decreased
need for child labor in rural Egypt was the result of various developments in Egyptian
agriculture. Specifically, the advent of mechanical tools, like tractors, significantly
reduced the manual labor needed to plow, irrigate, and harvest crops. Government
policies also encouraged farmers to adopt these tools. They provided low-cost diesel oil,
levied import customs off foreign equipment, and allowed farmers to borrow tools, like
irrigation pumps, from village banks at low rates (Levy, 1985). Moreover, new crop
patterns reflected the use of these tools. The new equipment worked well with the
cultivation of fruit, vegetables and rice, instead of crops, like cotton, which required
immense manual labor. This, coupled with government-mandated primary schooling of
children, effectively reduced the number of children in the rural work force (Levy, 1985).
For that reason, many children along with family members emigrated from rural regions
in Egypt to cities, like Cairo and Alexandria, to obtain good education and careers with
good prospects (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012).
The mechanization of Egyptian agriculture influenced my maternal
grandmother’s family. Amal El-Zahaby, my grandmother, was the youngest of ten
children (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). She was born on
April 9, 1937 in a small, rural village named Quesna to an affluent family. Her family
was one of Quesna’s first to incorporate the use of heavy machinery on its farm. The use
of tractors and irrigation pumps increased their crop yields dramatically, and in turn their
annual income as well, allowing them to forgo the need for child agrarian labor. As a
result, Amal’s parents were able to fund her siblings’ and her own primary and secondary
education (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). In 1955, Amal
was the first woman in Quesna to enroll in Cairo University. To many traditional and
patriarchal villagers, the idea of a woman receiving a college education was a radical one;
they perceived that a woman’s role should only be confined to child-rearing, domestic
labor, and serving her husband. It is considered dishonorable and shameful for a woman
to refuse to abide by her traditional roots or beliefs. Nonetheless, Amal left Quesna with
65
�her parents’ blessings to pursue a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering at Cairo
University (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). This experience
as an affluent young woman entering a predominantly male university helped establish an
outlook different than those of her predecessors. She believed that women should receive
the same educational opportunities as men did. Indeed, her parents’ increased wealth as a
result of adopting mechanical agrarian equipment influenced their family’s acceptance of
nontraditional norms, or ways of living (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March
20, 2012).
In addition to the mechanization of agriculture, the Egyptian economy expanded
and shifted from agrarian-based to a service-based one after the discovery of oil in the
Middle East in the second half of the twentieth century. Oil was exported to western
countries at a substantial price, thereby stimulating the Egyptian economy. Such a
stimulation in the economy led to an increase in minimum wage, health care quality,
government-funded education, job opportunities as well as the establishment of numerous
factories in Cairo and Alexandria (Olmsted, 2011). To the unemployed or the
underemployed rural workers, Egypt’s urban centers offered them a myriad of
opportunities. Consequently, Egypt’s urban population increased. In particular, one out of
five Egyptians lived in the country’s urban centers in 1950. Conversely, in 1960, the
urban population increased to one in four persons (Abu-Lughod, 1965). This population
influx led to the limited allocation of resources, such as education, food, health care and
employment, to many unskilled urban laborers (Ibrahim, 1981).
In response to these adverse economic conditions, the Egyptian family structure
and norms were redefined in the second half of the twentieth century with the entry of
women in the workforce (Olmsted, 2011). Ibrahim (1980) wrote that during the first half
of the twentieth century, urban women tended to “support the conservative stereotypes of
women as secluded, nonproductive and dependent.” A 1974 study showed that many
educated and illiterate women did not participate in the labor force. At that time, female
employment threatened the loss of family honor, which was integral to every family. For
that reason, only men were expected to work and bring income while women were
confined to domesticity and child-rearing. Beginning in the 1970s, however, many
families faced economic pressure, as the demand for a limited number of jobs soared
(Ibrahim 1980). In fact, the ratio of jobs to applicants for inexperienced positions in
factories was one to thirteen. Egyptian families, many of which act as a decision-making
unit, were forced to make pragmatic decisions to alleviate their economic distress. To
increase the household income to meet the family’s perceived needs, each family had to
66
�make one of these three choices: the male breadwinner could adopt a second job; male
children could be withdrawn from their schools to enter the workforce; or, wives and
older daughters could gain access to jobs for the first time (Ibrahim 1980).
Many women viewed their family’s economic distress as an opportunity to enter
the labor force and to feel liberated and independent (Ibrahim, 1981). However, they
needed to ask the permission of the prominent male figures (husbands, older brothers, or
fathers). The husband, for example, had to weigh his options. If his wife went to work,
she would contribute to the family income and meet all the family’s perceived needs and
demands. Nonetheless, her involvement in the workforce can bring dishonor and shame
on the family name, which is an undesirable consequence (Ibrahim, 1981). A twenty-two
year old girl reported that,
“Work for a girl was thought to be shameful then. [My family and I] told the
neighbors that I was going to school, and so I had to carry some books with me
each day. My mother was afraid that no suitor would look at me if he knew
about the job” (Ibrahim, 1981).
In addition, a thirty-nine year old factory worker and mother of five accounted her
experience,
“[My husband] did not want me to work at first because I thought I would not be
able to organize the household – I’d be too tired…My husband is a good
provider, thanks be to God, but his salary is fixed and our children were needing
more of everything. When I told him about the opening here at first, it was a flat
no. We argued day and night until I convinced him…Certainly, he’d preferred
me to remain a housewife but, in the condition of today, people like us require
two salaries to get by” (Ibrahim, 1981).
Indeed, the female entry to the Egyptian workforce was a tedious one, but over time, it
became a phenomenon that was more socially accepted (Ibrahim, 1981). In fact, a study
demonstrated that between 1955 and 1964, fifty percent of families opposed their
daughters entering the labor force. Conversely, between 1971 and 1977, eighty-six
percent of families encouraged their daughters to pursue jobs for future economic
security. Indeed, in a patriarchal society, turbulent economic conditions allowed for the
employment of women to become a predominant feature of family life (Ibrahim, 1981).
After graduating from Cairo University with a bachelor’s degree, Amal pursued
a master’s and a doctorate in agricultural engineering (Neveen Gobba, personal
communication, March 20, 2012). In 1964, she was hired to work in Egypt’s Ministry of
Agriculture as a principal investigator, or a scientific researcher. She was able to conduct
67
�and publish research concerning the role of nutrition of livestock development as well as
develop strategies to improve and propel Egyptian agriculture forward, such as the
rotation of crops. Certainly, she was one of very few women to work in the ministry;
many of her colleagues and superiors were male. However, Amal gained their respect, as
she was confident in herself and her abilities as well as dedicated to being a great scientist
(Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). In 1965, she got married to
Ibrahim Gobba, a young administrator in the ministry, and soon had three children:
Neveen (born 1968), Hatem (born 1970) and Shereen (born 1973). Amal continued to
work in the ministry until retirement, and she encouraged all of her children to pursue
higher education. In particular, Neveen, my mother, earned a doctorate in physical
therapy and rehabilitation and was hired as an assistant professor of biomechanics in
Cairo University in 1995. Hatem, my uncle, became a well-known interventional
cardiologist in Egypt. Shereen, my aunt, became an accountant and was hired by the
Ministry of Justice (Neveen Gobba, personal communication, March 20, 2012). In a
larger context, the Egyptian family structure was redefined and reestablished in the
second half of the twentieth century, in response to economic distress (Olmsted, 2011).
Women sought the opportunity to enter and be accepted as members in the work force.
As a result, many of the traditional and conservative ideas, which portray women as
subservient and dependent on males, were let go, and female employment was accepted
as integral to society and family survival (Ibrahim, 1981).
Works Cited
Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1965). Urbanization in Egypt: Present state and future prospects.
Economic Development & Cultural Change, 13(3), 313-343.
Gobba, N. (2012, March 20). Interview conducted by P Mekki [Personal Interview].
Amal El-Zahaby’s Education and Career.
Ibrahim, B. (1981). Family strategies: A perspective on women's entry to the labor force
in Egypt. International Journal of Sociology, 11(2), 234-249.
Levy, V. (1985). Cropping pattern, mechanization, child labor and fertility behavior in a
farming economy: Rural Egypt. Economic Development & Cultural Change, 33 (4), 777791.
68
�Nagi, M. (1972). Child labor in rural Egypt. Rural Sociology, 37(4), 623-628.
Olmsted, J. (2011). Norms, economic conditions and household formation: A case study
of the Arab world. History of the Family, 16(4), 401-415.
69
�Gustav Klimt: An Artist’s Evolution
Through Freud’s Stages of Consciousness
Erik Arntzen (Arts Administration and Art History)1
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was a Viennese artist known as “the son of the turn
of the century”. The president of the Secessionist movement, Klimt is most recognizable
for taking risks through new media and the extravagantly portrayed themes of raw
sexuality, death, and the carnal desires of man. However, before assuming this role,
Klimt was known for academic and decorative styles through his ceiling paintings on the
Ringstrasse and other commissioned works. It was the spark of the Secession that lead
him to creating his more avant-garde paintings. Klimt’s journey through art weaves a
structure that connects the conventional and the unconventional, the conservative and the
unrestrained.
Klimt compares greatly to Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, the human mind
contains three layers: a consciousness, a preconscious, and an unconscious. Using this
model of the mind as a motif, my paper will draw attention to Klimt’s progression as an
artist through three phases of his career: consciousness relating to his academic career in
ceiling paintings and commissions; preconscious emphasizing the period between the two
extremes during the formation of the Secession; and the unconscious seen in Klimt’s later
works, combining portraiture and abstracted, dreamlike, and mystical elements with
darker themes: “The remarkable insight that characterized Klimt’s later work was
contemporaneous with Freud’s psychological studies and presaged the inward turn that
would pervade all fields of inquiry in Vienna 1900.” (Kandel, 2012, p. 6).
Before discussing the artistic evolution of Klimt, it is important to understand
his relation to Freud. Sigmund Freud was a Viennese psychologist who was revolutionary
in his theories concerning the human mind. It was in the late nineteenth century that
Freud began developing his ideas on levels of consciousness, developing into future
theories that demonstrate man’s development in “psychosexual stages” (Rennison, 2001).
In his work with treating emotional disorders, Freud discovered that there were many
1Written
under the direction of Drs. Laura Morowitz and Katica Urbanc for the team-taught
honors ILC entitled Cities and Perversities: Art and Literature in Turn-of-the-Century Paris,
Berlin, and Vienna.
70
�issues that could not be explained by normal, conventional means. Although he was not
the first to study the unconscious mind, Freud did place more emphasis and stressed its
importance on its influence on conscious behavior. This is referred to as a psychoanalytic
approach to psychology (Griggs, 2010).
Freud believed that the human mind has three levels, or three parts of the mind’s
awareness; the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. Freud demonstrates this
model as taking the form of an iceberg:
“In the iceberg model of the mind, the small part above water is our conscious
mind; the part just below the surface is the preconscious; and the major portion, hidden
below the water is the unconscious. A person has access only to the conscious and
preconscious levels of awareness. The conscious is what the person is presently thinking
about, and the preconscious is information that the person could bring into conscious
awareness” (Griggs, 2010, p. 291).
Freud’s model suggests that what we are aware of is but a small percentage of
the larger bank of thought humans possess. The consciousness is the basic surface of the
human mind and incorporates short-term memory, a handful of components for the mind
to remember. The middle layer, the preconscious, acts as a buffer between the conscious
and unconscious, serving as the mechanism to repress unconscious thoughts and desires.
Essentially, our consciousness only scratches the surface of the anxiety and complexity
kept in the darkness of our unconscious. The unconscious is difficult to define because of
its cryptic nature. It contains the mind’s id, the unrestrained personality feature, as well as
sexual identity, complexes, inner angst, and other darker themes of the mind. What is
certain to Freud is that the majority of our thoughts and personality are largely
unconscious; only certain acts are due to a purely conscious and rational state.
Understanding Freud makes it clear that the reason we understand and are aware of base
desires is because they constantly find ways to permeate the conscious mind (Rennison,
2001).
To understand the similarities between Freud’s model of the mind and Klimt,
one must examine who Klimt was during this period and what he represented in the art
world. The son of a goldsmith, Gustav Klimt began his career at a very young age in the
Kunstgewerbeschule or the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna. Before the Secession
movement and the radical changes in portraiture after 1900, Klimt was a commissioned
academic artist who painted ceilings of buildings in the Ringstrasse and other privatized
works meant for homes or the Salon. He worked primarily to earn a living through “his
successes as a decorator….his eclectic ability to evoke a range of historical manners,
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�from Florentine to Egyptian, and his private production of portraits and allegories.”
(Varnedoe, 1986, p. 150). As his curiosity increased beyond the boundaries of academic
art, the events of the Secessionist movement, along with the death of his brother, allowed
the birth of a style all his own. The Gustav Klimt of 1897 until his death comprised the
apex of his work in both public outrage and individual identity. This was the period
where the true Klimt surfaced into Viennese society.
In Freud’s model of the human mind, the conscious mind represents one’s
immediate awareness and understanding of norms. In this case, Klimt’s early academic
and decorative style from the Kunstgewerbschule represents Vienna’s consciousness. The
Viennese public at this time had highly conservative morals and values. Therefore, the
academic style was praised and exonerated, while other art forms were considered crude
for their lack of aesthetic and technical detail. In Klimt’s Altar of Dionysus (Figure 1) and
the Auditorium of the Altes Burgtheater (Figure 2), both works represent what Viennese
society considers aesthetically beautiful and right for art. They fully embody the
academic technique. Indeed, these pieces are meant to represent an identification with the
Viennese culture he was commissioned to please; a society which exonerated art as
drama. (Schorske, 1982, p. 31)
The Altar of Dionysus (1886-88) represents Vienna’s conscious mind because it
encompasses all the traits of academic style embraced by Viennese society. It was one of
many ceiling paintings for buildings in the Ringstrasse, this specifically set in the
Burgtheater. Formally, the painting exemplifies technique and academic style. There is a
strong emphasis on the historical fashion of painting. The nudes lying sensually amongst
a collection of ancient treasures suggest a Greco-Roman narrative with styles generated
from Renaissance and Neo-Classical tradition. As far as the women themselves, their
elongated pose and undisturbed beauty is void of individual identity. The style allows the
figures to function as symbols of a greater scheme. Most certainly they are muses or
goddesses who serve Dionysus in wine, dance, or of ritual madness. A fanciful, leafy
border, showing inspirations from the Rococo decorative style, surrounds the narrative.
The strong sense of allegorical painting and a rebirth of the glorified painting styles such
as Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo prove that this piece demonstrates what was an
appealing and popularly acceptable art form.
In the Auditorium of the Altes Burgtheater (1888), the piece significantly
represents Vienna’s conscious as a representation of its emphasis on order and structure.
The piece is a highly realistic view of the space. All of the figures remain posed in perfect
alignment that allows the viewer to see the scene in its entirety. There is a certain
72
�elegance that the piece captures due to how much space Klimt provides, as well as
realistically capturing the décor of the theater itself and its occupants. Klimt chose to
capture the drama not of the actors on the Burgtheater stage, but the attendants who are
involved in their own thoughts; the real drama was the audience observing from the seats
and boxes (Kandel, 2012, p. 6). There is an emphasis on technical detail in painting
figures as well as architecture in the academic style. It is crafted so finely, that even the
people are organized in perfect ratios, contained in order by rows and boxes. It hints at an
overarching theme for Viennese society, which praises its conservative nature.
For Klimt and other Viennese artists, the fin-de-siècle was a shifting point in
representing Vienna’s preconscious mind. According to Freud, the preconscious mind
serves as a buffer to separate the darker desires from the conscious mind. The
unconscious thoughts can sometimes leak through the preconscious and form in the
conscious awareness, because the desire is so great. The next stage of Gustav Klimt’s
artistic evolution defines the moment when the artists begin to find their own voice and
style to translate through art. For Klimt, the arena of Vienna’s preconscious mind was the
Secessionist movement.
A self-explanatory term, the Secessionists sought to create art that broke away
from academic conventions. It was a movement that encapsulated a new generation of
artists who had wished to examine life through different media and style. Though the
mission was to find a new identity in art, the members were still holding onto their
culture and what they had learned, however new their work would appear.
(Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska & Mizia, 2006, p. 217). The Secessionist movement for
Klimt would serve as the primary transition between his old and new styles, specifically
in his commission for the University paintings. Until this point, Klimt was lost in a world
where the art he produced was not fully expressing the themes he would concretely
display in his later works (Varnedoe, 1986, p. 151). The sketches for drafting the
University paintings came about during the birth of the Secession. Klimt’s works first
received a shocked and undesirable response from the Viennese public. The art he had
created was seen as vulgar representations for the schools he was commissioned to
decorate and exalt. These works, and the responses of Viennese society, suggest that they
bring about unconscious elements which we wish to repress. This demonstrates a
similarity with the function of the preconscious mind actively repressing the unconscious,
while some forms of anxiety tend to slip into the conscious level. Specifically for
Medicine (Figure 3) and Philosophy (Figure 4), there is an interesting mixture of styles
73
�that can be traced back to Klimt’s old academic style and serve as a foreshadowed
example of what Klimt’s art would ultimately become.
Medicine and Philosophy share similarities that make them both representations
of Vienna’s preconscious mind. The first is the mixture of old and new Klimt. Like the
preconscious mind balancing the upper and lower sections of awareness, both pieces have
old and new styles incorporated into the composition. From the academic style, there is a
value placed on the attention to detail on anatomy and portraiture in the figures. Also, the
old style is seen in the works’ use of allegorical representation; each figure in the work
holds a larger meaning or is personified as a theme. Conversely, the more avant-garde
Klimt is seen through his use of abstraction and expressive quality. This can be noted
specifically in Medicine through the curving, vine-like structures that make up the central
woman’s garb, or in the atmospheric haze of the face in the background of Philosophy.
Medicine and Philosophy, in this case, mean to suggest the darker themes through a
quality of the unconscious material emerging into the conscious conventions of the
academic.
These works serve as Klimt’s representations of Vienna’s preconscious mind
through the themes which they individually reveal. Medicine (1900-07) was meant to
glorify the wonders of modern medicine; to show how man has overcome death and
sickness through science. In this painting, Gustav Klimt conjures the opposite view. The
overall composition and elements of the work suggest that death is inevitable for all of
mankind. (Marlowe-Storkovich, 2003, p. 231) One of the strongest formal aspects of the
work is how Klimt uses space to unveil this message. The viewer can feel a certain
discomfort from the asymmetry of the lone nude on the left versus the cluster of ghosts,
nymphs and tormented souls on the right. There is a sense of hopelessness and futility
that permeates the work. This ultimately brings the viewer to the conclusion that nothing
lasts forever; medicine can only sustain man’s predestined fate.
Philosophy (1899-1907) is similar to Medicine in that it also serves to take an
alternative vision of a doctrine that proved to be rather unconventional. The piece
represents a negative representation of the discipline. It asks the viewer to understand the
duress Philosophy places on the human psyche. On the left side of the piece, there lies a
tower of spiraling nudes, combined together in a state of torment shown by their pose and
buried faces. It is almost as if man is spiraling downward in trying to understand the
questions through undefined answers. Peering through the background is what looks to be
a large face and remnants of what appears to be a body. The atmospheric and hazy
quality of this figure suggests it is between two worlds, taking on an ethereal role as a
74
�subject of the piece (Nebehay, 1994, p. 69). A philosopher as represented by Klimt has
few answers yet many questions. Overall, the composition of the work suggests that the
philosopher is a man who is doomed to lead an unfulfilled life. It is a profession that is
subject to inner torment, for constantly circling around questions that can never be fully
answered.
The last stage of Gustav Klimt’s artistic evolution focuses on the apex of his
career in fin-de-siècle Vienna. It was during this period that Klimt began to immerse
himself into representing a darker psyche through his art. These early twentieth-century
works, promoted from the well established Wiener Sezession and the Klimt Group,
represent many aspects of the unconscious mind as defined by Freud, including
unacceptable sexual urges, fears, unfavorable desires, and shameful memories repressed
by the preconscious. Most importantly, Klimt was looking for an outlet to express the
unconscious nature and how it can affect conscious awareness and behavior: “He became
a painter of the unconscious.” (Kandel, 2012, pp. 118-19).
As seen in Freud’s Iceberg Model, the unconscious mind takes the largest
percentage of the three parts. This suggests that we are not fully aware of our true nature,
leaving many reasons behind our actions unanswerable unless tapped into through means
of psychotherapy (hypnosis, free association, Rorschach inkblot tests, etc.). Therefore,
the works from the new Klimt represent Vienna’s unconscious mind because they both
identify with these darker repressed themes and make up most of his repertoire. Three
major works that capture these themes are Judith (Figure 5), The Beethoven Frieze: The
Hostile Powers (Figure 6), and Death and Life (Figure 7).
Klimt’s Judith (1901) is one of his more suggestive pieces that were commonly
labeled as pornography. The work represents larger themes of uninhibited sexual desire
and the sexuality of the modern woman in many ways. Her pose and facial gesture
suggest she is captured in a constant state of ecstasy, teasing the viewer by exposing one
breast in a sensual manner. Her jeweled choker combined with an abstractly patterned
robe connects Judith to a woman of unconventional standards and exoticism. Her
surrounding environment is made up of abstracted natural imagery set with gold leaf and
rich yellows and browns. She is captivating and enthralling in her gaze, many of the
qualities seen in the femme fatale. Ultimately Klimt expresses Judith as a woman of the
unconscious expressing deep carnal desires that fight against the conventional Viennese
mentality. It is her overt sexuality and this aloof nature she possesses that definitely
would have shocked and scared the Viennese public, spawning different kinds of arousal
for men especially. From a Freudian perspective, Judith would arouse negative reactions
75
�due to the unconscious desires and anxiety leaking through to the conscious mind, and
that in fact the audience has these desires dormant in our deeper psyche whether they
wish it or not. (Kandel, 2012, pp. 121-23).
The Hostile Powers (1902) is a section of a larger work by Klimt called The
Beethoven Frieze, meant to physically represent Beethoven’s music through visual art.
Among some of the critical statements of the work, the general reaction was labeling the
art as obscene with a strong emphasis on exposing man’s deepest desires and longings
(Vergo, 1993, pp. 71-72). In many ways, this section of the frieze contains standards
which separate the figures into separate categories; different vices such as lust, greed, or
vanity. On the sides of the piece lay mystical nymphs in contorted overtly sexual poses,
exposing the breasts and pubic areas to further emphasize the raw sexuality at play. As a
motif seen in other works, the background and clothing are abstracted through the
curving snakelike vines and patterns. The main focal point of the piece is the large beast
that is surrounded by the women. The Hostile Powers takes the form of a narrative work
from an Ancient period in that there is a clear hierarchy of importance in the way the
figures are organized. The setting, monsters, and mystical creatures overemphasize a
representation of dreams (Dreams to a psychoanalyst are where the unconscious motives
behind our actions lay dormant). The elements of the painting ultimately represent our
darker motives and desires that reside in the unconscious mind.
The final piece I chose to portray representations of Vienna’s unconscious mind
is a work that incorporates the interplay of life and death. In one of his later works
entitled Death and Life (1911), Klimt portrays the dichotomy and correspondence
between the two extremes. Through the formal qualities of the work, the piece suggests a
general representation for how the unconscious can affect the conscious layer. The first
to note is the use of space and how balance is achieved. Klimt organizes the figures in an
asymmetrical fashion, death residing left and life on the right. The Life portion takes up a
heavy percentage of the work, expressing various generations of people interwoven
together. The colors complement each other through a balance of light and dark with
warm and cool. With life there is love, energy, and progression, while death is cold,
unattached, and stagnant. Both sides are also engulfed in textile-like patterns that suggest
the formation of something woven or quilted; there is unity between the two entities
(Kandel, 2012, pp. 122-23). It is evident based on the work that Death is an ultimate fate
that waits in store for man and is a part of nature which we cannot change. A Freudian
psychologist would relate this piece to the aggression and anxiety that lies deep within
the human unconscious; otherwise known as Thanatos. This suggests that as death
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�constantly coexists with life, so does the repressed and unacceptable thoughts lurking
behind the dark veil of the unconscious mind.
The artistic evolution of Gustav Klimt can be related to each level of Sigmund
Freud’s scale of awareness for various reasons. Like any creative genius, one can notably
understand such expression and similarities by using their work as primary examples.
Each piece discussed was related to what Klimt had learned during the period it was
produced, as well as a reaction to his views of society as he began to establish himself in
the art world and break away from the academic standard and the Viennese norm. In his
early career, his skill was a reflection of what was culturally acceptable by Vienna at the
time; painting Vienna’s conscious mind. During the Secession, Klimt experimented with
darker themes while keeping aspects of technique from his past, buffering between the
accepted and the unconventional; painting Vienna’s preconscious mind. And lastly, his
more avant-garde work proved to successfully incorporate man’s deeper, more instinctive
desires through art, even though it was commonly deemed provocative, pornographic,
and obscene; painting Vienna’s unconscious mind. All of these components work
together to paint a picture of Klimt’s progression as an artist in fin-de-siècle Vienna. The
analysis of his art forms a new “Iceberg Model”, one made of oil paint and gold leaf.
Works Cited
Griggs, R. A. (2010). Psychology: A Consise Introduction. New York, NY: Worth
Publishers.
Kandel, E. R. (2012). The Age of Insight:The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in
Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. New York, NY, USA: Random
House Publishing Group.
Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska, S., & Mizia, P. (2006). "Sztuka", "Wiener Secession",
"Mánes". The Central European Art Triangle. Artibus et Historiae , 27 (53), 220-259.
Marlowe-Storkovich, T. (2003). Medicine by Gustav Klimt. Artibus et Historiae , 24
(47), 231-252.
Nebehay, C. M. (1994). Gustav Klimt: From Drawing to Painting. London, England:
Thames and Hudson, Ltd.
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�Rennison, N. (2001). Sigmund Freud. Harpenden, GBR: Pocket Essentials.
Schorske, C. E. (1982). Mahler and Klimt: Social Experience and Artistic Evolution.
Daedalus , 111 (3), 29-50.
Varnedoe, K. (1986). Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture, and Design. New York, NY, USA:
The Museum of Modern Art.
Vergo, P. (1993). Art in Vienna 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele, and their
contemporaries. London, England: Phaidon Press, Inc.
78
�Figure 1: Gustav Klimt. Altar of Dionysus. Oil on stucco. Illustration for staircase of the
Burgtheater 1886-8. Vienna, Burgtheater
Figure 2: Gustav Klimt. Auditorium of the Altes Burgtheater, Vienna. 1888. Gouache, 32
¼ X 36 ¼”. Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien
79
�Figure 3: Gustav Klimt. Medicine. 1900-07. Oil on canvas, 14’ 1 ¼ ” X 9’ 10 1/8”.
Destroyed
Figure 4: Gustav Klimt. Philosophy. 1903-07. Oil on canvas, 14’ 1 ¼” X 9’ 10 1/8”.
Destroyed
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�Figure 5: Gustav Klimt. Judith. 1901. Oil on canvas, 60 ¼” x 52 3/8”. Österreichische
Galerie, Vienna.
Figure 6: Gustav Klimt. Beethoven Frieze: Detail from “The Hostile Powers”. 1902.
Casein, gold leaf, semiprecious stones, mother-of-pearl, gypsum, charcoal, pastel, and
pencil on plaster, 7’ 1” X 20’ 10 3/8”. Österreichische Galerie, Vienna.
81
�Figure 7: Gustav Klimt. Death and Life. 1911 Oil on canvas, 78” x 70.1”. Private
Collection, Vienna.
82
�Female or Not? Relational Aggression, Mixed Gender
Messages and Disability Limitations
Danielle Lucchese (Sociology)1
My three years in middle school proved to be what family members warned me it
would be, socially cruel. I was different from other students in every sense of the word. I
was a tomboy and hated the idea of makeup, skirts and footwear that was not a running
shoe. Still to this day, I believe that my years spent as a tomboy and the portrayal of my
gender as masculine can be attributed to my physical disability.
I was born with Hydrocephalus, when cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) does not drain
properly, resulting in built up pressure on the brain. As a result of the build up CSF on the
right side of my brain, my left side is significantly weaker. Some of the fluid also went
behind my optic nerve which triggered Nystagmus, an involuntary eye movement.
Between both my diagnoses, doctors were unsure if I would ever talk or walk, and as a
result, I received intense physical, occupational, and visual therapy until my high school
graduation. Although the various therapies helped my physical condition, they destroyed
any social connections I might have had with my classmates. For each therapy session I
missed class time, which marked me as different from my classmates because they never
missed class. I received school-based therapy because in the schools I attended, having a
disability was viewed as a problem that impacted my academics and needed to be
corrected. This is an example of what Bolt refers to as the Social Model of Disability,
which “holds that persons are impaired for a number of reasons, but that is only by
society that they are disabled” (Bolt, 2005).
Society has always viewed handicap individuals in terms of binaries, specifically,
“ability and “disability” (Gray, 2009). In other words one’s body either conforms to
society’s perception of normal and able or it does not. When one’s body is labeled
disabled, according to Grey, society believes it needs to be “cured,” “fixed,” or
“eliminated” (Gray, 2009). It is this discourse that has helped shape society’s mindset
toward disability. According to Harpur, “many people without impairments regard their
corporeal state as the natural and correct state of being” (Harpur, 2012). Since disabled
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Jean Halley for SO210: Growing Up Female.
83
�people have various limitations, either physically or mentally that differ from “normal”
individuals, they are viewed as not complying with the social norms created by society.
Ultimately, it is society that decides how to define disability as well as who is labeled as
such (Gray, 2009).
The definition of disability could change depending on how it is being assessed
and by whom. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, a
disability is defined as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or
more major life activities of such individual” (ADA, Sec. 12102). Which daily activities
are “major” as well as “substantial limitations” are determined by society thus, in
sociological terms, a disability, similar to other identities is “socially constructed” (Gray,
2009). Similar to disability, gender, especially for women and girls, is also created by
society.
Whether women acknowledge it or not, the society in which we live has defined
and still continues to define our gender, that is, who we are as women within the context
of the social. If one is biologically female, she is supposed to carry out her assigned
gender role to affirm this identity. Based on my life experiences, it is very clear that,
gender as well as gender roles is extremely embedded in our society. As women, we are
taught by society to be quiet, submissive, and constantly look beautiful. Today we still
struggle to voice our opinions or act on our desires, sexual or not. For if we do, we are
immediately challenged by both our male counterparts as well as other females. Drawing
from my past experiences, it is more likely that other women and girls will attempt to
reinforce the social boundaries created by society. The girls and young women who made
attempts to police my gender throughout my time in middle school and high school more
often than not used relational aggression as their primary method to try and keep me
within the social boundaries of my assigned gender role. Most of the females who
attempted to police my gender, were also physically handicapped thus relational
aggression was the only type of aggression that they had access to. Their physical
limitations in addition to traditional gender role denied them access to other forms of
aggression. In other words, physically handicapped females use relational aggression
because both traditional gender roles and their physical limitations deny them access to
other forms of aggression.
Relational aggression is emotional violence such as teasing, gossip, and body
language, meant to harm or even destroy an individual’s relationships with other people.
According to Werner et al (2005) and Mathieson et al. (2011) relational aggression is a
tactic used more among females than males. The reason for this is because society holds
84
�different expectations for women and girls than men and boys. Individuals who are
biologically female are also supposed to conform to the social expectations and
traditional gender roles which society has created to enforce their identity and role as
females. By having the ability to manipulate damage, and even destroy relationships
established by their classmates and colleagues, females gain power that is forbidden to
them otherwise. Social boundaries such as traditional gender roles forbid women and
girls from openly expressing aggression. When women and girls defy these traditional
gender roles, other females use tactics of relational aggression like the “slut” reputation in
an attempt to hold them within these social boundaries.
In her book, Leora Tanenbaum deconstructs what it means to be female and
labeled a slut. She unpacks the term, which is usually associated with promiscuous
women and girls and breaks it down as a derogatory term that has multiple meanings,
from the woman who develops early to the girl who expresses the slightest interest in a
boy another girl likes (Tanenbaum, 1999). Women and girls face this double standard on
a daily basis. Society will not let us express our desires or act or look the way we choose.
Males, on the one hand, face similar yet less social policing than women and girls do. For
example, men and boys are not permitted to cry or openly express sadness, for when this
occurs, they are viewed by society as weak and thus are not “real men.” As long as males
conform to the traditional gender roles, however, they hold significantly more social
power than females do. For example, men and boys are allowed and are often encouraged
as well as supported by society to express sexual desire. In contrast, women and girls are
discouraged and ultimately forbidden to express or act upon their sexual desires, for if
they do, they fall victim to the “slut” reputation as a consequence of challenging
traditional gender roles. Although the word slut was not specifically attached to my
identity, I was still going against the social norms that society constructed for females
and thus needed to be policed, by other females.
According to Marion Brown, the definition of girl and what it means to be female is
constantly changing. “Being a girl is individually and collectively produced and
reproduced, always shifting, neither static nor linear” (Brown, 2011). Being female
occurs in different ways and numerous factors have an impact on an individual’s
interpretation on what it means to be a girl or woman. In my case, being physically as
well as visually handicapped helped to define my understanding of what it meant to be
female. One of the first aspects of that helped me construct a definition of femininity was
the way girls were expected to dress.
85
�The various types of therapy I received required excessive climbing, jumping,
stretching, and even bicycle rides. Due to this, clothing associated with the traditional
female gender such as dresses, skirts, tights, or even ballet flats were outfits that I could
not wear to school because I received most of my therapy during the school day. As a
result of my lack of female appearance, girls began to tease me. There was one girl in
particular, that would do anything to criticize my appearance, especially the female
qualities which I lacked and she had.
We will call her Gia and similar to me, she was also physically disabled. Her
handicap however, was far worse than mine. She used a wheelchair to move around and
could barely move her upper body. She did however; comply with the female gender
roles that society has established.
Staying within the definition of femininity that society has constructed is
dependent on a variety of factors. According to Marion Brown, these factors include race,
class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and ability (Brown, 2011). The concept of
ability played a major role in the relationship between Gia and myself. For Gia, relational
aggression served as a way for her to police my gender as well as ability or in our case,
disability. The different degrees of ability were the root of her relationally aggressive
behavior toward me. Since my limitations were less severe I was more accepted within
society. This acceptance was something Gia wanted but was denied due to the severity of
her handicap.
The more severe the limitations the less of a chance a disabled individual has of
being perceived as “normal” by society. According to Gray, “virtually any bodily
difference could be perceived as disabling, but for particular social and historical reasons,
certain bodily features and characteristics get labeled as such” (Gray, 2009). Select
different abilities are labeled as disabilities because they outright deviate from the norm.
Our differences in ability and gender portrayal are what caused Gia to act relationally
aggressive toward me. It all started in our second year of middle school.
We were friends up until seventh grade when what it meant to be female became
different for each of us. For Gia, being female was about material items. She needed a
handbag to go with each of her outfits and a different hairstyle for everyday. Makeup of
all shades covered her face, blot powder, bronzer, black eyeliner, various pastel eye
shadows, all of which blended together in an attempt to mask her disability and allowed
her to hide behind female expectations that were socially constructed. In contrast,
growing up had the opposite affect on me.
86
�I did not use aspects of what it socially meant to be female to attempt to mask my
disability. My outfits were more masculine than feminine. Overalls, baggy sweatpants,
t-shirts, and sneakers were usually what I wore to school in order for me to be able to
move better in therapy. Once seventh grade started however, my appearance was
unacceptable to Gia.
I noticed a change in our friendship at the beginning of seventh grade. For the
first few months she was cold toward me. I tried not to pay attention to it, but her one
word sarcastic answers, eye rolls, and attempts to move to the other side of the hallway
whenever possible, were difficult to ignore. After a few weeks of this, I asked her why
she was acting this way. Her answer: I was not female enough, not like her.
Tanenbuam argues if females are not conforming to social norms then, “She’s not
one of us. She’s one of them. She is other ”(240, 1999). In my case, I was the “other” in
Gia’s eyes. My lack of femininity was what she used as a way to distinguish herself from
me. She wanted to make it clear to me that she had the femininity which I lacked, and she
attempted to prove her point through relational aggression.
Relational aggression is the result of rejection by individuals’ peers (Bowie, 2009).
Gia rejected me because of my lack of feminine qualities and once she expressed her
concern about my femininity, Gia would not let me hear the end of it. Everyday she
would comment about my ponytail, boot cut Gap jeans and whatever hooded sweatshirt
or t-shirt I decided to wear that day. When she was not complaining about my outfit, she
would comment that my nails were not polished, my hair was in a headband or that I
needed to cover my facial blemishes with make up. Her comments went in one ear and
out the other, until I looked in the mirror.
I had developed acne, a severe case of it. I thought I had managed to avoid this
considering I got my period and started developing breasts at a young age. The breakouts
came later and Gia made me well aware of them.
Everyday she would tell me how many new ones formed, where the noticeable ones
were and that I needed to wear makeup. It was at this time that I began to take notice and
finally I asked my mother to buy me makeup. I still wanted to look natural but conceal
the blemishes. When I walked into school the next day, Gia still was not satisfied and
tried to push me to wear black eyeliner and brightly colored eye shadows. I refused
because I did not want to accentuate my involuntary eyes movements. Looking back on
these attempts to police my gender, I realize that Gia’s cruelty toward me was also from
jealously of simple the things that I had the ability to do and she did not.
87
�In September 2006, our freshman year of high school, the dynamics of the
friendship between Gia and I changed once again. This time the critiques of my
appearance were not said to my face but through voicemails left by private numbers or
nasty comments that circulated not just among the students but teachers and
paraprofessionals as well. While she still made comments about my physical appearance,
she became focused more on my identity as a student athlete.
I tried out for and made the girls junior varsity volleyball team my freshman year
of high school. My volleyball coach was also the only physical education teacher who
taught adaptive physical education (A.P.E.) or gym class for students with disabilities.
Whenever we played volleyball in gym class, my coach would usually put Gia and I on
the same team so I could help her. Gia did not like the idea of me assisting her; in fact
this only caused her to become more aggressive.
Gia loved to remind me that I would never play on the same level as the other girls
on my team and that they would always get more time on the court. I was well aware of
this even before I tried out. When I first expressed interest in joining the team, my coach
expressed her concern for my safety because of my physical limitations. She made it
clear to me and later my mother, that some game situations would not be safe for me, and
as a result I would not receive as much time on the court as my teammates. This did not
discourage me; instead I became more determined to prove that I could be a part of the
team, despite my disabilities. My coach noticed my determination and I made the team.
The second Gia heard that I was a member of the volleyball team, she began to make
negative remarks regarding my new student-athlete identity. I still to this day believe that
her remarks were not only an attempt to police my gender, but also to try and prevent me
from coming to terms with my physical limitations.
Volleyball required a lot of endurance; running, jumping, diving; anything to
prevent the ball from hitting the floor. Five days a week of this and my body was pushing
back against the limitations, I was able to run and jump but not as quickly as the other
girls on the team. Diving was a bit tougher but I was still able to attempt it. On the other
hand, Gia could not do any of this. She was unable to move from the waist down. The
restrictions caused by her disability limited her to activities that were stereotypically
limited to individuals who were female.
Gia’s interests were extremely feminine. She enjoyed shopping for the latest styles
in clothes, putting on make up, creating new styles for her hair and discussing which lead
singers of the alternative rock bands we listened to were good looking. Although these
activities were socially limited to females, they were also the few options that were
88
�available to her. She could not participate in more male-orientated activities because of
her disability. For example, she could not play sports such as basketball because she was
unable to run or lift her arms high enough to shoot the ball into the hoop. On the other
hand, I was able to move between the gender boundaries constructed by society since my
disability was not as limiting and I had more options.
Both my Hydrocephalus and my Nystagmus did not limit me to traditional ideas
or roles of gender. My disability, unlike Gia’s, allowed me to participate in activities
outside of the female sphere as long as they are within my limitations. For example, since
my movement is not as limiting as Gia’s, the ways in which I can express aggression are
also not as restricted. Rather than using common elements of relational aggression such
as rumors, laughter and popularity in order to hurt the person I am acting aggressive
toward, I can also use methods usually reserved for men and boys, physical aggression.
In a social context, the idea of a young women acting physically aggressive is
unacceptable. However, because I have the ability to, it is also an option available to me
if necessary. In other words, I can defend myself if I need to. On the other hand, physical
aggression is not an option for Gia, not just because females are not supposed to be
gendered that way, but because of the limitations her disability constructs for her, which
is why she used relational aggression as an attempt to police my gender.
Both disability and traditional gender roles are constructed by society. They are
ideologies that place individuals in very concrete roles. These individuals are expected to
embrace the characteristics of these ideas thus they are expected to act in ways which
conform to these ideologies. For example, disabled individuals are viewed as people who
are “sick” and need to be cared for. They are portrayed as the ones who are unable to
adapt or live “normal” lives in society. According to Bolt, ”a disabling society is itself
disabled, for the thwarted potential of people with impairments constitutes the thwarted
potential of that society as a whole” (Bolt, 2005). In other words, if society still considers
people with disabilities to have less potential than those who do not have limitations, like
being unable to walk or see, then society as a whole does not have potential to grow.
Society also constructs gender and gender roles in a similar way. For example, females
are supposed to be nurturing and kind individuals who never outright express aggression.
Since traditional gender roles forbid women and girls from openly expressing aggression,
relationally aggressive behavior results. Relational aggression is the only option available
to women and girls who are held so tightly in the confines of the limitations of disability
and traditional gender roles.
89
�Gender roles for women as well as girls forbid the use of physical aggression so
females often resort to the use of relational aggression to hurt each other. For young
women and girls with disabilities, the types of aggression open to them depends on not
just gender or gender roles alone but on the limitations created by their disability. In the
case of Gia and I, she used relational aggression not only because it is a more socially
acceptable way for her to police my gender but also because it was the only form of
aggression that was available to her due to the limitations of her disability. Therefore,
disabled young women and girls use relational aggression not just because social norms
prevent them from acting outright aggressive because they are female, but also because
their limitations created by their physical disability do not allow them to resort to
physical aggression.
Works Cited
Americans with Disabilities Act. Summer 1990. Sections 12102.
Bolt, D. (2005). From Blindness to Visual Impairment: Terminological Typology and the
Social Model of Disability. Disability & Society, 20(5), 539-552.
Bowie, B. H. (2010). Understanding the Gender Differences in Pathways to Social
Deviancy: Relational Aggression and Emotion Regulation. Archives of Psychiatric
Nursing, 24(1), 27 – 37.
Brown, M. (2011). The Sad, The Mad and The Bad: Co-Existing Discourses of Girlhood.
Child & Youth Care Forum, 40(2), 107-120.
Gray, C. (2009). Narratives of Disability and the Movement from Deficiency to
Difference. Cultural Sociology, 3(2), 317-332.
Harpur, P. (2012). From Disability to Ability: Changing the Phrasing of the Debate.
Disability & Society, 27(3), p325-337.
90
�Mathieson, L.C., D. Murray-Close, N.R. Crick, K.E. Woods, M. Zimmer-Gembeck, T.C.
Geiger, and J.R. Morales (2011). Hostile Intent Attributions and Relational Aggression:
The Moderating Roles of Emotional Sensitivity, Gender and Victimization. Journal of
Abnormal Child Psychology, 39(7), 977-987.
Tanenbaum, Leora. (1999). “Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation”. New
York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Werner, N, E, Nixon, C, L. (2005). Normative Beliefs and Relational Aggression: An
Investigation of the Cognitive Bases of Adolescent Aggressive Behavior. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence, 34(3), 229-243.
91
�Commodifying the Gothic in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Michael Garamoni (Theatre)1
In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, commodities with no use value
and the repressive ideologies of hedonism, materialism, and consumerism play significant
roles in guiding Dorian Gray to become the narcissistic, deceptive, and even murderous
criminal he develops into by the end of the novel. The narrative functions of items such
as the titular picture and the yellow book indicate the Marxist concept that materialism
and consumerism lead directly down the path of degradation. This degradation in Dorian
Gray appears in many forms. From the aforementioned “poisonous book” Lord Henry
gives to Dorian, to Dorian’s commodification of Lord Henry, to the picture itself, the text
reveals important concepts about the dangers of capitalist ideology. These dangers
insinuate themselves into Dorian’s life in the form of elements of Gothic fiction including
Gothic space, secrets, blurred boundaries, criminal acts, physical transformation, and the
supernatural, all of which document Dorian’s decadent degeneration. The text, read in
this way, indicts capitalist ideology as well as the repressive ideology of philosophized
hedonism that Lord Henry espouses and confers upon Dorian throughout the novel. Once
this hedonistic ideology enters Dorian’s mind, and Basil, the artist, sees the change, it
triggers the domino effect that is The Picture of Dorian Gray. Lord Henry proclaims
early on as he speaks to Dorian, “A new Hedonism—that is what our century wants. You
might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do”
(Wilde 32).
This hedonism of Lord Henry’s also becomes a Gothic device. As a
psychological space, or a mode of thought and perception that can be exited and entered
like a physical space, this ideology enraptures Dorian and leads him down his ruinous
path. The ideology of hedonism fulfills the element of the “Gothic space” in Dorian Gray
in that it constitutes an area of thought distant and mysterious from the reader. Lord
Henry quite intentionally colonizes Dorian’s consciousness with this set of ideas, and
presents them, nonchalantly, as incontrovertible truths about life. From the beginning of
the novel to the end, and especially once the insidious yellow book takes hold, Lord
Written under the direction of Dr. Susan Bernardo for EN 225: Ghosts, Vampires and
Civilization in English Gothic Fiction.
1
92
�Henry’s repressive ideology draws Dorian further and further into the traps of
materialism. Lord Henry begins spinning his web by enrapturing Dorian into believing he
should serve his senses, “that is one of the great secrets of life—to cure the soul by means
of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul” (31). Here he lays the groundwork for
his influence on Dorian by establishing the foundational tenet of his hedonism.
Lord Henry then convinces Dorian that Beauty, especially personal physical
beauty, is more important than anything, “Beauty is a form of Genius—is higher, indeed,
than Genius, as it needs no explanation” (31). By affirming this, and expounding it in his
following speech, Lord Henry persuades Dorian to make use of his beauty, intentionally
blurring the distinction between what has use value and what does not. In the immortal
words of the preface, Wilde himself writes, “All art is quite useless” (17). If art is
beautiful, then beauty too is useless. In Marxist terms, beauty certainly has no use value.
Beauty has instead sign-exchange value because, though Dorian is already high up on the
socioeconomic ladder, his beauty makes him popular, well liked, and even adored by
others, despite his initial vacuousness. After Lord Henry makes his case, the
transformation in Dorian occurs almost instantly: “I know, now, that when one loses
one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything” (34-35). Lord Henry sees
Dorian’s susceptibility, and proceeds for the rest of the novel to elaborate on his
hedonistic views, leading the young man to find materialism and consumerism.
Lord Henry makes a conscious decision to colonize Dorian’s consciousness with
his ideology, “He would seek to dominate him—had already, indeed, half done so. He
would make that wonderful spirit his own” (41). Nils Clausson believes that “Lord Henry
sees degeneration as the consequence of repressing our desires … For Lord Henry, the
price of not rebelling against repression is degeneration” (Clausson, 361). On the surface
this would seem to be true; however, Clausson misses the fundamental disproving factor:
Lord Henry does not believe in the ideas he feeds to Dorian. For Lord Henry, Dorian is
an experiment of philosophy, an intellectual exercise: “Now, the value of an idea has
nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the
probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the
idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or his
prejudices” (Wilde 23). Clausson implies that Lord Henry’s ideology intends to lead
Dorian to self-realization and freedom, but accidentally leads him to degeneration, the
very thing he supposedly seeks to avoid. However, Lord Henry so naturally and glibly
spouts his ideology of hedonism that he persuades Dorian that it is an entirely natural and
acceptable way of living. This imperialistic attitude of mental colonization, joined with
93
�the artificiality of Lord Henry’s own adherence to his brand of hedonism and the entire
novel’s proof that such hedonism is extremely detrimental, indicates that Lord Henry’s
ideas are part of a repressive ideology.
Dorian’s belief in only indulging his own senses completely blinds him from the
material and historical circumstances around him. While with Sibyl this ignorance at first
allows Dorian favorably to transcend social class, it also blinds Dorian to his own
historical context, thereby preventing him from truly acknowledging that she is a member
of a lower class and not simply the actress or artifice he loves. Capitalistic imagery often
colors Lord Henry’s speeches or the narrator’s reflections on Dorian, stylistically
conflating ideas of capitalism with Lord Henry’s hedonistic ideals: “Don’t squander the
gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or
giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar” (32).
Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Dorian turns the tables on Lord Henry by
commodifying him. When Lord Henry draws him in, Dorian reacts equally by making
Lord Henry a commodity with both exchange and sign-exchange value. From the night
they first meet to the end of the novel, Lord Henry takes Dorian to dinner, to the theater,
and buys him material goods, thus his exchange value. In terms of Lord Henry’s
hedonism, Dorian also “advances” socially into the pleasure-seeking corners of society,
thus his sign-exchange value. Further, Lord Henry does assist Dorian in actually moving
up the social ladder by putting him back in the good graces of his aunt, assisting with his
dinner parties, and talking him up with his friends and acquaintances. Rather than acting
as a duet of checks and balances, Dorian and Lord Henry instead enact a positive
feedback loop, leading Dorian to the slippery slope he slides down into degradation.
Nothing symbolizes Lord Henry’s hedonistic, materialistic, and consumerist
influence on Dorian more than the yellow book: “Things that he had dimly dreamed of
were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually
revealed” (101). The book is the conduit through which Lord Henry renews his influence,
which had been eclipsed by Sibyl. Once this occurs, the ideology of hedonism moves to
engulf materialism, as the narrative speeds through many years in chapter eleven,
detailing exactly how the book “poisons” Dorian. Material objects with only exchange
value begin to dominate the man of eternal youth, beginning with “embroidered cloths,
and antique plate of gold and silver” (103) and the desire to be the “arbiter elegantiarum,
to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a tie, or the conduct of a
cane” (104) to his various and episodic obsessions with an array of expensive objects.
Perfumes and their psychological effects, music and innumerable musical instruments,
94
�jewels (the ultimate exchange value material) and stories of jewels, tapestries and other
textiles, and “ecclesiastical vestments” all number among the objects of his materialism
and consumerism. The text very specifically notes for each that he does not simply
appreciate these commodities from afar; no, he purchases and owns all of them. They all
represent to Dorian the enrichment and refinement of the senses under the influence of
the yellow book and thus the influence of Lord Henry’s hedonism. They also show
incontestably that Dorian’s methods of refining himself depend on the things he buys and
owns.
As stated before, the hedonistic ideology of Lord Henry becomes a
psychological “gothic space,” a metaphysical orientation of thought foreign to the reader.
Beyond Lord Henry’s influence, however, other gothic elements play a vital role in
determining how the text reads also as an indictment of capitalistic ideas, including those
of consumerism and materialism. Most of the gothic elements in the novel have diegetic
(within the world of the text) and non-diegetic (outside of the world of the text) iterations.
The various rooms concealing Dorian’s picture all serve as gothic spaces as well, the
vaults of Dorian’s darkest secret. The concealing and unveiling of secrets, two gothic
staples, lie (pun intended) at the heart of Dorian Gray. From the beginning, Basil wishes
to hide Dorian from the rest of the world, preserving his innocence and purity but also
selfishly keeping him to himself. Lord Henry irrupts this first secret immediately, setting
the rest of the novel up for the anticipatory suspense of Dorian’s secrets. Dorian’s
increasingly obsessive concealment of the portrait, his every effort to hide the seedier
aspects of his double life, the secret with which he blackmails Alan Campbell, and
covering up his impulsive murder of Basil number among the most significant plot points
in the development of Dorian’s character. In a wider, non-diegetic sense, the entire novel
acts partly as an exposé of British society’s secrets in its rampant hypocrisy and duplicity.
This concept of concealment and deception in terms of Marxism ties into the need to
bring clarity to a historical situation through a non-repressive ideology, which British
society, or Dorian Gray specifically, does not employ.
Dorian Gray explores the gothic element of blurred boundaries as well, though
more in service of theme than plot. As an important part of Lord Henry’s manipulation of
Dorian, he blurs the boundaries between the body and the soul so that Dorian believes
that sensual exaltation of the body is equivalent to exaltation of the soul. The blurring of
body and soul also occurs in Dorian’s relationship with the picture. Through Dorian’s
supernatural, gothic wish-come-true, picture and soul switch places, and the wish comes
across as a capitalistic transaction. As Dorian says, “ ‘If it were I who was to be always
95
�young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that—for that—I would give everything!
Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!’
” (34). Dorian’s physical body becomes the Dorian of the original picture, and his soul
takes the picture’s place on the canvas, symbolically commodifying the soul itself. The
soul and body in this way also represent good and evil respectively, blurred together
when the satiation of the body’s desires (the temptation of evil) taints and corrupts the
soul in the painting (evil triumphing over good). The gothic element of physical
transformation ties in with this at the very end of the novel when Dorian stabs the
painting, mystifyingly returning Dorian’s soul to his body. This act transforms Dorian’s
perfect, unchanged, young body to the body reunited with the soul and reflects all of the
terrible things he has done. The text first subverts the gothic trope of transformation by
eliminating the natural transformations of time and age, and then uses it in an instant of
gothic horror, thereby blurring even the distinction between gothic elements.
Unarguably the most important Gothic device in Dorian Gray is the single
central instance of the supernatural, the picture itself, from which the whole story
unravels. As Elana Gomel writes,
Whether as the literary stereotype of Prince Charming or the
pictorial image of a lovely young man, the character that acts in the
novel under the name of Dorian Gray is a textual construct that takes
over the identity of a human being. Dorian’s initial aspiration is to
‘write’ himself into the portrait, and thus to achieve the immortality and
immutability of the objet d’art. His tragedy is that he succeeds. (Gomel
80)
As most critics are quick to point out, the supernatural aspect of the picture
comes not from the picture itself, but from a Faust-like bargain: Dorian’s soul in the place
of the eternal youth of the painting. More specifically, the bargain is that the real Dorian
gives his soul to switch places with the Dorian in the painting, thus accomplishing the
tragedy Gomel describes. Alongside the fictionalized “realization” of Aestheticism’s
tenet that “life imitates art,” the notion of a portrait as the only usage of the supernatural
Gothic element firmly establishes the negative influence of valuing commodities over
materials with use value. The influence is negative because of how the exchange destroys
Dorian’s life. The exchange itself, of course, is for the essence of the painting: everlasting
beauty and eternal youth, two things that, in fin-de-siècle England, had enormous signexchange value. The entire concept of exchanging one’s soul for something essential and
not having use of value places itself in the realm of Marxist critique.
96
�The Picture of Dorian Gray employs the important narrative device of
convergence. All the ingredients for Dorian Gray’s downfall converge in the first two
chapters of the novel: Basil Hallward’s protectiveness and possessiveness, his masterful
portrait of Dorian, Lord Henry’s ennui and dandyish pretenses, his desire for an
intellectual guinea pig, Dorian’s impressionability, and the magic words, “I would give
my soul…” Together, those ingredients create a cerebral Gothic novel that very clearly
portrays a Marxist indictment of the repressive ideologies of capitalism, hedonism,
materialism, and consumerism. For, as Wilde writes in the preface, “All art is at once
surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who
read the symbol do so at their peril” (17).
Works Cited
Clausson, Nils. "'Culture And Corruption': Paterian Self-Development Versus Gothic
Degeneration In Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray." Papers On Language And
Literature: 39.4 (2003): 339-364. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
Gomel, Elana. "Oscar Wilde, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, And The (Un)Death Of The
Author." Narrative 12.1 (2004): 74-92. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Nov.
2012.
Wilde, Oscar. “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde:
Stories, Plays, Poems and Essays. Ed. Vyvyan B. Holland. New York: Harper and
Row, 1989. 17-167. Print.
97
�
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Volume 11, Number 2
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1 The Transmission, Co-Occurrence, and Impact of Family Violence: Case Studies of the Dynamics of Intimate Partner, Child, and Animal Abuse / Courtney Heiserman -- 39 The Nude Female Body Redefined / Jessica Makwinski -- 56 “O serpent under femynynytee:” Patriarchal Power as Shown through Female Competition and the Madonna-Whore Binary in Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale” / Rachel Zaydak -- 64 The Economic Role in Shaping the Modern Egyptian Family / Pakinam Mekki -- 70 Gustav Klimt: An Artist’s Evolution Through Freud’s Stages of Consciousness / Erik Arntzen -- 83 Female or Not? Relational Aggression, Mixed Gender Messages and Disability Limitations / Danielle Lucchese -- 92 Commodifying the Gothic in The Picture of Dorian Gray / Michael Garamoni
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����Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference1
Abstracts
3
Identifying the Onset of Teratogenicity of Lithium Chloride in the Development of
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Eye
Janna Denisenko, Dr. Ammini Moorthy, Dr. Christopher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan
Fulop
3
The Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo and Dr. Otto Raths
3
Finding Antibiotic Producing Microbes in Soil
Juliana Schipani and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
4
Development of New Line of Anti-microbial and Possible Anti-tumor Pd–Centered
Chemotherapeutics
Sandra Minchala, Dr. Valeria Stepanova, and Dr. Joseph West
4
A Hybrid Computation and Experimental Study of Pd–Based Drug Candidates
Daniel Cimilluca, Dr. Joseph West, and Dr. Valeria Stepanova
5
Growth Rates in Population and Economics
Joseph Biggica (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths
5
Study of Anti-microbial Activity of Palladium Compounds
Lynn Tay, Dr. Valeria Stepanova and Dr. Christopher Corbo
5
Modification of a Yeast Strain Toward the Creation of a Light-Activated Elongation
Factor
Corey Gaylets, Basil Hussain, Dr. Rebecca Zordan and Dr. Brendan Cormack
6
Ultrastructural Analysis of Cellular Pathology Induced by Hyperphosphorylated Tau
Holly Santapaga, Leonid Denisenko, Dr. Alejandra Del C. Alonso, and Dr.
Christopher Corbo
7
Analyzing the Effect of 4-octylphenol on the Development and Viability of
Drosophila melanogaster
Pakinam Mekki and Dr. Heather Cook
1
Papers and posters presented at the 67th Annual Eastern Colleges Science Conference held in
Providence, RI on April 20, 2013.
�7
The Antimicrobial Activity of Seven Different Plant Extracts on Streptococcus Mitis,
Streptococcus Salivarius, and Enterococcus Faecalis
Elaina Tsimbikos and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
8
Isolation of Escherichia Coli Bacteriophage from Sewage Water
Alisa Ndokaj and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
9
Presence of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Wagner
College Athletic Facilities
Eden Stark and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt
9
Behavioral Effects of Listeria monocytogenes-Induced Blindness in Zebrafish
(Danio rerio)
Samar Alwani and Dr. Brian Palestis
10 Teratogenic Effects of Stannous Chloride at Various Concentrations on Zebrafish
(Danio rerio) Embryos
Faiz Abed, Dr. Ammini Moorthy and Dr. Christopher Corbo
Section II: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Papers
13 Aircraft Icing and its Effects on Lift
Carley Nicoletti, Leobardo Dominguez, and Michelle Greenough
29 Species Recognition in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Based on Olfactory Cues
Adam Rizzuti
Section III: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
47 Imagination and Creativity Inside the Classroom
Michael Chicolo
�Section IV: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
79 Invisible Women: Female Comic Book Superheroes and Their Artists
Carly Schmidt
92 Antigone’s Hero
Stephanie Lombardo
99 Traduction ou Réécriture? de L’Empreinte de l’ange à The Mark of
Angel
Caroline Mauduy
the
107 Women’s Liberation: Beauvoir and Wollstonecraft’s Theories Pre- Figured in the
Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
James Alicea
116 The Conflicted Metaphysical State of Humanity in Book I, Canto 7 of
Faerie Queene
Kiana Balacich
The
����Identifying the Onset of Teratogenicity of Lithium Chloride
in the Development of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Eye
Janna Denisenko (Biology), Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biological Sciences), Dr. Christopher
Corbo (Biological Sciences) and Dr. Zoltan Fulop (Biological Sciences)
Lithium chloride (LiCl) is a known teratogen that has been found to cause developmental
abnormalities during the formation of eyes in zebrafish and other organisms. LiCl is a
frequently used antidepressant in humans. Previous research at Wagner College with
higher concentrations of LiCl (0.15M to 0.45M) in zebrafish embryos has resulted in
death due to the treatment, blindness, or severe problems during eye development. This
paper presents the findings of a double-blind study conducted using lower dosages, where
zebrafish embryos were exposed to 0.05M, 0.1M, and 0.15M concentrations of LiCl.
Morphological abnormalities were observed under light microscopy following exposure
to LiCl to determine the stage of embryonic development where LiCl exerts its
teratogenic effects on the eye. The preliminary results demonstrate that treatment with the
chemical increases the chances of mortality. Compared with the control, embryos treated
with 0.05M and 0.1M had delayed development and displayed atypical lens formation
and eye shape. Embryos treated with 0.15M hatched later than expected, had eye
deformations and behaved abnormally. In the future, the zebrafish will be processed for
basic histological sectioning and whole mount scanning electron microscopy for tissue
evaluation.
The Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths (Physical Sciences)
The Brachistochrone Problem, solved by Jean Bernoulli, has been called the most
celebrated problem of the 17th century. This study, which represents a continuation of
last year's research, presents non-linear approximation using conventional calculus to the
Brachistochrone problem.
Finding Antibiotic Producing Microbes in Soil
Juliana Schipani (Microbiology) and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Biological Sciences)
An antibiotic is defined as a chemical substance produced by microorganisms which has
the capacity to inhibit the growth of bacteria and even destroy bacteria and other
3
�microorganisms in dilute solution (Smith, 1965). Many of the current antibiotics that are
in circulation originate from microorganisms found in the soil. In this research, five soil
samples were obtained and tested for microorganisms that produce antibiotics. A serial
dilution and streak plate method were used to isolate bacterial colonies. No isolates were
found that produce antibiotics against the test organisms, which were Escherichia coli,
Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It can be concluded that there
were no antibiotic-producing microbes in the pure culture that was used to make the
serial dilutions. However, that does not mean that there are not antibiotic-producing
microbes present in the soil at all.
Development of New Line of Anti-microbial and Possible
Anti-tumor Pd–Centered Chemotherapeutics
Sandra Minchala (Chemistry) , Dr. Valeria Stepanova (Physical Sciences) and Dr. Joseph
West (Physical Sciences)
Syntheses of target organometallic and inorganic palladium complexes have been
performed. A procedure for fast antimicrobial testing based on their in situ syntheses
using biologically friendly solvents has been assessed. Correlation of structural features
and antimicrobial effectiveness has been discussed. Development of a synthetic
procedure to obtain new organometallic N,N-dimethylbenzylamine cyclopalladated
complexes with amino acid auxiliaries has been started. Several new Pd-centered
compounds have been isolated and characterized using IR, and 1H and 13C NMR
spectroscopy.
A Hybrid Computation and Experimental
Study of Pd–Based Drug Candidates
Daniel Cimilluca (Microbiology), Dr. Joseph West (Physical Sciences) and Dr. Valeria
Stepanova (Physical Sciences)
Molecular geometries of selected palladium complexes have been optimized for water
solutions. Gibbs free energies for the first and second aquation have been calculated for
several Pd-centered complexes using ab initio DFT/PCM and semi-empirical
PM7/COSMO methods. Fair agreement of the parameters obtained by the two methods
has been observed. The correlation of calculated properties and known biological activity
has been discussed. The development of a calculation-based approach to assess transition
4
�states and the kinetic stability of potential palladotherapeutics has been initiated. Possible
pathways for predicting potent biological activity of palladium complexes using
DFT/PCM calculations prior to or instead of their syntheses have been proposed.
Growth Rates in Population and Economics
Joseph Biggica (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths (Physical Sciences)
Growth rates in population and economics are presented and modeled using an
elementary differential equation. Both the United States population and debt rate will be
used as an example.
Study of Anti-microbial Activity of Palladium Compounds
Lynn Tay (Biology), Dr. Valeria Stepanova (Physical Sciences) and Dr. Christopher
Corbo (Biological Sciences)
Antimicrobial activity of cyclopalladated palladium complexes of N,N
dimethylbenzylamine bearing different auxiliaries has been tested using Gram(+) and
Gram(-) microorganisms. Correlation of the observed antimicrobial activity with a DNA–
damage mechanism proposed for the biological response of similar complexes is
discussed. Study of the antimicrobial activity has been analyzed using a disk diffusion.
The highest activity was observed for the triphenylphosphine cyclopalladated adduct.
Pyridine and glycine auxiliaries have shown a reduced effectiveness at similar
concentrations. Comparison of antimicrobial effectiveness of organometallic derivatives
versus their inorganic coordination analogues was made.
Modification of a Yeast Strain Toward the
Creation of a Light-Activated Elongation Factor
Corey Gaylets (Microbiology), Basil Hussain (Microbiology)1, Dr. Rebecca Zordan
(Microbiology)1 and Dr. Brendan Cormack (Molecular Biology)1
Elongation Factor 2 plays a critical role in protein synthesis. During the elongation step
of translation Elongation Factor 2 catalyzes the movement of the ribosome downstream
the mRNA strand allowing the binding of additional tRNAs and extension of the growing
1
Johns Hopkins University
5
�polypeptide chain. Through deletion of the Elongation Factor genes on Saccharomyces
cerevisiae genome and the introduction of the EFT1 gene into a plasmid vector, a
mutagenized copy of EFT1 modified with a transposon containing a LOV (Light,
Oxygen, or Voltage) domain will be introduced into the cell creating a light activated
Elongation Factor. The strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae with this protein will be
dependent upon light for growth.
Ultrastructural Analysis of Cellular Pathology
Induced by Hyperphosphorylated Tau
Holly Santapaga (Biology), Leonid Denisenko (Biology), Dr. Alejandra Del C. Alonso
(Biology)2 and Dr. Christopher Corbo (Biological Sciences)
Tau is a microtubule associated protein (MAP) found in the neurons of the central
nervous system. In its non-pathogenic form, tau is predominantly responsible for the
stabilization of the microtubule network of the axons. As seen in Alzheimer’s disease
brain, hyperphosphorylated tau no longer binds to microtubules, but rather selfaggregates into paired helical and straight filaments. This leads to neurodegeneration
through two different routes: 1) a lack of microtubule stabilization leads to a
destabilization and breakdown of the microtubule network. This causes neurite retraction
and leads to compromised axonal transmission since cells can not transport essential
components to the axon terminals. 2) The aggregation of tau collects in the cells,
sequestering healthy tau and other MAPs leading to cell death. This project aimed to
analyze the ultrastructural cellular pathology that occurs after microtubule breakdown in
CHO cells expressing a pseudophosphorylated form of tau. In the pseudophosphorylated
model, certain serine and threonine residues are switched to glutamic acid, mimicking the
negative charge that would be deposited by the phosphate at that site. The results suggest
that cells exhibit membrane zeiosis, or excessive membrane blebbing, intracellular
granules and the presence of filaments.
2
CUNY College of Staten Island
6
�Analyzing the Effect of 4-octylphenol on the Development
and Viability of Drosophila melanogaster
Pakinam Mekki (Biology) and Dr. Heather Cook (Biological Sciences)
Over the past few decades, there has been an emerging concern about the presence of
endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) found in our environment and common
household products. EDCs are a diverse group of natural and synthetic compounds,
which have been linked to cause a wide range of adverse effects on organisms. In
particular, EDCs have the ability to interrupt endogenous hormones by altering the
synthesis, secretion, transport or metabolism of a hormone or its ability to bind to specific
receptors. In other words, exposure to EDCs can compromise an individual’s
development and reproduction. EDCs are ubiquitous, and humans are exposed to them on
a daily basis. They are found in soil, water, sewage treatment plants, and a variety of
man-made consumer products, such as plastic bottles.
The focus of this study is to understand whether 4-octylphenol (4-OP) affects either the
viability or the development of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. 4-OP has been
shown to be an endocrine disruptor in mollusks and other aquatic invertebrates. 0-24 hour
adult flies were exposed to different concentrations of 4-OP in their food. After ten days
of exposure, the number of surviving flies at each concentration was counted. In addition,
the effect of 4-OP on the number of pupae formed as well as the number of new flies that
eclosed were determined. Our data indicate that 4-OP at concentrations of 0.1nM, 10nM,
1μM, and 1mM do not significantly affect the viability or development of D.
melanogaster, when compared to the control. Future studies will analyze the effects of
higher concentrations of 4-OP.
The Antimicrobial Activity of Seven Different Plant
Extracts on Streptococcus Mitis, Streptococcus Salivarius,
and Enterococcus Faecalis
Elaina Tsimbikos (Microbiology) and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Biological Sciences)
Mainstream medicine is increasingly receptive to the use of antimicrobials and other
drugs derived from plants, as traditional antibiotics become ineffective and as new,
particularly viral, diseases remain intractable to this type of drug. Phytochemicals, or any
biologically active compounds naturally found in plants, have been found to have
7
�antimicrobial properties. This research looked at the potential of seven different plant
extracts (Tannic Acid, Cinnamic Acid, Capsaicin, Glycyrrhizic Acid, Papain, Weed
Pollen, and Phloretin) in inhibiting the growth of Streptococcus salivarius, Streptococcus
mitis, and Enterococcus faecalis. These organisms were selected because they can cause
infection in humans, especially in the healthcare environment where naturally high levels
of antibiotic resistance contribute to pathogenicity. After performing a three-fold dilution
for each extract and streaking each dilution onto a nutrient agar plate, the results revealed
whether or not the plant extract was a successful antimicrobial agent. The presence of
microbial colonies in any one of the dilution sections suggested that the plant extract did
not exhibit antimicrobial effectiveness at that particular concentration. Non-numerical
observations were made, thus the efficacy of the plant extract was purely based on
whether or not the organism grew. In the case of Streptococcus mitis, only 500mg of
Tannic Acid prevented the growth of the organism. Capsaicin and Papain prevented the
growth of Streptococcus salivarius at concentrations of 250mg and 25mg. Tannic Acid
also prevented the growth Streptococcus salivarius, exhibiting antimicrobial effectiveness
at all concentrations. Success was seen in inhibiting the growth of Enterococcus faecalis
with 500mg of Tannic Acid as well as with 250mg and 25mg of Papain. These results
remained constant throughout three trials.
Isolation of Escherichia Coli
Bacteriophage from Sewage Water
Alisa Ndokaj (Microbiology) and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Biological Sciences)
Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a gram negative, rod shaped bacterium commonly found in
the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms. It is considered to be coliform bacteria,
which are commonly used bacterial indicators of sanitary quality of foods and water.
Raw, untreated sewage contains large numbers of E. coli. Bacteriophages also referred to
as phages, are any of a group of viruses that infect bacteria. The objective of this
experiment is to amplify phages in the sewage sample by allowing them to infect and
reproduce within fresh E. coli, collect the phages from the culture by centrifugation and
filtration, and detect and titer the amplified, isolated phages using a plaque assay. After
multiple trials, no phages were found; detecting titer amplification was not possible.
8
�Presence of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA) in Wagner College Athletic Facilities3
Eden Stark (Microbiology) and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt (Biological Sciences)
Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus has been an increasing problem both in
health care settings and now community settings. MRSA continues to mutate and incurs
resistance to more antibiotics. In this study samples were taken from Athletic Facilities
on Wagner College Campus to identify the community of MRSA, if any, that is present
on the Wagner College Campus. Mannitol Salt agar was used to isolate possible MRSA,
a catalase test was done, gram stain and disk diffusion susceptibility test were done to try
and isolate MRSA. The antibiotics used were Ampicillin (10 μg), Penicillin (10 units),
Tetracycline (30 μg), Erythromycin (15 μg), Gentamycin (10 μg), Streptomycin (10 μg),
and Vancomycin (30 μg). The three areas of Wagner College Athletic Facilities were the
Spiro Sports Center gym, Locker Room, and Walt Hameline Football Field. In the Spiro
Sports Center, 56.6% of the 30 plates tested had resistance or intermediate resistance to at
least one of the antibiotics tested. In the locker room, 10% of the 30 plates tested, had
resistance to at least one of the antibiotics. On the Football Field only 6.7% of the 30
plates tested had resistance to at least one antibiotic. This data indicates that there is a
presence of antibiotic resistant S. aureus at Wagner College Athletic Facilities.
Behavioral Effects of Listeria monocytogenes-Induced
Blindness in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Samar Alwani (Biology) and Dr. Brian Palestis (Biological Sciences)
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) have proven to be powerful as a research tool in studies of
pathology, as well as sensory and behavioral responses such as movement patterns. The
gram-positive pathogen Listeriamonocytogenes was utilized as an injection into the adult
eye of zebrafish. The objective of this research was to examine the behavioral effects of
L. monocytogenes, which caused blindness in the fish. Thirty-three fish were tested,
where twenty-eight were injected with L. monocytogenes and fifteen were controls. Every
fish was video recorded for ten minutes and measurement of distance between fish was
compared between groups of controls and injected fish. The injected fish behaved
similarly to control fish, despite their blindness. A t-test was completed demonstrating no
3
Recipient of Excellence Award
9
�significant difference in the distances between fish among the sighted and blind
zebrafish, suggesting an important role of the lateral line in shoaling.
Teratogenic Effects of Stannous Chloride at Various
Concentrations on Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryos4
Faiz Abed (Biology), Dr. Ammini Moorthy (Biological Sciences) and Dr. Christopher
Corbo (Biological Sciences)
Stannous chloride (SnCl2), commonly found associated with packaged food, soft drinks,
tooth paste etc. is shown to have teratogenic effects in humans. The current investigation
is to assess the teratogenic effects of stannous chloride in zebrafish (Danio rerio).
Zebrafish embryos reared in a laboratory setting were exposed to different concentrations
(0.25, 0.35 and 0.50 micro molars) of stannous chloride for 10 minutes during
embryogenesis and compared with the embryos of the control group. The experiment was
set up as a blind study. Morphological features of the embryos were followed for 10 days
after treatment, using light microscopy. Some of the embryos died and tally of the dead
embryos were kept from all four groups for the duration of the experiment. Later, the
embryos were fixed, sectioned and stained for histological observations and whole
embryos were prepared for observations under scanning electron microscope. Preliminary
results from this study indicate that stannous chloride causes morphological
malformations in the hearts, heads and the spinal cords of the treated embryos,
confirming the fact that stannous chloride is indeed a teratogen. Histological observations
of cut sections from the embryos and scanning microscopy work are in progress. Our
study also shows that the treatment with stannous chloride increases the mortality rate in
the embryos.
4
Recipient of Excellence Award
10
���Aircraft Icing and its Effects on Lift
Carley Nicoletti (Physics and Mathematics), Leobardo Dominguez
(Physics and Mathematics), and Michelle Greenough (Chemistry)1
A Flotek 1440 Low Speed Wind Tunnel housed in the basement of the Megerle Science
Building was utilized in this research endeavor. Data from the pressure taps on a NACA2415 airfoil provided the information necessary to compute the coefficients of pressure
and lift. This data was taken at various angles of attack, all at a tunnel velocity of 25 m/s
yielding a Reynolds number of 2.5x105. A glaze ice horn was then created and placed on
the leading edge of the airfoil. New measurements were taken when this ice form was in
place and the data processed to again reveal the CL and CP. With this information,
conclusions were drawn about the effects of the ice being present on the airfoil. It was
observed that when glaze ice is present on the leading edge of an aircraft wing the
aerodynamic performance of the aircraft is severely compromised. Aircraft accidents can
result if this ice accumulates in-flight or if the proper precautions are not taken before
take-off.
I. Introduction
Ice that accumulates on an aircraft can be detrimental to its performance and
becomes a major threat to flight safety. This occurs when the plane is not properly deiced
before takeoff or the aircraft experiences a loss of control during flight from the ice
accumulation. In 2002 the FAA noted that ice accumulation on an aircraft wing lead to 30
deaths, 14 injuries and 96 million dollars in damages per year in the United States alone1.
As a result, it has become imperative to understand how such ice accretions alter the
aerodynamics of the aircraft so that systems can be put into place to detect these
conditions and prevent future incidents.
There have been numerous major in-flight accidents that have resulted from ice
accumulation on the aircraft. Five have occurred recently, which has prompted the United
States to take a serious look at the systems set in place to detect ice formation. On
February 12, 2009, an aircraft that was on its way to Buffalo, NY impacted the ground
five miles northeast of the airport. Unfortunately, the deicing system in place did not
1
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Gregory Falabella.
13
�inform the pilots that conditions warranted its activation. The ice continued to accumulate
in-flight and eventually resulted in stall causing the accident2. The second mishap
occurred in Roselawn, Indiana where a twin-engine ATR–72-212 rolled roughly 70
degrees right wing down and then proceeded to a rapid fall until crashing into the ground.
This incident was due to ice forming past the de-ice boots when the plane was in a
holding pattern which caused a loss of control2. Also, on January 9, 1997 a 120RT twinengine hit the ground during landing when thin rough glaze ice was forming along the
leading edge of the deicing boot surfaces in Monroe, Michigan. The plane was unable to
complete landing since the ice accumulation was too great and adequate minimum
airspeed was not maintained2. Five years prior, on March 22, 1992 an aircraft was deiced
twice before take off in Flushing, New York. These procedures proved to be pointless
when after the second deicing the aircraft waited 35-minutes before leaving the runway.
This holding period exceeded the 11-minute period where it is safe to take off without
deicing again2. Similarly in Denver, Colorado an aircraft was deiced and then
experienced a 27-minute waiting period where new ice was able to accumulate before
takeoff resulting in an accident2. Even though these last two accidents resulted from
human error, it is important to remember that during takeoff and landing is when ice
accretion can be the most devastating.
When combining all five fatal accidents, a total of 202 lives were lost and 78
people were injured2. It is therefore essential to understand the impact that ice formations
have on stability and lift.
Ice can form on an aircraft through various weather conditions such as rain or
snow. In fact, Steven D. Green of Flight Operations Research in Underhill, Vermont
noted that freezing rain and snow contributed towards 33% and 32% of all inflight icing
accidents from 1978 to 20052. Icing conditions become severe when the ice forms from
supercooled large droplets (SLD). The danger that an aircraft is in once it comes into
contact with SLD is far worse when put in comparison to an aircraft that comes into
contact with freezing rain. This is due to the fact that SLD is caused because the droplets
freeze at any location of the wing when in flight. SLD becomes even more of an issue
since they form anywhere in a cloud so they become difficult to detect1. This detection
difficulty adds to the preexisting issue with the icing prevention systems in place since
detection is a large contributing factor to the icing accumulation problem.
When ice forms on an aircraft, different shapes can be created. The two most
common types of ice accretions are rime ice and glaze ice. These ice shapes form
depending on the temperature of the water droplets and the surrounding air temperatures.
14
�Rime ice forms at colder temperatures while glaze ice forms at warmer temperatures,
specifically temperatures just below freezing3. Rime ice freezes on impact to the airfoil
so it tends to create a streamline shape4. Glaze ice can create serious issues when
discussing the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft because this type of ice accretion
forms with horn-like characteristics. The glaze ice horns form due to the water droplets
flowing back on the surface before freezing5. Certain glaze ice horns can lead to a
decrease in lift, which could result in severe safety issues.
This decrease is the result of a pressure distribution that is radically altered by
the presence of a separation bubble just behind the ice on the upper surface. At low
angles of attack this recirculation region extends a great deal further downstream the
wing. As the angle of attack increases the bubble will periodically shed or burst. The
result is a significant reduction in the maximum coefficient of lift as well as premature
stall5.
II. Theory and Methodology
Before it was possible to collect data from the wind tunnel and investigate the
issues that ice accretions create, it was necessary to understand how we could use the
wind tunnel to collect specific data to help us solve for the forces acting on the wing's
surface.
Figure 1: The Flotek 1440 Wind Tunnel.
15
�The Flotek 1440 Wind Tunnel shown in figure 1 was utilized for all data collection. After
becoming acclimated with its operation, procedures for processing the information
collected from the pressure taps were explored. Specifically, we converted the readings
from centimeters of water to Pascals, the standard SI unit (1cm H2O = 98.06 Pa). Then
we determined the location of the pressure taps. After this was completed, a
dimensionless parameter known as the coefficient of pressure was calculated. The
coefficient of pressure (equation 1) is the difference between the surface pressure at a
given location and the free stream pressure normalized such that a single curve can be
used for different velocities.
P P
2
1 ρ v
2
Cp
(1)
In the above equation, p is the pressure at the point being examined, p is the ambient or
freestream pressure, is the ambient density and V is the freestream velocity. The
coefficient of pressure is a unitless dimension.
Next, aerodynamic lift (equation 2) was addressed. Lift is the component of
forces acting on an airfoil that opposes gravity producing a net upward force. This is
made possible for an aircraft because it is designed so that the pressure of the air above
the wing is much less than the pressure below the wing. As a result, the aircraft is able to
leave the ground.
L psindA
(2)
This result is commonly presented as another dimensionless parameter, CL, the
coefficient of lift where S is the platform area (i.e. the area that one would see if looked at
from above).
CL
L
2
1 ρ v
S
2
(3)
For an experimental setup there are a finite number of pressure taps so the
integral in equation (3) must be replaced by a summation.
CL
Pabs ΔA sinθ
2
1 ρ v
S
2
16
(4)
�In this investigation the locations used are the trailing edges, the leading edge and the
midpoints between the taps. Summation is carried out from the trailing edge of the lower
surface around the wing to the leading edge and then to the trailing edge of the upper
surface to maximize accuracy. The area between pressure taps, the actual pressures
themselves and the angle between the airflow and the normal of the line created between
midpoints of the taps were computed by using an Excel spreadsheet (table 1 and 2). The
interval between pressure taps was treated as a straight line making the computation of
the length and normal straightforward (Figure 2).
Upper
Tap 1
Tap 2
Tap 3
Tap 4
Tap 5
Tap 6
Tap 7
Tap 8
Lower
Tap 1
Tap 2
Tap 3
Tap 4
Tap 5
Tap 6
Tap 7
Tap 8
Surface Pressure
Cm of H2O
-3.34
-6.06
-6.64
-6.43
-5.99
-5.5
-4.7
-4.13
Cm of H2O
-3.40
-5.09
-5.05
-4.93
-4.41
-4.21
-3.995
-3.78
Bottom
Trailing
Pascals
-327.53
-594.27
-651.14
-630.55
-587.40
-539.35
-460.90
-405.00
Leading
CP
CP AVG
0.0032
-0.0534
-0.1102
-0.1629
-.30000
-0.3317
-0.3422
0.1034
0.0032
-0.0251
-0.0818
-0.1365
-0.2315
-0.3159
-0.3369
-0.1194
0.1113
0.1193
-0.2394
-0.6745
-0.7233
-0.6376
-0.5149
-0.3449
-0.1642
-0.0891
Upper
Leading
Pascals
-333.42
-499.14
-495.22
-483.45
-432.46
-412.85
-391.76
-370.68
Trailing
0.11925
-0.5980
-0.7510
-0.6956
-0.5795
-0.4503
-0.2393
-0.0891
Table 1: Conversion of pressure tap readings to coefficients of pressure (AOA 20, Re=2.5x105).
17
�CP
0.0032
-0.0251
-0.0818
-0.1365
-0.2315
-0.3159
-0.3369
-0.1194
-0.1113
0.1193
-0.2394
-0.6745
-0.7233
-06376
-0.5149
-0.3449
-0.1642
-0.0891
x/c
1.0000
chord
0.8266
1
0.6560
0.5148
0.3628
0.2265
0.1490
0.0713
0.0152
0.0000
0.0126
0.0619
0.1588
0.2678
0.4150
0.5670
0.7143
0.8745
x/c
0.8266
chord
0.6560
2
0.5148
0.3628
0.2265
0.1490
0.0713
0.0152
0.0000
0.0126
0.0619
0.1588
0.2678
0.4150
0.5670
0.7143
0.8745
0.0288
x/c 1
1.0000
0.8266
0.6560
0.5148
0.3628
0.2265
0.1490
0.0713
0.0152
0.0000
0.0126
0.0619
0.1588
0.2678
0.4150
0.5670
0.7143
0.8745
y/c 1
0.0000
-0.0183
-0.0342
-0.0455
-0.0542
-0.0570
-0.0541
-0.0439
-0.0226
0.0000
0.0272
0.5580
0.0812
0.0926
0.0917
0.0787
0.0584
0.0288
x/c2
0.8266
0.6560
0.5148
0.3628
0.2265
0.1490
0.0713
0.0152
0.0000
0.0126
0.0619
0.1588
0.2678
0.4150
0.5670
0.7143
0.8745
1.0000
y/c 2
-0.0183
-0.0342
-0.0455
-0.0542
-0.0570
-0.0541
-0.0439
-0.0226
0.0000
0.0272
0.0558
0.0812
0.0926
0.0917
0.0787
0.0584
0.0288
0.0000
A
0.174
0.171
4
0.142
0.152
0.136
0.078
0.078
0.060
0.027
0.030
0.057
0.100
0.110
0.147
0.153
0.149
0.163
0.129
Theta
-1.466
-1.478
-1.491
-1.514
-1.550
1.534
1.440
1.208
0.591
-0.434
-1.046
-1.314
-1.466
1.565
1.485
1.433
1.388
1.345
Table 2: Computation of the coefficient of lift.
Figure 2: Parameters used to obtain the coefficient of lift.
18
CL
47.06048
Contribut
46.29964
ion
38.30998
41.23158
36.96125
21.00871
15.216338
4.12805
-3.41299
-13.36728
-26.23254
-29.50431
-39.85743
-41.17547
-39.92730
-43.45099
-34.05079
0.291648
�Armed with a procedure that produced physically sound results for the test case
we proceeded to analyze the clean wing at angles of attack, AOA, ranging from -4o to 16o
at a Reynolds number of 250,000. This was accomplished with a tunnel velocity of
25m/s which is close to the maximum that can be achieved with our equipment.
The Reynolds number is the ratio of inertia to viscous forces.
Re L
ρLv
μ
(5)
In equation (5) is the density of the fluid, is the viscosity of the fluid, L is the chord
length and is the tunnel velocity. The transition from laminar to turbulent flow occurs
at a Reynolds number of 500,000. Hence all of our measurements occurred in the laminar
regime.
Lastly the most crucial step, the design and testing of a simulated ice accretion
shape, was undertaken. Interestingly, it is the shape and not the weight of the ice
accumulation that often contributes to catastrophic results. A glaze ice shape was chosen
because it significantly alters the aerodynamics and is most dangerous to an aircraft in
flight.
The glaze ice accretion was shaped out of Styrofoam and can be seen in Figure
3. Styrofoam was chosen due to its ability to be shaped easily and the roughness that the
surface offers. This shape includes the classic ice horn that occurs at near freezing
temperatures. The ice piece was attached to the airfoil using rubber bands.
The ice form covered three pressure taps so it was necessary to poke holes through the
Styrofoam where those taps were located. This exposed the pressure taps so that they
would be able to make readings. To confirm that nothing was blocking these two upper
and one lower pressure taps a test run was conducted. Once the ice piece was in the
proper location on the airfoil and all of the pressure taps were reading properly, we were
able to make the measurements regarding how the pressure distribution is affected by the
accumulation of ice at the leading edge. The ice somewhat retarded the performance of
the tunnel so a Reynolds number of 200,000 was used. This was also in the laminar
regime so the results are consistent with those taken for the clean wing, the effects of the
addition of the ice where immediately apparent implying that there would be a significant
variation with the coefficient of lift.
19
�Figure 3: The glaze ice shape is attached to the leading edge of the wind tunnel.
III. Results
The procedure described in the previous section used to find the coefficient of
lift was replicated at angles ranging from -4 to 16 degrees when ice was absent from the
airfoil and when a simulated ice piece was present on the airfoil. The tunnel velocity was
at a speed of 25 m/s when ice was absent from the airfoil and a velocity of 20 m/s when
the ice piece was positioned on the airfoil yielding Reynolds number's of 2.5x105 and
2.0x 105 respectively. As anticipated the presence of the ice resulted in a decrease in lift
and premature stall6. However, the extent to which the relatively small accretion altered
the flow field was surprising.
Figure 4 shows the coefficient of lift versus angle of attack. For a clean wing,
the general shape remains consistent. As the angle of attack increases there is almost a
linear increase in the coefficient of lift. This increase will reach a maximum point and
then sharply decrease. The point where the lift coefficient hits its maximum and begins to
drop is known as stall. As the top curve indicates, a clean NACA-2415 section stalls at an
angle of approximately 150 degrees and can attain a maximum lift coefficient of lift 1.22.
The bottom curve resulted when simulated glaze ice was added. Note that the
linear portion seen on the clean airfoil is absent. Furthermore, increases in lift occur more
gradually never exceeding CL=0.25, a dramatic reduction of 80% compared to that
associated with the clean wing. Stall takes place earlier at 110.
20
�Figure 4: Lift as a function of angle of attack for both the clean and iced wings.
Figures 5-15 show the coefficients of pressure changes as you go from the
leading edge to the trailing edge of the wing. Present in every case is a recirculation
region behind the icing horn which dramatically flattens the suction peak6. This in turn
prevents the flow of air over the wing from attaining substantial increases in velocity and
the decreases in pressure necessary to produce an adequate upward lift force.
At negative angles of attack (figures 5-6), the clean upper surface has a higher
coefficient of pressure beginning at the leading edge. As you move further along the
airfoil towards the trailing edge, the clean upper surface coefficient of pressure decreases
and the lower surface’s coefficient of pressure becomes greater. When ice is present on
the airfoil the lower surface CP has a gradual decrease and then moves toward the upper
surface coefficients of pressure.
21
�Figure 5: Coefficient of pressure at -40 AOA
Figure 6: Coefficient of pressure at -20 AOA
At the angles of attack near zero (figures 7-9), the leading edge becomes a
stagnation point with pressure decreasing as the air accelerates around the surface. The
presence of the ice inhibits this curtailing the pressure drop.
22
�Figure 7: Coefficient of pressure at 00 AOA
Figure 8: Coefficient of pressure at 20 AOA
23
�Figure 9: Coefficient of pressure at 40 AOA
At larger angles of attack there is a substantial difference between the
coefficients of pressure of the lower and upper surface near the leading edge when no ice
is present. The much lower pressure on top translates into a sizable upward force. The
ice serves to negate most of the differential resulting in a failure to achieve adequate
maximum lift. The separated flow associated with the recirculating bubble is responsible
for this.
Figure 10: Coefficient of pressure at 60 AOA
24
�Figure 11: Coefficient of pressure at 80 AOA
Figure 12: Coefficient of pressure at 100 AOA
25
�Figure 13: Coefficient of pressure at 120 AOA
Figure 14: Coefficient of pressure at 140 AOA
26
�Figure 15: Coefficient of pressure at 160 AOA
IV. Conclusion
Effects on flight due to ice formation on an aircraft’s wing have been studied
since the early 1900’s. Even though the ice accretions are small in comparison to the size
of the wing, its presence on an aircraft can become dangerous. This experiment allowed
us to examine the surface pressure distribution on a NACA-2415 wing section and
changes in the coefficient of lift at various angles of attack. Comparisons between the
clean wing and one with a Styrofoam simulated ice form attached to it were made.
From the results it was evident that substantial aerodynamic losses could result
from a relatively small ice accretion shape. This poses a problem for aircraft subjected to
in-flight icing. More research needs to be done with regard to designing deicing systems
that inhibit the formation of certain detrimental shapes. In addition, detection systems
must be improved and flight crew prepared on how to read and react should a problem
arise.
V. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Wagner College for the opportunity to study at the institution as
well as providing us with the necessary equipment to conduct our research. We also
would like to thank Dr. Gregory J. Falabella for mentoring us throughout our years at this
27
�academic institution. Finally, we would like to extend a special thanks to all of our
families for the support that they have offered us during our entire research experience.
V. References
[1] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, New Remote Sensing System
Detects Hazardous In-Flight Icing Conditions in Clouds, NOAA Magazine, (2002).
Available from: http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag28.htm.
[2] Philip Appiah-Kubi, U.S. Inflight Icing Accidents and Incidents, 2006 to 2012,
University Of Tennessee, Knoxville, Masters Theses, (2011).
[3] Robert J. Shaw, Mark G. Potapczuk, Colin S. Bidwell, Predictions of Airfoil
Aerodynamic Performance Degradation Due to Icing, NASA Technical Memorandum
101434, (1989).
[4] Michael B. Bragg, G.M. Gregorek, J.D. Lee, Airfoil Aerodynamics in Icing
Conditions, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Vol. 23, No. 1, (1985).
[5] Michael B. Bragg, W.J. Coirier, Detailed Measurements of the Flowfield in the
Vicinity of an Airfoil with Glaze Ice, 23rd Aerospace Sciences Meeting, (1985).
[6] Mark G. Potapczuk, Numerical Analysis of an NACA 0012 Airfoil with LeadingEdge Ice Accretions, J. Aircraft, Vol. 25, No. 3, (1988).
28
�Species Recognition in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Based on Olfactory Cues
Adam Rizzuti (Biology)1
The use of chemical stimuli has been observed to be an advantageous adaptation
important in various roles in many different species. One of these roles is the recognition
of individuals of the same species via olfaction. In this study, zebrafish (Danio rerio)
behavior was tested, observed, and analyzed to determine their ability to differentiate
conspecifics from the purple passion danio (Danio roseus). A zebrafish was placed into a
tank, as well as two opaque cups that had pin holes punched into them. In one of these
cups was a male and female zebrafish and in the other was a male and female purple
passion danio. The holes that were punched into the cups allowed any chemical stimuli
secreted from the fishes to diffuse into the water. These cups were placed at opposite
ends of the tank, and over a 10-minute period, the position of the test zebrafish was
observed and recorded. It was theorized that if the test zebrafish spent significantly more
time near the cup that contained zebrafish then it had recognized and differentiated their
presence from the purple passion danio due to olfactory cues. Results were analyzed
using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. It was determined that the test zebrafish did not
spend significantly more time on either end of the fish tank containing the zebrafish and
purple passion danio. Possible explanations for this are discussed. Comparatively, in the
control experiment in which one cup contained male and female zebrafish and the other
was left empty the test zebrafish spent significantly more time near its conspecifics. The
results of this control test illustrate that the zebrafish could identify conspecifics via
olfaction and preferred to spend a significant amount of time near them.
I. Introduction
General Information on the Various Roles and Importance of Chemoreception
Chemical substances play important roles in a wide range of aspects in the
everyday lives of many organisms. These molecules affect inter- and intraspecific
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Brian Palestis in partial fulfillment of the
Senior Program requirements.
1
29
�relationships, as well as orientation and migration of animals (Kleerekoper 1969). The
various roles of chemical substances include the recognition of prey and predator,
identification of males and females within a species, individuals of the same or other
groups, home territory, and nesting and spawning sites (Kleerekoper 1969). The ability
for an animal to differentiate between all of these things is often dependent on their
perception and identification of specific chemical substances (Kleerekoper 1969).
Specialized chemoreceptors have evolved that can detect and respond to
chemical substances with varying degrees of intensity (Kleerekoper 1969). When these
receptors are excited by a chemical cue, an electrical signal is propagated and sent to the
central nervous system (CNS). When the message reaches the CNS, it is interpreted and
can be responded to in a variety of ways. For example, a specific chemical compound
may be identified as belonging to a predator which may cause a fleeing response.
The ability to perceive chemosensory information confers an enormous
advantage for certain organisms (Wyatt 2003). It has been observed that these sensory
signals are often produced by individuals to convey vital information to other members of
the same species (Wyatt 2003). For example, fish have been observed to release
pheromones into surrounding waters to stimulate behaviors such as reproduction,
shoaling, recognition, and alarm signaling (Wyatt 2003). The release of these chemical
signals requires little energy expenditure, so it is an extremely efficient way of conveying
information (Wyatt 2003). An additional advantage of this practice is that chemical
stimuli can be used to convey information when sight is limited in cases of decreased
visibility (Wyatt 2003).
The significance of chemical signals in the acquisition of food has been
illustrated many times. One of the earliest experiments was done in 1890 (Kleerekoper
1969). When a number of aquatic species were placed in a tank and exposed to the odors
of food, the individuals with intact olfactory organs were able to find food much more
easily than the test animals that had their olfactory organs destroyed (Kleerekoper 1969).
The organisms that relied on their olfactory sense to acquire food were not affected by
the researchers’ attempts to hide the food from sight, further showing that the sense of
smell plays an important role in food acquisition (Kleerekoper 1969).
In many species chemical stimuli plays an important role in reproduction.
During breeding season the male peacock blenny (Blennius pavo) secretes a substance
from its vent region into holes and cracks in the rocks of its marine environment
(Kleerekoper 1969). It has been observed that multiple females may respond to the odor
produced by this substance by depositing their eggs into the nest of a single male
30
�(Kleerekoper 1969). A similar type of chemical substance has also been identified in
lampreys. When male lampreys secrete the substance from their bodies female lampreys
are observed to be attracted to the odor (Kleerekoper 1969).
Olfaction has also been extensively linked to the migratory behavior seen in
many animals. Specifically, it has been discovered that olfaction is the primary sensory
system that guides the Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) from the ocean back to the
stream in which it hatched, to spawn (Carruth et al. 2002). This migration back to their
home stream, called upstream migration, is guided by the salmon’s olfactory system and
their remarkable ability to differentiate between the chemical compositions of different
streams. According to Carruth et al. (2002), young salmon undergo many physiological,
morphological, and behavioral changes that prepare them for their journey to the ocean
and for their journey back to their home stream. During this process, called
smoltification, the unique chemical composition of the home-stream is imprinted onto
salmon. This event is paramount for salmon to successfully return to their natal streams
for spawning. When the salmon imprint the chemical composition of the natal stream
they are actually imprinting on the individual combinations of the odorants found in
varying concentrations in the stream water. Hara (1992) has determined that there are
four major aquatic odorants fish recognize. These odorants are amino acids, bile salts,
steroid hormones, and prostaglandins (Hara 1992). Salmon are extremely sensitive to
these odorants, thus they can detect them even at very small concentrations. Ueda et al.
(1967) demonstrated through electrophysiological recordings that Pacific salmon can
distinguish the waters of their natal stream on which they are imprinted from either
natural water samples or synthetic chemicals. This amazing application of imprinting
helps illustrate the importance of olfaction in the survival and propagation of the species
that utilize it.
The olfactory sense influences a wide range of behaviors, depending on the
organism being studied. The wide range of chemical stimuli that interact with this
sensory system may be interpreted as sexual signals, alarming signals, species
recognition signals, migration signals, or signals that indicate the presence of food or
danger. The study of chemical stimuli, the signals they produce in an organism and the
olfactory channel of communication can provide a gateway into why and how certain
behaviors exist in a multitude of organisms.
31
�General Background on Zebrafish
The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a small, freshwater teleost that has been
established as a powerful research model for many areas of biology and medicine
(Beliaeva et al. 2010). The zebrafish is both convenient and cost effective to work with
from a technical and methodological point of view (Segner 2009). Some of the technical
advantages of the zebrafish include ease and cost of maintenance, high fecundity, rapid
development, ease of observation and manipulation, availability of genetic information,
existence of mutant strains, and cooperativeness with both forward and reverse genetics
(Segner 2009). According to Segner (2009), this species has provided insights into many
aspects of vertebrate biology, genetics, toxicology, and disease, because its traits can be
generalized. The generalization of the zebrafish’s traits allows it to be representative of a
larger group of organisms. The zebrafish has been used as a model for a variety of human
diseases including cancer, movement, and sleep disorders among other conditions (Buske
& Gerlai 2011).
One of the most remarkable characteristics of the zebrafish is that it develops
externally without an eggshell, causing the egg to be optically transparent (Fang 2012).
This allows scientists to easily observe the changing phenotype of the developing
zebrafish embryo. Additionally, these characteristics allow scientists to test the effects of
various drugs, toxins, and other chemicals by simply adding them to the water in which
the zebrafish is developing (Segner 2009). Due to these traits, many toxicological studies
use zebrafish embryos and larvae for initial characterization of environmental hazards or
therapeutic candidates, before advancing to larger animal models (Fang 2012).
The zebrafish is a shoaling fish, meaning that individuals aggregate to form
multimember groups in nature and in the laboratory (Buske & Gerlai 2011). Shoaling is
thought to provide individual fish with multiple benefits, including access to mates,
efficient foraging, and defense against predators (Buske & Gerlai 2011). According to
Buske and Gerlai (2011), the study of the biological mechanisms and development of this
social behavior can help us understand the mechanisms that cause the psychiatric and
neurodevelopmental conditions in humans that are characterized by abnormal social
behavior. These conditions include depression, anxiety disorders, and the autism
spectrum disorders (Burke & Gerlai 2011). The zebrafish is thought to be a suitable
model for investigating the biology and genetics of vertebrate brain functions because of
the many similarities zebrafish and other vertebrates, including humans, share. These
similar characteristics include the layout of the brain, the neurochemical properties of the
32
�brain, and many other levels of biological organization, including nucleotide sequence of
genes (Buske & Gerlai 2011).
Olfaction in zebrafish has been observed to be important in the development of
shoaling and other behaviors (Gerlach et al. 2007). According to Gerlach et al. (2007),
zebrafish prefer the olfactory cues of kin to non-kin. The study of this preference
revealed an imprinting-like effect of olfactory cues at an early age of the fish (6 days post
fertilization) and suggested that some preference for conspecifics already exists at this
stage of development (Gerlach et al. (2007). It is likely that this preference for
conspecifics via chemical stimuli plays an important role in shoaling behavior.
Olfaction Sense in Zebrafish
In order to survive in an ecosystem, animals must be able to perceive and
respond to the information in their environment. The ability to interpret this information
depends on the presence of sensory organs, their sensitivity, their ability to determine the
origin of stimuli, and to induce behavioral events which must be both adequate and low
cost in terms of energy (Faucher et al. 2012). Olfaction is one of many senses that confer
the ability to interpret and respond to information in the environment.
Multiple studies have illustrated the importance of olfaction in zebrafish. This
sense plays a major role in many aspects of the everyday survival of individual zebrafish.
It has been determined that zebrafish use olfactory cues and visual cues to choose mates
and regulate reproduction (Gerlach et al. 2007). In addition, olfactory cues have been
observed to be critical for triggering and synchronizing mating behavior, as well as
stimulating or surpressing reproducing in females (Gerlach et al. 2007). According to
Gerlach et al. (2007), olfactory cues allow zebrafish to distinguish reproductive stage,
relative dominance, and degree of relatedness among conspecifics. Based on the study of
olfaction in zebrafish it has also been elucidated that juvenile zebrafish prefer even
unfamiliar kin to non-kin based on odor cues (Gerlach et al. 2007).
Like other vertebrates, zebrafish posses an organized olfactory system that is
constantly interacting with the CNS (Whitlock 2006). Studies of both the morphology
and chemical neuroanatomy of the adult zebrafish’s olfactory structures has shown that it
is analogous to the structures found in other vertebrate animals (Byrd & Brunjes 1995).
According to Byrd & Brunjes (1995) and Whitlock (2006), these similarities make the
zebrafish a good scientific model for studying the mechanisms underlying olfactory
behaviors and the maturation of the forebrain in vertebrate animals.
33
�Zebrafish possess two nose-like pores, called nares, which allow water to
circulate through the olfactory system (Whitlock 2006). Water enters the olfactory system
via the anterior nare and exits via the posterior nare (Whitlock 2006). According to
Whitlock (2006), water is driven into the anterior nare via locomotion or by the actively
moving cilia found within the olfactory organ. As water enters the anterior nare, chemical
compounds in the water interact with distinct olfactory receptors in the olfactory
epithelium (Whitlock 2006). The olfactory epithelium of fishes is composed of 3 types of
morphologically distinct olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs): ciliated olfactory receptor
cells, microvillous olfactory receptor cells, and crypt olfactory receptor cells (Hino et al.
2009). Each type of OSN is supposed to express different classes of chemosensory
receptors and signal transduction molecules, project axons to different regions of the
olfactory bulb, and mediate different physiological responses (Koide et al. 2009). In
essence, these neurons propagate an electrical impulse when a distinct chemical
compound binds to their receptor. This electrical signal then travels to the CNS where it
is interpreted and ultimately responded to in a variety of ways that may influence
physiology or behavior in a way that is necessary in regards to conditions present in the
surrounding environment.
An interesting discovery regarding olfaction in zebrafish was the finding that
zebrafish actually have less olfactory receptors than humans (Nemura & Nei 2005).
According to Nemura & Nei (2005), humans have approximately 400 olfactory receptors
while zebrafish have about 100. This is surprising because zebrafish have been found to
have a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans (Nemura & Nei 2005). The
reason zebrafish can have less olfactory receptors but still a more sensitive olfactory
system may be due to the finding that zebrafish express more diverse olfactory gene
families than humans (Nemura & Nei 2005).
Multiple studies been done to determine which odorant substances elicit a
response in teleosts. In fish, dissolved amino acids serve as olfaction cues that indicate
the presence of food and elicit an attractive response (Koide et al. (2009). According to
Hino et al. (2009), amino acids stimulate at least the microvillous OSNs in zebrafish. It
should be noted that a second study showed the amino acids not only stimulate the
microvillous OSNs, but also the ciliated OSNs in zebrafish (Hino et al. 2009). Koide et
al. (2009) agree that microvillous OSNs respond to amino acids, which are potential
feeding cues. They go on to say that the ciliated OSNs respond to bile acids, which are
generally considered to be social pheromones. In contrast, little is known about the
function of the crypt OSNs (Koide et al. 2009).
34
�Species Recognition in Zebrafish
The documentation of shoaling in zebrafish demonstrates the advantage of social
behaviors that species recognition makes possible. Species recognition allows members
of the same species to cooperate or affiliate with each other. As seen in zebrafish,
cooperation among individuals allows shoaling to occur. This behavior benefits
individual zebrafish in multiple ways, such as increasing mating opportunities, reducing
competition among conspecifics, and increased defense against predators (Buske &
Gerlai 2011). Multiple experiments have determined that shoaling relies on visual and
olfactory cues, so it is reasonable to deduce that species recognition must also rely on
these factors.
Many experiments have been conducted in order to test the zebrafish's ability to
differentiate conspecifics from heterospecifics via olfactory cues. One such experiment
by Fabian et al. (2007) illustrated that zebrafish can differentiate conspecifics via odor
cues and that the addition of humic acid to the environment can inhibit this chemical
communication. Humic acid is a naturally occurring organic derivative found in aquatic
and terrestrial environments (Fabian et al. 2007). When zebrafish were given the choice
of untreated water and water treated with humic acid it was determined that the zebrafish
preferred the untreated water (Fabian et al. 2007). In addition, zebrafish spent
significantly more time near conspecifics when in untreated water, but when placed in
water treated with humic acid the zebrafish were less inclined to spend time with
conspecifics and were observed to spend more time near heterospecifics (Fabian et al.
2007). The results of this experiment illustrate that olfactory cues play a role in the
recognition of conspecifics and the disruption of the sensory environment can drastically
change behavior.
Cross-species Familiarity
The development of familiarity among individuals can bring about benefits,
such as increased shoal cohesion which serves to confound predators (Ward et al. 2003).
Familiarity is dependent on repeated interaction between individuals, thus it develops
over time (Ward et al. 2003). In an experiment conducted by Ward et al. (2003), the
ability of shoaling fishes to recognize familiar heterospecifics was tested. Specifically,
the researchers wanted to learn the preferences of shoaling fish when given the choice of
non-familiar conspecifics versus non-familiar heterospecifics, familiar conspecifics
versus non-familiar conspecifics, familiar heterospecifics versus non-familiar
heterospecifics, and finally familiar heterospecifics versus non-familiar conspecifics
35
�(Ward et al. 2003). Two species of focal fish were used in this experiment: Chub
(Leuciscus cephalus) and European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus). The test focal fish was
placed into a flow tank apparatus which simulated natural conditions for both species
(Ward et al. 2003). Two separate compartments that contained the stimulus fishes were
placed on either end of the tank. These compartments were made of netting material so
that olfactory and visual cues could stimulate the focal fish (Ward et al. 2003).
The results of this experiment showed that focal fishes were able to recognize
and show preferences for familiar individuals, whether these were conspecifics or
heterospecifics (Ward et al. 2003). In other words, the focal fishes spent significantly
more time near familiar fishes regardless of if they were conspecifics or heterospecifics.
According to Ward et al. (2003), the high levels of predation that juvenile cyprinids
experience in their natural environment attributes to this behavior, because associating
with familiars in shoals displays more effective anti-predator strategies than non-shoaling
behavior.
Kin Recognition in Zebrafish
Kin recognition is an important development because it enables organisms,
including zebrafish, to allocate resources or altruistic behavior towards related
conspecifics and to avoid mating with close relatives (Gerlach & Lysiak 2006).
According to Gerlach and Lysiak (2006), kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in
zebrafish is based on phenotype matching. During early development individuals
establish an olfactory, visual, or acoustic template for their kin and compare this template
to cues from unfamiliar individuals later in life (Gerlach & Lysiak 2006). In this way,
zebrafish are able to recognize even unfamiliar kin (Gerlach & Lysiak 2006). Gerlach
and Lysiak (2006) devised an experiment in which they tested the olfactory preference of
laboratory-bred juveniles and reproductively active adults by placing them in an odor
choice flume. While in this apparatus the test zebrafish was exposed to two different odor
cues, one emanating from an upper column and the other from a lower column (Gerlack
& Lysiak 2006). The test zebrafish was free to make a choice between the two odor cues
(Gerlack & Lysiak 2006). When juvenile zebrafish were given the choice of odor cues
originating from conspecifics and heterospecifics they significantly preferred the odor of
conspecifics (Gerlack & Lysiak 2006). According to Gerlach and Lysiak (2006),
juveniles of mixed-sex groups spent more time on the side of unfamiliar kin than
unfamiliar non-kin, indicating that phenotype matching is the basis for kin recognition
and preference. Additionally, the juveniles preferred familiar kin to unfamiliar kin,
36
�illustrating that as familiarity with individuals increases so does preference. Finally,
Gerlach and Lysiak (2006) determined that these preferences changed with sexual
maturity. The researchers found that sexually mature females preferred the odor of
unfamiliar, unrelated males to the odor of unfamiliar brothers, indicating inbreeding
avoidance (Gerlach & Lysiak 2006). Interestingly, sexually mature males did not show a
preference for the odor of related or unrelated females (Gerlach & Lysiak 2006). The
results of this experiment elucidate that not only can zebrafish differentiate kin from nonkin and conspecifics from heterospecifics, but that olfactory cues play a major role in the
process.
Some of the benefits of kin association include improved growth, fewer
aggressive encounters, and the use of a greater proportion of "threat" behavior rather than
fighting (Gerlack & Lysiak 2006; Gerlack et al. 2007). Improved growth in kin groups
has been attributed to the less stressful environment present in these groups (Gerlack et
al. 2007).
Sex Recognition and Reproduction in Zebrafish
In addition to the other various roles that chemical cues facilitate, researchers
have discovered that zebrafish pheromones play a significant role in sex recognition and
in many aspects of reproduction. In a relatively simple experiment conducted by Hutter et
al. (2011), the ability of a female zebrafish to detect a male zebrafish using both visual
and chemosensory cues was determined. In this experiment, a female zebrafish was
placed into a flow-chamber apparatus that contained a male and female zebrafish.
Initially, the researchers created conditions that only provided visual cues to the females.
Under these conditions, Hutter et al. (2011) found that the females were more attracted to
males (but see Etinger et al.[2009]) . Further, when the researchers introduced
chemosensory cues they found that sex determination improved, thus illustrating that
female zebrafish can discriminate the sexes using both visual and olfactory cues (Hutter
et al. 2011). This discovery implies that by using olfactory cues, zebrafish can find mates
even in conditions of decreased visibility.
Another role of pheromones in regards to mating is the discovery that zebrafish
pheromones can cause suppression of female reproduction, male enhancement, and
synchronization of mating behavior (Gerlach 2006). According to Gerlach (2006), female
zebrafish that have been exposed to another female's pheromones for 4 days prior to
mating spawn significantly fewer viable eggs than females that were not exposed to
another female's pheromones. Gerlach (2006), was able to determine that the
37
�effectiveness of one female's pheromones on another's reproductive success depended on
status hierarchy. Dominant females were identified due to their occupation and defense of
the largest territory (Gerlach 2006). Dominant females were observed to chase and
prevent other females from entering their territory (Gerlach 2006). Based on the findings
that dominant females produced significantly more viable eggs than other females,
Gerlach (2006) suggests that there must be differences in female sensitivity towards
suppressive pheromones. According to Gerlach (2006), the dominant female might
release the strongest signal without being sensitive to her own pheromone. In addition,
Gerlach (2006), states that there was no physical contact between females, therefore
reproductive suppression was solely due to pheromones. Finally, Gerlach (2006)
observed that if given the opportunity, female zebrafish will actively avoid other females.
Further, if a female was replaced with female pheromone the other female would still
display avoidant behavior (Gerlach, 2006). These results indicate that female zebrafish
can detect other female’s pheromones and will alter their behavior to avoid it.
In regards to male enhancement, Gerlach (2006) discovered that male
pheromones can affect female reproduction several days before mating. According to
Gerlach (2006), male pheromone can cause ovulation, mating behavior, and significantly
improve the number and development of eggs. Even females that were exposed to
another female's pheromone had greater reproductive success when exposed to male
pheromone (Gerlach 2006). In addition, Gerlach (2006) explains that female pheromone
affects males by enhancing spawning behavior, sperm production, and sperm motility.
Finally, synchronization of mating behavior and receptivity is achieved when both mating
partners are exposed to each other's pheromones for several hours before spawning
(Gerlach 2006). The evidence gathered by Gerlach (2006), illustrates that pheromones
have a profound effect on the reproductive behavior and success of zebrafish.
II. Materials and Methods
The purpose of this experiment was to determine if zebrafish can recognize
conspecifics based on olfactory cues alone. Specifically, zebrafish were tested to
determine if they could differentiate the olfactory cues of conspecifics and purple passion
danio (Danio roseus).
Fish and holding Conditions
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and purple passion danio (Danio roseus) of both sexes
were used in this experiment. These fish were obtained from a local pet store and kept
38
�together in a 37.85 liter tank. The tank contained gravel, plants and other aquarium
materials to enhance the sense of a normal habitat for the fish while not being tested. The
tank was kept in a room that had natural sunlight. The water was kept at room
temperature. The fish were fed Tetramin flakes once daily.
Testing Procedures
During testing, a single zebrafish and two opaque cups that had pin-sized holes
punched into the sides were placed in a 37.85 liter tank that contained 9.5L of filtered tap
water. One cup contained a male and female zebrafish, while the other contained a male
and female purple passion danio. The purpose of the holes was to allow any chemicals
produced by the fishes to diffuse into the surrounding water. The tank was set up
horizontally and the cups where placed at either ends of the tank . Over a 10-minute
period, the test zebrafish was observed and the amount of time it spent near either end of
the tank was recorded. After the 10-minute period the test zebrafish was replaced, as well
as the water. The discarded zebrafish was placed in a fish tank designated for subjects
that already underwent testing. This procedure was done so that there was no chance of
reusing the same zebrafish. Control tests were also performed in which one cup was left
empty while the other contained a male and female zebrafish or a male and female purple
passion danio. In total, 25 trials were run in which the fish tank contained both zebrafish
and purple passion danio, 15 trials in which the tank contained only zebrafish, and 15
trials in which the tank contained a test zebrafish and purple passion danio.
Statistics
The statistical significance of the time each test zebrafish spent near either a cup
containing conspecifics, purple passion danio, or an empty cup was determined using the
Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
III. Results
When a test zebrafish was placed into a fish tank containing cups that held
zebrafish and purple passion danio it was determined via the Wilcoxon signed-rank test
that it did not spend significantly (n=25, p>0.05) more time near either of the cups (refer
to table 1). Although not significant, on average, the test zebrafish spent slightly more
time (5%) near the cup containing purple passion danio than the zebrafish cup. When
placed into a tank that had a cup containing zebrafish and an empty cup it was determined
via the Wilcoxon signed-rank test that the zebrafish spent significantly (n=15, p<0.05)
39
�more time near the cup containing zebrafish. On average, the test zebrafish spent 18%
more time near the zebrafish cup than the empty cup. When placed into a tank that held a
cup containing purple passion danio and an empty cup it was determine via the Wilcoxon
signed-rank test that the zebrafish did not spend significantly (n=15, p>0.05) more time
near either of the cups.
Stimulus
fish(es)
Avg. time (s)
spent near
conspecifcs
Avg.
percentage
of time
spent near
conspecifics
Avg.
time (s)
spent
near
PPD
Avg.
percentage
of time
spent
near PPD
Zfish &
PPD
285
47.5%
(n=25)
315
52.5%
Zfish
354
59%
(n=15)
PPD
295
49%
(n=15)
Avg.
time (s)
spent
near
empty
cup
Avg.
percentage
of time
spent near
empty cup
Significant?
α=0.05
No. p>0.05
246
41%
Yes.
p<0.05
304
51%
No.
p>0.05
Table 1: Averaged results including time in seconds and percentage of total time the test
zebrafish spent near stimulus fish or the empty cup. Significance of results is also included.
IV. Discussion
Analysis of Results
The results illustrate that the test zebrafish did not have a significant preference
for either its conspecifics or the purple passion danio when placed into a fish tank that
contained both. Strangely, the test zebrafish, on average, spent more time near the purple
passion danio than the other zebrafish. Although this additional time was not significant
according to the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, it is still interesting. Perhaps the test
zebrafish did not show signs of significant preference towards its own species or the
purple passion danio because they were both stored in the same tank. By storing the test
fishes in the same tank it may be possible that the zebrafish and purple passion danio
developed a degree of chemical familiarity with each other that affected the results of the
experiment (Ward et al. 2003). Additionally, due to their relatedness, it may be possible
that the purple passion danio and zebrafish secrete similar chemical stimuli for species
40
�recognition that are not easily differentiated by the zebrafish. Finally, although the
stimulus fishes always consisted of one male and one female, the test zebrafish was not
restricted to one sex. According to Gerlach’s (2006) research, female zebrafish
demonstrate avoidant behavior when a female conspecific is nearby. Since the zebrafish
used for testing were not restricted to the male sex it is possible that some of the zebrafish
used for testing were female. These test subjects may have avoided their conspecifics due
to the presence of another female, thus affecting the results.
The results of the control test in which a test zebrafish was placed in a tank that
held a cup containing zebrafish and an empty cup showed that the test zebrafish spent
significantly more time near its conspecifics than near the empty cup. These results
indicate that the test zebrafish was able to recognize members of its own species via
olfactory cues and preferred to spend a significant amount of time near them. This result
was expected due to observations of shoaling behavior in the zebrafish's natural
environment.
The remaining control test showed that the test zebrafish did not spend
significantly more time near the empty cup or the cup containing purple passion danio.
During this test a majority of the zebrafish showed a strange behavior that was not
observed in the other experiments. Immediately after being transferred from the holding
tank to the test tank many of the test zebrafish would move to one side of the tank and
remain there, unmoving, for an extended period of time (up to 6 minutes). This was
unexpected because in the other tests the test zebrafish, in general, showed much more
energetic behavior. The side of the tank that was initially chosen by the test zebrafish
appeared to be random. Due to the insignificance of the amount of time spent on either
end of the tank these results neither support nor refute the notion that the test zebrafish
developed a chemical familiarity with the purple passion danio.
Thoughts on How to Improve this Experiment
In future experiments I would recommend that the experimental fishes be
housed in separate fish tanks so that the possibility of familiarization between the
different species of fish is eliminated. Additionally, test zebrafish should be restricted to
the male sex in order to eliminate the possibility of female-female pheromone
interactions that may affect the results. Furthermore, I would allow the cups containing
zebrafish and purple passion danio to sit in the fish tank for a longer period of time before
adding the test zebrafish, so that their chemical stimuli could diffuse more completely
throughout the tank water. If this was done, the first few minutes of the test may have
41
�been different. Finally, I would label the middle section of the tank that was not near
either of the cups as "dead space". This "dead space" would not be considered to
correspond to either end of the tank that contained the stimulatory fishes. The reason for
this is that some of the more energetic test zebrafish would continually pass from one
side of tank to the other without getting very close to either cup. This occurrence
sometimes made it difficult to record accurate data for the duration the test fish spent on
either side of the tank.
Conclusion
The results deemed significant by statistical analysis indicate that zebrafish can
identify each other via olfactory cues and when they do they prefer to mingle with each
other. This result was expected due to the social behavior of shoaling that zebrafish
exhibit in their natural environment. In regard to the question of if zebrafish can
differentiate their own species from that of purple passion danio based on chemical
stimuli, the answer remains unknown due to non-significant results. To answer this
question, this experiment should be redone with the recommendations from section 6.2 in
mind.
V. Acknowledgements
I thank Dr. Brian Palestis for his guidance and helpful comments, Dr. Heather
Cook for reviewing this research, Dr. Donald Stearns for his helpful comments and
assistance with statistical analysis, and Stephanie Rollizo for taking care of the fish. I also
thank the Department of Biological Sciences’ Alumni Senior Thesis Research Fund for
funding this research.
VI. References
Beliaeva, N.F.; Kashirtseva V.N.; Medvedeva N.V.; Khudoklinova, IuIu; Ipatova,
O.M.; Archakov, A.I. (2010). Zebrafish as a model organism for biomedical studies.
Biomed Khim. 56(1): 120-131.
Buske, C.; Gerlai, R. (2011). Shoaling develops with age in Zebrafish (Danio rerio).
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 35(6): 1409-1415
Byrd, C.A.; Brunjes, P.C. (1995). Organization of the olfactory system in the adult
zebrafish: Histological, immunohistochemical, and quantitative analysis. Journal of
Comparative Neurology. 358(2): 247-259
42
�Carruth, L.L.; Jones, R.E.; Norris, D.O. (2002). Cortisol and Pacific Salmon: A New
Look at the Role of Stress Hormones in Olfaction and Home-stream Migration.
Integrative and Comparative Biology. 42: 574-581
Etinger, A.; Lebron, J.; Palestis, B.G. (2009). Sex-assortative shoaling in zebrafish (Danio
rerio). Bios 80: 153-158
Fabian, N.J.; Albright, L.B.; Gerlach, G.; Fisher, H.S.; Rosenthal, G.G. (2007).
Humic acid interferes with species recognition in zebrafish (Danio rerio). Journal of
Chemical Ecology. 33: 2090-2096
Fang, L.; Miller, Y.I. (2012). Review Article: Emerging applications for zebrafish as a
model organism to study oxidative mechanisms and their roles in inflammation and
vascular accumulation of oxidized lipids. Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 53(7):
1411-1420
Faucher, K.; Floriani, M.; Gilbin, R.; Adam-Guillermin, C. (2012). Uranium-induced
sensory alteration in the zebrafish Danio rerio. Aquatic Toxicology. 124: 94-105
Gerlach, G. (2006). Pheromonal regulation of reproductive success in female zebrafish:
female suppression and male enhancement. Animal Behaviour. 72(5): 1119-1124
Gerlach, G.; Hodgins-Davis, A.; Avolio, C.; Schunter, C. (2008). Kin Recognition in
Zebrafish: A 24-Hour Window for Olfactory Imprinting. Proceedings: Biological
Sciences. 275: 2165-2170
Gerlach, G.; Hodkins-Davis, A.; MacDonald, B.; Hannah, R.C. (2007). Benefits of
kin association: related and familiar zebrafish larvae (Danio rerio) show improved
growth. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 61(11): 1765-1770
Gabriele, G.; Lysiak, N. (2006). Kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance in zebrafish,
Danio rerio, is based on phenotype matching. Animal Behaviour. 71(6): 1371-1377
Hara, T.J. (1992). Fish Chemoreception. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Hino, H.; Miles, N.G.; Bandoh, H.; Ueda, H. (2009). Molecular biological research on
olfactory chemoreception in fishes. Journal of Fish Biology. 75(5): 945-959
Hutter, S.; Zala, S.M.; Penn, D.J. (2011). Sex recognition in zebrafish (Danio
rerio) Journal of Ethology. 29: 55-61
Kleerekoper, H. (1969). Olfaction in fishes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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�Koide, T.; Miyasaka, N.; Morimoto, K.; Asakawa, K.; Urasaki, A.; Kawakami, K.;
Yoshihara, Y. (2009). Olfactory neural circuitry for attraction to amino acids revealed by
transposon-mediated gene trap approach in zebrafish. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 106(24): 9884-9889
Korsching, S.I.; Argo, S.; Campenhausen, H.; Friedrich. R.W.; Rummrich, A.;
Weth, F. (1996). Regular Article: Olfaction in zebrafish: what does a tiny teleost tell
us? Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology. 8(2):181-187
Mann, K. D.; Turnell, E. R.; Atema, J.; Gerlach, G. (2003). Kin Recognition in
Juvenile Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Based on Olfactory Cues. Biological Bulletin. 205: 224225
Niimura, Y.; Nei. M. (2005). Evolutionary dynamics of olfactory receptor genes in
fishes and tetrapods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United
States of America.102(17): 6039-6044
Segner, H. (2009). Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model organism for investigating
endocrine disruption. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C: Toxicology &
Pharmacology. 149(2): 187-195.
Ueda, K.; Hara, T.J.; Gorbman, A. (1967). Electroencephalic studies on olfactory
discrimination in adult spawning salmon. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. 21:
133-143.
Ward, A.J.W.; Axford, S.; Krause, J. (2003). Cross-species familiarity in shoaling
fishes. The Royal Society of London B 274: 101-105
Whitlock, K.E. (2006). The sense of scents: olfactory behaviors in zebrafish. Zebrafish
3: 203-213
Wyatt. T.D. (2003). Pheromones and animal behavior: communication by smell and
taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
44
���Imagination and Creativity Inside the Classroom
Michael Chicolo (Psychology)1
The author discusses the importance of childhood imagination and creativity
within the early education setting. Teachers here attempt to make learning more
enjoyable for the young children by allowing them to explore creative outlets. Due to
less experiences, children rely on their imagination to interact with their world and early
childhood centers harness these resources to provide the children with basic tools, which
are necessary for the learning process: personal and social experiences. Though, in order
to fully grasp the concept of creative teaching styles for early education programs,
individuals should understand the research on which the foundation for the centers are
built upon. Therefore, in this paper, research on imagination is presented and the author
displays its evolution, stretching as far back from the early 1900s all the way to the
present time. The research includes theories from Vygotsky (1930/2004; 1966), Myers
and Torrance (1961), Mednick (1962), Mendelsohn (1976), Ashiabi (2007), Diachenko
(2011), and more. All in all, the research can be summed up as first chronicling the
development, processes, and then possible applications of imaginative thinking and the
medium of which it is expressed, the act of play. Afterwards, the author discusses the
research, as it relates to actual observations made at an early childhood center.
I. Introduction
The Wagner College Early Childhood Center provides young children with preK and Kindergarten school experiences. While a loose structure uniformly covers each
individual classroom, the Center relies on a different teaching style found within regular
educational programs. The teachers, as defined as anyone who “teaches,” their desire to
teach their students through exploring creative outlets, so as to make learning more
enjoyable. Imagination is the key in enabling the children to solve problems or overcome
any obstacles in life. At the tender ages between two and six years, the children can only
do so much. So, as a result of less experiences and mental resources, they rely on
imagination in order to interact with their world through the act of play. Creative
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Miles Groth in partial fulfillment of the
Senior Program requirements.
1
47
�imagination, therefore, is vital for the younglings and the Early Childhood Center
harnesses this resource in an effort to influence learning. While completing my
placement at the Center, I had witnessed this and had come to believe that childhood
imagination is important for both understanding the environment and consequently the
learning process. However, before truly understanding how the educational programs
can foster creative imagination and aid teaching, one should understand the research
upon which this method of teaching is based.
II. Review of Literature
Early Research
While research regarding imagination can be traced all the way back to the
origins of psychological studies, this review of that literature dates only to the early
1900s. At this time, a major turning point had occurred on the subject matter with the
rise of one of the most prolific researchers. Additionally, early research on the literature
about creativity and imagination had a distinct theme. Here, research tended to focus on
the development and process of the creative imagination.
More than a century ago, the development of imagination was thought to be
related to the development of various ideational types, or mechanisms, by which
formulate the imaginative mind. Colvin and Myers (1909) tested each of the different
types found within school age children and chronicled their discovery. The results
showed that young children think with visual imagery, though auditory and motor
imageries were present. As the individuals got older, reliance on visual imagery
decreased and verbal imagery increased possibly because the children form the “ability to
associate and give meaning to memory material” (Colvin & Myers, 1909, p. 123).
Unfortunately, another explanation may be that education funnels students into different
types. Results also displayed that children do not think in motor terms often and while
auditory imagery increased in later childhood, this related to verbal imagery (innerspeech). Finally, according to Colvin and Myers (1909), the effectiveness of memory
correlated with the ideational type utilized by the individuals (i.e. visual type for visual
content, auditory type for auditory content, and motor for motor content). This research,
even though it was quite broad, would serve as a general template of the literature for
decades later.
In the 1930s, scholar and psychologist Lev Vygotsky came onto the scene and
completely elaborated on the development of the creative imagination. In one of his
48
�famous works, Imagination and Creativity in Childhood, Vygotsky (1930/2004) defined
creativity as “any human act that gives rise to something new” (p. 7), allowing the rare
inclusion of physical, mental, and emotional acts. Vygotsky (1930/2004) also
distinguished between two types of activities which relate to imagination: reproduction
and combinatorial. The reproductive act is connected to memory and brain plasticity,
which allows the brain to be modified but keep original states with small tweaks, as the
person repeats already, mastered skills. In turn, it helps adaptation to a changing world
for security reasons. Though, one may glean that if this were the only activity, a person
could not change to an evolving world, and only stay stable to it. Therefore, there has to
be a combinatorial, or creative activity, which occurs as the brain “reworks elements of
past experience and uses them to generate new propositions and new behavior”
(Vygotsky, 1930, p. 9). He believed that anyone could be creative and that this
‘imagination’ was the main component of cultural, artistic, and even scientific life. The
scholar then proposes four laws that govern imagination. First, creations are based on
previous experience within reality. Everything comes from real experiences, but is then
combined into novel ways. Therefore, creative imagination depends on the richness of
the previous experiences because real life provides the resources from upon which to
build. Second, social experiences broaden and benefit an individual’s resources. People
are given the information that they do not know yet, enriching resources from beyond
their very own personal experiences. Third, a dual expression of feelings exists. That is,
emotions have a specific corresponding image and consequently, influence impressions
and thoughts. Examples of this are music and art, when the creators attempt to translate
their feelings through their projects or when the final project influences the feelings of
their respective audiences. Lastly, imagination becomes reality as the imaginative
product becomes a new object in the real world, whose existence can then affect other
things (e.g., technological invention). In children, these creative laws can be witnessed
through their play, where they construct a new reality, bound to their own rules (e.g.
playing with dolls, pretending to be someone else).
Additionally, Vygotsky (1930/2004) elaborated on the process of imagination.
First, there is external and internal perception of experiences. Next, the individual
reworks material by dissociation, the breaking up of impressions into smaller parts and
distorting them. This is then followed by association, or the unification of dissociated
parts of impressions. Finally, individual elements become a complete whole thought/act.
The process officially ends when imagination is crystallized into real world objects. As
with Colvin and Myers (1909), Vygotsky (1930/2004) believed that creativity is first
49
�displayed by children through drawing as it is the easiest way to self-express, but by
school, they begin to be literary/verbal. With fewer experiences, it is easier to express
those simple impressions through drawing. Verbal becomes the choice method for
creativity, as language allows for more complex expressions of complex internal
impressions that go along with age maturation. Vygotsky (1930/2004) linked the
increase of verbal self-expression with the rise of theatrical creativity. Dramatizations
and role-play closely corresponds with real experiences and helps the imagination
become real. It is a form of interactive storytelling. As a result, education should
encourage creativity for its students.
Later Research
The subjects of creativity and imagination, unfortunately, were ignored
afterwards. A resurgence of research came about during the later half of the twentieth
century. At this time, the later research was characterized by theoretical applications
based on new empirical findings on the processes of creativity. In their review of the
literature, Barron and Harrington (1981) even grouped the various waves of research into
those who focused on divergent abilities, and analogical, imagery, problem finding, and
associational abilities.
Branching from Vygotsky’s research and suggestions regarding creativity in the
classroom, some psychologists guided their own studies to discover the many factors that
influence creative imagination. Myers and Torrance (1961) interviewed several teachers
as they attempted to follow the five principles for creative teaching. These principles
included treating questions with respect, treating imaginative ideas with respect, showing
pupils that their ideas have value, occasionally having pupils do something “for practice”
without the threat of evaluation, and tying evaluation with causes and consequences. The
researchers found that if teachers did not value creativity, it was hard for them to
encourage it; predispositions or temperament may prevent creative thinking in the
classroom. If creativity was valued, enthusiasm and interest on the topic were reported
and in some instances, the students even elaborated on the ideas. Teachers should be
alert to opportunities for children to express themselves creatively. When they did not do
this, Myers and Torrance (1961) described the teachers as authoritarian, defensive, and
insensitive to children’s intellectual and emotional needs. They instead valued time,
orderliness, respect for authority, and preservation of their self-image. Teachers also
should keep the factors that aid (or hinder) creativity in mind. According to Guilford
(1962), there are many basic factors or traits that influence creative imagination, such as
50
�fluency (rate of producing ideas), flexibility (ability to change or adapt thinking), and
originality (infrequency of a response). Ideational fluency can be broken apart into two
types: associational fluency occurs with the completion of relationships, as described as
thinking by analogies, and expressional fluency with the actual construction of sentences.
Two distinct types of flexibility include spontaneous, which is based on the number and
variety of responses, and adaptive, which is the ability to make changes. This adaptive
flexibility then relates to the factor of elaboration, which is the ability to diverge and
make many new responses based on the original information. The context of the creation
also plays a role as some individuals can be creative in one area, but not in another (e.g.,
verbal vs. symbolic). Underlining these is the way the individuals discover information
through cognition and retain the information through memory. Other factors include selfconfidence, independency, self-sufficiency, and evaluation, which if strict can handicap
but if moderate can lead to higher quality responses. Additionally, Katz (1987) added a
high self-concept to the list because these individuals know that they are creative, so it is
easier to be divergent. Understanding these characteristics of the creative individual can
allow the imagination to be fostered inside the classroom.
Another shift in the research had occurred simultaneously with the resurgence of
redefining the creative process in empirical terms. Mednick (1962) paved the way for an
associative theory of the creative process, which could be measured through tests. In
general, the theory states that creativity is the formation of associative elements into new
combinations that have meaning, where the product needs to be useful and not just
original. According to Mednick (1962), there are three methods for achieving novel
solutions: serendipity, when the answer is accidental, similarity, where a similarity of
elements or stimuli exists (e.g. painting, sculpting), and mediation, when common
elements mediate associations through the use of symbols, like in mathematics. The
theory takes into account individual differences that influence creativity. The individuals
need to be aware of the associative materials. When an associative hierarchy exists, the
importance of associative elements influence the speed of the solution or the person may
continuously exhaust the same resources. Here, stereotyped responses reduce the chance
of other associative materials from being used. In this case, for example, a younger
person around 25 years of age may hold more creative solutions than older people
because they spend less time with the same resources. The number of associations also
improves the chances of coming up with creative solutions because there is more with
which to work. Finally, personality styles make up some differences. For example,
people may take either a perceptual or conceptual approach to the issue at hand or be
51
�either a visualizer (associate memorial images) or verbalizer (associate words).
Depending on the criteria set forth to resolve the problem, one style may be suited over
the other. Interestingly, Halverson and Waldrop (1974) seem to have supported these
conclusions as their studies with preschool and school age children had shown that they
deal with barriers in their own characteristic ways (i.e. personality and cognitive styles).
Participants were preschool children who attended a nursery school. While they usually
entered the school through an outdoor play area, eventually a barrier was introduced in
the form of a fence that made a corral around some desired toys. The teachers there
showed the children how to knock it down and eventually they began to model the
behavior. Five years later a follow-up study was performed, diving into the participants’
intelligence, imagination, and social maturity. Results demonstrated that coping with
barriers at two-and-half years was not related to coping at seven-and-half years of age. It
changed due to unique styles. Conversely, Mendelsohn (1976) argued that creative
performance is not associative, but rather attentional. Instead, the researcher believed
that individuals search for an answer by using associative materials, such as words, first
but then test these out against other words for its “adequacy as a solution” (p. 359). This
is trialed until the best is found and, therefore, the individuals must be alert and attentive
to the materials in order to make associations. With this theory, creative thinking is not
only mere associations; it is also the ability to receive and store accessible information
from the environment and the ability to simultaneously think, of which both can broaden
resources and increase the likelihood of novel combinations. Many factors would also
influence attentional resources, such as availability of elements (e.g. vocabulary levels),
accessibility of elements (the ability to retrieve words), goal direction as seen by
developments of strategies, and the fluency and flexibility in hypothesis generation. All
in all, the ideas mentioned here utilized empirical data to help formulate new conceptions
of the creative process and represented a trend of the times.
Near the end of the century, some research began to transition from theoretical
applications to applied research. Sternberg (1985) helped usher in this bridge with
studies concerned about implicit theories of creativity. Whereas explicit theories are
constructions based on observable, testable data of psychological functioning, implicit
theories are conceptual and theoretical in nature as they are mere ideas in the minds of
investigators (Sternberg, 1985). In the study to understand the implicit theories of
intelligence, creativity, and wisdom, he found that creativity is often described by
integration, aesthetic taste and imagination, flexibility, and the ability to think in
unconventional ways. Intelligence and wisdom were more closely related to one another
52
�than they were to creativity. Therefore, the results had shown that implicit theories could
in fact affect people’s judgments. That is, adults, including teachers, may hold certain
expectations and these in turn may influence attitudes towards particular pupils.
Modern Research – Imagination and Creativity
At the end of the last century and at the beginning of the present century,
modern research has focused on the actual application of previous literature and theories
inside the educational system.
The main units of the educational system are the teachers as they pass down,
usually normative, knowledge to their students. Consequently, researchers were driven to
understand their views about creativity in the classroom. Fryer and Collings (1991)
interviewed teachers and found that the participants thought that “self-confident,”
“independent in thinking,” and “curious” were creative traits but many did not encourage
them in class. Interestingly, creativity, while still understood as self-expression, was not
related to divergent thinking, either. However, the teachers did encourage “asking
questions” and “attempting difficult tasks,” which were also considered creative, as they
believed that creativity was rare, but it can be developed. The researchers added that
informal teaching and freedom of choice are helpful as well as a pupil-orientated
approach compared to instrumental teaching styles. Runco and Johnson’s (1993; 2002)
research provides an elaboration to those findings. Runco and Johnson (1993) studied
implicit theories of children’s creativity and found that these are used to judge
performances, having both positive and negative consequences on students. Creativity
can be fostered if it is accurately assessed (i.e., as active, adventurous, alert, artistic,
resourceful) and pushed by adults. Extending their results, Runco and Johnson (2002)
found that creativity was related to social desirability. Teachers did not want to be
around those creative children who were also “nonconforming” and “impulsive;” they
wished to manage the classroom as easily and as efficiently as possible (Westby &
Dawson, 1995). Disturbingly, implications of Westby and Dawson’s (1995) results mean
that attitudes may scare children aware from formal education or creativity may even be
suppressed and replaced by conformity.
Gratefully, there are many creative teaching strategies that are applied inside the
classroom. Inspired by quality teachers, who valued opinions, self-expression, and
communication, Horng, Hong, ChanLin, Chang, and Chu (2005) suggested environments
which could ignite the creative, imaginative mind. After performing extensive qualitative
research based on interviews, observations, and assessments, the researchers discovered
53
�many characteristics of the teachers, which influenced creative teaching. As for
personality, they were open to new experiences, had a desire to acquire knowledge from
workshops, and held keen observations at nurturing creative ideas as found in their lesson
plans. They noticed that humor comforts students and encourages responses. The
teachers tended to promote an easy learning environment through interesting lesson
plans, which intrinsically motivated students because learning was more enjoyable. As
for the teachers’ backgrounds, they had great family support and the freedom to explore
nature without punishment for mistakes, which in turn enabled them to creatively learn
from errors. Peer interactions seemed to help inspire each other. As for their beliefs in
education, they promoted humanistic education, which fostered self-expression and
communication through an environment of unrestrained thought and play. All of these
characteristics have guided the teachers in utilizing specific strategies. Horng et al.
(2005) then went on to suggest environments and strategies they had noticed during their
research. Student-centered learning promotes role-play, group discussion, and selfreflection. They also recommended having no hierarchies as these might create dividing
barriers between students. Teachers should have access to multi-teaching aids assistance
because multimedia and computers attract attention. Class management strategies should
provide friendly interactions and a way to express ideas while lessons should be
connected to real life for talking about shared experiences and relationships. Eckhoff and
Urbach (2008) believed that adults have the power to build a learning environment,
which either promotes imaginative thinking or discourages it. Schools must stimulate
interest and open experiences by giving young ones the opportunities to face challenging
tasks in innovative ways. Smith and Mathur (2009) would add that reading books helps
distinguish fantasy from reality, play enhances the enjoyment of learning, and that
teachers themselves should engage with the children during storytelling and fantasy play.
Smith and Mathur (2009) argued that imagination could reduce anxiety by providing
wish fulfillment of prohibited experiences in reality and thusly, it helped make sense of
the world. This was why creativity and imagination may lead to positive results for
cognitive development, academic success, and emotional regulation. All of these
recommendations may increase the rate of creativity and novel responses both inside
school and out.
A final crucial aspect of creative imaginative thought in school is active
interactions. The child’s play should reflect his/her needs at discrete stages. According
to Diachenko (2011), there were two types of imagination that split apart during a three
stage process: affective imagination acted as a protective mechanism, which regulated
54
�behavior and protected personality as it attempted to remove frustration through
imaginary means and cognitive imagination helped “anticipate changes in reality” (p. 20).
During two and three years of age, imagination divided into these types, when cognitive
imagination could be seen through playing with dolls (e.g. putting to sleep, feeding them)
and affective type could be displayed through role-play. At four to five years, the
children mastered rules and followed adults. Here, the children formed “staged planning”
where they performed actions and recognized consequences. Finally, at six to seven
years, imagination was combined with cultural activities. Without guidance, the
imagination could lead to obsessions and being stuck in fantasy life. Education,
Diachenko (2011) argued, needs to help teach the children to master basic tools that help
imagination solve real world creative problems. One way to do this task is by completing
crafts. Art helps children to gain aesthetic perspective, express self (including thoughts
and emotions), develop language, and coordinate body (Lindqvist, 2003; Uyanik, Inal,
Calisandemir, Can-Yasar, & Kandir, 2011). Teachers should guide the children to
choose their own materials for the project and the crafts could be collaborative with
others to increase respect (Uyanik et al., 2011). As a result, role-play and other forms of
activities are important in fostering creativity for young individuals.
All in all, imagination is crucial for not only bolstering creative solutions, but
also for helping children understand their environment. Learning depends on personal
and social experiences because these build mental resources, the cornerstones of novel
solutions. There are many ways in which experiences are formed through the
imaginative mind. Theatrical creativity allows the children to incorporate past
experiences in new situations, and letting their imagination run wild in the real world
(Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Demonstrations of this can be explicitly found as children play
games, such as “house,” have a picnic, or even pretend to be a band of heroes.
Additionally, children can show signs of Diachenko’s (2011) affective and cognitive
imagination types. Children’s artistic creativity, as displayed by sculpturing Play-Doh,
constructing with blocks, and hand drawing scribbles, can be explained by both
associational and attentional theories of the creative process (Mednick, 1962;
Mendelsohn, 1976) and can allow them to self-express during the learning process. In
each situation, the imaginative mind and subsequent creativity help children interact with
the world. Early childhood centers use this reliance on the imaginative world to help
teach children in unusual ways. Teachers there support and reward creative efforts
through role-play, art, and reading. In the end, this focus of teaching can have many
positive results, such as increased counting and reading skills, as well as better social
55
�skills. When the right conditions are met, early childhood centers and their educational
programs may play a significant role in child development by providing the basic tools,
which are necessary for the learning process- personal and social experiences, whether
they be real or imaginary.
Modern Research – The Act of Play
Much research today also has focused on the use of play inside the classroom.
Despite its important relations with imagination, play has only been hinted at thus far.
So, it is about time that the act of playing is discussed, because play is crucial for
imagination and broadening resources. According to Vygotsky (1966), play is the
reproduction of real scenarios, which includes both cognitive processes and affective
situations, all the while containing a set of rules that govern behavior based on reality.
Vygotsky (1966) argued that play is not the predominant form of activity during the
preschool age but it is the leading form of development for children as it helps create a
zone of proximal development, where the children’s individual needs are satisfied. He
believed that this concept was demonstrated through the incentives and motivations to
act. Toddlers desire immediate gratification and usually obtain it from adults, but as they
get older at the preschool level, needs are not always realized. Therefore, play is wish
fulfillment, where unrealizable needs are recognized, put on hold, and retained. Play
realizes these needs within the imaginative aspects of conscious activity. Consequently,
for young children, these motivations for play are hidden as they are connected to
generalized affects towards the environment, while adolescents are able to explain why
they play. Provocatively, imaginative play frees the child from situational constraints and
ideas guide actions towards objects during the process of imagination, as opposed to
actions being guided by the objects themselves. In this case, the meaning of an object is
transferred to another, but the action is more important than the meaning. Take, for
example, a child riding a substitute stick for a horse. The meaning of the real horse is
transferred to the stick, but it is the action of riding that can create new experiences and
broaden resources. As a result, the act of play allows creativity and imagination to
become expressed.
Play is very beneficial for children as it helps aid the imagination and allows
them to form creative solutions to overcome obstacles. In a qualitative review of
previous research on play, Ashiabi (2007) summarized its various outcomes.
Socioemotional characteristics are enhanced and so are the child’s capabilities to reflect
before acting and understand both his/her and others’ emotions. When with other
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�children, the child learns about negotiation as a way of fairly communicating with peers
and using compromise as a solution to conflict. Similarly, methods of cooperation are
improved. The researcher even suggests that evidence for these benefits come from
observing children working together on the same task. This is also one way creative
problem solving is encouraged. Socially, perspective taking and role taking gradually
form through play. Sociodramatic play enforces the child’s abilities to “take the
perspective of others, understand their pretend and real emotions, and be able to regulate
his/her actions accordingly” (Ashiabi, 2007, p. 203). Conjointly, role taking is improved
and the child begins to develop “a sensitivity to the needs and views of others” (Ashiabi,
2007, p. 203). Additionally, the child begins to understand how to sustain relationships
by practicing sharing, turn-taking, self-restraint, and working in a group. Finally, pretend
play allows the child to recognize mental states in others and distinguish between
imagination and reality. Some researchers add that play preferences can aid sensory
processing during the preschool age. For example, in a study observing three to five year
olds with toys, Lawson and Dunn (2008) hypothesized that those who sought sensations
exhibit higher levels of play because children who avoid stimulation have “less variation
of body positions during play” (p. 10) and are less likely to get up to get more toys if
already comfortable. Contrastingly, results found that those who sought sensory
stimulation in fact did not show higher activity levels. Instead, he found that children
with different sensory patterns preferred different toys. Children desiring less sensation
enjoyed miniature pretend toys, which could be described as miniature versions of real
things usually where the child gets to sit down (e.g., trains). Children desiring more
sensation engaged with creative art toys, building toys, or even had no preference (here,
the children may have either gotten bored or easily habituated to stimulation, so just
moved on to another toy). When building materials were used, the children would build
together and many times they crashed their creations, which may have to do with
socialization (side note: play dough was most popular material). Finally, Myck-Wayne
(2010) distinguished between two types of play, each with their own learning
opportunities. There was dramatic/pretend play, which facilitated social and emotional
skills, such as following directions, group participation, empathy, and attention span,
language and literacy skills, such as verbalization and comprehension, and cognitive and
academic skills, such as problem solving and creativity. Exploratory/manipulative play
assisted similar skills in sensory learning, the development of vocabulary and
categorization, and not surprisingly, higher-level thinking as children sought to
57
�understand the physical world (p. 19). As a result, play benefits the children by allowing
the opportunity to interact with both the real and imagined world.
Interestingly, despite the children’s reliance on play as a means to externalize
their internal imagination and understand their world, genders tend to have separate play
preferences. In a study of three and five year old children, Freeman (2007) found that the
participants distinguished between ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ toys. The children were interviewed
by the researcher and asked if specific toys were meant for boys or for girls. Both three
year old boys and girls agreed that the skateboard, motorcycle, and baseball were boy
toys and that the tea set, doll, and gown were girl toys, but the boys were not unanimous
at this time. The boys also thought that their parents would be less accepting of playing
with the girl toys and the same was said by girls with boy toys. The five year old
children, on the other hand, all agreed on the same gender-specific toys and also thought
that cross gender toy play would be much more unacceptable than the three year olds.
Even though these findings support gender-typical choices, the study contained an
extremely small sample size, so generalizing beyond the sample is problematic.
However, research does back up such a claim. According to Holmes and Procaccino
(2009), different types of playgrounds offer different opportunities and resources for
play. Contemporary playgrounds are improved traditional playgrounds, which consist of
wide-open spaces for gross motor skills and physical play. These include slides, jungle
gyms, suspension bridges, sandboxes, swings, and areas for wheeled vehicles such as
bicycles. When Holmes and Procaccino (2009) observed three and four year old
preschoolers for 40 days out of a school year at such a playground, they found that boys
played in the riding area twice as much as girls and that girls played in the sandbox more
than boys (every other area was the same for both genders). Swings were frequently
visited by both girls and boys and the researchers believe that this was possibly due to the
swing area encouraging mixed-sex interactions. According to Tulviste and Koor (2005),
genders are also governed by two different regulations. Moral rules regard issues of
justice and protection, while social conventions regulate social interaction. In their study
of four and five year olds in real life same-sex play, the researchers hypothesized that
girls, similar to mothers, refer to conventions and boys, being rougher, refer to morals.
Tulviste and Koor (2005) observed same-sex dyads at a daycare center, which contained
stereotypically feminine toys, such as dolls or a kitchen play set, and masculine toys,
such as cars or blocks. Results showed that boys used significantly more moral rules than
the girls, especially when it came to the notion of justice, and they focused disputes on
the destruction of property. Girls, on the other hand, referred to the teacher as an
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�authority figure, thus exhibiting some conventions. Taken together, all of this may reflect
effects of socialization. In Freeman’s (2007) study, the researcher noticed that the
younger children were slightly more accepting of cross gender toy play than the older
children and suggested that media and old stereotypes from culture may perpetuate
gender stereotypes towards the toys. Consequently, society and adults may
unintentionally create gender preferences amongst play.
Finally, the most recent research considers what has already been learned about
the act of play and, much like imagination and creativity, attempts to apply it at early
childhood centers. Simultaneous to encouraging free play in the center, teachers should
also discourage gender stereotypes, or at least their expression through gender play
preferences. Ashiabi (2007) recommends teacher-guided play because it promotes
diversity and appreciation to various beliefs, traditions, and abilities. Teachers should
subtly nudge children to handle different books and toys- those meant for different
genders, ages, or cultures. As for the teachers themselves, they must adapt to children’s
activities. This includes guiding the playgroup, arranging props, and reminding children
of their assigned roles during pretend/dramatic play. DiCarlo and Vagianos (2009) might
agree with those recommendations as they, too, push for teacher guidance in a number of
ways. Interest centers contain learning opportunities by providing play materials for
enhancing development skills and the researchers believe that teachers should make the
most of interest centers. Teachers should allow children to play with a variety of
materials in order to help develop different skills (e.g., practice writing skills, drawing or
labeling art works). Teachers should then observe engagement within the centers. That
is, they should keep track of the types of toys each child handles and their interaction
with said toy. This, in turn, would help identify toy preferences, such as those with
sensory qualities (auditory, tactile, visual, movement, etc.). With this information, the
teachers need to guide interactions with the toys so that the child obtains the most sensory
feedback from it and the teacher can even modify the centers to appeal to each individual
child. Lastly, teachers can provide choices within each center by utilizing distinct play
styles, such as adult prompting, where the teacher assists the child with verbal, visual,
and interactive prompts, or solitary exploration, where the teacher adds preferred
qualities into low-interest centers to grab the child’s attention. Gmitrova, Podhajecka,
and Gmitrov (2009) add that teachers should guide pretend play inside the classroom.
The researchers found that children age three to six prefer pretend play and that this
should act as a “transfer of knowledge and skills” (p. 349). They characterized pretend
play as including role-taking, improvisation, and script knowledge because objects and
59
�actions are transformed symbolically. Gmitrova, Podhajecka, and Gmitrov (2009) go on
to suggest that teachers select pretend play relating to lessons of the day and encourage
cognitive and emotional gain from the experience. All of this research regarding teacherguided play relates to ‘Good-fit’ teacher-child play interactions. According to TrawickSmith and Dziurgot (2010), the ‘good-fit’ model is a Vygotskian influenced model,
where the teacher first observes play and attempts to determine the child’s needs. There
then must be a “good-fit” interaction where the child receives just the support that is
needed” (p. 111). As a result, this can enable the teacher to withdraw from the play and
should encourage autonomous play for the child. Trawick-Smith and Dziurgot (2010)
tested the model and not only did results confirm their hypothesis that it can lead to
successful autonomous play, but they also found that distinct levels of needs could be
identified (much need, some need, no need) and that this coincides with Vygotsky’s
“Zone of Proximal Development,” which essentially is the ‘good-fit’ model. Specific
types of play needs for either some or much need of support (p. 114) include engagement
(e.g., expressing difficulty in making a play choice, displaying random behavior,
wandering classroom as if unengaged), task performance (e.g., seeking help, showing
difficulty in physically manipulating materials), thinking (e.g., requesting help in problem
solving), social participation (e.g., interest in peer’s play without joining in, isolated play,
difficulty communicating ideas verbally), social conflicts (e.g., complaining, disrupting
play of others), rules (e.g., violating rules, ignoring teacher), and adult contact (e.g.,
seeking contact with adult by initiating conversation, publicly showing accomplishments
for praise). The researchers even discovered different levels of adult guidance (p. 115),
including direct (e.g., instructing child, initiating new play activity, settling disputes),
indirect guidance (e.g., suggesting play options, hints, conversing about play, ask
questions, model task, encouraging child to join peers), observations, and no interaction
at all. Teachers and adults have to be aware of these needs and satisfy the child with the
right amount of assistance. Taking everything into account, Goble, Martin, Hanish, and
Fabes (2012) studied gender-typed activities, which are defined as girls preferring
feminine activities and boys preferring masculine activities, though, these vary within the
social context or who the child interacts with at a given time. Basing their hypothesis on
Gender Schema Theory, the generalization that children identify with their own gender
and are motivated to learn about it by observations and imitating behavior, the
researchers believed that in solitary play, gender-typed activities would be pursued more
frequently than when playing with others of the opposite gender (mixed-type), where
activities would be more neutral. Goble, Martin, Hanish, and Fabes (2012) observed
60
�preschool children enrolled at a Head Start Program and found that the children played
alone and exhibited gender-typed activities. Girls played with feminine and neutral
activities more than masculine ones, such as balls, blocks, vehicles, or superhero pretend
play. Instead, girls played with art materials, music, puzzles, or dolls, dressed-up, and
pretended to be either mothers or teachers. They additionally enjoyed the neutral
activities involving clay, board games, animal pretend play, or water/sand sensory
centers. The researchers took notice that the play activities related to typical
developmental skills. The masculine activities help aid spatial and mathematical skills
and the feminine helps language. These are also known as the typical strengths of each
respective gender. So, it is suggested that teachers encourage both gender activities. In
this manner, they discourage gender typical play styles and preferences and enable the
children to learn from various styles, each enhancing a different skill that may not
typically be developed as properly.
Conclusively, play is the medium through which individuals exert their
imagination and creativity. Play realizes unmet needs within a reproduction of real
scenarios (Vygotsky, 1966). Children benefit so much from play. Ashiabi (2007)
recognized the many advantages of play- its socioemotional improvements, its
perspective taking, and its cooperative relationships. Meanwhile other research, such as
Lawson and Dunn (2008), demonstrates assistance in sensory processing. Unfortunately,
it seems that society may perpetuate preferences among playing habits. Freeman (2007)
found that children do, in fact, distinguish between toys meant for boys and those meant
for girls. Compounding these findings is Tulviste and Koor’s (2005) observations that
boys are guided by moral rules, especially concerning justice, and girls are governed by
social conventions. Essentially, these are stereotypical behaviors of each gender; men
“are supposed to be” aggressive protectors and women “are supposed to be” socialites.
Understandably, researchers today are trying to apply what is known about play into
educational classrooms. Teachers must guide play activities, discourage gender
stereotypes, and encourage diversity among playmates (e.g., Ashiabi, 2007; DiCarlo &
Vagianos, 2009; Goble, Martin, Hanish, & Fabes, 2012). Thus, keeping in mind all of
these recommendations should optimize play and enable children to use their
imagination, as they seek to understand their perceived world.
III. Observations
Observations were taken at the Early Childhood Center at Wagner College. The
children’s ages ranged from two to five years old, but I mostly followed the older
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�children who attended the entire five-hour day. Despite multiple classes (half-day or full
day) and age differences, the structure of the classes was kept exactly the same. The
morning began with reading books and then the first “circle time” had occurred where the
teacher taught the lessons of the day. Next, the children played freely at the various
centers and completed an art project related to the lessons of the day. After lunch and the
second “circle time,” the children were taken to the playground where they could run
around. At this time, the younger class, who were two to three years old, and the older
class, who were four to five years old, interacted with one another. The day officially
ended with snack time and rest time. While observing there, I had realized that their
creative imaginations could be placed into three separate themes: theatrical creativity,
artistic creativity, and athletic creativity.
Theatrical creativity took the form of fantasy role-play at the different centers
during free playtime. The first significant fantasy-play emerged during my second week
at the center. I was still becoming comfortable around the children. Weirdly enough or
coincidentally, it seems that I had gone through an initiation of some sort. Some of the
boys played “barbershop” and acted as barbers as they pretended to cut my hair as I sat in
a chair (smock, powder, and all)! Afterwards, those children began to finally remember
my name. A more popular role-play was that of superheroes, especially Power Rangers,
Batman, Spiderman, and many others. Sometimes, the boys allowed the girls partake in
their activities and other times not so much, but with a little push by teachers, the girls
eventually were able to join the group. Similar to the stories, the children patrolled the
room, and made sure to place any delinquents into jail, which would only be a corner of
the room. Less often, on a couple of occasions, I played superheroes with Henry using
toy cars. He wished to pretend to be Batman and my car was designated as his sidekick,
Robin. Together, we fought the villains who tried to destroy the “Batcave,” which had
been constructed by a few wooden blocks. At this point, “superheroes” is a very popular
theme. Additionally, one of my weeks there, it was fire safety week. Exclusively at this
time, these lessons propelled the children to play firefighter and pretend to put out fires,
which were represented by piles of toys. One more way the children displayed their
sense of role-play was by the traditional game of “house.” On one occasion, some of the
kids pretended to be a family. Ali, Robert, Jean, and Scott stood at the toy kitchen set
and took care of the household as mom, dad, daughter, and son, respectively. The parents
cooked the food while their ‘children’ hung ‘outside’ with friends. The parents then
called them in when lunch was ready. Interestingly, as with previous experiences, the hot
dog bun seems to be understood as the universal cell phone replacement. They then
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�wished to go on vacation, and used the wooden boat to get to their destination. However,
others desired to ride in the boat and decided to kick them out, but luckily, the others
were persuaded to “wait for the next boat.” On a separate occasion, Charles, Katherine,
Jean, Scott, and Alexander also played “house.” The kids made a birthday cake and sang
the “Happy Birthday” song to each of their friends. They then proceeded to prepare the
food for a picnic while pretending to watch a Batman movie. The kids cooked soup,
made sandwiches, and packaged other foods. There was a basket that they used to carry
all of it, including dishes and utensils, to another spot on the floor. Watching the children
place the foods inside of it was reminiscent of a puzzle. In order to fit it all inside the
basket, things were shuffled, rearranged, taken out, and replaced. When the picnic began,
the tablecloth was placed on the floor, dishes were given out to each of them, and they
unpacked the food. Despite sharing troubles among all of the children, these individuals
gratefully shared the food with others who asked to join the party. All in all, these ages
are very imaginative group, dramatizing real life and fictitious scenarios.
Contrastingly, the younger children are just as creative, though, this is relative to
their resources. These children were the complete opposite of the older group. They
mostly had a difficult time listening and staying still. Each one took toys without asking
those who were already playing with them. However, these kids also had an easier time
giving them up to their friends compared to their older counterparts. However
personality differs, creative imagination was on par. Kurt, who only attends for the halfday classes at the center, had made an egg for me in the kitchen. He handed the egg to
me in a cup along with a fork, dish, and shockingly a candle presumably to heat the egg
at the table where I would be eating. While observing the full-day younger ones, the
children decided to work together and invent a two-row train. They each placed chairs
beside one another, creating two adjacent rows of seats. Then two of them grabbed the
front seats with dishes in hand. Those naturally were the conductors, who drove the train
filled with passengers.
Artistic creativity is the second type that I had witnessed during my weeks at the
center. Many areas, or “centers,” placed all around the classroom supported the
children’s artistry. One section held blocks of all kinds. There were soft, colorful ones,
wooden ones of various shapes and sizes, and even simple, cardboard brick-looking ones.
Sometimes these were all combined to create the project and other times they were left
alone. The boy, James, displayed much skill in these activities. He had built a grand
castle out of the wooden blocks one time. It was both a very complex structure and
aesthetically pleasing to the eye, especially compared to the simpler castles some of the
63
�other kids had built. Though, these simple structures by Carol and Anna have
progressively become more intricate. While quite plain in the beginning, their buildings
made from the soft blocks changed to be tall, long, and full of archways. Once near the
end of the observations, Anna created a short, but long, home with rows of triangles
acting as a giant roof and round blocks spread apart on the top for a nice design. Again
with the wooden blocks, a group of boys collaborated on what one of them named, “Hot
Wheels World.” The group drove cars through a crazy racetrack with all kinds of
obstacles and ramps. Elaborating on their idea another day, the group built a much
bigger ramp, driving their respective cars over the blocks, grabbing hang-time off the
ramp, and performing tricks. One time, when they wished for me to play with them, I
needed to drive my car on the blocks and into the soft block barriers- hitting the floor
meant that the car had plunged into the ocean and it needed rescuing. Another instance
had Charles and Lucas building a regular racetrack. Here, the track had no verticality,
but it took up much space on the floor with its many various separating routes, which
were narrow, wide, smooth, or rocky. A similar center held the Legos. Legos are not
much different than the blocks; their defining feature is lockable, usually much tinier
pieces allowing the individuals to create small models. Here, there seems to be two
defining structures. Some desired to build tall skyscrapers, or factory-like buildings.
Others, such as Robert, highly preferred creating a farm. They built the corrals for the
Lego animal figurines and even played with them, making their respective animal noises.
One of the few exceptions was the construction of spaceships. These took the appearance
of futuristic planes and were then flown around in dogfights, trying to shoot down the bad
guys.
Another method by which the children were able to express their artistic
creativity was through craft projects. The Play-Doh table was very popular amongst the
crowd. Unlike the model constructions, these art works were simple, but just as
enjoyable. Henry really loved to flatten the clay to make huge pancakes. He even pulled
his resources together with friends like Rachel in order to make it even bigger. Henry
also entertained the idea to flatten out the clay so as to stencil a bunch of shapes (e.g.
ghost, dolphin, pumpkin). Perplexingly, to do this, he made a big round ball and then
flattened with his hands opposed to simply flattening it first. When it became so thin that
a hole formed, he rolled the piece back up and began the procedure again. For some
reason, he could not fathom of plugging the hole up with more Play-Doh. Surprisingly,
the children did not know how to mold snakes. So one day, I stepped in and taught the
children tips about rolling and flattening the clay to make them. They picked them up
64
�quite quickly. Additionally, Janet once molded a pizza with pepperoni dots. For a rare
one day, the Play-Doh table was replaced with what I would call the ‘peg’ table. For this
craft, one would create art by placing colored pegs onto the board. All of the children
here had one goal in mind: instead of making some kind of picture, they desired to just
fill up the board. However, one boy, James, the same boy who constructed the “grand
castle,” created a pattern with the colors (e.g. green-blue on one side of the rectangle and
yellow-red on the other). Unfortunately, he stopped only to continue to fill the board up.
Sometimes, distractions got the better of them. Besides the Play-Doh, the children had to
complete a daily art project. These pertained to the lessons of the day. They had a letter
book, in which the children, now more than ever like students, practiced writing the
alphabet. They also colored in pictures (literally, they try their hardest to color within the
lines) related to the lessons. Noticeably, even if they might enjoy the project, they did
not like to leave their friends during the free playtime.
Compared to the older children, the younger ones’ imagination seems to be just
as creative to some extents. Their creativeness is not limited by their mental age, but
instead by their chronological age. It seems to be all relative. For example, the kids built
basic structures from the Legos and soft blocks, such as towers (not yet called
skyscrapers) and castles respectively. Trains and swords were made from stackable pegs.
These children appeared to enjoy the art projects, waiting their turns at the table and just
drawing on extra sheets of paper. While the older ones may have enjoyed the crafts, they
rather have played with the toys. Also, at this time one of the kids, Neal, wanted me to
draw with him. So, I began to draw Tweety Bird when suddenly I messed it up. Neal
asked what I was doing and I told him. He replied by telling me to just copy him. The
extent of the art drawings was scribbles and circles filling every space on the paper. All
in all, the young children’s artwork tends to be more chaotic.
The final type of creativity that I was able to observe occurred throughout my
time at the playground: athletic creativity. I personally consider athleticism to be
creative; these skills can still be used in novel ways to work around problem solving.
The playground was set up to easily accommodate the children. The center of the
vicinity had a swing set on one side and a jungle gym, with its multiple crazy slides to go
down and tunnels to crawl through, on the other. Sandboxes and model houses each were
located at the ends. Not only was the playground tailored for running around but little
tricycles and balls could be taken out from the sheds. Occasionally, the teachers had
extra activities to do, such as collecting leaves or blowing bubbles. Well, I have observed
much during these periods. The older children had no troubles riding the bikes.
65
�However, the younger ones could not reach the pedal or could not ride it. What was their
solution? The children opted to plant their feet on the ground and just thrust themselves
forward. However, sometimes I did offer to help push them along from the back, in an
attempt to teach them how to pedal. When it came to the balls, the children and I
performed the basics: either catching or kicking the ball around (“soccer” as they called
it). For the most part, coordination seemed to be a work in progress, but the smiles on
their faces demonstrated that they still had fun and were still eager to play the game.
Another instance had me playing catch with Henry. He is very athletic; the kid was good
at throwing and catching the ball as well as having the ability to kick the ball with great
accuracy. Other children who joined in at later times, though, lacked the ability to do
these things. Accuracy was far off or the balls hit the ground much earlier before
reaching the person. Oddly enough, I had witnessed one girl, Carol, ingeniously decide
to throw the ball from over her head and take one step forward for power. As I am
speaking about specific individuals, there is one more I should note. Neal was
adventurous to say the least. He was not afraid of anything and loved to utilize the entire
playground. He went down the slide head first despite multiple warnings and before
doing it, I have caught him looking at the teachers, almost if he wanted to be caught. He
knew those boundaries and wished to see how far he could have pushed them. The
sandbox is worth one final mention. The children did not use this area often, and if it was
occupied, then only the same few kids were filling up the pails with sand. The sandbox
tended to be a mundane, relaxing place. In the end, it was the one place to get away from
all the chaos.
IV. Discussion
According to Vygotsky (1930/2004), theatrical creativity is practiced by most, if
not all, children because it closely relates to actual real world experiences. In its wake,
real experiences are re-imagined and brought back into reality in its new form. In his
writings, Vygotsky referred to this type of creativity as staging plays. However, there
really is no significant difference from fantasy or role-playing. They are one in the same
as the processes are similar and they both allow the children to relive previous
experiences. Staged plays enable the children to embody, prepare and even improvise
pre-existing material. The children at the Early Childhood Center accomplished all of
these with the one exception being no script to follow. They reeled in own prior
experiences, most likely learned from home, and concocted their own imaginative play.
While playing “house,” the children embodied their respective roles. The parents cooked
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�the food and cleaned the dishes while taking care of their sons and daughters. The
children hung out with their friends, waiting to be called inside the house when lunch was
ready to eat. Accordingly, none of these roles were prepared. Each child improvised and
made the character their own creations. In other words, the children responded to one
another instead of following a script. As Vygotsky (1930/2004) defined theatrical
creativity as dramatizations, this description also incorporates the act of story telling. A
major aspect of the childhood center was to encourage reading. At the start of the
semester, the children had teachers read them books that they had chosen themselves. As
time progressed, the kids then began to read to themselves and one another. Though,
while some tried their hardest to accurately read the books, others instead decided to
make the story up as they went along, basing the interpretation of the story on the
pictures. Dramatization is definitely a major aspect of children’s imagination.
The more recent research on preschoolers’ imagination by Diachenko (2011)
can also be applied to the children at the center. There are two types of imagination.
Affective imagination is a protective mechanism, which resolves struggles between ego
and the environment. It regulates behavior as it attempts to remove frustration through
imaginary means (that is, remove the threat to the ego, which can happen if one cannot
adjust the ego to societal demands). Cognitive imagination helps decipher and anticipate
future events. According to Diachenko’s (2011) developmental stages, at two and a half
to three years of age, the imagination divides into these types. Example of cognitive
imagination at this stage is reproducing actions with dolls. The girls at the center showed
this often. They fed, carried, and patted the dolls, and eventually put them to sleep. An
example of affective imagination is reproducing feelings. The boys, while pretending to
be heroes, showed this as the criminals ‘feared’ (hid) from the good guys. At four to five
years of age, the child masters rules and follows the orders of adults. Cognitive
imagination at this stage is associated with role-play, painting, and games, but these could
become only reproductions if not guided by others. Affective imagination is associated
with feelings found within real experiences. At this stage, “staged planning” emerges as
the children perform thought up actions and recognize consequences. Those at the center
clearly displayed this concept. Some of their actions and decisions were disregarding
rules or other friends (usually sharing issues). They were then warned, and sometimes
the kids did abide to the teachers’ orders to immediately stop. There is a third stage for
those between six and seven years of age, where culture’s influence on the child is
reflected in play and planning can be modified, but this had yet to be observed at the
center.
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�The children in both age groups also prominently expressed artistic creativity.
According to Vygotsky (1930/2004), drawing is the primary form of creativity in early
childhood, because it is simple and easy to express simple impressions that young
children have due to less experiences. Therefore, the drawings for younger children are
more abstract and less detailed than older children. Drawing is a more widely acceptable
art form. This was the case for those at the center. The younger children highly enjoyed
the art projects. Each could not wait for their turn, so they decided to draw as a way to
pass time. These were usually scribbles and basic geometric shapes, but to them, the
works were personal stories to tell the world. Better yet, the arts and crafts for this age
group disguised life lessons. Each project taught the kids something. For example, one
craft had the kids produce owl masks from paper plates. This project helped teach the
class cutting with scissors, as they had to shape the owl’s mouth. The art projects for the
older class were quite different. These supplemented the lessons of the day, as opposed
to directly teaching new skills. While the older class did enjoy the art, they had rather
continue playing with their friends. This is in accordance with Vygotsky (1930/2004),
who stated that the innate desire to draw gradually extinguishes as age increases and
language is learned. These children are able to understand words, or abstract symbols
which represent their feelings and thoughts, clearer. Additionally, Uyanik et al. (2011)
believed that education guides children to think by allowing them to choose which
materials to use for an art project. Specifically, the teachers at the center had heeded
these rules. The children in both classes held the freedom to choose materials.
Instructors set criteria for guidance, but then the children had the freedom to create within
those limits, choosing markers/crayons or locations for pieces to glue, for example. At
this time, the teachers also assisted the children through prompting, as suggested by
DiCarlo and Vagianos (2009). Along with the actual art project relating to lessons of the
day, the children needed to practice writing. This exercise was sometimes included on
the actual project or drawing or they had a “letter book” to complete. The teachers
patiently assisted them in the task. They would verbally guide the children in writing
letters and demonstrate it by first writing the letters and then allowing them to model
movements. Afterwards, some of the children were able to write themselves (this, of
course, had no bearing on their understanding of the alphabet- they knew letters, but
could not neatly make them). Finally, the Play-Doh crafts relate to Mednick’s (1962)
association theory of creativity. The sculpting represents the method of similarity for
achieving creative solutions. The products (e.g. pancakes, pizzas, snakes) were all
inspired by and associated with real world objects. Conversely, the Play-Doh crafts may
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�relate to the attentional theory of creativity (Mendelsohn, 1976). The children could have
thought of relationships between the clay materials and images that could have been
molded with it. They could have searched through their entire mental catalogue of
vocabulary and images and then picked the best solution. However, this is difficult to
digest. This theory could work flawlessly for problem solving; it makes sense.
Contrastingly, in the case of sculpting, there is no problem. The molder freely chooses to
sculpt the object. There are no criteria to guide attentional thinking along the lines of
relationships. Direct associations with previous experiences and real world objects are
more likely. Oddly enough, the boys who handled constructing materials would build
together, but then crashed their creations into one another in accordance to Lawson and
Dunn (2008). This was especially true for the boys who crafted spaceship or airplane
models. After building the airships, they pretended to be in a dogfight with the end result
a head-on collision. Either way, artistic creativity is vital for self-expression during
childhood.
Athletic creativity is expressed as individuals use skills and talents to overcome
obstacles. Every person holds unique skill sets and the way these are utilized could
generate novel or even deviant solutions to dilemmas. Well, Uyanik et al. (2011)
supported the initiative that students should experience “active learning” inside the
schools, which was defined as learning by “doing, experiencing, and experimenting” (p.
113). Under this definition, exercise and outside play could be classified as active
learning. The observations at the playground have established that the children could and
have adapted to situations. Many instances of these included playing with the balls.
When throwing and catching the balls, the children had some difficulties, but still insisted
on trying different techniques. Henry alternated from throwing overhand to throwing
underhand. He was able to throw it higher and further. Carol threw the ball from over
her head to increase power, when she could not reach her target friends. At times, some
of the children could not catch the ball correctly. Instead, they adopted the approach of
letting it bounce before grabbing the ball. Riding in the Little Tykes cars and riding the
bikes, the children pushed each other if one of them had difficulties. If they could not get
up the small mounds of dirt, the kids dismounted, dragged the bike over the hills, and
then proceeded to ride the bike. Contrary to the research, it seemed as if the outdoor
period at the contemporary playground on the grounds of Wagner College was less
polarizing then Holmes and Procaccino’s (2009) initial observations. This playground
contained the usual slides, suspension bridge, sandbox, house, swings, and bikes.
However, each was equally occupied by the boys and girls. If anyone sat at the sandbox,
69
�which the children often ignored, it was a place for both genders. Same could be said for
the swings, which happened to be quite possibly the most visited area by the children.
Both genders also rode the bicycles, even if the boys did so for longer intervals of time.
Even though the children seemed closer to same-sex peers, interactions, for the most part,
were of the mixed-sex type. Athletic creativity, therefore, allows individuals to solve
problems with their unique talents.
Generally speaking, the children did unfortunately show signs of gender
differences among play styles. The findings of Goble, Martin, Hanish, and Fabes (2012)
can be applied to the children at the center. The girls did interact more with feminine and
neutral activities. They became more involved with art materials. Almost guaranteed, at
some point each day, Rachel, Anna, and Janet stopped at the Play-Doh center. More
often than not, Anna, Janet, and Carol, who were generally the only girls that handled
building material, almost exclusively played with the soft, colorful blocks. Also, the girls
crowded around the art table when they had all of the other centers to visit. If roleplaying, the girls made it a hobby to either be mothers to dolls or to be sisters. Interacting
with the farmhouse and toy animals was also common among certain girls.
Contrastingly, only a small portion of the boys played with the animals or puppets for a
short period of time after joining the girls and then quickly leaving them. The boys
played with masculine activities. Many of them played with building materials. While
James and Scott would play with any construction toys, the rest of them thoroughly
enjoyed the blocks. These usually were the wooden ones, but they would reach for the
soft blocks if they ran out of the wooden blocks. The boys loved to drive toy cars around
tracks that they had created from the blocks. In some instances, they would believe that
the cars were fighting villains or hiding from zombies. Finally, the boys did not pretend
to be fathers, unlike the girls who were mothers. Instead, they were always “good guys.”
That is, they, similar to the girls who wore princess dresses, dressed up as heroes, such as
law enforcement or firefighters, or pretended to be super heroes, such as Power Rangers.
Regulating this play, as foresaw by Tulviste and Koor (2005), were different sets of rules
for each gender. The boys were definitely into moral rules of justice. As pretend heroes,
they would lock classmates into jail (the perpetrators had to stay behind a table). If a
creation were destroyed intentionally or accidentally, they would tell the teacher what
had happened. The girls, on the other hand, relied on social conventions. They stuck
together and lived by social rules. As a result, gender differences in play preferences and
styles were prominent.
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�In the end, however, imagination and creativity does not matter if adults do not
encourage these essential concepts. Luckily, through an institutional perspective, it
seems that the Early Childhood Center at Wagner College as a whole has developed
many ways to cultivate the children’s imaginative capabilities. The Center promoted a
loose structure for the classes. Usually, the morning began with reading, then was
followed by learning activities, free playtime, playground time, and then ended with time
for resting. This provided an opportunity for the children to be able to adapt to the
regular structure of future school programs. Though, despite being regimented, the
children were allowed to diverge from common thinking patterns in order to solve
problems and build new constructions. This had occurred throughout the school day. In
accordance to Horng et al. (2005), the organizational environment held no hierarchies
because this would create dividing barriers between students and extinguish the
possibility of open discussions. During library time, the children read books of their
choice. They either read with friends together or alone. Occasionally, especially for the
first handful of weeks, the teachers, including graduate assistants, engaged with the
storytelling. The children would be active readers, as the teachers would ask them
questions pertaining to the story, numbers, colors, and more. Free playtime gave the kids
the opportunity to fantasy role-play, which according to Smith and Mathur (2009) can
enhance the enjoyment of the learning experience. By teaching lessons and then applying
those lessons within art projects, the Center attempted to make learning more fun. Better
yet, the Center in this respect can relate to Uyanik et al.’s (2011) suggestions for
completing crafts. These art projects, for the most part, utilize disposable waste
materials, such as paper, leaves, and buttons. The teachers also guide the children to
think by making them choose which pieces of the material to use for the project. Uyanik
et al. (2011) believed that this may improve self-esteem as they can make their own
decisions and as the art projects are collaborative with the teachers, these cultivate respect
for others. Additionally, the teachers themselves are the basic unit of the classroom. In
order for an institution to continue to encourage creativity, the teachers must believe in
the cause. Fortunately, all of these teachers promoted imaginative creativity. The
children were very much rewarded for their creative efforts. The teachers would
compliment them on their constructions and even take photographs every now and then.
Gladly, opposite of the research from Fryer and Collings (1991), they desired their
students to be independent thinkers and self-confident and they encouraged difficult tasks
and asking questions. Once again, parallel to Horng et al. (2005), the teachers focused on
student-centered learning. That is, each individual child was given attention and the
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�freedom to reflect on various issues at hand. They were rarely identified as a group, but
rather individuals, who were part of the group and who brought there own unique talents
to help shape it. This was specifically displayed when each teacher would work one on
one with the child on the art projects or when one of the children were having trouble
setting something up during playtime. The teachers then encouraged a variety of
activities to aid different developmental skills and consequently guided play, as suggested
by Ashiabi (2007) and Trawick-Smith and Dziurgot (2010). They promoted an
appreciation for differing cultures by providing books and games for different genders,
ages, and backgrounds. For example, some books were for older children with a more
developed vocabulary, while others were for younger audiences. On the culture front,
some books introduced the children to Spanish culture or near the holiday, some reading
material helped them understand Kwanza. Throughout the day, teachers either directly or
indirectly guided activities. They instructed the child in tasks, settled disputes while
teaching them to share or wait for a turn, or began a new activity with the child. They
rarely passed up the opportunity to ask the child a question, but if the child could not
respond, hints were inevitable. If a child was having a hard time adjusting in the
beginning of the year, they either played with them or encouraged the child to interact
with his/her peers. Undeniably, the Early Childhood Center would make these
researchers proud by providing a stimulating environment for imaginative thought and
play.
V. Summary and Conclusions
All in all, imagination is crucial for not only bolstering creative solutions, but
also for helping children understand their environment. Learning depends on personal
and social experiences because these build mental resources, the cornerstones of novel
solutions. There are many ways in which experiences are formed through the
imaginative mind. Theatrical creativity allows the children to incorporate past
experiences in new situations, and letting their imagination run wild in the real world
(Vygotsky, 1930/2004). Demonstrations of this can be explicitly found as the children
play games, such as “house,” have a picnic, or even pretend to be a band of heroes.
Additionally, the children had showed signs of Diachenko’s (2011) affective and
cognitive imagination types. The children’s artistic creativity, as displayed by
sculpturing Play-Doh, constructing with blocks, and hand drawing scribbles, can be
explained by both associational and attentional theories of the creative process (Mednick,
1962; Mendelsohn, 1976). Finally, the athleticism at the playground supported Uyanik et
72
�al.’s (2011) idea of active learning. In each situation, the imaginative mind and
subsequent creativity helped the children interact with the world.
This interaction with the world is, of course, exercised through play. As
Vygotsky (1966) characterized play as a reproduction of real events, including cognitive
processes and affects, play is one method for an individual to express creativity by
allowing their imagination to fuse with the real world. However, optimized play may be
impeded by society as it influences play preferences. It seems that boys prefer masculine
toys (e.g., balls, action figures, construction toys) and girls prefer feminine (e.g., dolls,
crafts) (Goble, Martin, Hanish, & Fabes, 2012). They are even governed by separate
rules relating to their respective gender stereotypes; boys, being a protector, follow rules
of justice and girls, being socialites, follow social conventions (Tulviste & Koor, 2005).
Though, teachers at the Early Childhood Center are safeguarding this problem by
encouraging all kinds of play for the learning experience. They are engaging with the
children, assisting in play through guidance, and most importantly, providing the
opportunities to play and be creative (e.g., Ashiabi, 2007; DiCarlo & Vagianos, 2009;
Trawick-Smith & Dziurgot, 2010). Each child there receives a proportionate amount of
support and a ‘good-fit’ interaction is achieved successfully (Trawick-Smith & Dziurgot,
2010). In this way, the children can truly benefit from playing.
In the end, the Early Childhood Center and its teachers were accomplishing
what they set out to do: teach young children while enriching their mental resources
through imagination and creativity. Formal teaching lessons included alphabets, words
associated with those letters, numbers, and facts regarding important occasions.
However, these were then elaborated through art assignments and various readings,
which allowed the children to self-express throughout the learning process. Playtime
gave the children the opportunity to explore their inner imagination even more fully.
Best of all, these conditions were highly encouraged and rewarded by the teachers, as
they gave the children the attention that they deserved. The results of these methods were
remarkable as they reflect the literature. During only a few month period observing at the
Center, the children showed signs of learning. Counting skills rapidly increased, as well
as associating words with images (that is, vocabulary was enhanced). The children
formed a greater desire to read by themselves. Architectural designs of block and Lego
structures evolved to be more intricate. Those who were shier than others became more
sociable among their friends. The list can roll further down. In essence, this thesis
supports that, when the right conditions are met, early childhood centers and their
educational programs can play a significant role in child development by providing those
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�very basic tools, which are necessary for the learning process- personal and social
experiences, whether they be real or unreal. Imagine that!
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76
���������������Antigone’s Hero
Stephanie Lombardo (Physician Assistant)1
In the play Antigone by Sophocles, though it would seem obvious that the
would-be tragic hero is Antigone, it is actually King Creon. Creon displays certain
character traits that present him as a better candidate for the position. Antigone can never
be nominated simply because she does not meet all of the requirements needed to be
fulfilled, although she does embody the greek paradigm. The Greek Paradigm, in short,
is living piously and revering the gods while knowing one’s destiny.
As outlined in Aristotle’s Poetics, a tragic hero has certain criteria that must be
met in order to qualify for the title. A major classification of a tragic hero is that they
must be noble. This does not directly infer that the hero is “of high moral standard” or a
king. Noble could mean that they are “larger than life” or “majestic” beings (Brown). A
tragic hero must possess a fatal flaw that causes the initial dilemma in the play. This flaw
must be clearly showcased and almost make the hero seem villainess. A tragic hero must
have an “action with serious implications” (Aristotle/ Elements). The mistake can be
either intentional or unintentional but needs to “give form to universal truths” (Aristotle/
Elements). It also needs to further incriminate the hero just in time for the third quality of
a tragic hero: they need to show regret for their harmful actions and suffer the
consequences. By suffering these tragic consequences, this ultimately will lead them to
“catharsis” and a “purification” from all the wicked emotions in their body (Aristotle/
Elements).
The beginning of the play sets the scene with Antigone showing distress over
her brothers’ deaths. She announces the new King Creon’s edict which states that her
brother, Polyneices, cannot be buried for the crimes he has committed and must rot above
the ground, his soul never being put to rest. Antigone knows that this is impious because
the eternal laws of the gods say that all of the dead must be buried so that they can face
Hades in the afterlife. This, essentially, is Creon’s hamartia- his need to establish his
authority over the people and the fact that he will disgrace his gods to do it. This is
similar to Pentheus in The Bacchae in that both kings are disgracing their religion. They
Written under the direction of Dr. John Danisi for the Reflective Tutorial associated with
LC-9: Minds, Machines, and Human Beings.
1
92
�are acting against the Greek paradigm which states that to be a good, wise person, you
must know your destiny and revere the gods completely without any questions or
judgments. Creon does not know his destiny. He does not follow the unbreakable, eternal
rules laid out for generations by the gods, but instead unwittingly creates his own rules
that, in his opinion, have precedence over those made by the gods.
Antigone, on the other hand, has a flaw too. Antigone does not respect her place
in society as a woman who should not interfere in politics, nor tell the king what to do. In
her decision to bury her brother she says “the time in which I must please those that are
dead is longer than I must please those of this world” (Sophocles, line 76-77). In her
mind burying Polyneices is what she needs to do. She finds herself more connected to the
dead now because she believes that this is her true destiny. She must stand up to the king
and lay her brother to rest so that his soul may be in peace. She is brought to the king
after performing the sacred burial and does not show any remorse for her wrongdoings.
The chorus notices in her speech “the savage spirit of a savage father” (Sophocles, line
471). Although Antigone is trying to live in terms of the Greek paradigm and follow the
eternal laws laid out by the gods centuries ago, she still has no humility when facing the
king. She says “I did not believe your proclamation had such power to enable one who
will someday die to override God’s ordinances, unwritten and secure” (Sophocles, line
452-455). She is reminding him that he does not have the status that the gods do and
cannot enact laws that outweigh those of the gods. Creon sees that in her declaration “she
laughs at what she did” (Sophocles, line 483) and releases her with a final sentiment “love the dead” (Sophocles, line 525).
Creon does well with epitomizing the second characteristic; he is a man of many
mistakes. “A [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the
change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some
mistake” (Aristotle/ Elements) was said by Aristotle in his work, Poetics, when
describing a tragic hero and the blunders made by the like. This quote is saying that a
great man doesn’t change completely to evil because he is truly wicked; it is only because
of a bad situation that forces this change. This takes much blame off of the hero because
the audience can connect with said hero more.
Everyone makes mistakes, this is a universal notion. Teiresias says “all men
make mistakes; but, once mistaken, a man is no longer stupid nor accursed. It is obstinacy
that convicts of folly” (Sophocles, lines 1022-1027). Stubbornness is what truly makes
the mistake an evil one. True evilness is not something that can be overcome, but
mistakes are easily remedied once the adamancy to resolve overshadows the reluctance to
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�surrender. Creon’s son Haemon confronts his father to point out his lapse when making
such an edict. Haemon represents the connection between the royals and the people of
Thebes and all of their morals and views. He explains “it is natural for me to be watchful
on your behalf concerning what all men say or do or find to blame” (Sophocles, lines
688-689). He tries to explain to his father that the people do not respect Creon’s edict or
punishment laid out for Antigone. “The city mourns for this girl; they think she is dying
most wrongly and undeservedly for the most glorious acts” (Sophocles, lines 693-695).
Although Haemon makes it clear he does not share this view and “only values his father’s
success” (Sophocles, line701) he still is trying to cause his father to have a realization
that his “acts are mistaken and unjust” (Sophocles, line 743).
What Haemon doesn’t realize is that he is not talking to his father, but to his
king. Even when he goes so far as to pronounce his impending suicide proceeding
Antigone’s demise, Creon only sees this as a threat. This is why Creon forgoes stoning
Antigone, which was the original punishment for the assailant, but decides to force her
into a cave to die of starvation. This, in Creon’s mind, “avoids the city of pollution”
(Sophocles, line 775) meaning they will not see him as the cause of her death and will not
then be angered at Creon. Haemon leaves with a bitter statement: “you would be a fine
dictator of a desert” (Sophocles, line 739).
Although Antigone does have a fatal flaw that leads to her demise, she is never
showcased as a villain. Actually, she is someone admired through the story for standing
up for her brother and also for the gods. Throughout the whole play the chorus is torn
over their loyalty for Creon and sympathy for Antigone. The chorus lets known that their
original “hope stretched over the last roots of Oedipus’ house, and the bloody dust do to
the gods below has mowed it down - that and the folly of speech and ruin’s enchantment
of the mind” (Sophocles, lines 599-603). This exhibits their disappointment in not only
Antigone, but ultimately the gods for what they chose to be not only Antigone’s destiny,
but her family’s destiny as well. They see all of the evil that has befallen the Oedipus
family and only hope that it will end; yet it never seems to. However the chorus cannot
“control their tears when they see Antigone making her way to her bed that is the rest for
everyone” (Sophocles, line 801-806). The chorus and the people also admire Antigone
because she exemplifies her belief in the Greek paradigm, proving her unwavering
devotion to the gods and all of their laws. She gives up her life and goes to her death with
“distinction and praise” (Sophocles, line 818) believing either that the gods will save her
or that she is now done with life and meant to die, to fulfill her destiny. This is a clear
strike against Antigone as the tragic hero because at some point an audience must lose all
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�hope in one’s tragic hero so that they can redeem themselves and make a true
exoneration.
Teiresias visits Creon and wisely states that “you are on the razor edge of
danger” (Sophocles, lines 995-996) and that for all Creon’s “acts of violence, the
avenging spirits of Death itself and the gods’ furies shall after your deeds lie in ambush
for you and their hands you shall be taken cruelly” (Sophocles lines 1074-1078). He is
saying that all of Creon’s impiety and harmful actions will be returned to him with the
same amount of wretchedness. This leads to Creon’s realization of all he has done.
Though he does not want to, he knows he must “yield” (Sophocles, line 1102) and “keep
the old accepted laws” (Sophocles, line 1114).He knows that Teiresias is wise and
respects his advice. From there he knows that he must undo all of the wrongs he has
committed. Creon tries to save Antigone by going to the cave to release her. Yet he finds
that she is already dead. Haemon is also in the cave. He attacks his father, then kills
himself. After hearing of her son’s death, the new Queen too takes her life. The final
grievance done by Creon, placing the living below the ground with the dead, completed
his twisted, impious cycle of actions. Creon portrays a huge amount of arrogance in his
new role as king and this leads to justice weighed down with three deaths. Creon must at
that point look upon the consequences of his actions and face them. Just like Aristotle
says, “A man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall”
(Aristotle and the Elements). This is the point where the purification must begin. In the
end, Creon does have a realization of all the wrong that he has done. He sees how his
hand was the main culprit in all of these violent ends.
Antigone has no self-realization. To her, she committed no wrongs. She did
what she had to do and supported the gods completely. As she walks to her death she tells
the people to “pity me. Neither among the living not the dead do I have a home in
common, neither with the living nor the dead” (Sophocles, lines 850-852). She repeats
herself for emphasis that she is now outcast and subjected to an eternity of aloneness
because of King Creon. Antigone “descends, alive, to that world alone” (Sophocles, lines
822-823). She can never again be with the living because she is not alive, nor can she be
with the dead because she is trapped above ground with no chance of peace for her soul.
She says “I go down in the worst death of all - for I have not lived the due term of my
life. But when I come to that other world my hope is strong” (Sophocles, lines 895-897).
Because she did die for her beliefs, the audience holds her in high regard. This makes her
out to be a martyr because of all that she gave up due to her love for the gods and for the
dead.
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�The Chorus ends the play with these final words: “...great words of haughty men
exact in retribution blown as great and in old age teach wisdom” (Sophocles, lines 13501352). This statement depicts the final stages of Creon’s purification. He has had his
realization and will now change his ways by living the Greek paradigm. He realizes his
destiny, acknowledges and repents for his mistakes, and changes ways into a truly pious
man. From this point forward Creon will live with reverence to the gods. He will not
repeat his mistakes and try to enact civil law over eternal law. “All men make mistakes,
but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only
crime is pride” (Sophocles, lines 1023-1030). Here, Teiresias describes Creon exactly
because he is a man who makes mistakes but in the end, although a bit late, he yields and
has good intentions when trying to repair his own wretchedness. Looking at the situation
from a Kantian perspective, his biggest crime was indeed pride and this lead to his
family’s downfall. However, since he did redirect his intentions, he saved himself and
ended up not in the wrong even though things ended badly.
Antigone’s final cries as she enters her tomb to die do unravel her overall piety
and confidence minutely. She asked “What law of God have I broken?” (Sophocles, line
921). This makes it hard for her to be pitied because here, she is not living the Greek
paradigm. She is now questioning the gods and her destiny and therefore acting
impiously towards the gods who she so righteously defended with such reverence only
days before. She begins questioning all of her actions because it now becomes clear that
she expected something from the gods in return for her momentary devotion. She
believed to be entitled to her life because of the sacrifice she was willing to make. In the
end, she had no idea that her “pious” acts would result with her dead in a tomb.
Antigone is a sort of ironic title because the actual tragic hero of Antigone
caused her demise. A hero, according to the American Heritage Dictionary is “a man
endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits and favored by
the gods” (American Heritage Dictionary). Antigone is clearly up to par with this
definition. She goes against all social standards by confronting Creon and is respected
and revered by the townspeople. She is also favored by the gods because of her piety and
deep respect toward them and their laws.
Creon cannot fit this image of hero. He is revered by no one and after his edict,
loses all respect. A hero in this sense cannot come back from that, only a tragic hero can.
Creon created the conflict that led to Antigone’s ultimate downfall. This is why the
distinction between hero and tragic hero is so important. Each has completely separate
definitions and when, in use, can name separate people as the hero of a play. If we were
96
�to name the hero of Antigone, it would be Antigone herself. She sacrificed herself for
what she believed to be right. She stood up for her beliefs and represented the pious thing
to do. However, this is about the tragic hero of Antigone and it can never be the title
character herself. Creon makes a full transition in this play from hopeless villain to a
character who can be forgiven and understood. Ultimately, Creon accepted his flaws and
mistakes and changed who he is so that those same actions are never to be repeated.
Creon learned a lesson and changed ways into a respectable man. This is the true identity
of a tragic hero, Antigone’s tragic hero.
Aristotle says a tragic hero is basically a man who has a hamartia, makes many
mistakes but, in the end, learns from them and makes a change. Creon does exactly do
that. His edict was his major mistake, as was enforcing it and killing Antigone. After he
hears of his future, though, he tries to undo his wrongs and fails but still learns that he
was entirely askew in his actions and chooses to embrace the Greek paradigm and his real
destiny. Creon learns he must live revering the gods and be wise. After all, “wisdom is
the supreme part of happiness; and reverence toward the Gods must be inviolate”
(Sophocles, line 1348-1349).
Creon now accepts this as truth. He knows he can never achieve true happiness
again without having wisdom, which only comes from piety. Creon is the perfect tragic
hero. The last page ensures his emotional turmoil and new beginning is empathized by
the reader. That is the true effect of a tragic hero. Tragic heroes start off disliked and their
one redeeming quality saves them and allows them to be honored by the play’s finale.
They reach atonement for their grievances. Although this play’s title is Antigone, it’s
main character that conveys all of the play’s complexity, turmoil, and teaches the greatest
lesson is King Creon. He epitomizes the full meaning of tragic hero as explained by
Aristotle in his work Poetics and the Greek paradigm.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Dr. John Danisi, my RFT instructor, for his helpful suggestions and
comments on my paper.
Works Cited
"American Heritage Dictionary." Definition of "hero" N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~edmunds/def.hero.html>.
97
�"Aristotle & The Elements of Tragedy: English 250." Aristotle's Tragic Terms. N.p., n.d.
Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/aristotletragedy.html>.
"Brown, Larry A., Dr. "Aristotle_Tragedy." Aristotle_Tragedy. N.p., Jan. 2005. Web. 14
Oct. 2012. <http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/aristotle_tragedy.html>.
Sophocles, David Grene, and Richmond Lattimore. Sophocles I. Chicago: University of
Chicago, 1954. Print.
98
�Traduction ou Réécriture?
de L’Empreinte de l’ange à The Mark of the Angel
Caroline Mauduy1,2
Canadian-born novelist and essayist Nancy Huston has been both praised and criticized
for her “voluntary exile” to France. Born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1953, her family moved
to the United States when she was an adolescent. As a student at Sarah Lawrence
University, she took part in a study abroad exchange program in France that would
change the course of her life. When Huston arrived in Paris in 1973, she was fascinated
by the country’s intellectual energy and decided to make France her permanent home.
Huston studied Linguistics under the mentorship of French philosopher Roland Barthes,
but eventually she turned to writing novels. Despite being a native-speaker of English,
she felt a natural inclination towards French and began to publish in her adopted
language. As her success as a novelist grew, Huston decided to self-translate her works
into English. This paper examines Huston’s complex cultural and linguistic identity and
looks closely at her unique approach to the self-translation of her acclaimed novel
L’empreinte de l’ange (1988), translated into English ten years later as The Mark of the
Angel (1998).
« Le traducteur est à l’opposé du glossateur en ce sens qu’il
doit fuir comme la peste le désir d’objectivité, voire le souci de
comprendre rationnellement le texte auquel il veut s’affronter.
D’ailleurs son rôle n’est jamais de l’éclairer, encore moins de
l’expliquer (…) Je crois véritablement que le traducteur (…)
doit taire sa capacité intellectuelle, ou du moins mettre en
sourdine cette activité, s’il veut sauvegarder l’intuition, car il
lui faut parvenir à la subjectivité. Il doit, n’est-ce pas ? Entrer
Written under the direction of Dr. Katica Urbanc for FR/EN351: French Women Writers
in English Translation (honors section).
1
Caroline Mauduy was a French exchange student at Wagner College (AY2012-2013). In
the fall of 2013 she will begin a Masters in Translation at the Université Lumière Lyon 2.
2
99
�dans l’autre, s’introduire non seulement dans son monde (…)
mais aussi s’immiscer dans son langage. »
Albert Bensoussan, romancier, traducteur
Si Nancy Huston est née au Canada et a pour langue maternelle l’anglais, elle a
passé plus de la moitié de sa vie en France et écrit originellement dans sa langue
d’adoption, le français. « Born in the Anglophone Canadian province of Alberta, Huston
traveled to Paris for a year abroad, stayed, and made a name for herself as a French
author, and later an English author. » (Shread 56) Sans cesse en train de se questionner
sur son appartenance à une culture ou à une autre, elle a très vite adopté le français
comme langue de référence et a ainsi publié ses premières versions en français. Mais
peut-on se détacher si aisément de sa langue maternelle ? Peut-on aussi facilement
manifester ses idées et ses émotions dans une langue d’emprunt que dans la langue avec
laquelle nous avons grandi ?
« Tout se passe comme si elle avait besoin des deux langues, étrangement
familières à la fois, pour exprimer sa double appartenance. » (El Nossery 394) Ayant
refusé dans un premier temps d’écrire dans sa langue maternelle, Nancy Huston s’est
décidée à traduire ses œuvres une dizaine d’années plus tard et a commencé également à
publier en anglais. Ce changement de décision semble dû à un besoin d’exprimer plus
précisément ses sentiments et d’avoir accès à ses vraies émotions, que ce soit dans une
langue ou dans l’autre, afin de les faire ressortir plus exactement dans ses publications.
« Chaque langue, en dépit de sa richesse et de ses soubassements inépuisables, est
incapable de décrire l’émotion exacte ou la couleur précise. » (El Nossery 394) Nancy
Huston, tout comme la plupart des auteurs bilingues ressent ce besoin d’écrire dans ses
deux langues, lui permettant ainsi de laisser sortir les émotions qui proviennent de la
Nancy Huston francophone ou de la Nancy Huston anglophone et de les retranscrire dans
la bonne langue. Mais écrire en français apparait non seulement comme un désir sinon
comme un besoin. En se tournant vers une langue étrangère pour écrire, Nancy Huston
semble prouver que parfois on peut plus facilement s’exprimer dans une autre langue, ce
qui peut être dû à une meilleure connaissance du vocabulaire plus formel et à une
meilleure maitrise de la grammaire fraichement apprise et fréquemment révisée. Chaque
phrase doit être vérifiée plusieurs fois et les tournures de phrases questionnées pour
arriver à un résultat correspondant parfaitement à la pensée de l’auteur, ce qui ne serait
pas forcément le cas dans la langue maternelle qui implique, elle, une écriture plus
spontanée. « Unlike Beckett, who started writing in his native English and later shifted to
French, for the first ten years Huston wrote only in French, apparently turning her back
100
�on her mother tongue, English. » (Shread 56) Cependant on peut constater que le besoin
de retourner aux origines se fait ressentir au bout d’un certain temps ; ce phénomène est
probablement dû à la concrétisation d’une maitrise équivalente dans les deux langues. «
L’acquisition d’une deuxième langue annule le caractère « naturel » de la langue
d’origine – et à partir de là, plus rien n’est donné d’office, ni dans l’une ni dans l’autre. »
(Klein-Lataud 105) Le bilinguisme, qui parait au début être un atout, s’avère rapidement
être un obstacle à l’expression de ses ressentis, l’auteur est divisé entre deux langues
auxquelles il s’identifie et à travers lesquelles il a l’habitude de formuler ses pensées, et
rien ne l’empêche de mélanger ces langues lorsqu’il veut s’exprimer oralement,
contrairement à l’écriture qui requiert une cohérence pour que le lecteur puisse
comprendre.
Alors virtuose dans les deux langues, Nancy Huston ne peut plus profiter de
l’avantage d’un meilleur rapport grammatical dans l’une des deux langues et il parait plus
simple et plus judicieux de laisser sa créativité s’exprimer à travers sa langue maternelle
afin de mieux retranscrire ses pensées. « Les textes de Huston sont […] la transcription
du flot de conscience émanant d’un esprit qui n’est totalement investi ni par l’anglais ni
par le français » (Danby 83) Mais au final, Nancy Huston aura trouvé comment pallier,
plus ou moins, les carences rencontrées dans chacune des deux langues.
Traduttore, traditore ?
En 1998, Nancy Huston publie L’Empreinte de l’ange qu’elle traduira et
publiera sous le nom de The Mark of the Angel en 1999. Bien que publiée seulement un
an après la parution de l’original, cette traduction soulève de nombreuses questions. En
comparant les deux versions du roman, on peut constater que Nancy Huston a respecté la
plupart des procédés de traductions. En effet, grâce à sa connaissance des deux cultures,
francophone et anglophone, elle s’est appliquée à effectuer les adaptations culturelles,
procédés de traduction consistants à remplacer une réalité socioculturelle du texte source
par une autre, propre à la socio culture du texte d’arrivée, permettant ainsi au lecteur de
comprendre la totalité du roman. « En traduisant ses propres œuvres, Nancy Huston les
fait croitre (selon l’étymologie du mot auctor) en les amplifiant, dans un geste qui fait
doublement acte d’autorité. » (Wilhelm 9) On trouve ainsi « Sa mère ne disait ni les
Bosches ni les Chleuhs ni les Fridolins » (Huston 16) transposé en « His mother called
them neither Krauts nor Bosches nor Jerries » (Huston 8), ou encore « Un parapluie ?
Non, c’est pas vrai ! Un objet si tellement comme une femme ! Une parapluie, moi je
dis ! » (Huston 209-10) traduit par « It is masculine, umbrella ? No, I don’t believe it! A
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�so-feminine object! For me it’s feminine! » (Huston 211) Dans ces deux exemples,
Nancy Huston a pensé aux lecteurs anglophones et a adapté sa traduction afin qu’ils
puissent comprendre chaque nuance et subtilité présentes à l’origine dans le texte source,
que ce soit au niveau du vocabulaire comme de la grammaire pure qui distingue en
français le masculin du féminin.
Cependant, elle a pu aussi se permettre certaines libertés qu’un traducteur
professionnel n’aurait pas pu prendre. « One of the distinctive characteristics of selftranslation is its daring ability to take liberties that would be unacceptable to anyone but
the “author” of the work. These so-called “infidelities” are allowed so long as they are
carefully delimited by the authorizations of self-translators. » (Shread 59) L’omission,
faute de traduction consistant à ne pas traduire- sans que cela soit justifié- un élément de
sens du texte source, est une erreur à éviter absolument puisqu’elle dénature et « soustraduit » le texte d’origine. Si on trouve « Tu es fou. Une bonniche…tout de même »
(Huston 22) dans le texte source, la traduction devient « You must be crazy. A maid… of
all things. » (Huston 14) Dans la version française, le mot « bonniche » véhicule une
image très négative et a une connotation péjorative insinuant que la bonne à tout faire
n’est ni respectable ni à respecter, alors que dans la version anglaise, le mot « maid » fait
seulement référence à la profession de Saffie et n’évoque rien de négatif voire péjoratif. Il
est vrai qu’il n’existe pas de terme précis pour traduire exactement « bonniche »
cependant il aurait fallu, pour rester fidèle au texte, ajouter un adjectif qualificatif, par
exemple « lowly, » ou encore tirer vers l’exagération en traduisant par « servant » afin de
garder ce sens péjoratif. On trouve également « Un vieux blague. Très vieux » (Huston
119) traduit par « An old joke. Very old. » (Huston 113) Ici pareillement, on a affaire à
une omission, puisque dans le texte source, Andràs fait une faute de français alors que
dans le texte d’arrivée la phrase est parfaitement correcte. Dans ce cas-là, retranscrire
cette erreur portant sur le genre, qui n’existe pas en anglais, relève du défi mais n’est pas
impossible. Elle aurait pu porter la faute sur l’article au lieu du nom, « A old joke, » mais
elle a fait le choix de ne pas le traduire.
« Aussi la question de l’infidélité, illustrée par l’adage traduttore traditore, se
trouve-t-elle être réfutée par Nancy Huston, à la fois dans sa pratique de l’auto-traduction
et dans un texte intitulé Traduttore non è traditore. » (Wilhelm 3) En traduisant ellemême ses ouvrages et en oubliant volontairement de traduire certaines nuances ou encore
en n’employant pas forcément le mot juste, Nancy Huston prouve que le traducteur n’est
pas un traitre mais qu’il fait seulement des choix pour que le texte d’arrivée reflète au
mieux le texte source, quitte à laisser de coté certaines nuances qui ne sont pas d’une
102
�importance capitale mais qui, en étant traduites coûte que coûte, pourraient alourdir le
texte ou casser le rythme créé par l’auteur dans le texte d’origine.
De l’auto-traduction à la réécriture
A la différence d’une traduction, une réécriture est la reprise d’un texte en
améliorant sa forme ou en l’adaptant à une nouvelle destination. « La traduction pourrait
être considérée comme une œuvre originale ou mieux une traduction originale, puisqu’il
s’agirait plutôt d’une réécriture ou d’une création parallèle et non pas d’une traduction au
sens traditionnel du terme. » (El Nossery 394) Dans cet article, l’auteur attire l’attention
sur la frontière entre l’auto-traduction et la réécriture. A quel moment pouvons-nous
décider qu’une auto-traduction devient une réécriture ?
Même si seulement un an s’est écoulé entre la publication des deux versions, il
est difficile de ne pas se demander comment sa façon de pensée et de l’effet que cela
pourrait avoir sur la traduction de son livre vont évoluer. Car si un livre peut être traduit
une dizaine d’années plus tard sans que la question de la réécriture ne se pose, c’est parce
qu’un traducteur professionnel est impliqué. Il découvre l’œuvre pour la première fois et
travail alors seulement avec de la matière, avec des mots bruts, il ne manipule pas une
pensée qui aura eu le temps de changer, d’évoluer. On peut alors s’interroger sur certains
choix de traduction de Nancy Huston. « During the self-translation process she revisits
and edits the original, and in this way, changes the original when necessary, which was
the process she used in recreating Plainsong and Cantique des plaines equally in French
and in English. » (Danby 85)
Reprenons « bonniche » qui a été traduit par « maid, » était-ce un choix délibéré
de ne pas alourdir le texte en étoffant le nom, ou a-t-elle choisit de le traduire de cette
façon afin de nuancer son propos ? Si la réponse n’est pas évidente sur cet exemple, un
extrait de l’épilogue montre que Nancy Huston aurait bien pu reconsidérer son roman.
Dans la première version, Nancy Huston écrit « Paris est Paris, plus insolent que jamais
dans sa beauté et ses gouts de luxe. » (Huston 217) Dans la version anglaise, cette phrase
devient « Paris is Paris, more insolently gorgeous and in love with luxury than ever, »
(Huston 220) et si le sens général reste le même, on s’aperçoit tout de même que la
version anglaise est plus douce, moins agressive que la version française. « Insolent, »
complément d’objet direct de Paris dans le texte d’origine se transforme en « insolently, »
adverbe faisant référence aux compléments du nom dans la traduction. Ce changement de
catégorie grammaticale atténue le sens de la phrase. Nancy Huston, après avoir laissé son
œuvre au repos un an, a pu changer son point de vue sur le monde, sa perspective de la
103
�vie à Paris, et cette animosité que l’on peut parfois ressentir dans la version française
disparait dans la version anglaise. De même lorsque Raphaël pose une question à Emil à
laquelle il ne peut répondre que par oui ou par non, « Tu es d’accord que c’est moi et pas
l’autre ? » (Huston 213) dans la version originale, prend une toute autre tournure dans la
version anglaise, où il lui demande clairement de faire un choix, « Who did you say your
papa was ? Me or him? » (Huston 215) Les attentes et les intentions de Raphaël sont
différentes dans les deux versions. Dans cet exemple, la version anglaise apparait plus
violente et controversée que la version originelle et implique une différence de caractère
et des réactions différentes chez Raphaël.
Dans son article, Carolyn Shread fait remarquer que la traduction de
L’Empreinte de l’ange avait fait polémique. En effet, « In 1998, her novel, L’Empreinte
de l’ange, was nominated for the French-language Governor General’s Prize and for the
translation prize, but the following year, the Canadian Arts Council refused to consider
The Mark of the Angel for the English-language award, on the grounds that it was “une
version réécrite en anglais”. » (Shread 58) La frontière entre auto-traduction et réécriture
est très difficile à discerner et un même texte peut être considéré comme étant une
traduction pour une personne et comme une réécriture pour une autre. Mais que ce soit
l’auto-traduction ou la réécriture, les deux font partie du monde littéraire qui ne peut être
objectif et sera donc toujours sujet à discussions.
Nancy Huston défend par le biais d’une lettre que « Cantique des plaintes n’est
pas qu’une simple traduction de Plainsong ; c’est une deuxième version originelle du
même livre. » (Shread 58) Elle déclare elle-même que son livre n’est pas une simple
auto-traduction, mais une réécriture de la version originale ce qui laisse à penser que ce
fut également le cas pour L’Empreinte de l’ange. On pourrait ajouter à cela que ce besoin
de modifier les versions originales lors du processus de traduction est lié à son
bilinguisme et sa bi-culturalité. « L’auto-traduction dans les deux sens, chez Nancy
Huston, vient subvertir les rapports de dépendance hiérarchique entre l’original et la
traduction, ou l’opposition entre langue maternelle et étrangère, nous invitant ainsi à nous
interroger sur nos pratiques et nos représentations de l’écriture et de la traduction. »
(Wilhelm 2) Nancy Huston doit ressentir comme un besoin d’exprimer dans ses deux
langues ce qu’elle ressent et ce qu’elle veut partager avec son lectorat, cependant,
consciente des différences culturelles ce sera la Nancy Huston francophone ou la Nancy
Huston anglophone qui écrira, d’où les divergences entre les deux versions.
S’il parait évident que le bilinguisme peut être un avantage, il est bien plus rare
de se rendre compte que cela peut aussi impliquer des problèmes tels que la recherche
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�d’identité ; Nancy Huston a exprimé ce sentiment de désorientation dans son livre intitulé
Nord Perdu. On n’aurait cependant pas imaginé que ce sentiment de non appartenance à
une culture particulière puisse la mener à se faire rejeter par la communauté québécoise,
« Taking a protectionist stance, the Quebecois community claimed that Huston could not
be considered for a Francophone literary prize since she is a native English speaker. They
asserted that any “French” novel of hers had in fact to be a translation from English. »
(Shread 57) Bien qu’elle ait écrit ses romans en français dans un premier temps, puis
qu’elle les ait traduits en anglais dans un second, il semblerait que ne pas écrire dans sa
langue maternelle puisse être considéré comme une traduction instantanée au sein même
du processus d’écriture. Pouvons-nous alors considérer la version anglaise issue de la
traduction comme une version originale ?
« Je revendique le fait d’être l’auteur des deux versions, c’est tout, » (Shread 58)
a déclaré Nancy Huston. L’auto-traduction est un moyen de s’exprimer pleinement sans
avoir à passer par une tierce personne, et qui autorise des libertés que les traducteurs
n’ont pas. Et même s’il est possible que le texte original soit altéré au cours de la
traduction, cette dernière n’en ressortira que meilleure pour le lecteur du texte d’arrivée
qui pourra mieux s’identifier au texte et le comprendre. Au final, l’auto-traduction semble
être un terme définissant la manipulation dans une langue B, d’un texte écrit dans une
langue A, permettant à l’auteur de continuer son processus de création dans une des
langues qu’il maitrise et offrant au lectorat une seconde version originelle complètement
adaptée à sa langue.
Ouvrages consultés
Bensoussan, Albert, Confessions d'un traître: Essai sur la traduction. Rennes: U of
Rennes P, 1995.
Besemeres, Mary et Wierzbicka, Anna, Translating Lives: Living with Two Languages
and Cultures. Saint Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2008.
Chatzidimitriou, Ioanna. « Self-Translation as Minorization Process: Nancy Huston’s
Limbes/Limbo. » SubStance 119 (2009) : 22-42.
Danby, Nicola. « The Space Between: Self-Translator Nancy Huston’s Limbes/Limbo. »
La Linguistique 40 (2004): 83-96.
105
�De Courtivron, Isabelle. Lives in Translation: Bilingual Writers on Identity and
Creativity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
El Nossery, Nevine. « L’Etrangeté rassurante de la « bi-langue » chez Abdelkebir
Khatibi et Nancy Huston.» Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 11 (2007) :
389–97.
Huston, Nancy, L’Empreinte de l’ange. Paris : J’ai lu, 2001. The Mark of the Angel. New
York : Vintage International, 2000.
Klein-Lataud, Christine. « Langue et imaginaire.» TTR: Traduction, Terminologie,
Rédaction 20 (2007): 99-111.
Shread, Carolyn. « Redefining Translation Through Self-Translation; the Case of Nancy
Huston. » Translation in French and Francophone Literature and Film 26 (2009): 51-66.
Sommer, Doris. Bilingual Games: Some Literary Investigations. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003.
Wilhelm, Jane Elizabeth. « Ecrire entre les langues : traduction et genre chez Nancy
Huston. » Palimpsestes 4 (2009): 205-24.
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�Women’s Liberation: Beauvoir and Wollstonecraft’s Theories
Pre-Figured in the Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
James Alicea (Government & Politics)1
Although she lived in a time period long before the official advent of the
feminist movement in the late 19th Century, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s acts of female
resistance against patriarchal and ecclesiastical dominance exhibit several proto-feminist
qualities that would later become the basis of modern feminist thought. As a nun who
was confined to a life of servitude and submissiveness to male authority, Sor Juana’s
ability to transcend in society was non-existent. In order to break away from her
oppression as a female Church figure, Sor Juana engaged in highly controversial acts of
intellectual dissent, such as keeping an expansive library to become literate and to
educate herself, and using scripture passages to argue against the actions of ecclesiastical
figures who condemned the role of women in religion and politics. Sor Juana’s greatest
moment of dissent is present in her work, La Respuesta a Sor Filotea, in which she
responds to a letter of censure by the Bishop of Puebla, stating “I entered the religious
order, knowing that the life there entailed certain conditions, most repugnant to my
nature; but given the total antipathy I felt for marriage, I deemed convent life the least
unsuitable and the most honorable I could elect if I were to insure my salvation” (Scott
511). Ultimately, through her use of religious scripture to justify women’s right to an
education and to a life of intellectual fulfillment, Sor Juana’s La Respuesta a Sor Filotea
signifies one of the first acts of proto-feminism, and exemplifies the two main arguments
for the liberation of women present in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication for the Rights
of Woman and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex.
During the time when Sor Juana was alive, 17th-century Mexico was a colony of
Spain called La Nueva España (New Spain) and it was a part of the Nuevo Mundo (New
World) (Edsitement 1). The time period was referred to as La Colonia, which started
when the Aztec Empire was defeated by the Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernán
Cortés on August 13, 1521, and ended when Mexico obtained its Independence in 1821
(Edsitement 1). During La Colonia, social, economic, and educational opportunities were
Written under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Kiss for EN/SP 213: Hispanic Literature in
English Translation (honors section).
1
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�determined primarily by gender, national origin, ethnicity, and social class (Edsitement
1). The most powerful individuals in society were known as the castizos, or children of
individuals born in Spain (Edsitement 1). Beneath the castizos on the social hierarchy
were the criollos, or people of white, Spanish blood, but born in the New World
(Edsitement 1). Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a criolla, which allowed her the privilege
of access to limited education, to the Viceregal Court, and to contact with the educated
elite (Edsitement 1). Most importantly, Sor Juana’s status as a criolla was the reason she
was able to enter a convent, where she was able to nurture her talent and knowledge; only
criollas and castizas could become nuns in New Spain, as service to God was considered
a privilege reserved for only the social elite (Edsitement 1).
While Sor Juana’s heritage enabled her to enter the convent, her female gender
would ultimately serve as a barrier to her intellectual enlightenment. Because education
and knowledge during La Colonia were entirely reserved for men, the education women
could receive was significantly inferior to the education men received (Edsitement 2).
Furthermore, women were not allowed to pursue higher studies, such as the philosophical
theories of Aristotle and Plato, or the work of great mathematicians like Pythagoras
(Edsitement 2). Sor Juana, as a dedicated intellectual and a figure of proto-Enlightenment
thought, was determined to rebel against this rule, and began learning Latin at a very
young age (Edsitement 2). Before the age of fourteen, Sor Juana wrote her first poem.
Knowing that women were not allowed to attend the university in Mexico City, she made
the best of an isolated, self-directed schooling; she eagerly read through countless books
initially in Panoayan where the family farm was located, then at court in Mexico City
(Edsitement 2). As Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell state in their article, “A Life
Without And Within: Juana Ramirez/Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz:”
Sor Juana’s prodigious talent, furthered by intense efforts that began in early
childhood, produced a serious intellectual while she was still in her teens. She
taught herself the forms of classical rhetoric and the language of law, theology,
and literature. At every turn, from her courtly and learned yet marginalized
standpoint, she contradicted - or deconstructed – artistic, intellectual, and
religious views that would refuse her and others like her the right to express
themselves (Arenal 67-68).
In time, Sor Juana realized that she would be unable to obtain the texts she
required to pursue her quest for intellectual liberation outside of the Church. She
subsequently joined the Order of San Jerónimo, taking her vows and entering the
Convent of Santa Paula in 1669, despite her opposition to its policies that treated women
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�as property and as servants of men (Edsitement 2). Therefore, Sor Juana did not choose to
become a nun and enter the convent solely for religious purposes—she used the power
and wealth of the Church as a means to obtain the knowledge she required to expedite her
path to intellectual freedom.
Once situated in the convent, Sor Juana displayed her first overt actions of
proto-feminism. She began by amassing her own library, which would later become one
of the largest in the New World, to pursue her own writing and education (Edsitement 2).
What made Sor Juana’s education “proto-feminist” was not only the fact that she was
rebelling as a woman prohibited from higher study, but also the way in which she
educated herself. Sor Juana, as an autodidact, proved to the individuals in the New World
that women were capable of comprehending material without it being presented to them
in a simplified form by a male instructor. As Arenal and Powell state, “Respect for
exceptionality was in part a reflection of the profound seventeenth-century interest in
unusual natural phenomena that viewed artistic talent and intellectual drive in human
females as fascinating abnormalities. Sor Juana learned to exploit the fact that she was
cataloged as a prodigy; she both defended and derided the hyperbolic terms of praise her
exceptionality attracted” (Arenal and Powell 68). Thus, in a true proto-feminist fashion,
Sor Juana literally used her womanhood to attain more knowledge—an action that would
be regarded by modern day feminists as a brilliant strategy for female enlightenment in
an environment of ubiquitous male domination.
Furthermore, Sor Juana was also strategic about what she wrote. She was aware
that successful writing would garner her acclaim, and therefore, access to more materials
from which to study and write. Thus, many of Sor Juana’s early writings were primarily
of Baroque or love poetry, topics for which she held little passion, but which she
executed artfully in order to maintain her popularity in the literary cannon and subtly
avoid being persecuted for her private higher intellectual studies (I, The Worst of All). As
Arenal and Powell argue, “The stratagems Sor Juana evolved for artistic and intellectual
survival were so subtle that, given the continuity and pervasiveness of patriarchal values
up to the present, the magnitude of her reinterpretations has often been missed or
distorted even in our time…The ease with which she versified her [Baroque] style, and
the irony with which she applied her wit gave her an enormous literary mobility” (Arenal
68). Thus, her strategy was greatly successful, as her artfully constructed poetry helped
her to win the favor of the viceroy and vicereine, who would later afford her much
needed protection when high ranking church officials attempted to prohibit her from her
studies (I, The Worst of All).
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�Gradually, however, other factors began to weigh more heavily than viceregal
support and fame in the New World. As the seventeenth century reached its last decade,
Sor Juana's situation and that of New Spain changed drastically. Most notably, economic,
social, and political crises spread throughout Mexico, causing many of Sor Juana’s most
significant supporters to return to Spain (Arenal 74). In addition, the newly appointed
Archbishop of Mexico, Francisco Aguiar y Seixas, was a severe and misogynistic prelate
in no way disposed to judge Sor Juana’s studies favorably (Scott 514). As Nina M. Scott
claims in her article, “Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: Let Your Women Keep Silence In The
Churches," Aguiar y Seixas was a “twisted Catholic puritan [who] had a pathological
aversion to women…If a woman crossed his threshold, he promptly ordered all the bricks
torn up and replaced upon which sacrilegious feet had trod” (Scott 514). As a result, Sor
Juana’s writing on both religious and mundane subjects came under more direct fire from
male ecclesiastical figures, placing such valuable possessions as her library and musical
instruments in jeopardy (Arenal 74). As Arenal argues, before the viceroy and vicereine
left Mexico, “Many nuns wrote. Although complicit through their service to the church,
not all were unthinking handmaidens to the sceptre and the cross. The very nature of a
female community allowed them to develop separate voices from those of the priests and
confessors who officially controlled their lives” (Arenal 72). It was this sense of female
community that patriarchal leaders wished to destroy, as they understood that, when
united, women would become too great a threat to the “sanctity” of exclusively male
leadership.
The pressures of new ecclesiastical leadership, coupled with the impending loss
of her ability to study and write, prompted Sor Juana to begin her trademark piece of
proto-feminist dissent— La Respuesta a Sor Filotea. Written in March of 1691 as a
response to a critique by the Bishop of Puebla, Sor Juana used La Respuesta to defend
her right to devote her time to secular and artistic endeavors, such as the production of
love poems and dramatic pieces, as well as her right to study and develop intellectual
pursuits as a woman in New Spain (Sor Juana 1). In the section of her letter entitled
“Narratio,” Sor Juana puts forth several compelling arguments to defend her acts of
higher self-education. First, she asserts that in order to study and fully understand
scripture and theology, one must have a substantial understanding of logic, physics,
rhetoric, music, math, architecture, history, law, Patristic commentary, and astronomy
(Sor Juana 1). She claimed that all subjects are interrelated because God has designed it
so. Secondly, she asserts that it is in human nature to “abhor [the] one who excels,”
arguing that Christ was abhorred for his divine beauty as the God-man and for his
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�miracle-working (Sor Juana 1). Lastly, she asserts that “Riches and power strike at
reason, for few will allow that someone else is better” (Sor Juana 1). She states, “I do not
study to write, not less to teach (that pride was in me excessive), but only for seeing if in
spite of studying I ignore less. This way I answer it and this way I feel it” (Sor Juana 1).
Sor Juana’s Narratio artfully presents facts that will later support her argument for the
empowerment of women in the Confirmatio and Refutatio sections.
Confirmatio and Refutatio are the heart of Sor Juana’s stance as a proto-feminist
figure. In the first paragraph, she recounts several Hebrew and Greco-Roman female
scholars and leaders, who, she asserts, were integral to the understanding of current
Scriptural and general knowledge (Sor Juana 2). She then addresses the patriarchal belief
that women should not study and interpret scripture publicly in a pulpit or university
setting (Sor Juana 2). She justifies her objection on the grounds that those who are able,
both men and women, should be allowed to do so (Sor Juana 2). Therefore, in Sor
Juana’s view, the claim that "study is harmful" is a stance undertaken by only the halfinformed and foolish; she instead asserts that humans “should know the measure of our
abilities” (Sor Juana 2). In addition, she proposes that just as Jerome believed his
daughter Leta should be educated, his spiritual daughters, the nuns, should be educated as
well (Sor Juana 2). This observation leads Sor Juana to conclude that older women
should teach younger women and thus keep them safe from ignorance as well as the
temptations of male tutors (Sor Juana 2). Finally, Sor Juana concludes by deconstructing
the misinterpretation of the Biblical line in Timothy 2:11, "Let the woman learn in
silence" (Sor Juana 2). She claims that no matter how the line is interpreted, no
interpretation precludes women from engaging in private study (Sor Juana 2). Such
language, given the severity of the patriarchal ecclesiastical order, is unquestionably a
convincing advocacy for the equal treatment of women in education—a foundation of the
modern feminist cause.
The themes of women’s historical triumph and the liberation of the female mind
that Sor Juana presents in La Respuesta share many similarities to the argument that
Mary Wollstonecraft puts forth in her text, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
According to feminist scholar Breny Mendoza, Wollstonecraft's primary concern with the
non-recognition of reason in women was mediated by her concern with the relationship
of women and the divine (Mendoza 287). For Wollstonecraft, robbing women of the right
to exercise reason—a precious good that separated men from women— prevented
women access to God, which was “indispensable to the eternity of their souls” (Mendoza
287). Moreover, Wollstonecraft argued that because the human spirit had no gender and
111
�humanity was crafted in the image of God, there was no basis for the subordination of
women on Earth (Mendoza 287). Thus, it is clear that both Wollstonecraft and Sor Juana
believed that men could not act as the mediator between women and God—the first step
in the natural liberation of women.
Furthermore, Wollstonecraft’s justification for the education of women in her
text is parallel to Sor Juana’s justification for her self-education in La Respuesta. In her
text, Wollstonecraft states that without turning into rational beings through education,
women were not only at the mercy of men's laws, but were also denied the necessary
knowledge to save their souls (Mendoza 287). Therefore, just as Sor Juana argued,
Wollstonecraft asserted women’s higher education was not a contrived plot to overthrow
male superiority, but rather, a vehicle to spiritual emancipation. In her insistence on the
genderless nature of the soul and intellect, Wollstonecraft writes, "My body, disinclined
to this man or that, serves only to house the soul…you might call it neuter or abstract"
(Wollstonecraft 47). Wollstonecraft’s quote mirrors Sor Juana’s dispute in which she
breaks relations with her confessor, and in which she repudiates the mediation of a man
between God and herself. As Mendoza points out, “Sor Juana claims [to her confessor]
that her exercise of God's gifts—her intellect—is already her key to heaven. [For Sor
Juana,] intellectual talents were God's way of giving individuals free will and the
opportunity to grow in virtue” (Mendoza 288).
Wollstonecraft and Sor Juana’s strongest parallel is in an area essential to the
feminist cause—the unification and cooperation of women to achieve liberation as a
whole. In the beginning of her text, Wollstonecraft states, “I do not wish them [women]
to have power over men, but over themselves” (Wollstonecraft 10). This quote shares a
powerful connection to the life of Sor Juana; as a woman who sacrificed all of her
freedom to join a convent, merely to attain a chance to educate herself, Sor Juana
passionately believed that women should have the right to govern their bodies and their
minds. Wollstonecraft’s famous quote also connotes a sense of a necessary camaraderie
of women, which is symbolically depicted in I, The Worst of All through Sor Juana’s
passionate relationship with the vicereine. In her Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
Wollstonecraft also states, “Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the
mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its
prison” (Wollstonecraft 33). The use of the prison metaphor becomes a grotesque reality
in the life of Sor Juana, who in I, The Worst of All is frequently depicted behind bars,
struggling to free not her body, but her mind from the “cages” of patriarchal domination.
Thus, for Sor Juana and Wollstonecraft, intellectual liberation is essential not only to
112
�liberate women, but also to bring them together to ensure their united effort against
female subjugation.
Sor Juana’s La Respuesta also presents gender ambiguity as a major component
in the goal for women to attain freedom—a proto-feminist idea that would later be
developed and highly publicized in Simone de Beauvoir’s cornerstone text, The Second
Sex. In her text, Beauvoir poses the legendary question, “What is a Woman?” in response
to the centuries of female subjugation and degradation, particularly in the realm of social
mobility (Beauvoir 10). Beauvoir ultimately argues that women may not truly, by
definition, exist in the world; in reality, Beauvoir claims that there are too sexes: male
and the “Other” (Beauvoir 14). Beauvoir attributes this lack of female identity in the
world to a status that she calls the “Eternal Feminine,” a status that men, and often
women themselves, use to force women into a role of life-long “immanence” (Beauvoir
21). Beauvoir states, “Hence woman makes no claim for herself as subject because she
lacks the concrete means, because she senses the necessary link connecting her to man
without posing its reciprocity, and because she often derives satisfaction from her role as
Other (Beauvoir 10).” When locked in a state of immanence, women are forced to live
only for others, and forfeit (through coercion or voluntarily) their ability to transcend in
society and achieve significant and impactful goals (Beauvoir 21).
Beauvoir concludes her renowned feminist text by asserting that women need to
claim an identity in society in order to break free from the “Eternal Feminine,” or they
risk the perpetuation of a cycle of female exploitation for all future societies (Beauvoir
23). Beauvoir states “If I want to define myself, I first have to say ‘I am a woman;’ all
other assertions will arise from this basic truth. A man never begins by posting himself as
an individual of a certain sex: that he is a man is obvious…the relation of the two sexes in
not that of two electrical poles: the man represents both the positive and the
neuter…[while] woman is the negative, to such a point that any determination is imputed
to her as a limitation, without reciprocity” (Beauvoir 5). Moreover, Beauvoir stresses the
fact that women must bring about the change on their own, as patriarchal society will
never surrender itself to the will of a single oppressed woman. As Beauvoir states, “In
truth, nature is no more an immutable given than is historical reality. If woman discovers
herself as the inessential and never turns into the essential, it is because she does not
bring about this transformation herself (Beauvoir 8).” Thus, women must unite and reject
the “fixed identity” of the Eternal Feminine, fulfill the role they wish to fulfill in society,
and ultimately reclaim their subjectivity and ability to transcend in their own lives.
113
�It is clear that Sor Juana had been one of the first women to understand the
dangers of submitting to the “Eternal Feminine.” For Sor Juana, gender was irrelevant to
one’s potential, and she often recognized the literary accomplishments of both men and
women equally, not taking gender into consideration. She also believed that both men
and women were equal before God, and thus, the road to intellectual liberation was not
paved exclusively for the feet of men (I, The Worst of All). Sor Juana’s stance on gender
resonates with Beauvoir’s “solution” to sexual discrimination, which she refers to as the
“Ethics of Ambiguity.” According to Beauvoir, when one embraces the “Ethics of
Ambiguity,” one is truly free to acknowledge oneself and others as both subjects and
objects (Beauvoir 54). Thus, both men and women would have the freedom to act
actively and passively, eliminating the exploitative patriarchal system which forces both
sexes into roles based on stereotypes and gender-biased laws. If members of the
ecclesiastical order had followed Sor Juana’s embracement of gender ambiguity in her
age, she would have been able to continue writing and studying, producing works of
intellectual genius, and would never have been forced to construct a humiliating recant
letter proclaiming that she was the worst in the world (I, The Worst of All).
Even though Sor Juana’s “proto-feminist” statements and works are generally
regarded extremely subtle, there is no question that, in the presence of an overbearing
threat of censure from the Church, Sor Juana radically challenged gender and patriarchal
norms throughout her lifetime. Her arguments presented in La Respuesta, such as the
necessity of gender ambiguity and the communion of women, are essential to modern
feminist political and social thought. Her acts as a dissident and a martyr in an oppressive
regime have also motivated other feminist women to make similar sacrifices for their
beliefs, as demonstrated by noteworthy feminists Emma Goldman, Susan B. Anthony,
and Kate Chopin. Although Sor Juana’s life and work of genius were cut short by the
pressures of the Church and the plague that struck Mexico in the late 17th century, she set
the precedent that it was both feasible and influential for women to rebel against
patriarchal norms through writing and speech. This brave and passionate risk would
ultimately evolve into one of the greatest civil rights movements in the history of human
existence—the global unification of women and the several waves of feminism adopted
to achieve female economic, political, and social equality.
114
�Works Cited
Arenal, Electa, and Amanda Powell. "A Life Without And Within: Juana Ramirez/Sor
Juana Ines De La Cruz (1648/51-1695)." Women's Studies Quarterly 21.1/2 (1993): 6780. Historical Abstracts. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
Beauvoir, Simone De. The Second Sex. New York: Knopf, 1953. Print.
I, The Worst of All. Dir. Maria Luisa Bemberg. Perf. Assumpta Serna, Dominique Sanda,
Hector Alterio. First Run Features. 1995. DVD
Mendoza, Breny. "Juxtaposing Lives: Mary Wolistonecraft And Sor Juana Inés De La
Cruz." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.3/4 (2007): 287-291. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
Scott, Nina M. "Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: "Let Your Women Keep Silence In The
Churches" Women's Studies International Forum 8.5 (1985): 511-519. Historical
Abstracts. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
"Sor Juana." Sor Juana. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.
"Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: The First Great Latin American Poet | EDSITEment." Sor
Juana Ines De La Cruz: The First Great Latin American Poet. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar.
2013.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1992. Print
115
�The Conflicted Metaphysical State of Humanity in
Book I, Canto 7 of The Faerie Queene
Kiana Balacich (English)1
In The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser depicts allegories that potently convey
the conflicted metaphysical state of humanity. His characters and the adventures they
undertake emit the elements of the constant conflict between good and evil. As Redcrosse
travels along his perilous path, he projects the image of the Christian soul on its physical
journey. In Book I, Canto 7, Spenser reveals Redcrosse’s spiritual drama in full detail. As
the condition of being human is a state of imperfection, Redcrosse’s adventures convey
the constant conflict the human experiences between good and evil.
Spenser sets the teachings of dry doctrine to the tune of a vibrant narrative. A
great deal of Scripture, especially the epistles of St. Paul, deals with the struggles of the
human experience and confrontation with sin. Spenser’s dramatization of these teachings
conveys that these lessons can be potently understood by living through them. As
Redcrosse’s adventures depict the Christian’s journey through life, his experiences
provide readers with a highly relatable narrative interpretation of Christian doctrine.
The protagonist of Book I is Redcrosse, the character representation of the
individual human on his quest for holiness. Since Redcrosse is human, he is tainted by
the effects of Original Sin. According to Elizabeth Heale, The Faerie Queene conveys
Spenser’s “Protestant pessimism about the ultimate falleness of the human condition and
the inevitable failure of human virtue” (15). Humans are imperfect creatures. They have
the capacity to accomplish virtuous acts, yet they are also susceptible to the temptations
of sin. The Fall of Man resulted in “the consequent corruption of man’s nature” (Heale
20). Therefore, Redcrosse’s human status has the element of imperfection woven into its
composition. He constantly finds himself as the center of the battleground, in which the
forces of evil wages their heated war with the forces of good. Redcrosse constantly feels
this tension, leaving him with a critical choice: Which side will he support? Spenser
employs Redcrosse’s encounter with Duessa as well as his consequent confrontation with
Orgoglio to depict the conflicted nature of the human experience.
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley for EN304: Early Modern Literature.
116
�After Redcrosse’s previous battle, Spenser portrays him as “sweatie” (20) and
“wearie” (15). His body is reeling from the peril of battle. Spenser emphasizes the human
body to convey this inherent weakness. The flesh betrays us with a state of frail
imperfection, and these bodies are like physical representations of our state of
imperfection. Spenser is depicting the way in which our bodies hold us back, hampering
our attempt at a continuous forward motion. In Canto 7, Redcrosse pauses during his
journey in order to “rest him selfe” (16). After sitting down near a fountain, he
“disarme[s] all of his yron-coated Plate” (17). Spenser’s writing is characteristically
stratified into multiple aspects. On the surface, the removal of this knight’s protective
armor conveys he is open to a physical attack. However, on the metaphysical level, the
armor is also representative of the sanctifying grace that comes from God. “The overall
emphasis of the armor of God in The Faerie Queene manifests joyous triumph over the
forces of darkness and chaos” (Hamilton 62). Humans need this to protect our frail
human selves. Grace lifts us up when the incompetent nature of our human selves
disappoints us.
As Redcrosse removes his armor, he is letting his guard down. In the Bible,
Ephesians 6:13 compels Christians, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when
the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done
everything, to stand.” Romans 13:12 urges Christians to “put on the armor of light.”
Humans need to wear this covering in order to protect themselves from evil. Otherwise,
our bodies—imperfect and vulnerable-- are exposed to the temptations around us. As
John Calvin emphasizes that humans are careless with the graces God extends to us. He
says, “We are commonly like soldiers who are about to meet the enemy, yet foolishly
remove their armor” (Hamilton 62). Spenser has Redcrosse exactly exhibits this behavior
right before he meets Duessa.
Redcrosse’s tired human body seeks relief from the conditions under which it is
becoming sluggish, much like a burden. As a result, Redcrosse longs for a pause in his
action. He yearns to take a break from his journey and rest where he can be “shielded”
(30) from the “boyling heat’/” (30). As a result, he opens the way to the vice of lust. He
“bathe[s] in pleasurance of the joyous shade,/” (29). He is like stagnant water, relaxing
aimlessly. According to the Bible, God is outraged by sloth. Revelations 3:16 reads, “So
then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my
mouth.” If someone is living a life that is devoid of fervor for actively carrying out the
duties of God’s callings, they are being sinfully rebellious against Him.
117
�The sloth mentality Redcrosse displays while resting makes him more
susceptible to temptation. In this moment, Redcrosse is not in a position in which he is in
control over his appetites. Spenser conveys this by painting a literary portrait of
Redcrosse sitting on the ground, off his horse. “And by his side his steed the grassy
forage ate./” (18). This imagery employs the symbolic nature of the horse. If Redcrosse is
not riding his horse, he is exhibiting an internal absence of control of his appetites,
especially lust. Jeremiah 5:8 reads, “They were fed as horses in the morning: every one
neighed after his neighbor’s wife.” Like the men in this verse, Redcrosse is now
vulnerable to the experience of lust. His relaxed state, as well as his position in respect to
his horse, foreshadows that he will yield to his urges of his appetites rather than restrain
them with the power of his logic.
The third stanza exudes a lighthearted tone that is nevertheless tainted by the
forewarning of oncoming danger; Spenser utilizes his imagery to foreshadow the
human’s upcoming confrontation with evil. As the Renaissance adage states, “The eyes
are windows to the soul.” Spenser strives to influence not only the minds of his readers,
but their souls as well. He does so through his vivid descriptions that leap off the page,
blooming like a literary garden. Spenser writes scrupulously, painstakingly chiseling out
his sentences until he has carved out the literary image he sought to portray.
For example, Spenser’s imagery depicts the presence of trouble within an
otherwise joyful setting. As the “breathing wind” (20) flows through the air, it “gently
playes” (20) amongst the “trembling leaves” (21). The choice of the verb “trembling” is
emblematic of quivering. Despite the buoyant setting that radiates gently playful wind
and “sweet musick” (23), the leaves are exuding an ominously fearful aura.
Just after the trembling omen, the “Witch” (24), Duessa, appears on the scene.
Duessa’s attack upon Redcrosse is very subtle. She is emblematic of the falsehood and
deception used to ensnare Redcrosse. She approaches him with a pleasing appeal,
speaking in a tone Spenser describes as sweet: “With fowle words tempring faire, soure
gall with hony sweet” (27). Nonetheless, beneath this pleasing surface is the “soure gall”
of temptation and sin. This deceptively subtle method of evil is a stark contrast to
Redcrosse’s previous confrontation with evil in the House of Pride. Through this contrast
to the blatant, obvious display of evil in that house, Spenser is warning his readers of
evil’s ability to lure the human into sinful actions by means of a subtle attack.
Evil can slyly deceive the human mind. By appearing in a form that appeals to
the carnal desires of the body, evil can lead humans down its dark path. To depict this
concept in his poem, Spenser zeroes in on Recrosse’s body: “And mighty strong was
118
�turned to feeble frail” (50). Redcrosse is usually characterized as a powerful and
courageous knight, yet, we now see him in a time of weakness as he loses his grip of his
self-control.
Immediately after he embraces Duessa, a brutally terrifying monster makes its
entrance into the poem. A “dreadfull sound” (58) penetrates the scene, while “”all the
earth for terrour seemes to shake,/” (60). This frightening description sparks fear in the
readers. On the surface, Spenser is instilling fear of the storyline’s villain; however, on
the metaphysical level, the depiction of a giant, according to Heale, is emblematic of
rebellion against God (39). Redcrosse gives in to sloth and his bodily lust, and, as a
result, he embraces falsehood in the form of the witch Duessa. These actions represent
sinful behavior, which are starkly contradictory to God’s laws. The battle with Orgoglio
is a tableau of the battle between flesh and spirit.
Through Orgoglio’s brutal fight with Redcrosse, Spenser conveys a message
that is very similar to that of Isaiah 28:24, which states that just as farmers must break up
dry soil in order to make it usable for planting. Humans must let God destroy the ills of
their ways in order for us to be utilized as His instruments. Thus, punishment chastises us
and thereby cleanses us. After Orgoglio incarcerates Redcrosse in the dungeon (130),
Redcrosse indeed suffers and develops a sense of chastisement. This brutal awakening
allows Redcrosse to open his eyes to the evils of his actions, and it sets us, the humanity
he represents, back onto the right path. Spenser is conveying humanity’s need to be
corrected when caught in the treacherous waves of evil and its temptation.
Redcrosse’s need to be chastised is inherent, resonating with humanity. John
Donne expresses this yearning in “Holy Sonnet 10”. The speaker turns to God, asking
Him to “break, blow, burn and make new” (4). In order to become fully devoted to God’s
callings, the speaker believes he must submit himself to God’s destruction of his old,
sinful ways. The Faerie Queene depicts this through Redcrosse’s brutal confrontation
with the giant. Orgoglio is the means by which “Redcrosse’s inward pride and selfconceit are broken in preparation for his regeneration” (Heale, 39). Redcrosse has been
shaken both outwardly and inwardly, allowing him to recalibrate his disposition through
the experience of chastisement. Although he has to withstand a brutal confrontation with
a violent giant, Orgoglio, to reach this awakening, Redcrosse survives. “Redcrosse is a
type of fallen man, unable by his own efforts to free himself from Duessa or escape
Orgoglio’s dungeon, and only finally enabled to achieve holiness and accomplish his
quest through the powerful intervention of Grace” (25). As a member of the elect, he
receives divine assistance from the saving hand of God’s Grace. This Grace sustains him
119
�throughout his perilous experiences, allowing him to ultimately continue forward on his
journey towards holiness.
Book I, Canto 7 of The Faerie Queene thus conveys the conflict the soul
experiences during its physical experience on Earth. The Fall tainted the human body,
rendering it susceptible to the temptation of sin. As we move forward in our daily lives
we must defend ourselves against the deceptive lures of Evil and choose to follow the
callings of God. In The Faerie Queene, Spenser depicts the cycle of weakness,
temptation, sin, and chastisement to present the lessons of Christian doctrine through
enlightening allegories that come to fruition in readers’ minds and resonate with their
souls.
Works Cited
The Holy Bible, New International Version: Containing the Old Testament and the New
Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978 (Bible citations are mine) Print.
Donne, John. “Holy Sonnet 10”. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Vol. 1,
4th ed.: 1 B. London, Longman, 2009. Print.
Hamilton, A.C. The Spenser Encyclopedia. London: Routledge, 1991. Print.
Heale, Elizabeth. The Faerie Queene: A Reader’s Guide. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999. Print.
Spenser, Edmund. “Book I, The Faerie Queen” in The Norton Anthology of English
Literature, Vol. 1 (Revised Edition). M.H. Abrams et al. eds. New York: Norton, 1962.
506-642. Print.
120
��
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Wagner College Forum for Undergraduate Research
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Volume 12, Number 1
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Section I: Eastern Colleges Science Conference -- Abstracts -- 3 Identifying the Onset of Teratogenicity of Lithium Chloride in the Development of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Eye / Janna Denisenko, Dr. Ammini Moorthy, Dr. Christopher Corbo, and Dr. Zoltan Fulop -- 3 The Brachistochrone Problem / Vincent Lombardo and Dr. Otto Raths -- 3 Finding Antibiotic Producing Microbes in Soil / Juliana Schipani and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 4 Development of New Line of Anti-microbial and Possible Anti-tumor Pd–Centered Chemotherapeutics / Sandra Minchala, Dr. Valeria Stepanova, and Dr. Joseph West -- 4 A Hybrid Computation and Experimental Study of Pd–Based Drug Candidates / Daniel Cimilluca, Dr. Joseph West, and Dr. Valeria Stepanova -- 5 Growth Rates in Population and Economics / Joseph Biggica (Physics) and Dr. Otto Raths -- 5 Study of Anti-microbial Activity of Palladium Compounds / Lynn Tay, Dr. Valeria Stepanova and Dr. Christopher Corbo -- 5 Modification of a Yeast Strain Toward the Creation of a Light-Activated Elongation Factor / Corey Gaylets, Basil Hussain, Dr. Rebecca Zordan and Dr. Brendan Cormack -- 6 Ultrastructural Analysis of Cellular Pathology Induced by Hyperphosphorylated Tau / Holly Santapaga, Leonid Denisenko, Dr. Alejandra Del C. Alonso, and Dr. Christopher Corbo -- 7 Analyzing the Effect of 4-octylphenol on the Development and Viability of Drosophila melanogaster / Pakinam Mekki and Dr. Heather Cook -- 7 The Antimicrobial Activity of Seven Different Plant Extracts on Streptococcus Mitis, Streptococcus Salivarius, and Enterococcus Faecalis / Elaina Tsimbikos and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 8 Isolation of Escherichia Coli Bacteriophage from Sewage Water / Alisa Ndokaj and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 9 Presence of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Wagner College Athletic Facilities / Eden Stark and Dr. Kathleen Bobbitt -- 9 Behavioral Effects of Listeria monocytogenes-Induced Blindness in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) / Samar Alwani and Dr. Brian Palestis -- 10 Teratogenic Effects of Stannous Chloride at Various Concentrations on Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryos / Faiz Abed, Dr. Ammini Moorthy and Dr. Christopher Corbo -- Section II: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 13 Aircraft Icing and its Effects on Lift / Carley Nicoletti, Leobardo Dominguez, and Michelle Greenough -- 29 Species Recognition in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Based on Olfactory Cues / Adam Rizzuti -- Section III: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 47 Imagination and Creativity Inside the Classroom / Michael Chicolo -- Section IV: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 79 Invisible Women: Female Comic Book Superheroes and Their Artists / Carly Schmidt -- 92 Antigone’s Hero / Stephanie Lombardo -- 99 Traduction ou Réécriture? de L’Empreinte de l’ange à The Mark of the Angel / Caroline Mauduy -- 107 Women’s Liberation: Beauvoir and Wollstonecraft’s Theories Pre- Figured in the Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz / James Alicea -- 116 The Conflicted Metaphysical State of Humanity in Book I, Canto 7 of The Faerie Queene / Kiana Balacich
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��EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Wagner Forum for Undergraduate Research is an interdisciplinary journal which
provides an arena where students can publish their research. Papers are reviewed with
respect to their intellectual merit and scope of contribution to a given field. To enhance
readability the journal is typically subdivided into three sections entitled The Natural
Sciences, The Social Sciences and Critical Essays. The first two of these sections are
limited to papers and abstracts dealing with scientific investigations (experimental,
theoretical and empirical). The third section is reserved for speculative papers based on
the scholarly review and critical examination of previous works.
What is the fastest way to get from point A to point B on a frictionless plane? Are
sweatshops a thing of the past? Why did so many of New York’s Irish, who had been so
ill treated by their neighbors, decide to enlist in the Union Army during the American
Civil War? Did the media downplay Helen Keller's political activism as a socialist and a
radical? The answers to these and other questions lie on the pages that follow.
Read on and enjoy!
Gregory J. Falabella, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial Board
Dr. Miles Groth, Psychology
Prof. Andy Needle, Art
Dr. Lauren O'Hare, Nursing
Dr. Donald E. Stearns, Biological Sciences
Dr. Lori Weintrob, History
��Section I: The Natural Sciences
Full Length Papers
3
Time of Flight Calculations for Linear and Non-Linear Approximations to the
Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo
Section II: The Social Sciences
Full Length Papers
23 Establishing God: The Effects of Missionization and Colonialism in Vanuatu
Elizabeth Cohen
43 Behind the Label: Comparison of Garment Sweatshops in Dhaka, Bangladesh to
New York City and Milan
Christopher DeFilippi
74 Imprisoning Sexuality: Exploring the Fluidity of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior
Within the Marginalized Sub-Culture of Women’s Prisons
Joey Sergi
Section III: Critical Essays
Full Length Papers
99 The “Truly American College”: Establishing a Civic and Democratic Mission at
Wagner College and Spelman College in the Interwar Era
Gary Giordano
127 Sin, Shame, and Maidenhead: Analysis of John Donne’s “The Flea”
Stephanie Hinkes
135 Inventing Asexuality: Building Visibility for the “Fourth Orientation”
Carly Schmidt
140 Those Who Never Retreated before the Clash of Spears: Motivations
for Enlistment in the Irish Brigade in the United States Civil War
Patrick Bethel
�154 Language Learning in Room
Ayesha Ghaffar
161 Helen Keller’s Political and Social Activism
Julia Loria
169 Music as a Unifying Art Form in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun
Lauren Russell
���Time of Flight Calculations for Linear and Non-Linear
Approximations to the Brachistochrone Problem
Vincent Lombardo (Physics and Mathematics)1
This paper examines and compares multiple types of approximation methods to
a problem in physics (more particularly mechanics) known as the Brachistochrone
problem. Johann Bernoulli was the first to officially propose the question; a question
which at first glance may seem trivial: what path would an object take such that it slides
in the least amount of time under the influence only of gravity, and neglecting friction?
Most would answer that such a path must be that of shortest length: a straight line.
However, Bernoulli discovered that this was in fact not the case; remarkably the solution
turned out to be a very special type of curve known as a cycloid. The research presented
in this paper explores and compares the time of flight calculations for a two-segment
linear approximation, as well as circular and parabolic approximations to the cycloidal
brachistochrone, utilizing conventional calculus, in an effort to determine which types of
paths are best suited for time of flight minimization.
I. Introduction and Historical Background
Although Swiss mathematician Johann Bernoulli is credited with first proposing
the Brachistochrone problem (which in Greek comes from the words “brachistos”
meaning “shortest” and “chronos” meaning “time”) in 1696 as a challenge to his fellow
mathematicians, Galileo was in fact the first to consider the question:
Given two points A and B in a vertical plane (with A not lower than B), what is
the curve traced out by a point acted on only by gravity, which starts at from
rest at A and reaches B in the shortest time? 2
Galileo studied the problem in his famous work Discourse On Two New Sciences but
first in a more simplified way. He considered two line segments inscribed on the arc of a
circle as illustrated in Figure 2. Galileo then later by extension (incorrectly) suggested
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Otto Raths.
Donald C. Benson, “An Elementary Solution of the Brachistochrone Problem,” The
American Mathematical Monthly 76, No. 8 (October 1969): 890.
1
2
3
�that the path of quickest descent was in fact the arc of a circle itself, but it was not until
the problem was proposed later by Bernoulli that the full, correct solution was derived.
A
x
●
●
?
y
●B
Figure 1: An illustration of the Brachistochrone Problem
A
B
Figure 2: Galileo’s Two-Segment Solution
The Brachistochrone problem drew widespread attention at the time when it was
raised by Bernoulli, and elicited (correct) solutions from some of the most renowned
4
�names of the 17th century including Jacob Bernoulli (John Bernoulli’s own brother),
Isaac Newton, Gottfried Liebniz and Guillaume de l’Hôpital.3 Each determined that the
path of quickest descent was, not as Galileo had suggested, the arc of a circle, but a curve
very much related to a circle: the cycloid. A cycloid is the path traced out by a point on
the circumference of a circle as the circle moves along a straight line (as shown in Figure
3 below.) A physical argument (rather than a mathematical one which will be explored
shortly) for why the Brachistochrone is a curve and not a straight line is rather simple: as
the object initially traverses a curve, the vertical component of the gravitational force acts
more predominantly on the object, allowing it to pick up speed which the object then
retains as it transitions into a more horizontal motion for the duration of the fall.
Figure 3: The path of a cycloid
But more interestingly, due to its degree of difficulty, the Brachistochrone
problem in fact prompted the invention of what would be a new branch of mathematics
designed specifically for tackling such “optimization” problems. While revisiting the
problem in the mid 1700s, Leonhard Euler developed this more sophisticated method
which he used to obtain the same solution as his predecessors; a method which he would
later call the “calculus of variations.” 4
3
4
Ibid.
Ibid.
5
�II. The Calculus of Variations and the Euler-Lagrange Equation:
The calculus of variations deals with maximizing or minimizing (“optimizing”)
functionals and integrals of functionals. In ordinary mathematics and calculus, a function
is a relation between a set of inputs and a corresponding permissible set of outputs with
the property that every input (usually defined on , the real numbers) “maps” to a single
output (also a real number.) Functionals on the other hand, are functions of functions;
they instead map from a set of functions to the real numbers. The calculus of variations
therefore seeks to find the curve, surface etc., for which integrals of functionals of the
form
b
I ( y ) F ( y, y , x)dx
a
attain a stationary value (maximum or minimum.) Unlike conventional calculus where
these points occur at locations where f´(x)=0 , extrema of functionals occur only when
the Euler-Lagrange partial differential equation is satisfied: 5
F d F
0
y dx y
In deriving the full solution to the Brachistochrone problem we can see where
contemporary mathematicians would have hit the “snag” which Euler bypassed through
this new method of variational calculus. Since the solution we are looking for is the
equation of a path which produces minimum time, which could be one of any number of
different possible curves, it turns out we are in fact trying to minimize (an integral of) a
functional!
We first consider the velocity a particle would have at any point along the curve
by utilizing the conservation of energy which states that the total change in kinetic and
potential energy must be zero:
KE PE 0
where the kinetic and potential energies of the particle are given by
KE
1 2
mv and PE mgy x
2
Leonid A. Dickey, “Do Dogs Know Calculus of Variations?,” College Mathematics
Journal 37, No. 1 (January 2006): 21.
5
6
�Therefore since the conservation of energy tells us that the total potential energy of the
particle at the top must be converted to an equal amount of kinetic energy at the bottom,
solving for the velocity v in the conservation of energy yields the famous
v( y ) 2 gy
We next consider an infinitesimal element of distance that the particle would traverse
along the curve:
ds
dx 2 dy 2
dy
1
dx
2
and then we apply these definitions to calculate the time required to traverse a distance ds:
dy
1
ds
dx
dt
v
2 gy
2
and finally integrate from A to B (sum up) each of these differential time elements to
obtain the total time of descent:
B
t dt
A
dy
1
dx
2 gy
B
A
2
It is this integral which we therefore wish to minimize, so from here we would apply the
Euler-Lagrange equation which would yield a first-order, non-linear, ordinary differential
equation the solution of which is best given by the parametric equations:
1 2
k sin
2
Which precisely describe a cycloid!
x
y
1 2
k 1 cos
2
III. A Linear Approximation to the Brachistochrone Problem
The first part of the original research conducted for the purposes of this paper
was done as part of an investigation into a two-segment linear approximation to the
typical cycloidal brachistochrone. The question was posed as follows:
Consider a unit square as shown in the accompanying diagram. If we create a
path comprised of the two line segments shown, at what angle α does the time
for an object of mass m to travel from A to C become a minimum?
7
�Figure 4: Diagram of a two-segment linear approximation to the Brachistochrone problem
The motivation is to obtain an equation for the total time as a function of alpha and apply
a theorem from ordinary calculus to locate the point of minimization. To do this, we
calculate the time of flight for the object along the path by ordinary calculus and its
applications in Newton’s second law. We first sum up all of the relevant components of
the forces acting on the object in the direction of motion (in this case the components of
the forces acting in the x-direction; we do not care about the y-components as we are
assuming the surface is solid and that the object does not “bounce” or lose contact with
the surface during its motion.) We then apply Newton’s second law which states that the
net force acting on an object is equal to the object’s mass times its acceleration. This
allows us to obtain an equation for the acceleration of the object as it travels down the
inclined portion of the path:
Fx ma x mg sin
a x g sin
We can now apply what we know from conventional calculus. Acceleration is defined as
the rate of change of an object’s velocity, which is in turn defined as the rate of change of
the object’s position. In calculus terminology, a rate of change is known as a derivative
and therefore we can anti-differentiate (integrate) the object’s acceleration twice in order
to obtain an equation for its position as a function of time:
vt at dt g sin dt gt sin
xt vt dt gt sin dt
8
1 2
gt sin
2
�(*Note: As part of the process of integration there is usually an arbitrary constant added
to the anti-derivative. However, since by convention we have the object beginning from
rest and starting at an initial position x(0) = 0, the constants of integration drop out.)
At this point we now can apply basic trigonometry: the sine of any angle of a right
triangle is equal to the leg opposite the angle divided by the hypotenuse of the triangle:
1
sin
d
Therefore the distance the object will travel along the inclined portion of the path is given
by
d
1
csc
sin
We can now use our equation of position obtained earlier to calculate the time taken to
travel this distance:
1
1
gt 2 sin
sin 2
t AB
2
csc
g
At this point we now have half of the information we need in order to make the attempt at
minimizing the time of flight. We now proceed to calculate the amount of time it would
take for the object to travel along the bottom portion of our path, in the same manner as
above with one minor difference: gravity no longer acts to accelerate the object; it merely
slides along the bottom beginning with the velocity attained during its motion down the
incline. This velocity can be calculated by conservation of energy; the total potential
energy the object had at the top of the incline is converted fully into kinetic energy.
Therefore:
1
mv 2 v 2 g
2
and by the same method as before we integrate to obtain the equation for position as a
function of time and use it to calculate the time to travel along the bottom:
PE top mg 1 KE bottom
9
�
x(t ) v(t ) dt
2 g dt 2 g t
1 x 1 cot
t BC
2g t
1 cot
2g
(*Note: We have once again utilized trigonometry in the middle step as there exists a
relationship between the distance x and the tangent of the angle α given by:
Opposite 1
tan
)
Adjacent x
We now have constructed an equation for the total time it would take for the object to
travel along the entire two-segment linear path:
t AC t AB t BC
2
1 cot
csc
g
2g
It is this equation which we now must “optimize.” We wish to find the angle α for which
the time is a minimum and in order to do so, we must apply a theorem from ordinary
calculus:
Suppose that f is a function defined on an open interval containing the point x0.
If f has a relative extremum at x = x0, then x = x0 is a critical point of f; that is,
either f’(x0) = 0 or f is not differentiable at x0.6
In short this theorem tells us that if we take the first derivative of our function for the
total time and set it equal to zero we should be able to find the critical point α at which
the minimum time occurs:
t AC
2
csc 2
csc cot
0
g
2g
which reduces very nicely to the simple equation
cos
1
2
1
or, cos 1
2
which since 0<α<π/2 , yields a final answer for the optimal angle as
Howard Anton, Irl Bivens, and Stephen Davis, Calculus: Late Transcendentals Single
and Multivariable, 8th ed. (Wiley, 2005), 235.
6
10
�
3
60
and we can now substitute this angle back into our original equation for the total time to
obtain our first time of flight calculation:
t AC
1 cot
2
3
csc
0.61679 seconds
g
3
2g
As part of the investigation into this linear approximation, we also calculate (for
comparison purposes) the time of flight for the path of shortest distance: the direct
straight line connecting points A and C. We approach this calculation by direct
integration as in the method shown earlier when deriving the general (cycloidal) solution.
The equation for the line connecting the two points is given by y=-x. For ease of
calculation we have shifted our coordinate system as shown in the diagram below; A is
the origin, and C is the point (1,-1):
Figure 5: The straight line path given by the equation y=-x
1
t dt
0
1
0
ds
v
1
0
dy
1
dx
2 gy
2
1
dx
0
1 (1) 2
2 g ( x)
dx
1
1
g
0
1
x
dx
(*Note: By convention we take all velocities to be positive, hence why we have hit the
denominator of the second to last term with an “extra” minus sign.)
11
�
2 x 10
g
1
2
g
0.963855
This confirms that the two-segment linear approximation is in fact (despite its larger path
length) quicker than the straight line!
IV. Non-Linear Approximations to the Brachistochrone Problem
The second portion of the investigation performed for this paper involves
studying two different methods of non-linear approximations to the Brachistochrone
Problem: circular and parabolic. The approach to calculating the time of flights along
these types of paths is almost identical to the previous method: we setup and directly
integrate an equation for the total time. The caveat here is that the integration is nowhere
near as trivial as it was in the linear case. The integrals we encounter are a special type of
integral known as “elliptic” integrals. The difficulty in evaluating these integrals is that
while many are tabulated, there exists no actual analytical solution; they typically cannot
be evaluated in terms of elementary functions.7 We are therefore left only with two
options to perform the computations: utilize a computer program to determine the value
of the integrals or apply some knowledge from calculus as a method of numerically
approximating the integrals.
The Circular Approximation
The first non-linear path we consider is the arc of a circle as shown in the
diagram below:
Figure 6: The path of a circular arc
We now setup the expression for the total time (this time utilizing polar coordinates):
Paul Glaister, “Transformations of Improper Integrals,” Mathematical Gazette (1997):
93.
7
12
�dt
rd
ds
v
2gr sin
where the differential arc length element ds is equal to the radius of the circle times an
infinitesimal change in the angle θ, and the velocity is obtained once again by the
conservation of energy:
1 2
mv mgy mgr sin
2
Therefore when we integrate we obtain the expression for the total time:
1
t dt
0
2
rd
2 gr sin
0
r
2g
2
0
d
sin
but since we have chosen to perform the calculation on the unit square, the radius r is
equal to 1 so the integral we wish to evaluate is:
1
t
2
2g
0
d
sin
As mentioned before, this integral cannot be computed by analytical methods as an antiderivative does not exist. Therefore we instead utilize a method taught in calculus which
involves performing a substitution to convert the integral into a more “friendly” form and
then expanding the integrand in an infinite power series known as a “Taylor Series” (or in
our case since it will be centered at x=0, a “Maclaurin Series”) which we then can
integrate term-by-term. We begin with the u-substitution:
Let sin x=u2. Then x=sin-1 u2 and dx= (2u)du/(1-u4)½. The limits of integration
will also change since: 0≤sin x≤1 0≤u2≤1 0≤u≤1, and our integral becomes:
t
2
1
2g
1
4
0 1 u
du
We now utilize the concept mentioned above from ordinary calculus which states that a
function (in this case our integrand) can be expanded in an infinite power series of the form
f ( x)
a n x n ao a1 x a 2 x 2 L
n 0
13
�where the coefficients of the terms in the series are related to the values of the derivatives
of the function about the center of the series, as given by Taylor’s Formula:
f ( n) (0)
n!
an
We first start by expanding a more simple function, f(x)=1/(1-x)½ in this way, and will
later perform a small substitution to obtain the series for our integrand:
f (0) 1
f ( x)
3
1
1 x 2
2
f (0)
f ( x)
5
3
1 x 2
4
f (0)
1
2!
2 2 2 1!
1 3
2
2
4!
4
2 2!
and therefore by mathematical induction,
f ( n) (0)
2n !
2 2n n !
n 0
so then,
f ( x)
2n !
1
1 x
22n n!2 x n
n 0
We now perform the small substitution we alluded to earlier. We replace x by x4 to get
the series for our integrand:
1
1 x 4
2n !
2 2n n !2 x 4n
n 0
and we are now in position to compute a numerical series for our integral which
represents the total time for the object to travel down the arc of a circle:
t
2
2g
1
0
dx
1 x 4
2
2g
which finally gives us:
14
n 0
1
2n ! x 4n1
2 2n n !2 4n 1 0
�t
2
2n !
4n n!2 4n 1
2g
n 0
(For completeness we check to ensure that this numerical series does in fact converge to
some finite number by applying the “Ratio Test” from ordinary calculus which states
that:
an 1
and L 1, then the series converges.8
n a n
If L lim
which, although we omit the algebra, is true for our series.)
Now that we have obtained a numerical series for our integral, we can make a fairly
accurate approximation of the total time required for the object to travel down the path by
evaluating the first few terms of the series. In addition to doing this, we can (and have)
also enlist the aid of mathematical computer software (in this case Maple) to evaluate the
integral for us and confirm that our approximation method is accurate. If we do this, we
obtain our third time of flight calculation: t≈.59192 seconds.
The Parabolic Approximation
The second non-linear path we consider is that of a parabola shown in figure 7. Before
we can do anything else, we first need the equation for this parabola. In order to find the
parabola which goes through the two points (0,0) and (1,-1) we begin with the general
form and make note of what information we already have:
8
Anton, Bivens, and Davis, Calculus, 666.
15
�Figure 7: A parabolic path
y ax 2 bx c
y (0) 0
y (1) 1
In addition to these pieces of information, we also make the observation that at the
“turning point” of the parabola, the function has a horizontal tangent (slope = 0), which in
calculus terminology means the derivative of the function must equal zero:
y 2ax b ,
y (1) 0
Utilizing this information provides us with a system of linear equations, the solution of
which gives us the coefficients for our parabola:
a b 1
2a b 0
a 1, b 2
and our parabola is
y x2 2x
We now proceed by direct integration as before, to calculate the total time required for
the object to slide down the parabola:
1
t dt
0
1
0
ds
v
1
0
dy
1
dx
2 gy
2
1
dx
1 2 x 2 2
2 g x 2 2 x
0
dx
1
2g
1
0
4 x 2 8x 5
2x x2
dx
and for simplicity and brevity we utilize Maple to calculate this definite integral for us,
yielding our fourth and final time of flight calculation: t≈.59496 seconds.
V. Results, Conclusions, and Further Study
Summarized in the table below are our time of flight calculations for each one of
our Brachistochrone approximations:
16
�Type of Path
Straight Line
Approximate Time of Flight
(seconds)
.63855
Two-Segment Linear
.61679
Circular Arc
.59192
Parabolic Arc
.59496
Table 1: Time of Flight Data
From this data we can see that the order of quickest paths is: circular, parabolic, twosegment linear and straight line respectively. Intuitively this perhaps makes sense: we
already know that the quickest path is the cycloid which is in fact related to the circle, so
naturally the circle would be the quickest among these approximations (and in fact would
justify the conjecture of Galileo if we did not know any better.) The parabola comes in as
second quickest since it is still a curve, which allows it to hold true to our earlier
explanation regarding gravity and why the Brachistochrone is a curve and not a straight
line. Finally, the two-segment linear path comes in third as despite the fact that it is not a
curve, the steepness of the 60º line relative to the straight line (which lies at 45°) still
allows the object to pick up a little more speed than it normally would.
While we have merely scratched the surface of this fascinating subject, it is
evident that there exist many applications in the physical world for what we have studied
here, particularly in engineering and sports. For example, the design of roller coasters is
often influenced by the Brachistochrone problem. When designing the track of a roller
coaster, the primary goal of the engineer is to develop a ride that will maximize the thrill
of the riders. A few ways this can be accomplished might be by maximizing velocity and
thereby also minimizng the time of flight between sections of the track. In shaping the
track similar to a cycloid, the engineer does just that, and allows the cars to rapidly pick
up speed giving the riders a terrific thrill. Or in sports such as professional downhill
skiing or bobsledding, the entire goal is to reach the end or bottom in the quickest time,
faster than all the other racers; almost a word-for-word description of the Brachistochrone
problem.
17
�There is of course much more still that can be investigated with regards to
approximation methods for the Brachistochrone problem. While not presented here, it is
of course possible to consider the inclusion of friction. The magnitude of the force of
friction is related to the normal force acting on an object, with direction opposite the
velocity vector (which is tangent to the curve) as shown in the diagram below.
Figure 8: Diagram of the forces acting on a particle traversing a curve with friction
So given the equation for the particular path in question (which even if not known, can
usually be calculated as we have done) it is possible to include an expression for the
frictional force in Newton’s Laws and calculate the time of flight for varying degrees of
kinetic friction. In doing so, one might pose the question: at what value of μk does the
Brachistochrone path lose its “ideal” nature in favor of the straight line? There is no
doubt that at some point the non-conservative nature of the frictional force will kick into
effect because of the excess path length of the Brachistochrone relative to the straight
line, and at that point perhaps the straight line does in fact become the ideal path.
Another possible route one might investigate is the possibility of optimizing the
time of flight within families of curves by varying parameters. Perhaps it is possible to
find say, the ideal exponential path among all possible exponential paths e-x,e-2x,e-3x,…,
e-αx by varying the parameter α. The motivation is basically the same as it was in our
construction of the two-segment linear approximation: obtain an expression for the total
time as a function of the parameter, take the first derivative, and ascertain if there is a
particular exponential curve which minimizes the time of flight.9 And of course this
For further exploration into this method which has already been investigated using
parabolas and Nth roots, refer to the article by LaDawn Haws and Terry Kiser titled
9
18
�method could perhaps also be applied to other types of curves such as circles, or perhaps
even a series of polynomials. In fact if one could manipulate the coefficients of a series of
polynomials and perhaps in doing so prove that the series converges to a cycloid, then
such a calculation would provide an alternate method of obtaining the general solution to
the Brachistochrone problem without the need for variational calculus which would be
quite interesting. However, no matter where the investigation goes from here there is no
doubt that the Brachistochrone problem will in the future continue to fascinate, captivate,
and challenge the best minds in physics and mathematics, just as it has for hundreds of
years.
VI. Bibliography
Anton, Howard, Irl Bivens, and Stephen Davis. Calculus: Late Transcendentals Single
and Multivariable. 8th ed. Wiley, 2005.
Benson, Donald C. “An Elementary Solution of the Brachistochrone Problem.” The
American Mathematical Monthly 76, No. 8 (October 1969): 890.
Dickey, Leonid A. “Do Dogs Know Calculus of Variations?” College Mathematics
Journal 37, No. 1 (January 2006): 20–23.
Glaister, Paul. “Transformations of Improper Integrals.” Mathematical Gazette (1997):
93–94.
Haws, LaDawn, and Terry Kiser. “Exploring the Brachistochrone Problem.” The
American Mathematical Monthly 102, No. 4 (April 1995): 330.
“Exploring the Brachistochrone Problem,” which can be found in The American
Mathematical Monthly 102, no. 4 (April 1995).
19
����Establishing God: The Effects of
Missionization and Colonialism in Vanuatu
Elizabeth Cohen (Anthropology and Sociology)1
The South Pacific Islands are an incredibly large portion of the world that could give
modern scholars insight into the history of religion and missionization and it has not been
explored enough. This particular study focuses on Vanuatu, a country in the South Pacific
that consists of eighty-three islands. I will be focusing specifically on Pele Island which
has a population of approximately one hundred and twenty people. While only a few
hundred miles away lies Port Vila, a modernized part of the country which consists of
constant imports and exports as well as modern technology and tourist attractions, the
natives of Pele Island have a very strong attachment to their land and their environment
and refuse to lose their heritage. On Pele, it is apparent that the missionaries failed to
integrate the Ni-Vanuatu cultural understanding of religion and pushed Christianity as a
completely new way of life ignoring their already established cultural customs.
Ultimately, when the Christian missionaries left the islands they also left behind a clash
of cultural morals and values among the local people. This study explores this more in
depth and looks closely at how and why Christian religious influences have affected not
only their individual family values but also the values they have as a collective
community at large.
I. Introduction
The South Pacific Islands include twenty-two island countries spread across
over one third of the globe (See Figure 1). Each island country has a unique story of how
colonialism and missionization, and specifically how the role of the Christian god was
brought to their home disrupting hundreds of years of their local cultural customs and
traditions (George, 2010). Vanuatu specifically has a rich and disturbing history of
colonialism. The country lies between the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia, and
contains a string of eighty-three islands. The country of Vanuatu was previously known
as New Hebrides and previously the British and French governments owned individual
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Celeste Gagnon and Dr. Walter Kaelber in
partial fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
1
23
�islands that made up the country, before gaining independence in June of 1980. The
current population is 202,200 people, with the largest ethnic groups being Ni-Vanuatu
and Melanesian. The most common language spoken is Bislama, a creole derived from
English, French and a native island tongue. However, there are over one hundred and ten
languages spoken throughout the eighty-three islands, most of which are dialects of
Bislama, however English and French are also widely spoken. Tourism is now a major
industry that contributes to a large portion of income for Vanuatu’s residents.
Additionally, many of Vanuatu’s residents gain their income by working in the
agricultural field, growing cocoa and provide beef and timber for export to neighboring
countries such as Australia and New Zealand.
Although Vanuatu consists of eighty-three islands I will be focusing specifically
on Pele Island (See Figure 2), which has a population of approximately 120 people. Only
a few hundred miles away lies Port Vila, a modernized part of the country characterized
by import and export activity as well as modern technology and tourist attractions
(George, 2010). In contrast, the natives of Pele Island have a very strong attachment to
their land and their environment and resist modernization in favor of traditional practices.
Moreover, the people of Pele refuse to incorporate new technologies and, therefore are
among the few people left in the world to live a self-sustaining life growing their own
food, building their own shelters and joining as a community to take care of the raising of
their children. Religion has always been an issue in Vanuatu, since the early European
missionaries came to the islands to convert the native people to Christianity. Primarily in
the 1800’s missionaries were at their peak and well on their way to their goal of
converting natives, especially on smaller islands such as Pele, which were and still are
very isolated to current modernization (George, 2010). Today, some of the islanders still
hold to their ancestral tradition in combination with their faith in Christianity, while other
natives have rejected their traditional religious beliefs all together. On Pele Island the
religious influence the missionaries left behind has torn at the fabric of their community
over the last century. Furthermore, it is apparent that the missionaries failed to integrate
the Ni-Vanuatu cultural understanding of religion and pushed Christianity as a
completely new way of life ignoring their already established cultural customs. Taylor
(2010) explains how this caused a clash in the minds of the native people leaving them
with unanswered questions and anxiety about god and their culture. Ultimately, when the
Christian missionaries left the islands they also left behind a clash of cultural morals and
values among the local people. This study explores this more in depth and looks closely
24
�at how and why Christian religious influences have affected not only their individual
family values but also the values they have as a collective community at large.
II. Pre-Missionization Vanuatu
Social Political Organization
There have been many societies organized in chiefdoms around the world
(White, 2006). In most countries throughout the South Pacific that maintain a chiefly
structure, chiefly leadership was granted to those who had strong personal qualities, in
combination with economic achievement (Bolton, 1998). Traditionally, the chief was
chosen from a family with a history of producing community leaders, however it is
important to note that leadership did not always have to be hereditary. Additionally, the
chief was expected to be a person who was able to protect his people from potential
threats to their traditional cultural customs. The word chief could also be described and
defined in the anthropological context as a community leader, but more specifically as a
person who stands as a representative for the community when it comes to dealing with
interactions with people of the outside world, which differs drastically from a nation-state
power structure (Bolton, 1998).
The countries of the South Pacific have, for the most part have had chiefly
power structures (Bolton, 1998). However, during colonialism it was the primary goal of
missionaries to eliminate the power structure and hierarchy of the chiefs that held
authority within their separate communities in order to implement a new structure and
control by a modern nation-state. It was clear that colonialists took the Western approach
by introducing formal education in attempt to modernize natives and destroy the chiefly
structure. According to White (2006), Western formal schooling was a symbol of
modernity and technological advancement that still, post-colonialism, is forcing its way
into non-Western societies. Placing the Western model for schools and education systems
at the forefront of non-Western people’s value systems. Implementing a Western
schooling system proved a form of symbolic capital, which ultimately introduced prestige
into dominantly egalitarian societies (White, 2006). While most colonialists knew chiefs
would ultimately feel threatened by implanting formal education and therefore destroying
their traditional power structure, it seemed to be a pattern that missionaries granted chiefs
the roles of being priests and teachers in their respective societies (White, 2006).
However, in most societies this caused tension due to pulling apart their frame of
reference when it came to status and power structure, later causing them issues in
25
�adapting and determining status differentiation. Furthermore, English became the only
language to be taught and spoken in schools across the South Pacific, which would later
become a new symbol for accumulating personal capital. Chiefs were automatically
granted the role of being identified as individuals with a high level of education,
regardless of having yet gone through the process of Western schooling. This caused a
cultural shift that encouraged colonialists to implement their Western ideas and
ultimately redefine the role of the chief. Now the chief would be chosen by the level of
achieved education and Western idea of status.
It was the goal of missionaries to eliminate any rituals that were once deemed
dangerous to outsiders of the community, in order to protect themselves during the
mission process. This was achieved by granting the chiefs the prestigious role of being
spiritual intermediaries between the common people and the Christian god (White, 2006).
Securing this role to higher-ranking chiefs was essential in order to acquire the land the
missionaries needed in order to establish posts and schools. Christian missionaries would
depend on the cooperation of the chiefs in order to achieve their goals and assume
smooth daily operations, especially during the founding years of establishing their
mission schools across the South Pacific.
Particularly in Vanuatu, prior to missionization, it was important that the chief
was seen by his people as a sub-god or a visionary (Spriggs, 1985). There are many ways
in which chiefs were separated from the common people in Vanuatu. Chiefs practiced
polygamy and were required to have two or three wives, while the common men
practiced monogamy. The chief of a village tended to marry with only other chiefly
families or families that carried prestige in a village. Each chief was granted a special
area of the land that was labeled his own where he was able to practice important
ceremonies including marriages and sacrifices. While all people practiced cannibalism
after the sacrificial death of a person in their community, only the chief was permitted to
regularly practice the eating of human flesh. Like the act of cannibalism, the drinking
Kava, a native narcotic drink, could only be routinely done by the chief. The common
people only consumed Kava during a special ritual event with the permission of the chief.
In death, the body of the chief would be buried under his house, with his head exposed.
The body would be provided food offerings until the head had rotted down to the bone. It
would be then be placed on a pole as a ritual of sacrifice. The bodies of common people
were dumped into the sea. It was also common for many people to be killed at the chiefs
funeral as a sacrifice to accompany the leader in the after life. With the introduction to
Christianity, these cultural traditions were slowly changed. Chiefs were told that these
26
�traditions were sinful and instead were encouraged to become leaders of the new
Christian god and practice new Western cultural traditions. One of the key aspects that
encouraged this change was that the Christian missionaries began to introduce the
Western concept of sin and the consequences that would come from accumulating sin and
going to hell in the afterlife. Previously, in Ni-Vanuatu culture sin was accumulated by a
person whom practiced stinginess and lacked generosity amongst the community. It was
seen as noble for the poor people of the community to starve themselves for months in
order to save their funds and crops to purchase a large pig or hog to contribute to a
community celebratory feast. The person to provide the largest food contribution would
be given praise and therefore accumulate equity which would in turn give them a higher
chance of going to heaven in the after life. However, with teaching the Christian idea of
sin came the abolishment of cannibalism, polygamy, the consumption of kava and killing
women in the community. Instead, Chiefs were encouraged to practice Western nuclear
family values, which included being dedicated Christians.
The role of women in the community also changed dramatically with the
introduction of Christianity (Spriggs, 1985). It was noted by early missionaries Inglis and
Geddie in 1854 that there was incredibly disproportionate number of males. This was due
to the high rate of female infacide, as well as the practice of widow strangulization. A
ritual that occurred after the death of a woman’s husband where she would be strangled
to death in order to accompany her husband in the after life. This was done because a
widowed woman in Ni-Vanuatu society were not viewed as valuable if she was infertile
and had no husband to which to attend. It is clear that the best customers in the beginning
to the early missionaries were young men and women. Women because they were
suffering from widow strangulization and infacide but young men because they had very
few women left to marry. Primarily these two groups accepted Christianity because they
had the most to gain from a new set of customs and the destruction of the traditional
religious and social system. However, first the missionaries had to deprogram the NiVanuatu traditional religious beliefs and demonize their god’s in order to be successful in
implementing religious rules amongst the Ni-Vanuatu culture.
Religious Beliefs Pre-Missionization
The native god, Tagaro, has a special place in the hearts and the history of
Vanuatu. The spirit Tagaro came from the Polonysian god Tangaroa, whom is best
known as the New Zealand Maori god of the ocean (Taylor, 2008). While Tagaro is a
spirit filled with contradiction he is also the soul of decision making, who is responsible
27
�for leading the chiefs who have the power to lead the people as well as the god who
controls the essence of mother nature at her best and her worst. Tagaro shares a similar
character and demeanor to the god Shiva who is important in Hinduism, and who is
referred to as the god of destruction and recreation (Taylor, 2008). Shiva, like Tagaro, is
paradoxical god who represents all things opposite; he is both fully female and fully
male, he represents destruction and recreation, and is thought to be constantly present on
earth and in the universe. Moreover, for some people he is the god of light, love and
forgiveness and for others he is seen as a murderous, dark god of fire and who is known
to spread bad luck. However, unlike Shiva, Tagaro is responsible for giving luck to his
people and is responsible for guiding his people on the consumption of certain foods and
movements that will help with continuing fertility. Taylor (2008) shows clearly how
Tagaro is a stranger god that has been lost in the midst of Christianity’s almighty
forgiving god. Pre-colonialism Tagaro and other traditional native gods contributed to the
political and social ideas that informed the accepted social roles of people living in their
community. Therefore, once Christianity changed the role of god, specifically Tagaro and
his demeanor, so social roles were subject to change. Before the idea of the Christian god
took a strong hold in the Ni-Vanuatu culture, Tagaro was known as the all-knowing
creator of the universe. However, since the introduction of Christianity, the current role
that Tagaro plays is very confusing and somewhat frustrating to the natives. Some people
blame Tagaro for the history of sin and label the god as a cannibalistic murderer, who
contributes to an inward conflict among the people.
In the past missionaries had simply ignored the presence of the native gods,
however by the mid nineteenth century it became evident to the missionaries that Tagaro
would be an ongoing issue with which they would have to deal with (Taylor, 2008). To
this end, they initiated a dialogue with the Ni-Vanuatu people that presented Tagaro as an
oppositional figure to the Christian god. They represented Tagaro as a murderous
misguided god, who had the goal of tricking his people and the new Christian god of
light. The Christian gods goal was to forgive the sins that Targaro had put upon his
people. It is evident that the missionaries used the native god, Bwatmahanga, who is
known to be a deity involved in the spread of knowledge and the provider of peace when
Mother Nature is angry with her people, as an example of how Tagaro was the devil.
There is no clear evidence that the story of Bwatmahanga and Tagaro, titled “The Story
of Raga,” originated prior to the arrival of the missionaries. Rather it is assumed by
scholars that the story was created by the missionaries in an attempt to demonize Tagaro
in the eyes of the natives. The story tells of Tagaro and Bwatmahanga’s friendship. One
28
�day Tagaro wished to visit Bwatmahanga to collect food, however the wind was too
strong to cross the river by canoe so Bwatmahanga threw the food across the river, for
Tagaro to eat. Once the wind subsided Tagaro was able to successfully cross the river and
Bwatmahanga and him became close friends. The two gods travel around the islands
together, however Tagaro began to trick Bwathahanga. For instance, Tagaro told him to
grow his yams upside down, and talked him into building a canoe out of the wrong wood
which cause it to sink. Tagaro even tricked him into burning himself to death in his own
home. Thereafter, Bwathahanga was referred to as the god of mother earth and fire. He
declared, “whatever island Tagaro should make, I shall be there as fire” (Taylor, 2008,
pp. 426). It is clear that Tagaro was an easy god to manipulate in the eyes of the natives
by tweaking and redefining the god through an oral story. Tagaro was used by the
missionaries to create opposition to the good almighty Christian god.
III. The History of Missionization
Anthropological analysis of Christian missionary societies have discovered a
formulaic approach to conversion among South Pacific natives (Morrell, 1946). The
missionary goal was to establish a relationship with chiefs in order to protect their
mission. Most of the documentation that has informed present day scholars on the issue
of missionization and colonialism specifically in Vanuatu and the South Pacific is in the
form of letters that missionaries themselves wrote and sent to their families, churches and
newspapers in Europe in which they described their experiences in detail about their
personal trials and tribulations in dealing with attempting to westernize and spread their
word of god to their uncivilized culture (Smith, 1997). Archaeological evidence suggests
that the islands of Vanuatu were first colonized four thousand years prior to colonialism
(Spriggs, 1985). The first recorded outsider coming to the islands was a man from
Polynesia, Roy Mata, sometime during the first three years of the 1600’s, followed by a
Spaniard, Ferdinandde Quiros, in 1606. While we do not have much information
regarding the first two earliest non Ni-Vanuatu men to set foot on the islands, we do have
information regarding Captain Cook who first recorded seeing the island of Anelcauhat in
August 1774 (Taylor, 2010). As Cook approached, the Ni-Vanuatu natives came to meet
him in canoes waving large spears and shouting, in fear he proceeded to sail to the island
of Tanna where the natives ignored him and let Cook leave and attend to his business in
peace. The first Europeans to have landed on the island were Ward and Lawler who came
to cut sandalwood. Prior to the first European missionary in 1839 it is documented that
there were a number of sandalwood cutters and whaling vessels that routinely visited the
29
�islands of Vanuatu. From 1830 to 1839 most of the people who came for trade did not
survive. In 1839, John Williams became the first European missionary to visit Vanuatu
under the London Missionary Society (Smith, 1997). However, his visit was short as he
was killed by a tribe of natives on the island of Erromanga when he wandered inland to
discover new people to spread his word of god. Prior to his death Williams had assigned
three Samoan teachers to attempt to live on the island of Tanna under the London
Missionary Society in 1842. It is known that they were the first Christian missionaries to
attempt to visit Tanna, which Captain Cook had previously spotted in 1774. They were
later joined by Henry Nisbet, George Turner and Thomas Heath who were reverends
representing the London Missionary Society. However, in 1842 there was a serious
epidemic that wiped out three quarters of the population. It is estimated that the
population of Vanuatu was 20,000 prior to 1842 but post plague, the population had
dwindled to approximately 4,600 (Smith, 1997). Furthermore, due to the plague,
reverends Henry Nisbet, George Turner and Thomas Heath were only there for seven
short months before they were forced to flee to Samoa in fear of their lives. The London
Missionary Society worked with the people of Samoa, who they had converted some
years before this time, and sent them in their place as they were able to spread the word
of god in a safer way due to having less of a cultural barrier between them and the NiVanuatu natives. After several attempts Reverend John Geddie and his wife arrived in
1848 and setup the first successful and permanent Christian mission base on the island of
Aneityum in Vanuatu, remaining there until 1872.
Reverend John Geddie of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia, unlike
Williams, conversed with the Samoan missionaries who had a good understanding of the
geography of the islands and devised the most effective places to send his Samoan
teachers whom he brought with him in order to help spread the word of god (Spriggs,
1985). Geddie’s plan was to send his teachers to first convert the chiefs of the islands he
deemed as safe, and then let the chiefs convert their people with their social and political
power. Because Geddie worked through Ni-Vanuatu’s cultural customs, he was very
successful in his endeavor. Only ten years later in 1858, there was a school in every
district and a Christian Church in most of the districts on the major islands of Vanuatu.
From 1852 to 1876 Geddie was joined by Reverend John Inglis of the Reformed
Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It is evident from their journals that they differed very
much in their views and thoughts on how much authority they had over the Ni-Vanuatu
people. Inglis described their authority as very limited and thought that they were not
very influential. However, Geddie thought that they were in a sense starting a Christian
30
�revolution by involving the chiefs in their endeavor. In 1851 there was a flu epidemic that
killed a great number of people, mostly affecting villages that had yet to be converted.
This news of disease coming to the villages that had not yet accepted the word of god
was perfect for Geddie’s mission, as he then was able to mark those people who had died
from the flu as members of only the heathen villages. This gave the missionaries power,
because they were able to label the villages hit by the flu epidemic as villages receiving
the punishment from god.
It only took a few months after the flu epidemic for Geddie and his team to
implement new laws to push their Christian values into the native people’s every day
lives and to slowly begin to change their cultural customs (Spriggs, 1985). Because the
team of missionaries had vaguely similar idea of the mental image of heaven and hell that
the Ni-Vanuatu people had, it was easier to implement the new rules by simply changing
the rules for entry into heaven. Previously stinginess was the only a social act in the NiVanuatu culture that would condemn someone to hell. The Christian missionaries aimed
to change stinginess to sin, including the deadly sins identified in the Christian Bible.
“There was no hint of hell or punishment in the next life, in the Ni-Vanuatu traditional
religious beliefs but on the contrary punishment consisted of depriving the offender of
pleasure in this life, either through premature death or through sickness leading to a lack
of success” (Taylor, 2010, pp. 436).
Geddie began by outlawing all feasts as he saw them as a waste of large
quantities of food, and because they included gatherings of large numbers of nonconverted people who were potentially opposing the Christian faith (Spriggs, 1985). The
only feasts that were allowed to be held were part of marriage ceremonies or the openings
of new churches. These occasions were closely monitored by Geddie and his team. It was
in Geddie and Inglis’s best interest to re-establish the chiefs power amongst their people
in order to gain their people's support once again. It was agreed after the meeting that the
chiefs would now hold high positions in the church as deacons and be eligible to
eventually become reverends. At the end of 1854 Geddie and his partner Inglis asked the
chiefs of the surrounding islands to come together for a meeting in an attempt to form a
united government democracy. This was in part an attempt for the chiefs to once again
feel important and powerful as they had lost power with the introduction of Christianity.
Now instead of the chiefs holding the entire responsibility for protecting his people, god
was now responsible for protecting his people. At the end of 1858 there were fifty six
schools placed on every major island in Vanuatu, with a missionary teacher placed in
each school spreading the word of god and successfully reaching the young men and
31
�women in the villages leading to profound changes in Ni-Vanuatu cultural customs. By
the 1959 Geddie and his team had successfully banned polygamy, cannibalism, feasting,
war, widow strangulization, female infacide, dumping bodies at sea, as well as tobacco
and kava consumption. At this point most people in Vanuatu considered themselves
Presbyterian Christians.
The Lead Up To Independence
Geddie and Inglis paved the way for many other missionaries to come in to the
islands of Vanuatu and spread the word of god without fearing for their lives (Taylor,
2010). They had successfully transformed local ideas of stinginess into sin and created
an eternal hell as a source of punishment. By the late 1950’s a new movement was
beginning in Vanuatu that consisted of a combination of Protestant, Catholic and
Anglican ideas. The islands were no longer ruled by Presbyterian Christians but was now
divided: Anglicanism in the North Pentecost, East Ambae and Maewo; the Churches of
Christ (also known at Presbyterian Church) in Nduindui and Wesr Ambae; and
Catholicism dominating the South Pentecost (See Figure 1). However, there was a
movement emerging that Ni-Vanuatu which came to be called “kustom,” referring to
those people whom were looking back to their traditional beliefs and some traditional
cultural practices (Taylor, 2010). This led to a number of kustom counter movements that
caused conflict between church and state during the 1960’s. Due to these counter
movements and cultural and religious issues between the church and state there was a
clear drive during the 1970’s to push for independence. In June 1980, after seventy-four
years, New Hebrides officially became independent from French and British rule and was
renamed Vanuatu (MacClancy, 1981). However, the political parties that had
successfully formed for the first time in the 1970’s left the Ni-Vanuatu people with a
foreign concept of democracy that they were not prepared to accept easily. While
Vanuatu had once been converted and known as completely a Presbyterian Christian
country it was now being divided with the introduction of Catholicism and Seventh Day
Adventist. After a year of war in 1979 the parliament of Vanuatu finally declared a
Christian democracy.
IV. Cargo Cults and Revitalization Movements
The nature of Anthropology introduces a broad understanding of cultural
religions and rituals, tracing process of religious change (Vokes, 2007). Wallace (1956)
who was particularly interested in the social role of religious change coined the term
32
�revitalization movements. However, there were few articles that pre-dated Wallace in an
attempt to touch on religious change, such as Tylor (1871) who conducted a study on
belief, ritual and magic in primitive cultures which became one of the first studies in
anthropology to touch on religious change. Additionally, Frazer (1890) who attempted to
put together an encyclopedia of world religious diversity and attempted to study each
religions process of cultural change that subsequently influenced traditional religious
change. Frazer (1890) stated that, “all religions, across all times and places, could be
understood as re-enactments of a primordial drama of what we would now call
revitalization, in which a symbolic figure of the ‘divine king’ is periodically sacrificed in
a ritual of renewal” (Vokes, 2007, pp. 312).
Wallace (1956) was able to focus on religious change as both individually
motivated as well as incorporating the effects of historical context. He defined a
revitalization movement as an organized and conscious effort by members of a
community to wish for a more satisfying or productive culture. The people of that society
must perceive their own culture as unsatisfactory and therefore must implement a new
cultural framework including the change of relationships and cultural traits that include
symbols, communication and the change of religious rituals. It is important to note that
these shifts do not occur through deliberate changes made by members of a society, but
instead through a gradual chain-reaction effect. In order for change to be a revitalization
movement it must occur over a generation, it must be a fast process of cultural change.
Wallace (1956) suggested that in order to understand revitalization one must think about
human society as an organism and culture as patterns of learned organisms behavior. For
example, the culture teaches the organism to breathe and stay alive, allowing the
organism stays in a state of homeostasis through living in harmony with the behavior it
has learned from its culture. However, once the organism is disrupted and put under
stress it will do anything to preserve this matrix through the behaviors that have
contributed to its survival. While the people of a culture act as individuals, they perform
behavior that is learned, which contributes to keeping their society in a state of
homeostasis and protects their society from outside threats. It is crucial for every person
in society to have a mental image of their culture in order to reduce stress levels to their
society as a whole. This mental image Wallace (1956) refers to as the mazeway, referring
to the individual’s personal experience and world view in combination with perceptions
of their surrounding environment. This includes ways in which this maze can be
manipulated by participants in society as well as the self in order to minimize all levels of
stress, and therefore to keep the organism as the society and the self, at a state of
33
�homeostasis. Changing the mazeway involves changing the entire image of the self as
well as the image of society, culture and behavior. Therefore, when a society comes
together under stress of colonialism or missionization they must choose to tolerate the
stress of the mazeway or change the mazeway in an attempt to eliminate the stress and
return to a level of homeostasis. When people change their mazeway to eliminate stress,
we call it the revitalization process. Wallace (1956) argues that revitalization movements
are not unusual, in fact not many people will live through an entire life time without
experiencing some form of revitalization process. Moreover, some of the most important
modern religions have gone through profound revitalization movements.
The structure of the revitalization process consists of five overlapping stages.
These stages include; the steady state, period of individual stress, period of cultural
distortion, period of revitalization and finally a new steady state (Wallace, 1956).
For the majority of the population there are cultural patterns of behavior that lead to
satisfying individual needs contributing to the needs of a well established and effectively
operating community. It is normal that the techniques used for keeping the society in a
state of homeostasis might change gradually through time with the introductions to new
technologies. However, changes are usually minimal and only in place to minimize
stress, changes also are expected to stay in code with cultural behavioral rules. This stress
begins gradually at the individual levels. Once the individual experiences these stresses it
leads to increased stress knowing that their individual mazeway may be inadequate.
It is when there is a prolonged experience of individual stress that it begins to put ones
world view at risk and leads to cultural distortion. Moreover, culture is distorted in the
eyes of the community at risk, therefore stress levels begin to rise beyond the individual
level. This leads to people in the society being in a state of apathy causing symptoms of
anxiety. This process of revitalization can lead to the death of a society, a population can
deteriorate due to famine, economic downfall, war or increasing death or birth rates due
to high stress levels in society for an extended period of time. However, when it comes to
missionization there are ways that a society can overcome this part of the movement. In
order for a society to go through a revitalization movement successfully, they must go
through six major tasks (Wallace, 1956). The reformation of the mazeway must be lead
by the new chosen prophet or leader of the society. The people of the society must be
brought to revelation in a moment or multiple moments of insight by the new prophet or
leader, these moments are often referred to as inspiration or revelation. The subsequent
revelations must lead the people to believe that their old mazeway is one of sin and
therefore they must be saved by the adaption of a new mazeway or worldview. The
34
�prophet must preach his revelations to the people of the society. The goal of this stage is
to make it clear to members of society that they will be under the care and protection of
the chosen god and that the convert will materially, economically and spiritually benefit
from a new cultural paradigm. There must then be political organization which occurs in
the religious institution. Disciples are chosen and more leaders that hold power in the
institution. While the organization stage is coming to its peak there will always
indefinitely be resistance. If there is organized violence against the new political structure
or religion being implemented organized hostility towards the non-believers occurs and
the emphasis shifts towards combating the non-believers, isolating them from their
culture. As the population comes to accept the new religion and political transformation
there is a cultural transformation that slowly occurs causing individuals to successfully
adapt their mazeway and cultural behaviors to compliment the new religious structure
and to ultimately return their society to a state of homeostasis. Furthermore, if the
religious and political structure that is newly implemented is effective in reducing the
societies stress levels it becomes successfully established. It is rare that the new religion
will successfully change all aspects of the culture, however the majority are able to be
changed. Once these stages have been accomplished, the people of society have solved its
problems with the stage of routinization and a new cultural system has proved to be
successful a new steady state will come to exist.
Beginning in the 1940’s and 1950’s in Vanuatu cargo cults developed out of this
revitalization process (Crowley and Crowley, 1996). A cargo cult can be defined as a
movement that includes a range of rituals and practices, which occur due to having
experienced contact with colonizing countries (Otto, 2009). Referring to the cult as a
“cargo cult” comes from the belief that ritualistic acts will lead to obtaining material
wealth. It is apparent that cargo cults originated in Melanesia during Western
colonization, which brought on the obsession with wanting to obtain Western goods. Otto
(2009) argues that Melanesians, like the people of Ni-Vanuatu, felt overpowered by white
people. Furthermore, there was a strong connection between the value system of the
colonizers and the colonized. It became evident that Melanesians were unable to ignore
that white people had a much higher standard of living, which caused feelings of
inferiority. It was easier to be able to latch onto a particular point of time in history when
life was less stressful for these island cultures and therefore focus on a new kind of
salvation. The focus on the cargo therefore gave hope in achieving the same level of
wealth, which was essential for Melanesian people to experience during times of severe
cultural stress. Cargo cults seem to be common particularly across the South Pacific due
35
�to the history of missionization. Furthermore, it is not hard to understand how this
religion came into being (Crowley and Crowley, 1996). The idea of a messianic figure,
an African-American solider, who would arrive by ship or plane bringing them canned
food, Coca-Cola, chocolate bars and a refrigerator was completely plausible.
Furthermore, there is a sense of solemn silence left on these islands, with the airstrips
completely over grown with vegetation and no signs of the military or John Frum
returning. This has left the Ni-Vanuatu people in a lost state with a lack of support and an
unsympathetic government.
Specifically the development of these cults were tied to the end of World War II,
when the Americans setup military bases on the islands in the South Pacific (Crowley and
Crowley, 1996). The John Frum followers are an example of one of the more famous
cargo cults in Vanuatu. Annually the residents of the island Tanna gather to reenact John
Frum, who was an American navy officer, returning with his abundance of cargo. This
event is held every February and is titled the “John Frum Festival.” Crowley and Crowley
(1996) describe the scene where the army bases still stand some seventy odd years later
surrounded by cobwebs and completely over grown. A ripped American flag still stands
next to their national flag of Vanuatu completely warn out from age. The Ni-Vanuatu
have decorated their church with the American Red Cross which is the symbol they use
for their god John Frum. The American Red Cross is seen throughout the island as a
symbolic reminder that their savior will one day return. The John Frum Headquarters
building, which is located in the middle of the island is also decorated with Red Crosses
but also has numerous pictures of Jesus Christ, who they call John Frum. Additionally,
there is a plaque that hangs in the Headquarters with all the names of men who went to
prison in the name of religion during the 1940’s and 1950’s. During the festival NiVanuatu people will dress up in military uniforms or camouflaged branches and leaves,
as well as displaying mock rifles carved from wood in order to reenact battles. The
natives will also paint USA on their bodies and chant, “USA, USA, USA” during the reenacted battle scenes. Throughout the day the women and children perform rehearsed
dances. During the afternoon of the festival Crowley and Crowley (1996) observed a man
driving an imaginary car built out of a cardboard box with a large leaf as the imaginary
steering wheel.
After conducting an interview with the chief of this village of Tanna, Isaac
Nikiau, Crowley and Crowley (1996) discovered that the Ni-Vanuatu people who are
John Frum worshipers are against the Vanuatu’s prime minister, Reverend Walter Lini.
Interestingly, as a people they are also completely against the use of money, against
36
�missionaries and conversions and wish to return to their past cultural customs. Cargo
cults are a clear example of how the Christian missionization failed the Ni-Vanuatu
people and divided a nation through introducing Western goods and technology. It is
clear that prior to missionization, but more importantly prior to World War II, the people
of Tanna believed their island was the center of the universe and lived a life of peace.
Once the missionaries and later the military invaded it became clear to the natives that
they were in fact the bottom of the social scale with no wealth, social capital or power.
Furthermore, they blamed their ancestors and gods for their present injustices. The issue
became worse when the Ni-Vanuatu not only saw white people with these advantages but
also African-American people. This caused serious psychological problems for the NiVanuatu who were trying to understand why people who looked like them also had these
advantages and they did not.
V. Conclusion
Religion has always been an issue in Vanuatu, since the early European
missionaries came to the islands to convert the native people to Christianity (George,
2010). Today, some of the islanders still hold to their ancestral tradition in combination
with their faith in Christianity, while other natives have rejected their traditional religious
beliefs all together. Furthermore, it is apparent that the missionaries failed to integrate the
Ni-Vanuatu cultural understanding of religion and pushed Christianity as a completely
new way of life ignoring their already established cultural customs. The countries of the
South Pacific have, for the most part have had chiefly power structures (Bolton, 1998).
However, during colonialism it was the primary goal of missionaries to eliminate the
power structure and hierarchy of the chiefs that held authority within their separate
communities in order to implement a new structure and control by a modern nation-state.
It was clear that colonialists took the Western approach by introducing formal education
in attempt to modernize natives and destroy the chiefly structure. Western formal
schooling was a symbol of modernity and technological advancement that still, postcolonialism, is forcing its way into non-Western societies (White, 2006).
Reverend John Geddie of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia was the first
successful missionary to come to Vanuatu. It is apparent that his success was due to
conversing with Samoan missionaries who had a good understanding of the geography of
the islands and therefore was able to devise an effective plan. Geddie sent Samoan
teachers whom he brought with him in order to help spread the word of god (Spriggs,
1985). Additionally, Geddie’s sent his teachers to first convert the chiefs of the islands
37
�he deemed as safe, and then let the chiefs convert their people with their social and
political power. Only ten years later in 1858, there was a school in every district and a
Christian Church in most of the districts on the major islands of Vanuatu. By the 1959
Geddie and his team had successfully banned polygamy, cannibalism, feasting, war,
widow strangulization, female infacide, dumping bodies at sea, as well as tobacco and
kava consumption. At this point most people in Vanuatu considered themselves
Presbyterian Christians. Geddie and Inglis paved the way for many other missionaries to
come in to the islands of Vanuatu and spread the word of god without fearing for their
lives (Taylor, 2010). They had successfully transformed local ideas of stinginess into sin
and created an eternal hell as a source of punishment. However, there was a movement
emerging that Ni-Vanuatu which came to be called “kustom,” referring to those people
whom were looking back to their traditional beliefs and some traditional cultural
practices (Taylor, 2010). This led to a number of kustom counter movements that caused
conflict between church and state during the 1960’s. Due to these counter movements and
cultural and religious issues between the church and state there was a clear drive during
the 1970’s to push for independence. In June 1980, after seventy-four years, New
Hebrides officially became independent from French and British rule and was renamed
Vanuatu (MacClancy, 1981).
Beginning in the 1940’s and 1950’s in Vanuatu cargo cults developed out of this
revitalization process (Crowley and Crowley, 1996). Referring to the cult as a “cargo
cult” comes from the belief that ritualistic acts will lead to obtaining material wealth. It is
apparent that cargo cults originated in Melanesia during Western colonization, which
brought on the obsession with wanting to obtain Western goods. Otto (2009) argues that
Melanesians, like the people of Ni-Vanuatu, felt overpowered by white people.
Furthermore, there was a strong connection between the value system of the colonizers
and the colonized. It became evident that Melanesians, similarly to Ni-Vanuatu people,
were unable to ignore that white people had a much higher standard of living, which
caused feelings of inferiority.
Very little research has been done on where the Ni-Vanuatu people’s beliefs lie
today and why. Future research should focus on who Jesus Christ is to the Ni-Vanuatu
people and what Christianity now means to them. Who is more important to their
fundamental beliefs, Jesus Christ or their native gods? Additionally, can a Ni-Vanuatu
person believe in spirits as well as traditional Christian gods without cultural isolation?
Further research should be done on the Ni-Vanuatu family structure, including the
modern role of women in their society. This research should include how marriage plays
38
�a role in modern society, what women’s current responsibilities are in the community and
in the household. I believe this research will help future scholars to understand more
about how Christian missionization has affected the Ni-Vanuatu culture and how their
religious affiliation has or has not affected their family values and the roles of women.
This research will benefit the scientific community in understanding the missionization
process as a whole and how to avoid damaging cultures in the future.
VI. References
Bolton, L. (1998). Chief Willie Bongmatur Maldo and the Role of Chiefs in Vanuatu. The
Journal of Pacific History, 33(2), 180-195.
Crowley, D., & Crowley, M. (1996). Encounters with Folklore: Religion and Politics in
the John Frum Festival, Tanna Island, Vanuatu. Journal of Folklore Research, 33(2),
156-164.
Frazer, J. (1890). The Golden Bough. (1 ed.). London: Macmillan.
George, K. (2010). Vanuatu: Happiest nation on earth, mental health and the Church.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 18(1), 63-65.
Lewis, D. (1973). Anthropology and Colonialism. Current Anthropology, 14(5), 581-602.
MacClancy, J. V. (1981). From New Hebrides to Vanuatu 1979-80. The Journal of
Pacific History, 16(2), 92-104.
Otto, T. (2009). What Happened To Cargo Cults? Material Religions in Melanesia and
the West. Social Analysis , 53(1), 83-102.
Smith, A. (1997). Missionary as Collector: The Role of the Reverend Joseph Annand.
Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region, 26(2), 96-111.
Spriggs, M. (1985). 'A School in Every District': The Cultural Geography of Conversion
on Aneityum, Southern Vanuatu. The Journal of Pacific History, 20(1), 23-41.
Taylor, J. (2010). The Troubled Histories of a Stranger God: Religious Crossing, Sacred
Power, and Anglican Colonialism in Vanuatu. Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 52(2), 418-446.
39
�Tylor, E. (1871). Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. London: Murray.
Vanuatu Resorts. (Photographer). (2004). Vanuatu Island Map [Print Map].
Vokes, R. (2007). Rethinking the Anthropology of Religious Change: New Perspective
on Revitalization and Conversion Movements. Reviews in Anthropology, 36(1), 311-333.
Wallace, A. (1956). Revitalization Movements. American Anthropologist, New Series,
58(2), 264-281.
Wantok Environment Centre. (Photographer). (2004). Nguna, Pele and Emao Map [Print
Map]. Retrieved from www.positiveearth.org
White, C. (2006). Moving Up The Ranks: Chiefly Status, Prestige, and Schooling in
Colonial Fiji. History of Education Quarterly, 46(4), 533-570.
40
�FIGURE 1: Map of Present Day Vanuatu.
41
�FIGURE 2: Close Up Map of Present Day Vanuatu, Pele Island.
42
�Behind the Label: Comparison of Garment Sweatshops in
Dhaka, Bangladesh to New York City and Milan
Christopher DeFilippi (Government & Politics)1
For the past ten years, the Bangladesh textile and garment industries have nearly doubled
in size. Today, there are over 5,600 textile factories with 4.5 million Bangladeshi
employed. As factory conditions worsen for workers, exports continue to soar.
Bangladesh’s Ready-Made Garment (RMG) exports make up for 80 percent or $21.5
billion of the country’s total exports. Similar textile factories or “sweatshops” in
Bangladesh are found across the world. Whether in New York City or Milan, a one and
third tier city respectively according to Sociologist Mark Abrahamson, have fewer but,
analogous factories. The most underdeveloped parts of these well-developed cities
contain sweatshops similar to the ones found in Bangladesh. Sweatshop workers, who are
mainly women, are underpaid and overworked, placed in unsafe conditions and some
even die in these unsafe factories. As the global garment industry continues to grow,
factories across the world are left unnoticed. This paper will analyze and compare
worsening factory conditions in undeveloped Bangladesh to New York City and Milan as
the garment industry continues to globalize.
I. Literature Review
When defining sweatshops, focus is often placed on the physical condition of a
garment factory rather than a workers experience. The (U.S. General Accounting Office,
1994) believes a factory is operating as a sweatshop if “an employer that violates more
than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor,
industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers compensation or industry
regulation.” As Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) and governments join the
fight to end sweatshop labor, (Hapke, 2004) states a sweatshop definition should include,
“working for abusive supervisors and not able to take paid sick leave or vacation.”
Though sweatshop definitions vary, if individuals are working in a factory with unsafe or
Research performed under the direction of Dr. Patricia Moynagh and Dr. Abe Unger in
partial fulfillment of the Senior Program requirements.
1
43
�unjust conditions there is a good chance the factory is operating as a sweatshop. Although
many like the International Labour Organization study sweatshop conditions in the thirdworld, there is no clear, concise, general definition of what criteria makes a factory a
sweatshop.
Awareness of current sweatshop conditions within the international community
is growing. Bangladesh factory conditions continue to worsen for workers while export
demand has nearly tripled in the last ten years. At one time Bangladesh was not expected
to thrive in the international garment and textile market. Scholars as studied in (Rahman,
2011) believed Bangladesh’s garment and textile industry could not compete in a global
market once the Multifibre Agreement was removed. (Bangladesh Garment
Manufacturers and Exporters Association, 2013) estimates Bangladesh’s total exports are
valued at $21.5 billion and roughly eighty percent of the country’s total trade. Studies
suggest, Bangladesh exports will continue to grow. McKinsey & Company predicts
Bangladesh is on track to be the top garment exporter in the world by 2020 (Berg,
Hedrich, Tochtermann, 2012). Although China currently leads the garment industry in
total exports, the study found global buyers are simply concerned with low labor and
production costs. (Berg et.al., 2012) finds “86 percent of the chief purchasing officers in
leading apparel companies in Europe and the United States plan to decrease levels of
sourcing in China over the next five years because of declining profit margins and
capacity constraints.” In the future, global buyers are expected to shift even more
production to Bangladesh factories, as demand rises, regardless of the consequences.
Bangladesh factory conditions worsen by the day. The BBC Panorama
Documentary, “Dying For A Bargain” (BBC, 2013) studies garment factory conditions
across Dhaka. The study’s findings are astonishing. Not only is Bangladesh known for
having the lowest labor costs in the world, workers are placed in unsafe conditions and
work long hours to meet unreachable quotas. Supervisors claim workers stay voluntarily
in order to keep up with demand. Although individuals work a twenty hour shift,
overtime is never paid. Supervisors are seen keeping two sets of timesheets in order to
keep production high and costs low. BBC also found, global buyers don’t often check on
the factory’s management as long as the costs remain low. A recent increase in factory
fires has brought much needed attention to the truth behind the label. Although
informative, the documentary does not bring to light the struggles women face in the
garment industry. Gender inequality is quite prevalent in factories regarding pay,
employee treatment and management. Today, the garment industry is made up of nearly
seventy percent women. (Foxvog, Gearhart, Maher, Parker, Vanpeperstraete, Zeldenrust,
44
�2013) found women remain in the lowest grade jobs and even when promoted, they are
often paid less than their male co-workers. (Alam, Bahn, Bormann, Burckhardt, Giese,
Saam, Schröder, Wötzel, 2008) similar to (Foxvog et.al., 2013) studies the conditions
women face working in the garment factories. Women are often harassed and abused as
others work in factories with polluted water and unsafe conditions. Studies prove women,
who are the majority, truly encounter the worst conditions.
These conditions that are found in third-world garment factories are not just
limited to Bangladesh. Similar if not identical conditions are found in global cities like
New York City. The New York State Labor Department takes garment factory violations
very seriously. (New York State Department of Labor, 2013) extending the (U.S. General
Accounting Office, 1994) definition states, all New York City factories must be
registered with the Labor Department for oversight and inspection. However, the
definition specifically focuses on New York State garment factories. The New York State
Labor Department, Special Task Force for the Apparel Industry found Suburban Textiles,
Inc. (trading as Forest Uniform Corp) was operating with sweatshop-like conditions.
(New York State Department of Labor, 2009) found the factory overworked employees,
had unsafe conditions and “failed to pay employees required overtime wages, despite
assigned workweeks of up to 80 hours, and also violated the state’s day of rest
requirement.” These conditions are similar to the ones found in Bangladesh garment
factories. Both (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012) and (Lin et.al. v.
Great Rose Fashion, Inc. et.al., 2009) describe unsafe and unjust conditions found in New
York City garment factories.
Unsafe and unjust conditions are also found in Milan garment factories.
However, literature specifically focusing on Milan garment sweatshops is lacking.
Scholars including (Wu, 2008) and (Manzo, 2011) study the strong divide between
Italians and Chinese migrants. As garment factories and Chinese wholesale stores open in
Milan’s Chinatown, many Italians feel migrants are competing with the locals. Since
Chinese wholesale items are much cheaper, many would prefer the mark-off items rather
than the designer brand. In order to properly argue this paper, a case study on Milan was
conducted by studying stores and garment factories along Via Sarpi, a main street in
Milan Chinatown. The study found factories are placed in inaccessible locations, mostly
off of Via Sarpi and are often unsafe to even enter. Low lighting, long hours and overall
poor conditions are present in Milan sweatshops.
As the garment industry continues to globalize, one and third tier cities have
similar factory conditions to Bangladesh. (Abrahamson, 2004) studies globalization and
45
�ranks cities based on cultural and economic industries. New York City stands alone on
the one-tier platform as it outnumbers all other global cities with the amount of cultural
and economic industries it contains. Abrahamson defines Milan as a third tier city as it
lacks cultural industries but, has major economic industries.
This paper will compare and bring awareness to sweatshop conditions in
Bangladesh to sweatshops in modern-day New York City and Milan. The garments we
wear have a story behind them. The women who work in unsafe factories for long hours
suffer as the global buyer and consumer profit. Even in a global city, sweatshop
conditions exist in many garment factories. After completing a self-conducted case and
research study of New York City and Milan sweatshops, factory conditions prove
garment and textile factories are quite similar to ones of the third-world. Though the
future is bleak, the world is becoming aware of the sacrifices and suffering that’s found
behind the label.
II. Globalization of the Textile and Garment Industry
Today, the world textile and garment industry is valued at over $700 billion and,
represents 2.2 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, of the world’s trade. In order for
developed countries to make a larger profit, many outsource garment manufacturing to
developing countries. The garment and textile industries are major contributors of income
and employment for developing countries. Both industries employ nearly 75 million
individuals yearly. For a top garment and textile exporter like Bangladesh, garment
workers make up eighty percent of the labor force. As the garment industry continues to
expand, developing countries continue to build factories to meet demand. Garment
factories or “sweatshops” are found in both developed and developing countries. For
global buyers, profit comes before factory safety for workers in these developing
countries. Surprisingly, New York City and Milan, two global cities have similar garment
factory conditions found in developing Bangladesh.
The term sweatshop is often used to describe factories in both the garment and
textile industry. The U.S. Department of Labor considers a factory a sweatshop if, “an
employer violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and
overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers
compensation or industry regulation” (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1994). However,
some anti-sweatshop organizations and scholars believe the definition should also include
if an individual is, “working for abusive supervisors and not able to take unpaid sick
leave or vacation” (Hapke, 2004). Many garment factories found in both developed and
46
�developing countries meet sweatshop criteria. Garment workers risk their lives daily just
to make a living, however, earning a living wage is nearly impossible in the garment
industry. One of the main reasons global buyers outsource their manufacturing is for
cheaper production and labor costs. Sweatshops, not only in developing countries like
Bangladesh but in New York City and Milan, have workers earning much lower than the
estimated living wage. “The idea is that full-time workers and their families should earn
enough to afford a basic acceptable living standard and so not have to live in poverty”
(Anker, 2011). Even though Bangladesh, the United States and Italy have a legal
minimum wage, it is much lower than the calculated living wage. What occurs in the
factories that produce the labels we wear is truly alarming.
Many of our clothes that bear the “Made in Bangladesh” label have a story.
Although we may not know who specifically made the garments, there is a good chance
they were made in a sweatshop. Sweatshop conditions are making headlines around the
globe. Garment workers risk their lives in order for the western world to profit. Though
Bangladesh, New York City, and Milan’s sweatshops are different, some happen to be
quite similar.
III. Bangladesh
Bangladesh, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow
Bangladesh was not always one of the top garment exporters in the world. The
Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) which began in 1974 “constructed an elaborate quota
system that limited the quantity of clothing and textiles that forty different countries
could export to the United States, Canada and Europe ”(Garwood, 2011). Bangladesh’s
garment industry prospered under the MFA, “due to the zero or low rates faced by
exports from Bangladesh to the USA and the European Union” (Ahmed, 2009). During
this time, Bangladesh attempted to equate themselves with other large Ready-Made
Garment (RMG) exporters like China, Japan and Vietnam. Bangladesh, having the
advantage with low import rates compared to other RMG exporters, “a market for
Bangladesh RMG in the USA and stimulated growth of the RMG industry”
(Bhattacharya and Rahman, 2000). However in 1994, The MFA ended and was replaced
with the Agreement on Textile and Clothing (ATC). The ATC worked with the World
Trade Organization phasing out quotas by 2005. While Bangladesh began to expand its
garment industry during the MFA, many believed Bangladesh would not be able to
compete with China’s low manufacturing costs. Studies predicted there would be winners
47
�and losers in the post-MFA global apparels trading regime and that Bangladesh was
likely to be one of the losers (Rahman, 2011). Surpassing expectations as shown in Table
1, exports soared once quotas were removed. So, how did Bangladesh come out on top?
As the garment industry continued to globalize demand for garments produced at low
costs increased. As predicted, “China would gain most in a quota-free regime… able to
increase their share in the European Union apparels market from 12.9 percent in 2004 to
24.2 percent in 2009; in the US market, the corresponding figures were 19.0 percent and
43.2 percent” (Rahman, 2011). Even though China gained, post-MFA, Bangladesh was
still able to strive by keeping production and labor costs low. Today, Bangladesh still has
the lowest paid factory workers and production costs in the world, allowing the country
to compete in a global market. Although China still controls a major portion of the
garment industry, Bangladesh’s demand continues to grow, paving its way for the
number one spot.
Table 1:Ready-Made Garment Industry Export Growth
Year
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
Ready-Made Garments
Exports (Million US$)
7900.80
9211.23
10699.80
12347.77
12496.72
17914.46
19089.69
21515.73
Bangladesh Exports
(Million US$)
10526.16
12177.86
14110.80
15565.19
16204.65
22924.38
24287.66
27018.26
% of Ready-Made Garments
in Bangladesh’s Total Exports
75.06
75.64
75.83
79.33
77.12
78.15
78.60
79.63
Source: Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Bangladesh's
RMG Export to World (2013).
Today, Bangladesh is the second largest garment exporter in the world. RMG
exports are at record highs and make up for nearly 80 percent or $21.5 billion of the
country’s total exports (Garwood, 2011). A country that was once predicted to fail is now
on track to surpass China in total exports in the next five years. McKinsey & Company
forecasts, “export-value growth of 7 to 9 percent annually within the next ten years, so
the market will double by 2015 and nearly triple by 2020 (Berg, Hedrich, Tochtermann
2012). This continual growth would put Bangladesh on top. The survey also found, “86
percent of the chief purchasing officers in leading apparel companies in Europe and the
United States plan to decrease levels of sourcing in China over the next five years
because of declining profit margins and capacity constraints” (Berg et.al., 2012). It
48
�proves, global buyers are only concerned with profit, not what’s truly happening behind
the label. Although Bangladesh has “challenges ahead with infrastructure, political
stability, skilled workforce and materials,” (Berg et.al., 2012) Bangladesh is on its way to
being the top garment exporter in the world.
Bangladesh Garment Workers Compensation & Production Costs
In order to keep Bangladesh competitive in the global market, prices as they
have been in the past must remain low. So, how much does it cost to produce clothing? In
Bangladesh, the production cost and clothing markup is startling. According to a 2011
O’Rourke Group Partners Report, “a generic $14.00 polo shirt sold in Canada and made
in Bangladesh actually costs a retailer only $5.67” (Westwood, 2013). This low cost of
production keeps Bangladesh competitive with China. The cost breakdown includes,
“Factory overhead, $0.07, agent $0.18, labor $0.12, factory margin $0.58,
freight/insurance/duty, $1.03, and materials and finishing $3.69” (Westwood, 2013). A
shirt that sells for $14.00 has a 60 percent markup when sold in the United States or
Canada. In comparison to the United States, “a denim shirt made in the US would cost
$13.22 compared to only $4.70 in Bangladesh” (CNN, 2013). Labor costs affect total
production costs dramatically. The United States’ cost breakdown includes, “$0.75
industrial laundry, $5.00 materials and $7.47 labor costs compared to $0.20 industrial
laundry, $3.30 materials and $0.22 labor costs” (CNN, 2013). Labor costs in the United
States are 106 times more than in Bangladesh. Since developed countries cannot compete
with production costs of developing ones, developed countries garment imports are on
the rise, outsourcing garment manufacturing forever.
Though Bangladesh is “home to the world’s fastest-growing export-apparel
industry, prevailing wages gave workers only 14 percent of a living wage” (Worker
Rights Consortium, 2013). Bangladesh’s minimum wage is one of the lowest in the world
as “the monthly minimum wage for entry-level workers in Bangladesh’s garment sector
[is] $39 per month – about half of the lowest applicable rate in other major garmentexporting countries, such as Cambodia ($80), India ($71), Pakistan ($79), Sri Lanka
($73) and Vietnam ($78)” (International Labour Organization, 2013). This was a major
contributor to Bangladesh’s production growth post-MFA. Garment workers in
Bangladesh make half as much as other garment workers across the world allowing for
low operating costs and higher profits.
49
�Bangladesh Employment & Factory Growth
As the garment industry continues to globalize, factory demands are higher than ever.
Today, there are over 5,600 textile factories with over 4.5 million Bangladeshi employed.
As Bangladesh’s garment industry developed, factories as well as jobs increased
collectively as seen in Figure 1 and 1.1. As discussed earlier, if Bangladesh’s garment
industry continues to grow, factory numbers will increase along with employment.
Factory managers will have no other choice but to hire more workers. If the McKinsey &
Company projection is accurate and garment exports double and triple, employment and
factories will grow respectively.
Figure 1: Employment (top) and factory (bottom) growth in Bangladesh 2005-2013.
Source: Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
(2013). Membership and Employment.
50
�The Truth Behind the Label
As the Bangladesh garment industry continues to grow, factory conditions are
worsening for workers. Besides a low minimum wage, workers often work long hours
and through the night. BBC’s Dying for a Bargain, brings to life the long days of garment
factory workers. The report found, although workers are working overtime, supervisors
are not reporting the time, leaving worker compensation at a minimum. At the Tung Hai
Sweater Factory in Dhaka, “supervisors keep two sets of timesheets, workers may have
worked until 10:00pm but, their timesheets say they left at 5:00pm” (BBC, 2013). In an
interview conducted with sign operators one stated, “It is written here that we go inside at
8:00am and come out at 5:00pm but, in reality we come out at 7:00pm” (BBC, 2013).
The report is astonishing as workers are aware supervisors are keeping two sets of
timesheets. One book will record their regular shift and another will record their
overtime. Not surprisingly, the overtime timesheets are neglected. When Tung Hai
Sweater Factory supervisors were asked about employee overtime they said, “[workers
stay] to achieve their target production” (BBC, 2013). Many buyers do not know about
the mismanagement of the factories. Kalpona Aktar of the Bangladesh Center for Worker
Solidarity says, “[buyer] audits nearly never work” (BBC, 2013). Hiding information
from global buyers will keep them from outsourcing production to other factories.
However, buyers take a risk when purchasing clothes from sweatshops. Global buyers
fear that trade unions, nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups and
consumers’ associations in developed countries may accuse them of encouraging their
suppliers in developing countries to run sweatshops (Mottaleb and Sonobe, 2011). As the
McKinsey & Company report found, fair wages and factory conditions are not as
important to the global buyer as cheap production.
The Tung Hai Sweater Factory is not the only one factory breaking codes of
conduct. Ha-Meem Sportswear Ltd. is a factory doing the unthinkable. One worker was
in the factory for 19 hours and paid just $3.20. He says, “my feelings are bad, and my
health is too, in the last two weeks, approximately, it’s been like this for 8 nights, last
week there were 6... or 5 night shifts” (BBC, 2013). The worker was due back at the
factory in just four hours to complete another 19 hour shift. When speaking to the
Compliance Manager of Ha-Meem Sportswear, he says “[workers] end at 5:30pm”
(BBC, 2013) even the night workers were caught leaving the factory around 2:00am.
Employees are not even compensated for their overtime work. Although managers state
overtime is “voluntary,” workers have no choice but to meet these growing, unreachable
51
�quotas. In the future, garment workers hours will only increase as the growing factory
demand will have to be met.
With low labor costs come poor factory safety. Hundreds of workers are placed
in dirty and unsafe factories for long periods of time. “Workers suffer numerous injuries,
poor ventilation, bad lighting, high temperatures and high humidity” (Khanna, 2011).
Factory fires are also quite common and unfortunately have serious consequences. In
January 2013, an illegal Dhaka garment factory with no safety codes broke out in flames.
The factory was a subcontractor, specializing in sportswear. Sadly, the fire killed 8
Bangladeshi garment workers but, could have killed more. At the time of the fire, “the
factory had two exits and one of them was locked” (BBC, 2013). It’s common for
supervisors to lock the gates from the outside, trapping workers. The supervisor said, “He
pulled the gates closed in order to keep the workers from stealing” (BBC, 2013). If a fire
started and workers were trapped, those who leave unharmed must watch the workers
who couldn’t escape, perish. In April 2013, Rana Plaza in Dhaka, “housed five garment
factories, came crashing down, claiming at least 1,132 lives, cracks had appeared in the
wall the previous day, yet thousands of garment workers were forced to return to work in
the factories housed on the upper floors” (Foxvog, Gearhart, Maher, Parker,
Vanpeperstraete, Zeldenrust, 2013). As discussed before, workers have no choice but to
stay and finish their work. Rana Plaza’s conditions kept worsening by the day. Workers
informed supervisors they would not return to work until conditions were safe but, “were
threatened with the loss of their whole month salary which was due to be paid at the end
of the month if they refused to show the next morning” (Foxvog et.al., 2013). Workers
were greeted the next morning “with a loudspeaker voice saying: “All the workers of
Rana Plaza go to work, the factory has already been repaired” (Foxvog et.al., 2013). Rana
Plaza collapsed just an hour later, bringing both shock and dismay to Dhaka. If factory
safety was just as important as production costs, workers in Rana Plaza should not have
returned until the factory was repaired. Rana Plaza opened the world to the unjust
conditions Bangladesh garment workers face every day but, conditions are far from
changing. In May 2013, the Tung Hai Sweater Factory also experienced a factory fire
killing 8. According to Bangladeshi News Reports, “the factory was closed when the
blaze erupted at 11 p.m. but that the company’s managing director and other executives
were holding a late-night meeting with a top police official on an upper floor of the 11story building” (Yardley, 2013). The Tung Hai Sweater Factory is the same factory that
didn’t report workers overtime. If the fire occurred a month earlier, hundreds could have
died as many worked past nightfall.
52
�Factory fires are becoming daily events in Bangladesh and nothing is being done
to prevent them. If supervisors continue to lock gates from the outside to prevent workers
from stealing, death is inevitable. Fires are becoming more and more frequent, as millions
of garment workers lives are at risk. Low pay, unrecorded overtime hours and safety
hazards, are found in many sweatshops across Bangladesh. Unfortunately, women and
children see the worst of these conditions.
Garment Factories v. Bangladesh Women
A majority of Bangladesh garment factories are filled with women. By working,
women have an opportunity to support the household financially. To date, “over 70
percent of Bangladesh’s garment workers are women [in an] industry [that] claims to
improve the position of women, including liberating them from repressive family
structures which afford them limited freedom” (Foxvog et.al., 2013). Gender inequality is
prominent among garment factories, “women remain in the lowest grade jobs and even
when promoted they are often paid less than their male counterpart” (Foxvog et al.,
2013). If wages were not low enough, women are paid even less than men, “the
preference for hiring women is, in fact, an employer preference for a compliant and low
cost workforce” (Ahmed, 2004). Though many women work as a way to support their
family, they are left in constant poverty. Unfortunately, “these low wages mean that,
despite toiling up to 90 hours a week, these women are trapped into a cycle of poverty,
most struggle to provide for their families and the majority live in constant debt” (Foxvog
et al., 2013). Women are stuck in a patriarchal society no matter in the workplace or at
home. A system that claims to liberate women from family structures only places them in
another environment that limits their freedoms.
Earning a living wage is not the only problem women face in the garment
industry. Garment factories affect women’s health dramatically, “inhalation of dust,
chemicals and repetitive tasks is also a serious issue, some women have reported
experiencing irregular menstrual cycles once they began working in the garment
factories” (Garwood, 2011). Women often ignore their health as reaching quotas is most
important. If a woman becomes sick, she is often fired due to a delay in production.
Pregnant women receive the worst treatment, “pregnant women [are] either forced to
leave their jobs or fired before they have their babies, losing their income, instead of
getting paid maternity leave to which they are legally entitled” (Shefali, 2004).
Harassment is also evident in factories. Women risk their lives walking to and from work,
as well as “face harassment by the owners which includes verbal, physical and sexual
53
�abuse and the use of swear words are also very common” (Khanna, 2011). Even though
conditions are rough, women have no other option than to work in these unsafe factories.
The stories of women garment workers are appalling. Rekha, a 19 year old
sewing worker says, “In the factory, I really feel as if I’m suffocating, we often pass out
and the toilets are simply horrible I’m even afraid of using them the drinking water isn’t
clean, and even though a water filter was installed, it doesn’t work (Alam, Bahn,
Bormann, Burckhardt, Giese, Saam, Schröder, Wötzel, 2008). Suhada another garment
worker discusses the difficulties of factory work. She says, “I usually work from 7
o’clock in the morning until 7 o’clock at night but also occasionally to 10 o’clock, we
also work at night” (Alam et.al., 2013). Long hours are not the only problems Suhada has
to deal with. After going two days without eating, Suhada made a mistake on the job,
“the foreman made a big fuss about it and sacked me on the spot. I burst into tears and
begged him not to sack me, but it was no use” (Alam et.al., 2013). Banu describes the
consequences when a Bangladesh factory has no work, “I received my wage, but two
days’ pay was docked, one day because I was absent, and the second because the factory
had no work when the factory has contracts, we are forced to work overtime when there
are no contracts, we are forced to take unpaid holidays.” (Alam et.al., 2013). Women
continue to suffer on a daily basis with poor factory conditions, inaccurate pay and safety.
For a young girl growing up outside of Dhaka, working in a garment factory is
certainly not her dream job but, she may not have much of a choice. Sweatshops across
Bangladesh have harsh working environments but are still filled with workers. So, why
do women stay in the factories? Some work because they have to support themselves,
“father and mother can’t feed me, my brothers can’t feed me, and my uncles can’t feed
me, so that is why I am working in garments, to stand on my own feet, since I am taking
care of my own expenses, I have no obligation” (Kibria, 1995). Women have no other
choice but to work in these grim garment factories. Farida, a married woman with two
kids is a perfect example. She says, “I spend many days and nights on the streets, I know
what hunger is, I cannot do anything else except some kind of work in a factory or as a
housemaid, I don’t think about the future” (Alam et.al., 2013). A garment factory worker
who flees the terrible conditions may be like Farida, unemployed and on the streets.
Though conditions are bad, living impoverished and homeless is far worse. Bangladesh
garment workers are eventually paid for their work, but it’s too late.
54
�A “Dead” Wage
Bangladesh garment workers receive a living wage only in the worst
circumstances. According to Bangladesh law, garment workers must be compensated
upon injury or death. Most recently, the Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006 was amended,
increasing compensation in cases of death or injury, “for deaths, the amount of
compensation has been ascertained at Tk. 100,000 ($1,200) per worker and for a
permanent total disability, the amount fixed is Tk. 125,000 ($1,600) per worker, in case
of an accident that may happen due to employer’s negligence, the compensation amount
shall be double” (Bangladesh Labour Department, 2006). Workers finally receive the
compensation they deserve after working long hours in unsafe sweatshops. The proper,
“living wage for a family in Bangladesh is just over Tk. 12,248 ($160) per month” (Asia
Floor Wage, 2011). Unfortunately, Bangladesh garment workers have to die in order to
receive a living wage, but even then some factories bend the rules.
Garment factories don’t always follow the Bangladesh Labour Act. Some
families of the deceased factory workers in the Rana Plaza collapse still haven’t received
compensation. To date 834 families have received Tk. 20,000 ($257) from the
government to cover burials costs and the dependents or legal heirs of 777 dead workers
have received payments ranging from Tk. 100,000 ($1,285) to Tk. 400,000 ($5,140)
(Foxvog et.al., 2013). As discussed before, over 1,100 garment workers died, leaving
many families without compensation. Most of the money paid to the victims’ families
was “paid from the Prime Minister’s Fund, which received donations originating from a
number of governmental, non-governmental and private donors” (Foxvog et.al., 2013).
As for the injured, “thirty-six amputees and paralyzed workers have also received
compensation from the government in the range of Tk. 10 lakh ($12,870) and Tk. 15 lakh
($19,305) each; of these workers, two have since died in the hospital” (Foxvog et.al.,
2013). Though Bangladesh workers and families receive some compensation, the value
of a human life is sadly only equivalent to a Bangladesh workers realistic living wage. As
Bangladesh garment workers are continually put in unsafe conditions, they are only
looked at as machines rather than humans.
IV. New York City
Over 100 years ago, the Triangle Factory fire killing 146 brought changes to
laws on a local and national level. In New York, the state “passed 36 safety laws,
spurring other states to do the same.” (Smith, Yardley, Clifford, Greenhouse, Lew, 2013).
The United States Congress then “banned child labor, set a national minimum wage, and
55
�guaranteed overtime pay” (Smith et.al., 2013). Though the United States mainly imports
its garments, New York City garment factories still manufacture apparels and employ
thousands. The peak of the New York City garment industry occurred in the late 1990’s.
Garment factories and employment boomed in areas outside of Manhattan, making areas
similar to underdeveloped Sunset Park, Brooklyn, sweatshop headquarters. The New
York Times reported on sweatshops in the 1990’s as, “dim, dusty warehouse, red and
blue rags covered the four windows, shutting out all natural light, bundles of cut cloth sat
piled in haphazard mounds, some stacked taller than a worker… rows of mid-aged
Chinese women hunched over sewing machines, squinting and silent” (Bao, 2012).
Workers suffered with unsafe factory conditions, unreachable quotas and unpaid wages.
As New York State passed stricter laws with regards to factory safety and conditions,
many believed it would be the end of the garment industry. Nancy Green author of
Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work, believed, “during that time when progressive
reformers, labor leaders and state legislators endeavored to improve labor conditions by
passing new legislation and enforcing laws, manufacturers also argued that too many
constraints would make the landscape of the garment industry disappear altogether from
the city” (Green, 1997). Although the government has taken a stricter role on garment
factories, the industry still exists throughout New York City. After much needed
government reform, the garment industry has revised labor and factory conditions.
However, there are still complications and sweatshops similar to those of the 1990’s can
unfortunately be found across New York City today.
New York City Factory Employment
As operating and labor costs increased in New York City, garment
manufacturing was outsourced to developing countries. Today, only 16.6 thousand
individuals are employed in over 1.800 garment factories in New York City much
different from 39.8 thousand at the turn of the millennium. As more government
restrictions are placed on factories, many end up shutting down. Garment factories are
scattered across New York City, most frequently found on the Lower East Side, and in
Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Both areas are frequently populated by migrants who are more
common to work in the garment industry. Although garment factories were originally
predicted to close as stricter government restrictions were forced upon them, however,
it’s rising production costs that are forcing manufacturers to close up shop. If garment
imports continue to increase, New York City factories and employment will continue to
diminish.
56
�New York City Factory Regulations
Throughout the years after the Triangle Factory fire, New York State continually
passed laws that protect workers in garment factories. In 1929, the New York State
Department of Labor (NYSDOL) was established. In order to prevent sweatshops from
running, “garment industry manufacturers and contractors are required by law to register
with the NYSDOL” (New York State Department of Labor, 2013). Today, there are over
1,800 New York City garment factories registered in the database. The NYSDOL define
many conditions they believe exist if a garment factory is operating as a sweatshop.
Sweatshops can have, “only one exit, blocked or locked fire exits, no fire exit signs, poor
ventilation, holes in the factory floor or ceiling, employees who have hand rashes, dirty
restrooms, bad lighting, machines and fans lacking safety guards, trash, clothing or other
obstacles block aisles and doors, or aisles less than 36 inches wide” (New York State
Department of Labor, 2013). Sweatshops often have more than one safety violation. A
sweatshop also exists if, “employees are not paid on time, workers do not receive wage
statements with their pay, there are no overtime rates for piecework, paydays are missed,
no regular payday, time clock broken or not used, payments for weekend or overtime
work made separately” (New York State Department of Labor, 2013). Factories must
follow labor laws for employees working longer than forty hours per week. Overtime
regulations state, “after working forty hours, employees must receive overtime at one and
one-half times their hourly pay rate, pieceworkers must receive one and one-half times
their average rate after working forty hours” (New York State Department of Labor,
2013). Although New York State Labor laws protect workers in the garment industry,
some factories choose to break labor laws.
Although there are over 1,800 registered garment factories, sweatshops often do
not meet regulations and hide from the New York State Labor Department. A factory that
isn’t registered “is breaking state law and is a sweatshop operation” (New York State
Department of Labor, 2013). A factory must follow regulations of the Department of
Labor Special Task Force for the Apparel Industry. The Task Force “inspects
manufacturers and contractors, with respect to their respective production employees, for
compliance with the labor law” (New York State Department of Labor, 2011). Though
sweatshop conditions seem unconventional for a modern day society, sweatshops are
found throughout New York City and continue to ignore New York State labor laws.
Sweatshop workers are often placed in unsafe conditions, have unequal or no overtime
pay and some are even hospitalized for being forced to overwork.
57
�New York City Sweatshops
The New York Department of Labor takes garment factory violations seriously.
In 2009, The Apparel Industry Task Force raided “Suburban Textiles, Inc. (trading as
Forest Uniform Corp.), a garment manufacturer and issued an order confiscating all
garments made at its facilities as well as all manufacturing equipment” (New York State
Department of Labor, 2009). Forest Uniform Corp. violated NYDOL labor law three
times over the last three years, “as a result, for the first time, the Labor Department
utilized the Order of Confiscation provision in State Labor Law, which allows the
Apparel Industry Task Force to confiscate apparel and equipment from any manufacturer
or contractor found to be liable for two or more separate labor law violations during the
preceding three-year period” (New York State Department of Labor, 2009). The factory
ignored labor laws that protected workers safety and wages. Both Forest Uniform Corp
and contractor Technical Garment USA Co., Inc., failed to maintain proper payroll
records and register the factories in New York. Technical Garment USA Co., Inc., “also
failed to pay employees required overtime wages, despite assigned workweeks of up to
eighty hours, and also violated the state’s day of rest requirement” (New York State
Department of Labor, 2009). Both factories not only held overtime pay but, individuals
worked over eighty hours per week and were only compensated for forty hours. A
sweatshop in a global, developed city like New York also treats employees like machines
rather than humans.
The Labor Department also found Technical Garment USA Co., Inc., failed to
provide wage information and incorrectly managed time cards, “Technical Garment USA
Co., Inc. had been using two sets of time cards for each employee, the time cards used for
payroll recordkeeping never showed more than forty to forty-five hours of work, paid at
the correct rates, however, the real time cards [showed] workers toiling up to eighty
hours, and sometimes seven days in a given week” (New York State Department of
Labor, 2009). Employees stated sweatshop managers, threatened to fire them if they
complained about the conditions or “tell the truth” (New York State Department of
Labor, 2009). In order for the factories to receive their confiscated garments, Forest
Uniform Corp. and Technical Garment USA Co. Inc. must pay workers their back-due
wages. How much is owed to the garment workers? The NYDOL states, “a total of nearly
$500,000 is estimated to be owed in wages and damages to 16 workers” (New York State
Department of Labor, 2009). If the sweatshop raid was not alarming enough, Forest
Uniform Corp. and Technical Garment USA Co. Inc. manufactured New York Police
58
�Department dress uniforms. The New York Police Department has, “authorized members
of the service to purchase dress uniforms that are sold privately and that are manufactured
by Forest Uniform” (New York State Department of Labor, 2009). Since the raid, the
New York Police Department has removed Forest Uniform Corp. from its list of
manufacturers police officers can purchase uniforms from. Sweatshops treating
employees as machinery in a developed society is unthinkable, however, it occurs more
frequently than one may think.
Lin et.al v. Great Rose Fashion, Inc. et.al.
Long Island City is a growing sweatshop neighborhood. In 2009, Hui Lin, Pin
Yun Zhang, Wen Ming Lin, Huang Chen, Ai Yi Lin and Yu Jiao Lin filed a class action
complaint against Great Rose Fashion, Inc., Silver Fashion, Inc., Great Wall Corp., Ping
Nen Lin, Xiao Yan Lin, and Fang Zhen. The Plaintiffs claim, “they were deprived of a
minimum wage and overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and New
York Labor Law while working at the Factory” (Lin et.al. v. Great Rose Fashion, Inc.
et.al., 2009). Both Ping Nen Lin and Xiao Yan Lin owned and managed Great Rose
Fashion Inc., Silver Fashion Inc., and Great Wall Corp. The owners received the
complaint on December 18, 2009, two months after it was filed. Plaintiffs state,
“immediately following receipt of the complaint, [the owners] engaged in a series of
adverse employment actions, such as reducing their hours, altering their form of payment,
and harassing them and other workers about the suit” (Lin et.al. v. Great Rose Fashion,
Inc. et.al., 2009). The Plaintiffs were eventually terminated from their jobs as a result of
filing the complaint. The garment workers claim they were treated unfairly as soon as
they filed the complaint against the owners. Yu Jiao Lin stated, “two women called her
into an office, asking why she had filed the complaint and to explain what they had done
wrong, she felt nervous after the meeting and felt that something was not right” (Lin et.al.
v. Great Rose Fashion, Inc. et.al., 2009). Even though the workers filed a lawsuit, they
have a right to be treated with respect. The next day, Xiao Yan Lin “interrupted the
workers to call Yu Jiao Lin forward and to announce that Yu Jiao Lin filed a complaint
against her, she proceeded to point at her and called her a ‘heartless person,’ cursed at her
and declared that she ‘was the one who had caused all this problem” (Lin et.al. v. Great
Rose Fashion, Inc. et.al., 2009). Eventually, the Plaintiffs hours were reduced as a result
of filing the complaint. When they left the factory, Weu Ming Lin saw employees still
working at the factory as quotas still had to be reached. This was quite a different
scenario, as in the past many worked long hours. Before, “workers would labor at the
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�factory until midnight or ‘until the dawn” (Lin et.al. v. Great Rose Fashion, Inc. et.al.,
2009). On December 31, 2008, the factory owners informed the Plaintiffs the factory was
closing. When the Plaintiffs returned to the factory on January 5, 2009, they saw workers
and their belongings in the factory that was supposedly closed. Though the case is
pending, the garment workers have evidence that proves they were unlawfully treated.
The owners only reduced the hours of the Plaintiffs and eventually fired them due to the
complaint. According to the New York State Department of Labor, sweatshops are not
only factories that have safety violations but, also have wage violations. Great Rose
Fashion Inc., can still be characterized as a sweatshop as it had employees working
overtime without compensation as well as owners harassing employees. These conditions
that are found in developing countries’ garment sweatshops are surprisingly found in one
of the fashion capitals of the world.
Lu v. Alexander Wang Inc
Sweatshops not only manufacture cheap clothing, some produce top, designer
labels. Alexander Wang’s garment factories made headlines in 2012. Two garment
factory workers Wenyu Lu and Flor Duarte filed a complaint over “unpaid compensation
caused by time shaving, unpaid overtime premium, liquidated damages, unpaid medical
leave and lost compensation and other compensatory and punitive damages caused my
Alexander Wang’s retaliatory measures against them for complaining about the
workplace abuse” (Kraselnik, 2012). Hours before and during Fashion Week nearly
tripled. Lu and all factory workers, “were required to work a regular schedule from
9:00am to midnight, six days per week, during the six week period leading up to and
including each of the four Fashion Weeks that take place annually in New York City in
February, May, September and November” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated
et.al., 2012). Though garment workers worked ninety hours per week, not all of the hours
were calculated. On February 12, 2010, Lu “was forced to work from 9:00am in the
morning until 10:00am the next morning for a total of 25 hours with no break” (Lu et.al.
v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012). During Lu’s twenty-five hour shift, he
suffered from stomach pain and was “pressured to continue to work or be fired” (Lu et.al.
v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012). Lu eventually collapsed and was sent
home. Lu was later hospitalized for twelve days with no compensation. These
unreachable quotas make unsafe working conditions for factory workers. On January 24,
2012, Lu “was ordered to a professional grade leather trouser, from cut to finish in four
hours, regularly, this requires twelve hours of work” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang
Incorporated et.al., 2012). When Lu could not finish the work, he was called “slow,
60
�unskillful, lazy, stupid” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012) and told
he must stay until the work is done. When Lu complained about the unjust and cruel
working conditions to his supervisors, he was fired.
Durate another garment worker, had a similar situation. Durate worked long
hours without compensation and suffered from a severe injury that required surgery.
Durate says, “Her physical decline was caused by the stress of long hours of work in
order to stay employed” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012). After
her return to work, she was required to work more than ninety hours per week attempting
to reach implausible quotas. Durate was ordered by managers to “finish a high grade
leather jacket in one hour, while work of this type would normally take skilled tailor eight
to ten hours to complete” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012). When
Durate complained, she was also fired.
Both suffered from the severe garment factory conditions affecting their health.
When Lu and Durate complained to their managers regarding the unpaid hours and
conditions, both were terminated. All workers, “suffered similar working hour abuse,
poor working conditions and physical and emotional abuse caused by managers berating
them if they are unable to make samples within impossible deadlines” (Lu et.al. v.
Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al., 2012). Along with unreachable quotas, garment
workers “were forced to labor in a 200 square foot in size [factory room] with more than
twenty [other] garment workers inside” (Lu et.al. v. Alexander Wang Incorporated et.al.,
2012). These conditions are certainly hard to imagine in a city like New York.
Interestingly enough, this case was dismissed. According to New York Federal Court
Judge Harold Baer, “[he] dismissed the suit brought against the company by two former
employees, following an undisclosed settlement between both sides” (Steigrad, 2012).
Even though an agreement was made, Wang still denies any of the sweatshop allegations
against his factory. If allegations were truly inaccurate, Wang should have let the New
York District Court decide, rather than reaching a settlement.
Some garment factories are still dangerous and inhumane for workers across
New York City. Though conditions and compensation are improving, advocacy groups
still work to end sweatshops across the city. As the garment industry continues to
globalize, New York City garment factories are shrinking, though no one knows the true
number of factories that hide and violate the law.
61
�V. Milan
Recently, a Chinese and Italian rivalry has developed across Milan. Tensions
between the locals and many legal and illegal migrants developed as wholesale shops and
garment factories began opening in Milan’s new Chinatown. Though rare, garment
factories in Milan are often hid behind boxes, along alleyways and behind storefronts as
stricter government regulations are pushing the industry to the south of the country.
Chinese immigration as a whole is on the rise in Italy. Today, there are over 300,000
Chinese migrants populating Italy, with Milan having the largest concentration of
Chinese migrants with just over 13,000. As the wholesale and garment industry continue
to increase throughout Italy, more Chinese are expected to migrate to Italy.
Milan Chinatown
Milan’s Chinatown is the center for illegal wholesale stores and garment
factories. Along “Via Sarpi, [there are over] 500 businesses crammed into a square
kilometer” (Kington, 2007). Streets are often empty from cars and Italian locals, as
Chinese deliver wholesale items from store to store. The Chinese living in Milan “have
for some time now been regarded and described as a closed, silent introverted and
isolated community” (Manzo, 2011). This quest for migrants to assimilate into the Italian
culture is difficult. Both sides have different work ethics as, “the Chinese work ethic is
based on breaking ones back for 16 hours a day” (Manzo, 2011) versus the relaxed,
worry-free Milanese lifestyle. This division among cultures builds a divide in society. As
the migrants continue to populate the Via Sarpi area, there is “a constant flow of goods,
vehicles, vans, trolleys, boxes, fumes and rubbish” (Manzo, 2011). Milan’s Chinatown is
just a small sample of what is happening to the luxury, “Made In Italy” label.
“Made In Italy”
Today, the Italian textile and garment industry is valued at $13.1 and $22.1
billion respectively. As the industry continues to grow, local Italians hand making
garments are being pushed out, as costs are cheaper in the illegal migrant factories. Many
believe, “part of the resentment is cultural: the city’s classic Italian feel is giving way to
that of a Chinatown, with signs in Italian and Chinese, and groceries that sell food
imported from China” (Donadio, 2010). Not only do Italians feel the “brand” is in
jeopardy but, believe it’s a competition with the Chinese. Italians think, “the Chinese are
62
�beating them at their own game — tax evasion and brilliant ways of navigating Italy’s
notoriously complex bureaucracy — and have created a thriving, if largely underground,
new sector… the result is a toxic combination of residual fears about immigration and the
economy” (Donadio, 2010). However, Chinese migrants just want to work. A worker
who was injured in a 2007 police riot that occurred in Milan said, "We just want to work
- he explained - live in Italy, growing there, our children who are born in Milan, we never
did anything, we are not criminals, we do not deserve this treatment" (La Repubblica,
2007). When mark-off brands are manufactured and sold in Chinatown, many would
prefer to spend a fraction of the cost and purchase the mark-off item. Although migrants
are now more involved in the wholesale services industry, the garment industry still
happens to exist in Chinatown.
Case Study: Milan Garment Factories
Over the past ten years, Milan has seen a shift from manufacturing to services.
Although, “manufacturing to Chinese entrepreneurship remains significant (ca. 43% of
the companies), [manufacturing], tends to gravitate to decentralized industrial districts
(especially those textile - in Prato, Reggio Emilia, Italy” (Cologna, 2008). After visiting
Milan’s Chinatown, I was able to see these wholesale stores in action. Stores along Via
Sarpi were filled with garbage bags containing apparel and textiles. While walking the
streets of Chinatown, Milan culture disappears. A slow, relaxed lifestyle immediately
becomes a cautious and a faced paced environment. Workers often looked nervous, guilty
and confused as new garments are produced in the warehouse as well as new items being
brought into the shops. Many of these stores had gates rather than actual doors. The
illegal mark-off Burberry and Gucci items are visible from the outside. Workers in these
stores seemed hostile and worried as I checked out each of the shops. A colleague of
mine who was fluent in Chinese spoke to one of the restaurant owners. She stated “I
came to Milan for a better life I’ve been here for twenty years, trying to fit in, that’s why
many of us are here” (Chinese Migrant, Age 30). After speaking with Chinese migrants
many just want to assimilate themselves and make a living in Milan. Along Via Sarpi,
stores were small, cramped and often unsafe to even enter. Garments and wholesale items
were piled to the ceiling. In one factory, a small desk for a worker was pushed in the
corner as garments filled the floor. Even though the store already seemed full, another
migrant then rolled a cart filled with even more items. Behind some of these storefronts,
housed garment factories. These factories similar to the storefronts were small, cramped
and unsafe. One of the factories on Via Sarpi contained little light and no windows as
63
�migrant workers, looking exhausted hunched over machines, sewing illegal mark-offs.
Although I was not allowed to enter and look around the garment factories, many had
characteristics similar to factories found across Italy. Often, “Chinese immigrants are
recruited by ethnic Chinese businesses which are widely known for having poor working
conditions, particularly true for those in the textile, garment and leather industries the
major sectors for Chinese employment where the high walls of manufactories…make
them susceptible to labour abuse and exploitation” (Wu, 2008). It’s common in the
Italian-Chinese manufacturing industry “for employees to work a fourteen hour day,
seven days a week” (Wu, 2008). Even in a global city like Milan, sweatshops are often
found endangering both legal and illegal migrants. The Italian Government is certainly
aware of sweatshop manufacturers but, do little to change regulations on a national level.
In Milan a highly industrial city, manufacturing is being pushed further south as, stricter
tensions and restrictions are placed on the Chinese migrants. Xiu Ling a Chinatown
merchant explains, "every day I get a fine, we are here to work, we are not gangsters, we
do not kill anyone, just work and paying taxes, the police want the evil Chinese, indeed
Italians can work, but we don’t prevent it and now I have closed the shop, how can I feed
my children? Pay the rent of the house?” (La Repubblica, 2007). As tensions rise in the
North, migrants are now flocking to other parts of Italy as government restrictions are
lesser in the South.
VI. Global City Study
Comparing New York City garment factories to Dhaka, Bangladesh was not a
coincidence. In New York City or Milan, a one and third tier city respectively according
to Sociologist Mark Abrahamson, have fewer but, analogous garment factories. New
York City is considered a one tier global city as it is “the central hub of the global
network regardless of how it is defined” (Abrahamson, 2004). New York City is a
cultural and economic hub and therefore a leading global city. Abrahamson believes,
“New York stands alone at the global city apex” (Abrahamson, 2004). As a third-tier city
Milan, “remains globally significant given the broad consequences of the organizations
and activities it houses” (Abrahamson, 2004) however, lacks cultural industries. New
York City excels with a number of cultural and economic industries, Milan however,
“can [only] be considered a specialized economic center” (Abrahamson, 2004). Both
global cities no matter one or third tier have a garment manufacturing sector. Conditions
that are often found in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a developing, third-world country, are found
in factories in these global cities. Garment workers are often placed in unsafe conditions,
64
�have abusive supervisors, and many risk their lives just to make a living. These cities that
are cultural and/or economic hubs have a dark side, one that many are not aware of. After
studying, visiting and analyzing garment factory conditions in New York City and Milan,
comparisons can be made to the many garment factories found in Bangladesh.
Findings
When examining factory conditions in New York City, Milan and Dhaka,
Bangladesh, commonalities are found in all three cities. After analyzing and graphing the
similarities, New York City and Milan sweatshops are closely related to ones in
Bangladesh. Although garment factories are found less frequently in Milan than in New
York City, conditions are similar for workers. Table 2 charts comparisons between the
garment factories in the three cities. Although Bangladesh has the worst factory
conditions, New York City factories possess more similarities than factories in Milan.
Both Bangladesh and New York City garment factories had supervisors keeping two sets
of timesheets. Employees who worked more than forty hours a week and sometimes
reaching eighty or ninety hours were never compensated for their overtime. The majority
of garment workers stay to reach improbable quotas but, only receive pay for forty hours.
Workers employed by Alexander Wang Inc. described conditions many workers
experience in Bangladesh factories. Workers health is affected greatly as many are in
unsafe, unventilated factories for long periods of time. In Bangladesh and New York
City, both women and men who worked over eight hours a day saw a significant decline
in their health and some were eventually hospitalized. New York City and Milan factories
are also comparable with regards to factory safety. Employees work in small areas with
poor ventilation and lighting as well as garments blocking main exits. Factory fires in
Bangladesh often start due to poor equipment and a lack of fire safety codes. Blocking
exits in these tightly packed factories creates an even more dangerous environment.
Although factory fires are not as common in New York City and Milan, fire safety laws
are consistently ignored as floors and exits are illegally covered. Some of the most
underdeveloped parts of these global cities contain elements and workplaces similar to a
third-world country. Garment workers often women and migrants face abusive and forced
labor as factory production demand increases. Workers who are unable to keep up with
the workload are often insulted and reprimanded. Whether in Bangladesh, New York City
or Milan, workers are put in uncomfortable situations even
65
�Table 2: New York City and Milan Factory Comparison
New York City
Milan
Bangladesh
Worker Compensation
Labor
Poor Timesheet Reporting
No Overtime Compensation
Excessive Hours Worked
N/A
N/A
N/A
Factory Safety
No Fire Safety Codes
Poor Ventilation
Poor Lighting
Unsafe Factory Size
N/A
Worker Treatment
Abusive/Forced Labor
Workers Terminated PostComplaint
if they are already working at their full potential. As discussed earlier, supervisors often
push employees to reach these impractical quotas. Those workers who choose not to
work overtime or fall short of reaching their quotas, are fired in New York City,
Bangladesh and most likely Milan. Factories must keep up with demand in order to make
a profit. If workers complain about conditions similar to Bangladesh factories in New
York City and Milan, supervisors tend to terminate employment in order to hide the true
factory conditions. Factories in New York City and Milan, two global cities, shockingly
resemble conditions found in developing Bangladesh. Although New York City and
Milan continue to shift garment manufacturing to the third-world, some factories that still
exist resemble Bangladesh more than one may think.
Discussion
Comparing sweatshops in Bangladesh to ones found in two fashion capitals of
the world is truly alarming. Although the United States and Italy mainly outsource
garment production, New York City and Milan garment factories bring the third-world
66
�into these global cities. Individuals who work in the garment industry are often subjected
to these unsafe conditions. This paper brings awareness not only to factories in
Bangladesh but, all factories throughout the garment industry. Scholars often focus on the
third-world even though similar conditions are found in their own cities. Studies focusing
on sweatshop conditions in New York City and Milan in the 21st century are rare. Since
factories are not as prevalent as they once were, the garment industry of these global
cities is often ignored. The majority of Bangladesh garment workers live below the
poverty line, much like those working in factories in New York City and Milan. These
workers often play an insignificant role in society, making change improbable.
Bangladeshi women especially, will continue to suffer as they are treated unequally in
both society and the workforce. Until global brands prioritize garment factory safety in
Bangladesh, New York City and Milan, factory employees will continue to work in
unsafe sweatshops.
The garment industry in the developed world is often filled with migrants just
looking to make a living. In Bangladesh however, workers may also be uneducated but,
are quite skilled in garment manufacturing. If all garment factory workers received a
living wage, the industry would be quite different. As the garment industry continues to
globalize, production will shift from China, Vietnam and other top garment exporters to
Bangladesh. The main difference is in these countries, workers are paid a living wage. As
labor and operating costs rise in China and Vietnam, buyers are seeing shrinking profit
margins. Bangladesh is appealing for buyers as labor and operating costs are nearly half
as much as other countries. No matter the risk, Bangladesh garment prices draw buyers
from the developed world.
Much like Bangladesh, developed countries’ garment production within illegal
sweatshops is increasing. Although government regulations are shutting sweatshops
down, those that exist have lower operating and labor costs than those of a legal garment
factory. Garment workers will continue to see poor conditions, disrespectful supervisors
and extremely low wages. In an industry that is so vibrant and often a significant part of
the developed world’s culture, the backstory that is often untold is frightening. The
garment industry should not have a majority of manufacturing taking place in developed
and developing countries sweatshops. When finding cheap clothing, one may wonder
how the item is so cheap.
The globalizing garment industry’s future seems predictable. More and more
production will be shifted from garment exporters that pay workers a living wage to the
countries like Bangladesh that keep labor costs extremely low. Garment workers will be
67
�unable to meet the growing demand, causing many to overwork affecting their health
greatly. More workers will be hired in the already small and packed factories, causing a
higher risk of factory fires. For New York City and Milan, as costs rise, production will
continue to shift to factories with cheaper production costs. In New York City, garment
manufacturing in illegal sweatshops will increase. As for Milan, production as it is now
will continue to shift to cities in the south of Italy. The garment industry is a business.
Companies and global buyers win and those who produce the garments lose. However,
do companies and global buyers actually win?
The question is tough to answer. Global buyers win if consumers continue to
spend their money in stores that outsource production to Bangladesh. If consumers are
informed of the conditions found in garment factories of the third-world and continue to
shop in the stores, change is unlikely. Like global buyers, consumers look for cheap
clothing. Companies that often purchase their clothing from garment factories in
Bangladesh have seen a rise in sales. H&M, one of the top garment buyers in Bangladesh
states, “the H&M Group’s sales including VAT increased in local currencies by 11
percent during the financial year” (H&M Hennes & Mauritz, 2012). Walmart also saw an
increase in garment sales, by “focusing on basics drove apparel sales to the best comp
sales performance in 7 years” (Walmart Stores, 2012). As more consumers become aware
of conditions found in Bangladesh sweatshops, it will be interesting to study if consumer
behavior is shifted to stores that outsource manufacturing to factories that make garment
worker safety a priority. If consumers prioritize cost much like global buyers, garment
factory conditions will not matter. Clothing prices will continue to be the number one
priority for consumers.
VII. Conclusion
This paper analyzes factories in the third-world to ones found in New York City
and Milan, a one and third tier city respectively. No matter if one examines a garment
factory in a global city or the third-world, conditions are often similar. Sadly, change
looks bleak as the growing production demand in Bangladesh will only keep garment
workers in sweatshops longer and conditions poor. When thousands flock to New York
City and Milan for their bi-annual fashion weeks, the fashion world as we know it will
continue to profit. An industry known for designers, elegance, and glamour has an untold
and often forgotten story behind the label.
68
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73
�Imprisoning Sexuality: Exploring the Fluidity
of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior Within the
Marginalized Sub-Culture of Women’s Prisons
Joey Sergi (Anthropology)1
This project will examine the roles of sexuality and sexual behavior within marginalized
sub-cultures, ultimately addressing this behavior’s implications for the overarching EuroAmerican conception of sexuality. In past ethnographic research on marginalized
communities, there is often an element of non-normative sexuality, although this is
typically not the overall focus of the ethnography (e.g., see Bourgois and Schonberg
2009). Specifically, this research will focus on women’s prison systems, examining the
ways in which the shifting sexual identities and behaviors exhibited by inmates, although
traditionally marginalized and considered oppositional (Kunzel 2002), can be understood
through the context of a larger socio-sexual system. The prison system is an ideal case
study since it is an isolated environment, it is understood by many scholars to contain a
distinct culture of its own (e.g., see Pardue et al. 2011 and Tewksbury and West 2000),
and it has often been documented that sexual identities emerge contrary to normative
Euro-American values, yet the sexual actors still identify themselves and are identified by
others as being normal or heterosexual (Kunzel 2002). The cultural and social processes
within prisons are similar to other dominant modes in non-marginalized communities and
should not be written off as oppositional. By conceiving of prison as a marginalized subculture, applying a critical lens to the existing literature, and employing anthropological
theories to understand behavior, this research seeks to demonstrate that sexuality within
prisons is in glaring opposition to the naturalized and dominant models of sexuality
within the Euro-American perspective. Suggestions are made for further research that
may allow an analysis of prison sexuality to reveal the ways in which ideals and
expectations of sexual identity are formed, what purpose they serve in society, what
situations sexuality tends to be fluid in, and what factors contribute to respective
enforcement or lack of enforcement of normative values.
1
An honors thesis written under the direction of Dr. Alexa Dietrich and Dr. Celeste Gagnon.
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�I. Literature Review
It is first necessary to provide an overview of the research that has been
conducted related to this topic. Herein, I consider literature from many disciplines
including anthropology, sociology, nursing, criminal justice, and penology, as it relates to
female sexual behavior within prisons and sexuality as a whole.
A Suspicious Oversight
Ever since prison life has come under study, homosexuality within prison walls
has captured the imagination of laymen and researchers alike (Ward and Kassebaum
1964, 1965; Blackburn et al. 2011). Despite this interest, little to no formal research has
been done on sexuality within the prison systems and what this may imply for sexuality
in general (Pardue, Arrigo, and Murphy 2011; Kunzel 2002). Joseph Fishman, a former
prison inspector, wrote, “…the subject of sex in prison-so provocative, so vital, so
timely…is shrouded in dead silence”(Hensley 2000:2). Although that statement was
made in 1934, the 21st century researchers who dedicated their time to the study of prison
sex still felt that Joseph Fishman’s statement was relevant.
While some scholars have contributed to the knowledge base of prison sex, it is
almost always with the intention of furthering political goals or in regards to policy.
When research is conducted for other purposes, it is “often marginalized by professional
colleagues and viewed skeptically both by colleagues and the public “ (Tewksbury and
West, 2000:368). In addition to this lack of scholarly research on prisons in general,
research specifically on women’s prisons is even sparser. This is most likely because as
of 2009, the female prison population was 18% compared to 82% males (Department of
Justice, 2009). However, the rate at which women are being incarcerated has been higher
than the rate at which men are being incarcerated since 2000 (Department of Justice,
2007; Koscheski and Hensley 2001). Within the research that has been done on women in
prison, just as with men’s facilities, the component of sexuality within the institutions
remained largely unexplored (Koscheski and Hensley 2001).
Sexuality within prisons, though scarcely directly addressed, has undeniable
implications for the Western notion of viewing sexuality (Kunzel 2002). To attempt to fill
the gap of what these implications may be I will analyze the available research in great
detail in hopes of extracting connections not previously made. My main areas of concern
are theories on the social construction of sexuality, reported prisoner sexual behaviors,
and the prevalent theories on explaining homosexuality within the prison systems.
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�Similar to Davis and Whitten (1987) homosexuality within this review will be defined as
same-sex sexual behavior, whether or not the participants identify as gay or bisexual.
Constructing Sexuality
There exists a pervasive notion in Western culture that one’s sexual identity,
defined by their sexual desires and behaviors, constitutes a large and revealing
component of one’s overall identity and self (Kunzel 2002; Parker 2001). This notion is
not in fact a universally natural assessment, but rather a recent social construct. Foucault
(1978) locates the formation of the Euro-American sexual identities in the early twentieth
century. As Kunzel (2002) explains, around this time, “what one did, and with whom,
came to define who one was” (253). With this notion of identity based on sexual acts
came the definition of the homosexual as something distinct and abnormal from the
heterosexual (Foucault 1978).
This notion of sexuality, however, does not hold up when applied to many
situations cross-culturally (Kunzel 2002; Parker 2001; Davis and Whitten 1987, Barry
2001). Barry (2001) analyzes homosexual relations as a form of kinship. He explains a
situation of ritualized homosexuality in Melanesia. In this instance, homosexual behavior
is not considered deviant, but rather “a “predictable” outcome of a particular combination
of age, gender, and kinship (20).” He states that homosexuality illustrates Levi Strauss’
(1963) concept that kinship ties are not objective, but rather an arbitrary system of
representations within human consciousness. Barry (2001) identifies both age and kinship
ties as major factors in the precipitation and acceptance of homosexual behaviors.
Crabtree (2009) applies an existentialist perspective to the study of sexuality, but
comes to a similar conclusion as Barry (2001) and Levi Strauss (1963) regarding the
importance of kinship. She states that primarily, sexuality is a fundamental aspect of our
desire to be interrelated with others. This undermines the biological argument that
homosexuality is somehow perverse, since the primary goal is interaction, not
reproduction (Crabtree 2009). She then goes on to make the distinction that although
these ties are in fact culturally constructed, they exist and are informed by a historical,
social, cultural, and political context. These factors influence how people view
themselves, how they identify, and what sexual behaviors they ultimately engage in or
consider desirable.
In a cross-cultural analysis of homosexual behavior, Davis and Whitten (1987)
found that there is a much greater abundance of homosexual behavior in the world
outside of Euro-American cultures. Their analysis led them to question the Western
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�assumption that homosexuality is a life-long and exclusive status. The author’s suggested
that lifelong homosexuality is uncommon, while bisexuality or ad hoc homosexuality are
much more prevalent cross-culturally. Davis and Whitten’s (1987) analysis is both
helpful and troublesome. Their analysis is best viewed within the frameworks presented
by Crabtree (2009) and Barry (2001). It should not be interpreted to imply that
homosexuality is not a real phenomenon, but rather that cross-cultural analysis
demonstrates that sexuality is fluid and may change over time.
Reported Prisoner Sexual Behavior
Prisons are considered by many researchers of the institution to contain a culture
of their own (e.g., see Pardue et al. 2011 and Tewksbury and West 2000). By viewing
prison as having its own culture, it becomes easier to apply these theories of sexuality to
inmate sexual behavior since behaviors can be understood as being influenced by cultural
factors. As Kunzel (2002) suggests, the sexual acts and actors within prisons confound
the Euro-American historical narrative that separates sexual identity into a binary. Within
these Euro-American cultures, often in sex-segregated spaces, sexual identities emerge
contrary to these normative notions in which the participants identify themselves and are
identified by others as being normal or heterosexual. Prisons are one of these spaces, and
instead of dismissing them as an anomaly, they should instead be considered valuable
resources of information to contribute to our overall understanding of sexuality.
Researchers prior to the 1960’s primarily relied on staff and inmate perceptions
of sexual activity to gather a picture of sexual life within prisons. (Koscheski and
Hensley 2001). Halleck and Hersko (1962) were the first to gather comprehensive data
and apply statistical analysis to a female institution. Using a biographical inventory and
an anonymous questionnaire, they found that 69% of inmates were involved in some type
of homosexual behavior. Ward and Kassebaum (1965) found that a conservative estimate
based on prisoner and staff reports was that at least 50% of the female inmates were
engaged in homosexual behavior. Giallombardo’s (1966) study similarly asked staff and
inmates to estimate the amount of female homosexual behavior within the prison.
Prisoner estimates were around 90-95%, while staff reported 50-75%.
In 1981, Propper (1981) took a more comprehensive approach to the issue. She
conducted a comparative study of four female juvenile institutions. Using self-reported
data she found that at least 14% of the girls were in steady relationships with other girls,
and that at least 10% had kissed another girl while incarcerated. In yet another new
approach, Greer (2000) conducted intensive interviews with 35 women in a single
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�institution. He found that 10 of these women had been involved in a sexual relationship
with another woman during their prison term. Koscheski and Hensley (2001) followed by
distributing anonymous questionnaires to female inmates in a correctional facility. When
asked about their sexual orientation while incarcerated, 55% reported being heterosexual,
31% bisexual, and 13% said they were lesbians. These were marked changes from the
sexual orientations they indicated prior to incarceration. Interestingly, aside from these
self sexual-identifications, they found that approximately 75% of the women reported
kissing or touching a female prior to and during incarceration and half of the inmates
engaged in oral sex with a female prior to and during incarceration.
A study of sexual coercion within female institutions had not been conducted
until 1996 (Pardue et al. 2011). However, the issue has recently received more attention
due to the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. According to Pardue at al. (2011) sexual
violence in women’s prisons contains a wide variety of behaviors specific to the
environment. These behaviors come in three forms and may range from manipulation,
compliance, or coercion in the form of tacit pressure to forcible rape. (StruckmanJohnson and Struckman-Johnson 2002). In their study of sexual coercion in a Midwestern
prison system, Struckman-Johnson et al. (1996) found that reports of coerced sex for
women were relatively low, coming in around 7%.
Although the estimated rates of homsexual activity within prisons vary widely
within the body of research, it is safe to say that sexual activity amongst incarcerated
women does in fact occur, and continues to be a large component of prison life.
Struckman-Johnson et al.’s (1996) estimate of sexual coercion rates compared to reported
sexual activity indicate that the majority of sexual activity that occurs amongst
imprisoned women is not coerced but rather consensual. This information, coupled with
Koscheski and Hensley’s (2001) findings that reported sexual behavior and self-sexual
identification do not correlate, directly challenges the Western binary view of
homosexuality and heterosexuality.
Situational vs. True Homosexuals
In order for researchers to rationalize homosexuality produced by
“circumstance, architecture, and environment (253),” the term situational homosexual
became prevalent in the twentieth century (Kunzel, 2002). In reports, ethnographic
records, and firsthand accounts, there is oftentimes a mention of situational versus true
homosexuality within prison systems (Kunzel 2002;Pardue et al 2011; Ward &
Kassebaum 1964; Morgan 1997). Ward and Kassebaum (1964) first address this
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�phenomenon in their landmark study of homosexuality within women’s prisons, however
they use the term jailhouse turnout instead of situational homosexual. They found that
this distinction between situational and true homosexuals appeared to be very important
to the inmates themselves. This notion has later been supported by other ethnographic
studies conducted in women’s prisons (Morgan 1997; Maeve 1999).
The definitions of situational and true homosexuals set forth by Ward and
Kassebaum (1964) were contributed to by the prisoners in their study. These definitions
continue to be used by researchers today. The jailhouse turnout, or situational
homosexual, is a person who had their introduction to homosexuality within prison. The
assumption is that these women will most likely return to heterosexual relationships upon
release from prison (Giallombardo 1966; Morgan 1997; Maeve 1999). This is in contrast
to the true homosexual, women whose sexual orientations were lesbian prior to their
incarceration (Ward and Kassebaum 1964; Pardue et al. 2011).
It has been put forward by researchers that women perceived as situational
homosexuals are looked down upon by other prisoners compared to true homosexuals
(Giallombardo 1966, Morgan 1997, Maeve 1999). Giallombardo (1996) suggests that
this is because the primary goal of these interactions by the women who considered
themselves true homosexuals was to experience a sincere and stable relationship
predicated on love. It is presumed by prisoners that situational homosexuals only engage
in homosexual behavior for the positive rewards they received from these encounters
(Pardue et al. 2011; Morgan 1997). As Morgan (1997) suggests, being with someone in
prison can carry a desirable social standing. She claims to have witnessed that in some
cases, women become disinterested once they have exhausted the relationship for its
benefits. Thus, situational homosexuals are associated with drifting in and out of
relationships or allowing themselves to be sexually exploited, which is less respected by
other female inmates than true homosexuals who are perceived as looking for love
(Pardue et al.; Giallombardo 1966; Morgan 1997).
In their recent typology of prison sex within women’s facilities, Pardue et al.
(2011) claim that the distinction between situational and true homosexuality is still
important to note. There are issues, however, with their assessment of the research
preceding them. The authors are selective in the findings they choose to represent in their
typological report. For instance, the authors quote Kunzel (2008) on the reasons why
lesbianism within prisons may have received less attention in the past, but disregard the
fact that her work fundamentally disagrees with the classification of situational
homosexuality.
79
�Kunzel (2002) feels that the term situational homosexuality is aimed to
distinguish homosexual practices in prison from true homosexuality, which would then
have a somatic or psychic origin, thus only affecting ‘certain people’. Similarly, Katz
(1976) argues that to distinguish situational homosexuality is actually fallacious in nature,
as all homosexuality is situational in that it is given meaning by “its location and time in
social space”(11). Kunzel (2002) traces back the literature on prison sex and notes that a
distinction originated in the mid-twentieth century. As homosexuality began to come to
the forefront of American society, the fear that rose from this shifting social climate
translated into fears about homosexuality in the prison systems. She argues that social
scientists created situational homosexuality to try to repress their concerns about how
prison homosexuality demonstrated the fragility and instability of heterosexuality outside
the prison. In summation of her point, Kunzel (2002) says that situational homosexuality
should be understood not as an actual description of sexual acts connected to the
environment, but rather a “rhetorical maneuver by which midcentury social scientists
sought to contain the disruptive meanings of sexual acts…” (265).
The definitions and support for the concepts of situational and true
homosexuality have clearly shifted over time. Researchers relied heavily on the inmate’s
own classifications of each other (e.g., see Ward and Kassebaum 1964 and Giallombardo
1966). This is problematic, however, as the inmates were inevitably influenced by the
binary concept of sexuality in which they were raised. These cultural ideas influenced not
only the inmates but also the researchers, as Kunzel (2002) correctly points out that the
term situational homosexual was a reaction to observed behaviors by social scientists to
maintain the dominant discourse.
Important Hypothesis vs. Deprivation Hypothesis
Within the literature, there are competing views over how the prison sexual
subculture has developed over time. The two main contending hypotheses are the
importation hypothesis and the deprivation hypothesis (Blackburn et al. 2011).
Traditionally, the importation model has been used to explain ‘true homosexuality’ and
the deprivation model has been used to explain ‘situational homosexuality’ (Pardue et al.
2011). Sykes (1958) was the first to introduce the concept of the deprivation hypothesis
with his study of American maximum-security prisons. Ward and Kassebaum (1964)
followed by applying the deprivation theory to women’s prisons for the first time. The
deprivation theory suggests that inmates adapt to the deficiencies of prison life by
creating ways in which they are no longer deprived (Blackburn et al. 2011; Sykes 1958).
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�Ward and Kassebaum (1964) suggest that prisoners will develop an ‘inmate code’ in
which they play certain roles that eventually form specific social systems involving
themselves, the guards, and the institution itself. Following this theory, just as prisoners
may form a black market of contraband that has been smuggled into the prison, they may
turn to homosexuality as a substitute for the heterosexual relations they cannot engage in
while incarcerated (Blackburn et al. 2011; Ward and Kassebaum 1964). The competing
theory, the importation hypothesis, suggests that prison conditions do not create a
subculture, but rather that inmates bring “a culture with them into the prison” (Irwin and
Cressey 1962,142). This perspective suggests that inmate behaviors are a result of their
behaviors and lives on the outside (Blackburn et al. 2011). Thus, homosexual behavior
within the prison would be conducted by those who participated in it prior to their
incarceration.
Since the development of these hypotheses, studies have been conducted in an
attempt to add support to both sides (Blackburn et al. 2011). Propper (1981), conducted
an exhaustive analysis of four female juvenile institutions and three coed institutions. Her
conclusion was the vague, yet decisive statement that prison homosexuality was affected
by a countless number of cultural, personality, and biological variables prior to
incarceration. She felt that prior homosexual activity was a strong and direct predictor of
prison homosexuality. Pardue et al. (2011) claim that the importation theory is the correct
assessment, yet they misrepresent findings by Koscheski and Hensley (2001) to support
this statement. The most recent and methodologically sound research on the topic finds
that neither the deprivation nor the importation hypothesis can account for all prisoner
behavior. Hensley (2000) draws on Ibrahim’s (1974) work where he outlines six factors
that influence sexual behavior within prisons. The factors combine components of both
the importation and deprivation theory. He seems to try to find a medium between the
two hypotheses when he states that both the social structure of the prison as well as
inmate culture are what produces homosexual behavior. Koscheski and Hensley’s (2001)
study similarly suggests that the importation theory is too simplistic to address the topic.
Their data, based on 245 inmates, suggests that while homosexual behavior prior to
incarceration was a variable, it is not the only predictor of homosexual behavior within
the prison facility. The data showed that the most significant predictors were prior
homosexual behavior, age, and increased length of incarceration. Aside from women with
prior experience, women who were younger and women who were incarcerated for
longer periods were also much more prone to engaging in same-sex sexual activities. This
data connects to Barry’s (2001) model of sexuality, in which he found that both age and
81
�kinship ties were heavy influencers of sexual behavior. It is also interesting to note, that it
was not always the inmates who reported activity prior to incarceration that engaged in
said behavior once inside (Koscheski and Hensley 2001).
The inability of the research to isolate either the importation or deprivation
hypothesis as the true cause of homosexuality in prisons suggests that the answer lies
somewhere between the two. As suggested by the study conducted by Koscheski and
Hensley (2001) there are a variety of factors that may influence inmate sexual behavior
while inside prison. These hypotheses stand in an interesting position when connected to
previously discussed theories on sexuality. The lack of resolution between the two
suggests that Western definitive notions of sexuality are not as clear-cut as the general
population and social scientists may wish to believe.
Summation of the Literature
As evidenced by my discussion of the social construction of sexuality, EuroAmerican discourse on sexuality suggests that there exists a binary between
heterosexuality and homosexuality, with heterosexuality as the right or normal choice
(Kunzel 2002; Parker 2001; Davis and Whitten 1987, Barry 2001). The sexual behavior
of female prison inmates not only demonstrates that homosexual behavior is a large
component of prison life, but the self-sexual identifications compared to actual sexual
behaviors inevitably calls the concept of a true heterosexuality into question. The
inability to reconcile the debate between the deprivation and importation hypotheses
implies that the genesis of homosexuality within the prison system is as complex as
outside of it. This suggests that Kunzel’s (2002) denial of the existence of situational
homosexuality is valid, and as Katz (1976) suggests, all homosexuality, or sexuality for
that matter, should be considered situational.
In general, I believe that by lining up the inconsistencies of research with a
social constructionist theory of sexuality and pointing out the influence of dominant
modes of thinking on researchers, this review contributes to the notion that sexuality
within prisons is worth examining due to its implications for sexuality in the free world.
As Kunzel (2002) says, alleged situational homosexuality “should not be understood as
simply marginal or oppositional.” Its implications have been “buttressing, often
disquieting, and always revealing of the fissures and fault lines of a modern sexual
system in the making” (256). In the past, researchers and social scientists may have
chosen to disregard prison sexuality as situational, something that has no bearing on nonmarginalized people, but this review aims to suggest that it is time a more comprehensive
82
�look be taken at what prison sexuality truly implicates for the Euro-American
understanding of the heterosexual binary.
II. Theoretical Implications: An Anthropological Analysis
As the literature review suggests, there are alternative methods of understanding
sexuality within prison societies. Many anthropological theories lend themselves quite
easily to the topic. They provide an alternative framework to the normative discourse on
sexuality in prisons that will allow it to be more easily connected to sexuality within
society at large.
Addressing Biases within the Literature
When evaluating the research on sexuality within prisons, it appears
troublesome that researchers have not made the connection between prison sexuality and
sexuality at large. In a somewhat ironic twist, given the definition of marginality of the
mind as, ”…when one excludes certain domains of phenomena from one’s thinking
because they do not correspond to the mainstream philosophy” (International
Geographical Union (IGU), 2003:2), previous researchers have mentally marginalized an
already marginalized sub-culture by ignoring its implications for general sexuality.
Fitting with the explanation, as Kunzel (2002) identified, this was most likely done
because it challenged the existing hetero-normative discourse.
This is not to say, however, that this exclusion was an intentional act by
previous scholars. Instead, it should be understood that researchers, just as people, are
prone to subjectivity and bias. Although ideally scholars should view their work through
a critical lens, shedding themselves of ethnocultural values, they too are inevitably
products of their culture, thus this ideal is not always the case.
In anthropology specifically, there is a history of allowing preconceived notions
to influence the data interpretation of examples from other cultures. In Leacock’s (1978)
critique of Ruth Landes’ (1938) study, she points out that despite overwhelming evidence
that women were in fact not subservient to men, Landes (1938) constantly contradicts her
ethnographic observations by applying her Western ethnocentric interpretations (Moore
2008). Similarly, Freeman (1999) critiques Margaret Mead as, “an example of the way in
which a highly intelligent observer can be blinded to empirical reality by an uncritical
commitment to a scientifically unsound assumption” (212), for her willingness to accept
Samoan girl’s statements about sexual liaisons (Moore 2008: 100).
83
�Although the validity of these critiques is open for debate, what is notable about
them is that both of these situations concern the topics of gender and sexuality. This
demonstrates that shedding views on these topics is no easy task, even for a professional;
as Foucault (1978) indicates, concepts conflating gender, sexuality, and identity are
extremely ubiquitous. Anthropologists too are prone to this, likely due to the
ethnographic nature of their work. As LeCompte (1987) highlights, ethnographers do not
have a tool as many other researchers do, to act as a dispassionate mediator between the
observer and the phenomena they observe.
The Social Construction of Sexuality as Evidenced by Marginality
To understand the ways in which sexuality may be fluid, it is first important to
understand how sexuality operates. Foucault (1978) traces the genealogy of sexuality to
show that it is not something fixed, rather it is a social construct that has changed and
served a multitude of purposes over time. The way in which Foucault (1978) conceives
sexuality as having come to be seen as an integral part of identity in Euro-American
cultures is related to its relationship with knowledge and power. If as Foucault (1978)
indicates, power is omnipresent, sexuality cannot simply be understood as something that
is repressed. Instead, power is just as productive as it is repressive, thus sexuality is
actually a conduit for power.
Sexuality in itself can also be considered a form of panopticism (Foucault 1975).
Drawing on Foucault (1990), Gounis (1996) uses his work with marginalized
communities to suggest that people who exist in spaces of permanent captivity,
constantly under the influence of the mechanisms of control, have no option but to
“conform with the institutional expectations and views about one’s self” (113). If
sexuality can be understood as a panopticon, Gounis’ description of conformity in
captivity can be applied to both marginalized and non-marginalized communities. With
the sense that everybody is constantly talking about and monitoring other’s sexual
behaviors, cultural participants internalize the dominant discourse on sexuality and take it
to be a natural fact. This unseen power influences people’s identities, feelings, and
ultimately actions.
This power, as Foucault (1978) explains, comes along with a shift from the
“right of death” of the sovereign nation to the modern “power over life” (136). With this
emphasis on fostering and preserving life comes the inadvertent regulation of the body
and sexuality. This emphasis naturally changes the understood and intended meaning of
84
�sexual acts from pleasure to reproduction, thus the dominant mode of sexuality will
become the one that fosters reproduction.
Bourdieu’s (1989) discussion of capital and its translation into power becomes
useful in understanding the ways in which power is gained through heterosexuality.
Being in a heterosexual relationship in mainstream Euro-American culture affords the
three types of capital Bourdieu (1989) discusses due to its association with reproduction.
The label of both heterosexual and parent provides symbolic capital, the labels present a
set of meanings and a specific place in society. Parents and heterosexuals also gain social
capital, in that they are conforming to the expectations of what a productive person
should be contributing to society, i.e. reproduction. Economic capital is then provided by
the government in the form of tax and pay benefits to those who have children. As
Bourdieu (1989) points out, these forms of capital translate into power. Since
heterosexual relationships provide the most power due to their association with
reproduction, it then becomes the dominant form of sexuality.
The reason that sexuality shifts depending on the context of marginalization is
because different forms of power are influencing and being utilized by the sexual actors
depending on the context they exist in. Marginalized communities exist in a unique social
space in which they are at the edge of a cultural or social system (International
Geographical Union (IGU) 2003:2). This position “at the edge” (2) indicates they are
often not under the direct, or the mainstream, influence of social power.
In the case of sexuality within prisons, while in non-marginalized EuroAmerican societies, power is exerted and gained through the reproduction of children in
heterosexual relationships, this option does not exist in the marginalized context of
women’s prisons. Yet this does not mean that sexuality in marginalized communities is
free from the presence of power. As Focault (1976) indicates, power is dynamic and
ubiquitous. Sexuality within prisons does not escape social power; rather the marginality
changes the way in which sexuality and power collectively function. This dynamic gives
the supposedly natural form of sexuality a different context and purpose.
The tension demonstrated by previous ethnographies between prisoners who
perceived themselves and others as being either true or situational lesbians can be better
understood through this dynamic (Maeve 1999;Morgan 1997;Ward & Kassebaum 1964).
Women who perceive themselves as true homosexuals look down upon women who have
had their first lesbian experience in prison (Giallombardo 1966, Morgan 1997, Maeve
1999). Prisoners suggest that these women have insincere motivations since in the prison
environment, engaging in same-sex activities provides benefits. Women often gain
85
�protection, desirable social standing, kinship, and sometimes monetary gifts from these
relationships. These benefits can be understood as economic, symbolic, and social
capital, ultimately translating into power (Bordieu 1989).
While the prisoners are correct to identify power as a factor in the equation of
these relationships, this does not necessarily negate the sincerity of the actions. Prisoners
exist in a marginalized space, but the very definition of this marginality indicates that
they are not completely separated from mainstream society. Even in the case of women
who view themselves as true homosexuals, by existing in the non-marginalized society
previously, they have internalized and naturalized the idea that heterosexuality is the
dominant method of relationships. This naturalization prevents not just the prisoners, but
most cultural participants, from being able to see the elements of power and social,
symbolic, and economic capital embedded in the dominant form of sexuality as well.
When there is a removal of mainstream social pressures, sexuality is able to
flourish in places it is generally unable due to the naturalization effects of culture. As
Foucault (1976) is correct to point out, power exists within every relationship. The case
of women’s prisons demonstrates the heavily guiding force of power within all forms of
sexuality, both in marginalized and non-marginalized communities. Since engaging in
same-sex relations within prison gains more power than not, the marginalized culture
becomes more accepting of homosexuality. The panopticon of sexuality is still at work,
but the context causes the pressure to shift from heterosexuality to homosexuality. This
process demonstrates that as Foucault (1976) suggests, sexuality is a social construct and
it’s fluidity is much more pervasive than dominant Euro-American discourse would like
to acknowledge.
III. Suggestions for Further Research
Pervasive study on this topic has led to the heightened awareness of both the
importance of this subject for many disciplines, but also the dearth that exists in the
research base currently. For this reason, suggestions for further research have been
discerned based on a backbone of anthropological theory and analysis. The suggested
location, methods, and research plan should allow for the analysis of the ways in which
marginalization and sexual identity are conflated.
Proposed Ethnographic Location
The New Hampshire State Prison for Women has been singled out as a possible
site for study as it is one of the few facilities in the country that not only houses
86
�exclusively female inmates, but also contains a mixture of minimum, medium, and
maximum-security prisoners (New Hampshire Department of Corrections 2013). The
women housed in the facility have all been convicted and sentenced due to felonies. The
prison is located in Goffstown, New Hampshire (New Hampshire Department of
Corrections 2013). It is a leased facility with a capacity of 150 beds, which as of January
1st 2013 were all filled to capacity. The prison employs 41 staff including 27 Corrections
officer and 14 non-uniformed staff. Approximately 75 people from the community
volunteer their time to provide/lead self-help groups, a domestic violence group,
cognitive problem solving, alternatives to violence, self-esteem groups, AA/NA,
Hobbycraft, a softball league, and a women's chorus.
Both the institution and the population it serves make this an ideal ethnographic
location. Most prisons are coed facilities with separate male and female quarters (Bureau
of Prisons 2013). This prison’s exclusively female population truly marginalizes the
women, eliminating the possibility for the even symbolic presence of males to influence
the data. Further, the fact that the prison houses prisoners of all security levels prevents a
distinction from being made based on that factor, although surely an internal comparison
of data once collected would be interesting. Finally, the fact that the prison only houses
women who have committed felonies assures their marginalization on an individual level
because as Moran at al. (2009) indicates, women who commit serious crimes “…not only
break the law but also offend against gender role expectations” (701).
Suggested Research Design and Hypothesis
It should be the broad hypothesis of the research that marginality provides a
social space in which sexuality can become fluid. More specifically, same-sex
relationships occur within the marginalized context of women’s prisons due to different
power dynamics and societal pressures than those that exist in non-marginalized
communities.
It has been documented that the marginalized sub-culture of women’s prisons
undeniably produces sexual behaviors that run counter to Euro-American understandings
of sexuality (Kunzel 2002). The women that exist in these marginalized communities, the
staff working within the prisons, and the institutions themselves all contribute to the
culture and power dynamics in which its participants are subject to. All three groups
should be addressed, using individual questions and angles to obtain a holistic
understanding.
87
�The Institutions
The institutions themselves provide a physical and social structure in which
these interactions occur. I hypothesize that the representatives of the prisons, i.e. high
ranking officers not housed in a specific prison, will regard prison sexuality as a
disciplinary infraction in need of control. The institutions are a necessary component of
the research, as it would be impossible to understand the ground-level behaviors within
prisons without understanding the hierarchal structural influences. Special attention
should also be paid to the actual physical structure of the prisons, specifically which
aspects may contribute to increased marginalization.
Specific questions that should be sought to answer within the group should
include: What is the official policy on sexual activity between inmates? What
consequences are there for inmates who do not adhere to these policies? What sexual
acts, if any, does the institution believe prisoners engage in during their imprisonment?
What precautions does the institution take to prevent sexual activity between inmates?
What does the institution perceive as the differences in sexuality inside and outside the
prisons? What does the staff perceive as the motivation for women to engage in these
illicit relationships?
The Prison Staff
The prison staff provides a particularly interesting dynamic with the prisoners,
as they exist within the marginal space of the prison while working but then are
reincorporated into non-marginalized society once their shift ends. For this reason, the
prison staff’s ideas perception on sexuality in general and within the prison is worth
seeking. It would be fair to hypothesize that the prison staff would have a viewpoint on
sexuality that coincided more with that of the normative Euro-American discourse, as
they do not identify primarily with the marginalized prison environment. Further, the
prison staff’s likely alignment with the institution of the prison and not the prisoners
themselves most likely causes them to view prisoner sexual relations as disciplinary
infractions rather than attempts at forming kinships.
Specific questions that should be sought to answer within the group should
include: What sexual acts, if any, does the staff believe prisoners engage in during their
imprisonment? What protocol does the staff follow in regards to sexual activity amongst
inmates? How tightly enforced are these policies? What impacts, positive or negative,
does the staff perceive resulting from sexual activity between inmates? How does the
88
�staff sexually identify prisoners who engage in same-sex sexual behavior? What does the
staff perceive as the motivation for women to engage in these illicit relationships?
The Prisoners
It is likely that a large portion of the women are either currently, or have in the
past, engaged in a homosexual encounter of some kind while in prison. Coinciding with
Koscheski and Hensley’s (2001) findings, a strong hypothesis is that it will be the case
that prisoner’s self-reported sexual identities will not coincide with the normative labels
that would be attached to them in non-marginalized society. For example, women who
engage in homosexual behavior with other women within the prison will not necessarily
identify as either lesbian or bisexual. Further, it is likely that many of these women did
not identify with either of those labels prior to incarceration.
Specific questions that should be sought to answer within the group should
include: How do the prisoners perceive their overall relationship with the community
outside of prison? What sexual acts, if any, do prisoners engage in while imprisoned?
How, if at all, do their sexual acts or feelings differ from their behaviors and feelings
outside prison? What impacts, positive or negative, has being imprisoned had on their
conception of sexuality as a whole? What impacts, positive or negative, has being
imprisoned had on their conception of their own sexuality? What impacts, positive or
negative, does being involved sexually or emotionally with a fellow prisoner provide?
Suggested Methodology
The various methodologies utilized should be the largest differing factor
between the proposed study and those done in the past. While the research should in fact
draw on previous methodologies, to gain a thorough understanding of the processes at
work in the prison, various methods should be combined to obtain both quantitative and
qualitative data. In order to gain a full scope, researchers should use participant
observation, anonymous and non-anonymous surveying, and semi-structured interviews
amongst the population of women in the New Hampshire State Prison for Women. Using
these methods will allow for the collection of both the qualitative and quantitative data
necessary to address the preceding hypotheses. The qualitative data will be collected in
the first phase of the study and quantitative data will be collected in the latter half. This
will be done in order to utilize the qualitative data to create a truly effective research
instrument. Additionally, through the fieldwork process researchers should keep an
ethnographic journal to track their personal attitudes and thoughts regarding the
89
�participants and structures in the study. This will act as a measure of any inherent bias
present, thus serving as a measure of objectivity for the final product.
Working with Marginalized Communities
Anthropologists working with marginalized populations have often raised issues
of ethics and accountability in concern for protecting the people in these communities
from harm related to their research goals (Fluehr-Lobban 1994; Murphy and Johannsen
1990;Waldram 1998). This is primarily due to the fact that marginalized communities, by
definition, have a lack of power; this can easily place them at a disadvantage to the
anthropological researcher who is outside, or marginal, to the community. Waldram
(1998) points out that this is an especially important consideration to take into account
with the case of prisoners, who are generally characterized by their official state or
federally sanctioned lack of power, autonomy, and freedom.
Since prisoners, as well as other marginalized communities, are under a constant
state of panopticism (Focault 1979), Gounis (1996) points out that ethnography becomes
difficult as it may feel to the prisoners a replication of the panopticon in which they
constantly find themselves subject to. To remedy this, researchers should follow his
suggestion to attempt to undermine the “pervasive presence of the third party” (116),
keeping the presence as separate from the ethnographer as possible. As Waldram (1998)
points out, this can be accomplished by attempting to empower the marginalized
community in whichever ways are appropriate and applicable to the project.
Obtaining Consent
The process of obtaining consent within prison systems is complicated due to
factors related to their marginality and the often-sensitive nature of the topics being
discussed (Gounis 1996; Roberts and Indermaur 2003; Waldram 1998). Many prison
researchers struggled with the issue of negotiating consent with prisoners when they
realized that inmates technically exist in a legal state of limbo. Since prison systems are
responsible for the care and custody of inmates, the state is legally empowered to make
decisions on the behalf of the prisoners (Waldram 1998;Moran et al. 2009). In response
to this, Waldram (1998) asserts that, “A correctional system that insists on maintaining
absolute control over inmate participation in research, to the exclusion of the inmates’
own wishes, is not a healthy place for ethical social science” (6).
Another issue to take into consideration regarding consent for prisoners is
whether written consent is the correct choice. Dixon (1997) notes that the use of written
90
�consent forms is not always appropriate in criminological research. This is due largely in
part to research participants’ negative reactions to references of legal liability, but also to
the researchers role of protecting topic-sensitive information from the wrong parties.
Participants are expected to be especially hesitant in signing consent forms when the
information will act as a direct link between their person and the self-reporting of illegal
or illicit activities (Roberts and Indermaur 2003). Both Indermaur (1995) and Waldram
(1998) noted that some prisoners did in fact decline to participate in their research after it
was requested that they sign written consent forms, most likely due to fear that it would
harm confidentiality and become a liability for them.
With these concerns in mind, and with the AAA statement indicating that oral
consent is an acceptable means of obtaining consent, written consent should not be used
with prisoners in the study. The only instances written consent could be obtained without
jeopardizing the integrity of the research would be from staff members during semistructured interviewing. Instead the information about the study should be communicated,
either through writing or verbally, participants should orally acknowledge that they
comprehend the situation, and researchers should indicate that they are free to
discontinue their participation at any point.
Participant Observation Within the Prisons
To obtain a fuller understanding of the embodied experience of a prisoner,
researchers should engage in participant observation (DeWalt and DeWalt 1998),
shadowing prisoner’s daily activities such as leisure and mealtimes. Participant
observation should also be utilized to examine the dynamics within the prison staff as
well, although limitedly. Instances that should be observed include any contexts in which
social identity is being negotiated, either by prisoners of staff. Participant observation
amongst prisoners has many benefits including gaining the trust of informants,
establishing a researcher presence for the later distribution of surveys (Blackburn et al.
2011), and gaining a qualitative understanding of daily prison life. As Sanjek (1990)
suggests, all observations should be recorded at the end of each day as detailed field
notes.
Non-Anonymous Surveying
Arguments have been made against the lack of anonymity in regards to
surveying (Struckman-Johnson et al. 1996), however, there stands a powerful
counterargument that post-survey follow up interviews resulting from this method could
provide extremely valuable information. For this reason, non-anonymous surveys should
91
�be utilized to obtain quantitative data that can be engaged with in follow-up interviews.
The surveys should be created using qualitative data obtained in the participant
observation phase of the project. Furthermore, these non-anonymous surveys can provide
an interesting point of comparison for anonymous surveys distributed later in the
research. Two sets of non-anonymous surveys should be distributed to both the prisoner
population as well as the staff population. Survey recipients should have the option of
indicating whether they wish to participate in a follow-up interview.
Semi-Structures Interviews
In order to obtain answers to specific questions and engage in an ensured
dialogue, researchers should conduct semi-structured interviews (Weller 1998). These
interviews should be conducted primarily with prisoners, but also with staff and highranking prison officials. A separate interview instrument will be created for each
population. The interviews should be audio-recorded for reference purposes whenever
researchers are able to obtain consent (Gordon 2000). The limiting factors of prison
interviewing, such as a lack of a sense of privacy, have been noted by many researchers
(e.g. See Waldram 1998), so all considerations to ensure comfort for informants should
be taken.
Anonymous Surveying
Anonymous surveying should be the final component of the research project. At
this point, researchers will have established a presence with prisoners to eliminate any
potential fears about the true source of the survey (Struckman-Johnson et al. 1996).
Additionally, at this point in the research, enough qualitative data should have been
collected through participant observation, non-anonymous surveying, and semi-structured
interviews to create a succinct research tool. The survey’s anonymity should ensure
truthful reporting on sensitive topics (Struckman-Johnson et al. 1996) and will provide a
useful point of comparison for previously collected data.
Significance
This research project, if undertaken properly, could extend itself to many
disciplines. As sexuality is an expansive topic, affecting many areas of life, so too is the
examination of sexuality within marginalized communities. On a directly applied level,
this work will influence the criminal justice and penology communities by providing a
thorough and realistic view of the sexuality within prison systems. This could lead to
92
�policy reforms and improved treatment of prisoners. This work would also be beneficial
for the anthropological community, as it would add to the base of anthropological
research regarding sexuality in specific cultures as well as examine and provide insight
into the workings of a marginalized community. Most pervasive, however, is the affect
the findings this research could have for sexuality, gender studies, and feminism. By
demonstrating the fluidity of sexuality in marginalized cultures as not an oppositional or
abnormal process, but rather a similar process to sexuality in non-marginalized
communities, the overall conception of sexuality could be altered. This is a liberating
concept that could bring about tremendous and positive social change for people who are
constantly marginalized and mistreated by Euro-American society due to their in
adherence to gender roles, specifically regarding their sexual preferences.
IV. References
Barry, Adam, D. “Age, Structure, and Sexuality; Reflections on the Anthropological
Evidence for Homosexual Relations”, Journal of homosexuality 11(3/4):19-33, 1985.
Blackburn, Ashley G., Shannon K. Fowler, Janet L. Mullings, and James W. Marquart.
“Too Close for Comfort: Exploring Gender Differences in Inmate Attitudes Toward
Homosexuality in Prison”, American Journal of Criminal Justice 36:58-72, 2011.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “Social Space and Symbolic Power”, Sociological Theory 7(1):14-25,
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Bourgois, Philippe, and Jeffrey Schonberg. Righteous Dopefiend, Berkeley: University
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Bureau of Prisons. Accessed 3/15/13 Retrieved from:http://www.bop.gov/about/index.jsp
Crabtree, Catherine. “Rethinking Sexual Identity”, Existential Analysis 20(2):248-261,
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Dixon, D. Ethics. “Law and Criminological Research”, Australian and New Zealand
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Fleuhr-Lobban, Carolyn. “Informed Consent in Anthropological Research: We Are Not
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�Foucault, Michel. “An Introduction”, Vol. 1 of The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert
Hurley. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
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---. Use of Pleasure, Vol. 2 of The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Freeman, Derek. The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her
Samoan Research. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.
Giallombardo, Rose. Society of Women: A Study of a Women’s Prison. New York:
Wiley, 1966.
Gordon, Elisa, J. “When Oral Consent Will Do”, Field Methods 12(3):235-238, 2000.
Gounis, Kostas. “Urban Marginality and Ethnographic Practice: on the Ethics of
Fieldwork”, City & Society 8(1): 108-118, 1966.
Greer, Kimberly. “The Changing Nature of Interpersonal Relationships in a Women’s
Prison”, The Prison Journal 80:442-468, 2000.
Halleck, Seymour, L. and Marvin Hersko. “Homo-sexual Behavior in a Correctional
Institution for Adolescent Girls”, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry XXXII:911-917,
1962.
Hensley, Christopher. “What Have We Learned from Studying Prison Sex”, Humanity
and Society 24(4):348-360, 2000.
IGU (International Geographical Union). Homepage http://www.swissgeography.ch/
igucevol2.htm, October 3, 2003.
Indermaur, David. Violent Property Crime. Sydney Federation Press, 1995.
Indermaur, David and Lynne Roberts. “Signed Consent Forms in Criminological
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�Irwin, John and Donald Cressey. “Thieves, Convicts and the Inmate Culture”, Social
Problems 10(2):145–147, 1962.
Katz, Jonathan, N. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA. New
York: Crowell, 1976.
Koscheski, Mary and Christopher Hensley. “Inmate Homosexual Behavior in a Southern
Female Correctional Facility”, American Journal of Criminal Justice 25(2):269-277,
2011.
Kunzel, Regina G. “Situating Sex: Prison Sexual Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century
United States”, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8(3):253-270, 2002.
Leacock, Eleanor, B. In Visions of Culture: An Annotated Reader. Jerry D.
Moore, ed. Pp. 245–273. Lanham: Altamira Press, 1978.
LeCompte, Margaret, D. “Bias in the Biography: Bias and Subjectivity in Ethnographic
Research”, Anthropology & Education Quarterly 18:43-52, 1987.
Maeve, Katherine. “The Social Construction of Love and Sexuality in a Women’s
Prison”, Advanced Nursing Science 21(3) 46-65, 1999.
Moore, Jerry D. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and
Theorists. Lanham: Altamira Press., 2008.
Moran, Dominique, Judith Pallot, Laura Piacentini. “Lipstick, Lace, and Longing:
Constructions of Femininity Inside a Russian Prison”, Environment and Planning Digest:
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Morgan, Dominik. “Restricted Love”,Women & Therapy 20(4):75-84, 1997.
Murphy, Michael D. and Agneta Johannsen. “Ethical Obligations and Federal
Regulations in Ethnographic Research and Anthropological Education”, Human
Organization 49(2):127-134, 1990.
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�Pardue, Angela, Bruce A. Arrigo and Daniel S. Murphy. “Sex and Sexuality in Women’s
Prisons: A Preliminary Typological Investigation”, The Prison Journal 91(3):279-304,
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Parker, Holt, N. “The Myth of the Heterosexual: Anthropology and Sexuality for
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by Women in three Midwestern Prisons”, The Journal of Sex Research 39: 217-227,
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Struckman-Johnson, Cindy, David Struckman-Johnson, Lila Rucker, Kurt Bumby,
Stephen Donaldson. “Sexual Coercion Reported by Men and Women in Prison”, The
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Waldram, James, B. “Anthropology in Prison: Negotiating Consent and Accountability
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96
���The “Truly American College”:
Establishing a Civic and Democratic Mission at Wagner
College and Spelman College in the Interwar Era
Gary Giordano (History and Childhood Education/Special Education)1
This research paper explores the evolution of the American liberal arts college, with
particular attention to the interwar period. The integration of women, immigrants, and
minorities, the fight for democracy around the world, financial hardships during the Great
Depression, and competition with research universities triggered shifts in the liberal arts
college’s curriculum and structure. From a mere 2% of eligible youth, enrollment rose to
10%, and of these, 40% were women. In a rapidly changing world, the liberal arts
colleges sought to create intimate settings to promote democratic thinking, individualism,
and moral integrity while preparing students for the world beyond college. Two case
studies of specific liberal arts colleges, Wagner College now located in Staten Island,
New York and Spelman College located in Atlanta, Georgia, both founded in the 1880s
as seminaries, illuminate the role colleges played in serving the needs of their immediate
community. Their transformation by the 1930s allowed for a more religiously and
ethnically diverse faculty and student bodies, and positioned them to attain prominence as
twenty first century models of civic learning.
I. Introduction
In 1819, an alumnus of Dartmouth College, Daniel Webster, offered a
passionate plea for advancements of the liberal arts college before the United States
Supreme Court. “This sir, is my case! It is the case not merely of that humble institution,
it is the case of every college in our land! It is sir, as I have said, a small college…and yet
there are those of us who love it.”2 His passion for the private liberal arts college,
including its smaller class, close rapport among faculty and staff, and separation from the
Written under the direction of Dr. Lori Weintrob in partial fulfillment of the Senior Program
requirements.
2 John R Thelin, “Small by Design: Resilience in an Era of Mass Higher Education” in
Meeting the Challenge: America’s Independent Colleges and Universities since 1956.
(United States of America: Council of Independent Colleges, 2006): 3
1
99
�state, resonated with the judiciary. The landmark case successfully prevented state
control of private colleges. This was a “victory for all colleges and universities, whether
they are what we would call today ‘private’ or ‘public’” due to the strong powers it
outlined for academic corporations of all sizes.3 Yet, over the next two centuries, the
American Liberal Arts College prospered despite many hurdles, including the rise of the
large research university, the Great Depression, World Wars and evolving demands of the
global economy. In the rapidly changing world of the early 20th century, faced with
fascism and communism abroad and mass immigration at home, liberal arts colleges
found it necessary to teach democratic thinking and to prepare students for the world
beyond college.
During the interwar era, from 1918 to 1939, private liberal arts colleges shifted
to a more progressive approach. They began to open access to women and to a multidenominational student and faculty. A focus on ethical and moral education for
democracy, rather than specific religious dogma, emerged, laying the groundwork for a
new vigorous civic mission. National imperatives, such as military needs abroad and the
assimilation of new immigrant groups at home, necessitated a shift to teaching new
languages such as German. The American Association of Colleges identified this new
role of colleges in their 1932 report as “progressive” in contrast to their prior role as
bearers of tradition.4
By the 1930s, the definition of a liberal arts education, involving general
education and specialized major, had been solidified. “Liberal education is a sustained
and open minded examination of the deepest questions of human existence, an
examination that is meant to free us of our prejudices in such matters.” 5 A liberal arts
education promoted open-mindedness, individual growth and tolerance of others,
essential to the modern world. Ultimately, “by 1940, private institutions enrolled a
majority of college undergraduates, despite the relative growth of public higher
education.”6 College enrollment of those between the ages of 18 and 24 jumped from
2% in 1900 to 9% by 1940, of which 40% were women. Although this trend accelerated
after the war with the G.I. bill, climbing to 15% in 1949 (then 24%, in 1959 and 35% in
3
John R Thelin. A History of American Higher Education. (Baltimore and London: The
John Hopkins University Press, 2004): 72
4 John R Thelin. A History of American Higher Education. (Baltimore and London: The
John Hopkins University Press, 2004): 72
5 Malcolmson. Liberal Education... 5
6 Thelin. A History of…252
100
�1969), the path had been established.7 Liberal arts colleges were by 1939 educational
centers that addressed a multicultural, multilingual, and multidenominational audience
and whose curriculum balanced individual growth and the needs of the community.
Wagner College, now located in Staten Island, New York and Spelman College
located in Atlanta, Georgia are two private liberal arts colleges that thrived in the face of
these challenges. Beginning as seminaries in the 1880s, both experienced major
transformations from 1917 to 1932, as they took new names, moved to new locations,
and dramatically transformed their curriculum. Wagner College became, in the words of
its President, “a truly American College,” leaving behind the “gymnasium model” and
teaching in German only to young aspiring Protestant male ministers to, in his words,
“meet the needs of the community.” By the 1940s, Wagner had female professors and a
nursing program. Spelman College diversified its faculty with positions for AfricanAmericans, and placed new emphasis on promoting careers for women, including in child
psychology. They adapted the vision of their founders, both philanthropists, and
responded to student voices, economic opportunities and political imperatives, to
integrate democratic principals with pre-professional goals for the future.
II. The Classics at the Traditional Liberal Arts College: 1776-1917
Based on the Oxford and Cambridge models, colonial colleges emphasized
religion and the classical arts. Victory in the American Revolution did not generate an
alternative to the English model. Instead colleges,
“…maintained the residential character, the classical curriculum, and control
over student life, and acted within the traditions of the ancient liberal arts
preparatory schools. This four-year free-standing residential college with the arts
curriculum and baccalaureate degree dominated the American ‘system’ of
higher learning from 1640, the year of the reopening of Harvard College, into
the 1800s, nearly two hundred years later.”8
They tried to “avoid social disruption by encouraging denominational tolerance”9,
however the various Protestant religious groups clashed. This “laid the groundwork for
United States Department of Education. 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical
Portrait (Washington D.C.: National Center for Educational Statistics. January 1993): 73
8 Allan O Pfnister. “The Role of the Liberal Arts College: A Historical Overview of the
Debates.” The Journal of Higher Education 55, no. 2 (March 1, 1984): 148
9 Thelin. A History of…15
7
101
�the nineteenth century trend in which each religious group would seek to found its own
colleges.”10 In addition, these colleges often had strong connections to religious
philanthropies. They sought endowments, initially from donors in England and later the
United States, who wanted higher education institutions dedicated to their respective
religion. These donors thought that small colleges were the most appropriate forums to
donate to in order to carry out this religious and charitable goal.11
In 1828, a Yale Committee report sought to defend the reputation of the liberal
arts college. This report has “been referred to as ‘probably the most influential
publication in the whole history of American higher education between the Revolution
and Civil War’ and as a classic restatement of the place of liberal education.’”12 The
report argued for a more traditional curriculum focused on classical languages, science,
and mathematics, as well as building character. This conservative position “stopped
some of the most exciting possibilities for reform in higher education in the ninetieth
century”13 across the nation. Although this report helped reaffirm the identity of the
liberal arts college, it argued strongly for a continuation of early educational habits rather
than reform and innovation.
Yet by the mid-nineteenth century, new forces emerged and with them a desire
to craft colleges into learning centers with a distinct American sense of nationalism. New
centers of commerce due to Westward expansion necessitated amenities, such as a hotel,
newspaper, and a college. “No community seemed to be without a college, and as a
community-established and community-oriented institution, a college was under pressure
to offer courses considered important to the citizens of the community.”14 The explosion
of urban centers, as the agrarian economy declined, and new waves of immigration, also
played a role.
Interestingly, the diversity of American communities led to a plethora of
institutional types of higher education, public and private, four-year and two-year.
Private academies, seminaries for theological instruction, and normal schools for training
teachers emerged. In addition, the German educational model known as the gymnasium
spread across the United States. Massive German immigration in the United States,
particularly during the 1850s to the 1880s, enhanced its popularity. Wagner College is
Thelin. A History of…. 15
Thelin. A History of... 15
12 Pfnister. “The Role of the...151
13 Pfnister. “The Role of the...151
14 Pfnister. “The Role of the...150
10
11
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�one of many examples of institutions that employed this gymnasium model during its
early years. “In Germany, by this time, the preparatory arts sequence had been relegated
to the secondary schools, and lectures and research were becoming the major activities of
the university.”15 This essentially left the liberal arts college’s role in society undefined as
many began to ponder whether this German model should be adopted in the United
States. A major debate was ignited across the nation regarding what the exact purpose of
the liberal arts college truly was in American society.
The1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act presented a challenge to private liberal arts
college by expanding public colleges and universities that often prioritized practical and
pre-professional goals. The Act distributed over 30,000 acres of land to each state to be
used to create and expand state colleges. This act has been described as “an influential
piece of federal legislation that fostered access to useful public higher education. Some
historians have hailed this legislation as the genesis of ‘democracy’s college’—source of
affordable, practical higher education offered by state colleges and universities.”16The
federal policy provided the land grant colleges with funding to develop specific academic
programs. This includes programs
“…where the leading objects shall be, without excluding other scientific and
classical studies…to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture
and the mechanic arts…in order to promote the liberal and practical education of
the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.” 17
While this act clearly defined the role of the state college and university, it generated
confusion regarding the role of the private liberal arts college.
As a result, many people felt that the liberal arts college would cease to exist as
time went on due to the clear identity of these new land grant state schools.
“Washington, D.C. 2 July 1862. The American Liberal Arts College died today
after a prolonged illness. It was 226 years old…the college was unable to
overcome its aristocratic origins and contracted the disease that eventually led to
its demise—arteriosclerosis…today, after a recent cardiac arrest, its heart
Pfnister. “The Role of the...151
Thelin. A History of…75
17 “Act Donating Lands for Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.” The Morill Act
of 1862
15
16
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�stopped on the floor of the House of Representatives, just as the roll call for
Justin Morrill’s Land Grant Act had ended. The vote was 90-25”18
These reports have labeled the private liberal arts college as undemocratic and
unnecessary.
Not long after, the 1890 Morrill Land Grant Act offered cash to many southern
states for college endowments. It also stated that race could not be used as a factor for
admission, but this was largely ignored in the South. If a state did seek to create a colored
school they had to apply for a separate land grant act.19 This was often mandatory to the
“separate but equal” verdict of the famous court case Plessey v. Ferguson (1896), which
required blacks to be educated in a different setting than whites but the school itself had
to be of equal to that of the whites. However, this was never truly enforced, although
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have helped to assist African
Americans and other minorities gain a fair education, including Spelman College.
By the post-civil war era, Americans realized that they needed these institutions
to teach young adults the skills to function in our new urban metropolitan areas, as well
as in agricultural areas, and to educate the masses about the democratic framework of our
nation.
III. Wagner and Spelman: From Seminary Schools to “Truly American Colleges”
Wagner College and Spelman College exemplify institutions whose strong
religious foundations guided their mission of community engagement. Both experienced
dramatic transformations during the World War I era in their mission, including the
inclusion of more diverse faculty and students.
Under the shade of an apple tree in Rochester, New York, as the legend goes,
two ministers George Gomph and Alexander Richter set up the a school to train Germanspeaking Lutheran ministers. Nearly 1.5 million German immigrants arrived in the
United States in the 1880s, joining a German-speaking community already over 1.5
million strong. These two leaders identified a need for German speaking ministers who
James Axtell. The Death of the Liberal Arts College. History of Education Quarterly.
11. 4. (Winter, 1971): 339
19 Travis J. Albritton,. “Educating Our Own: The Historical Legacy of HBCUs and Their
Relevance for Educating a New Generation of Leaders.” The Urban Review 44, no. 3
(September 2012): 315
18
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�could assist immigrants who spoke another language in adjusting to their new world. As
stated in the constitutional by-laws for the Lutheran Proseminary of Rochester:
“From every direction comes an urgent demand for German speaking ministers.
Not only on the broad expanse of the German home mission, not only in the far
West among those who have recently immigrated and who are like sheep
without a shepherd, but also in the East, which has been settled for so long a
time...”20
The proseminary, founded in 1883, functioned as a German gymnasium that enrolled
students for six years as high school and college combined. Students studied religion,
German, Latin, English, world history, geography, natural history, arithmetic,
penmanship, drawing and singing during their first few years. They then shifted into
learning the same subjects at an advanced level in addition to natural philosophy, Greek
and American history, Hebrew, and chemistry. 21 Significantly, “all instruction was given
in German, with the exception of English and mathematics.”22Students also were required
to attend chapel on Saturdays and Sunday school. The rules were strict: students had to
be in by 10pm, had to maintain the furnace and work in the dining room, and were even
regulated to bathe once a week. The tuition was divided into three different segments:
“The students paid $13 for the fall term, $10.50 for the winter term, and $8.50 for the
spring, a total of $32. In addition, each student paid $2 per week for room and board for
40 weeks, and $10 per year for heat.”23 An unmarried professor lived in the dormitory
with the boys and would oversee and supervise them.
Renamed the Wagner Memorial Lutheran College in 1886, the new name paid
homage to the faith of a philanthropist in its mission. John G. Wagner’s gift of twelve
thousand dollars, in memory of his son George, enabled the purchase of a new campus on
Oregon Street in Rochester.24 The school overcame a legal challenge due to its use of the
word college in its title, which violated an 1892 law that all colleges had to have a
$500,000 endowment.25 By 1914, Rochester had become a bustling urban city with
Walter T. Schoen Jr. Wagner College: Four Histories (Staten Island, New York:
Wagner College, 2008): 24
21 Schoen. Wagner College: Four Histories…29
22 Schoen. Wagner College: Four Histories…34
23 Schoen. Wagner College: Four Histories…32
24 Rowen, Willian Albert. The Emerging Identity of Wagner College (Indiana: Indiana
University, 1972): 24 Walter T. Schoen Jr. Wagner College: Four Histories…33
20
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�buildings and factories that were no longer seemed conducive to training ministers. The
New York Ministerium, a Lutheran church organization in control of Wagner since 1888
felt that a change was needed. Pastor Frederic Sutter, an early graduate who had his own
ministry on Staten Island, led the efforts to move to this more remote and pastoral area.
As World War I came to an end, the challenges facing private colleges were
changing. One of the key leaders in Wagner College’s history, Pastor Sutter took the
1917 relocation as an opportunity to redefine its mission, to make it less rigid and more
responsive to the needs of this borough of New York City. Sutter writes,
“…When Wagner settled on Staten Island, we knew we had to remodel the
gymnasium study program to make Wagner a truly American college. I asked
some of the professors if they wanted to continue on Staten Island. Most asked if
the college would have the same purpose—that is, to prepare boys to be
German-English speaking ministers. When I told them it would not have this
purpose…everything was changed: the need for a bilingual clergy was becoming
less, because increasing numbers of young people in the congregations were
turning to English services. The rigidity of the gymnasium curriculum was
outmoded, and to truly become a part of Staten Island, as the boroughs first
college, Wagner would have to assume an important role in the Island’s needs.
We didn’t really have to modify our purpose, and the Island accepted it: to
educate young people to have a Christian outlook, to mold people who will
constantly demonstrate what it means to be Christian.” 26
Wagner began its transition to a liberal arts college seeking to meet the needs of its new
Staten Island community while also maintaining its faith-based, ethical roots.
Two years before the founding of the all male Lutheran Proseminary in
Rochester, the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary was founded. Two teachers, Sophia B.
Packard and Harriet Giles of Massachusetts, were anxious to bring education and
Christianity, as well as a safe haven, to African-American women. They possessed
strong New England viewpoints and fought for rights for African-American women to
pursue higher education at a difficult moment:
Schoen. Wagner College: Four Histories…39
Frederic Sutter with Brian Morris. Wagner College: Four Histories (Staten Island,
New York: Wagner College, 2008): 48-49
25
26
106
�“The South that Packard and Giles encountered in the 1880s had been
devastated by the Civil War, embittered by the demands of Reconstruction, and
plagued by the fate of four million ex-slaves still in their midst. The obstacles
facing blacks only twenty years out of bondage, were tremendous, for the
majority were impoverished, landless, and ill-literate.”27
With a $100 donation from the First Baptist Church of Medford, Massachusetts,
they created a school to “to train the intellect, to store the mind with desire for general
information, to inspire a love for the true and the beautiful, to prepare the pupils for the
practical duties of life—the hallmark of a liberal education.”28 The school had a normal
department for teacher training and academic department, which began with 11 students
but quickly grew to 600 students.
“Given the realities of the educational deficiencies of their students, Packard and
Gillard realized the need for basic courses in reading, writing, spelling,
arithmetic, geography, writing, grammar, and history. But that same 1881
circular listed the courses they planned for the Academic Department: algebra,
physiology, essays, Latin, rhetoric, geometry, political economy, metal
philosophy (psychology), chemistry, botany, Constitution of the United States,
astronomy, zoology, geology, moral philosophy and evidences of Christianity.”29
They also added in an Industrial Department for printing, sewing and other domestic arts.
Students worked in the laundry room, garden and nurse’s ward.
In 1884, the school name was changed to Spelman Seminary, in honor of John
D. Rockefeller’s wife, Laura Spelman and her parents Lucy Spelman and Harvey Buel.
The founders had raised over $7,000 from local black churches, but still had another
$7,000 outstanding for their campus. After an initial $250 gift, John D. Rockefeller
“promised to continue his support if the women were serious about sticking to their
mission.”30 He later visited the campus with his family ultimately learning “of the serious
financial handicap, and donated the remaining balance, thereby insuring the schools
Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, and Jo Moore Stewart. Spelman: A Centennial Celebration,
1881-1981. (Atlanta, GA: Spelman College, 1981): 11
28 Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial …43
29 Harry G Lefever. “The Early Origins of Spelman College.” The Journal of Blacks in
Higher Education no. 47 (April 1, 2005): 60
30 Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial …22
27
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�continued existence as a separate school for girls.”31 Foundations such as the General
Education Board, Anna T. Jeans Fund, and more “broadened the base of support to
southern black education. This period was indeed an age of philanthropy without which
the growth of black education in the South would have been virtually impossible.”32 As
endowments increased, the founders were able to expand their campus and building.
At Spelman Seminary, African American women had the opportunity to learn
their political, social, and legal rights, and to prepare them to triumph, despite the
segregated and racist world that was codified by the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) court
case. “As the school continued to grow, its mission changed from a normal school, with
a primary mission of training teachers, to a school that offered courses constituent with
the liberal arts.”33 The school expanded its faculty, student body, class offerings,
programs, and reputation. Dr. Morehouse’s 1902 speech best epitomizes the growth of
this institution and pride in its endowment:
“What contrasts between twenty years ago and now! Then two teachers, now
forty-two; then eleven pupils, now seven hundred; then, tabernacling as a
beneficiary in a church basement, now the occupant of this spacious and cheery
campus…then not a dollar, now holdings valued at $350,00; then a
miscellaneous company of all ages in the school, now orderly and classified
studies, then an experiment, now an acknowledged success…”34
There were literacy courses for high school students, college preparatory students,
Christian workers, teachers, and Bachelor of Arts students. There were nursing training
programs, printing, dressmaking, cooking and domestic arts, and laundry work courses.
There were also vocal and instrumental courses, taught by the majority white faculty.
In order to solidify its purpose, Spelman Seminary was renamed Spelman
College. Spelman had been offering college courses, but the majority of them were being
completed at Morehouse College. Only 40% of students were receiving college degrees,
rather than high school degrees. New buildings and facilities as well as more elementary
and high school students were present on the campus. Yet, ensuring that Christian values
were still embedded in the school and its female students remained the major mission of
the institution.
Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial …24
Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial …21
33 Lefever. “The Early Origins…62
34 Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial …38
31
32
108
�IV. The Interwar Period: Establishing a New Democratic Identity
From 1918-1939, higher education faced some new challenges that drastically
impacted and altered the role of liberal arts colleges in American society. These schools
had to adapt to a new era of uncertainty, of competition and of a great need for
democracy. Despite all odds, as discussed by three historians below, the liberal arts
college thrived.
The many struggles of the nineteenth century had historians suspecting that the
liberal arts college would eventually become extinct; however by the twentieth century it
became clear that this was quite the opposite. In 1971, James Axtell writes that in the post
Civil War era, “according to which history you read, the new universities either
‘absorbed’, ‘replaced’, ‘modified’, ‘invaded’, or ‘profoundly altered the content of ‘the
colleges”35. However, Axtell argues that the liberal arts college continued to thrive by
carrying “on their activities of units of, or in competition with, the larger many-sided
universities…they had to adjust to a new frame of reference.”36 He calls for historians to
integrate women’s history into the history of education, and encourages historians to
assess changes between the “old time college (singular) with its old time presidents
(fossilized) or of new universities (plural) with their empire building presidents
(dynamic)…”37 Allan Pfinister introduces historical context at moments of transition in
higher education. At each turning point, “the colleges argued that the response was not to
retreat but to identify the place of the college in the evolving system, holding fast to the
heritage of the past.”38 Major curriculum changes are one example of their successful
adaptation. Finally, John Thelin’s chapter, “Success and Excess”, in his book, A History
of American Higher Education, looks at “social, political and economic factors that have
shaped the structure and life of higher education facilities.”39 These include the effect of
World War and the Great Depression, new sports programs, use of media and
propaganda, and the rise of women’s and African American colleges. Yet, Thelin argues:
“The single most important change in American higher education at the end of the
nineteenth century was that college-going became fashionable and prestigious.”40 All
Axtell. The Death…340
Axtell. The Death…340
37 Axtell. The Death…342
38 Pfnister. “The Role of the…158
39 Thelin. A History of American…11
40 Thelin. A History of American …156
35
36
109
�three historians discuss the struggles in trying to identify the liberal arts college’s
changing purpose in twentieth century society versus its more definitive purpose in the
ninetieth century.
The rise of the university brought a new emphasis on combining professional
programs and liberal arts. John Hopkins University, Cornell University, Harvard
University, Yale University, Columbia University, among others, developed schools with
research and graduate study opportunities. They focused on more specialized studies and
often could afford more professional faculties and laboratories. There was major debate
regarding the structure that the university should adopt. Some argued for the German
gymnasium model, others the structure similar to the four-year liberal arts colleges. In
the early 1900s, the newly formed Association of American Universities (AAU) met to
discuss the impact of the university:
“Liberal education could not exist by itself, and professional studies made the
collegiate studies meaningful. There were others who argued for a clean break
between the college and university, reserving for the university the professional
and advanced work and for the college the preparatory work…the American
university developed, an institution that combined the older collegiate ideals of
liberal education with professional training in the advanced faculties; but in so
doing, it was also saying, in effect that the independent or free-standing liberal
arts college was no longer needed.” 41
Universities had essentially swallowed whole the liberal arts college, in some
interpretations. The university also offered things that colleges could not compete with.
“What the old college used to do in four years…is now being done in part by the new
college and in part by the secondary school.”42 It was perceived that public high schools
were better preparing students for higher education and the universities provided students
with more opportunities and tools. Many felt that the colleges should shift to a shorter
period of enrollment time in order to compete with the universities and more extensive
high schools, which were thought to be now “the peoples college in that ‘much of the
work formerly done by the college is now being done by the high schools’.”43
In 1915, the Association of American Colleges (AAC) was brought together 190
freestanding colleges and sought to map out their new identity and future in order to
41
Pfnister. “The Role of the…156
Pfnister. “The Role of the…157
43 Pfnister. “The Role of the…158
42
110
�compete with high schools and universities for enrollment, nationally recognized
programs, endowments and more. By 1932, a study was conducted of 315 liberal arts
colleges across the nation to highlight the vast changes:
“Among the conclusions was the observation that the four-year colleges had
undertaken more change and experimentation in the five years preceding the
study than in the twenty-five years prior to it: changes in ‘care and direction of
students, curriculum and instruction, and organization and administration.’ New
services for students had been introduced; new programs such as honors
sequences had been added. From the director’s perspective, the colleges had
become more of a ‘progressive agency in society, not merely a bearer of
tradition.’ Introduction of new programs had not been without a price, however,
for the colleges were coming into conflict with other institutions and were
creating new sets of problems that would require ‘unusual wisdom and skill’ in
effective solutions.” 44
The progressive nature of the liberal arts colleges allowed them to continue to remain true
to their origins and initial traditions, while also adapting to the demands of the day and
offer students more opportunities to think in new ways that correlated directly to the need
for more democratic thinkers across the nation. Additionally, college “enrollment rose by
68 percent, and between 1919–20 and 1929–30, enrollment rose by 84 percent. During
these 30 years, the ratio of college students to 18- to 24-year-olds rose from 2 to 7 per
100.”45 This growth showcased how the colleges were able to thrive alongside the larger
universities.
In regards to financial limitations during the Great Depression, philanthropies
and donations were key in allowing liberal arts colleges to function. As public high
schools expanded, more students sought to attend college. “Predictably, the increased
number of high school graduates created a new large pool of college aspirants. The result
was that between World War I and World War II, enrollment in colleges and universities
increased more than fivefold, from 250,000 to 1.3 million.”46 These small colleges began
to slowly take in more students and resourcefully relied on fundraisers, community work
and alumni networking to increase their endowments. “While the large universities
Pfnister. “The Role of the…161
United States Department of Education. 120 Years of American Education…73
46 Thelin. History of American…205
44
45
111
�gained resources and publicity, the small private liberal arts colleges not only survived
but thrived on their ability to provide affordable, high quality undergraduate education to
new generations of American students.” 47 Despite emotional stress and the financial
constraints from the Great Depression, these colleges were able to work and collaborate
with local companies and industrial businesses in their immediate community that made
contributions to the schools.
Churches and their members often donated to the schools such as at Wagner
College, as they had since colonial times. Nearly every Daily Bulletin noted the various
donations the school received from community partners. One article from the February
1922 states ten reasons why
“…every congregation should contribute liberally to our ‘Wagner College New
Dormitory Fund’”, which includes “1-As sincere Christians we are interested in
the progress and welfare of our beloved Lutheran church. 5-You as a member of
our New York Ministerium are a part owner of Wagner College. 7-Only when
every member does his or her part can the necessary aid be secured. The need is
great. Our duty is clear.”48
It is clear that many colleges, similar to Wagner, reached out to the community for
donations and sought to showcase the importance of why their respective institution was
worthy of these funds. Additionally, new sources of funding came from businesses,
sports programs and foundations.
“The most far-reaching plans to reform the structure of American higher
education percolated from the private sector of organized American
philanthropy. Between 1920 and 1940 a coalition of major foundations
accelerated their effort to being both standards and standardization to American
higher education, an initiative started in the early 1890s. The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Rockefeller Foundation’s
General Education Board worked in tandem with the United States Bureau of
Education to collect and analyze data, toward the common goal of rationalizing
colleges and universities into effective systems.” 49
Thelin. “Small by Design…8
Wagner College. “Bulletin”. February 1922.
49 Thelin. “History of American …238
47
48
112
�These foundations changed the role and strategies of philanthropy through trying to
reshape the entire governance of campuses and academic boards through implementing a
corporate model. Although this was considered controversial because it restructured these
universities into managerial departments, it did seek to create a national system for the
resources for higher education.
In addition, prices of tuition began to change during this time.
“One national survey indicated that tuition fees went from an average of $70 in
1920 to $133 in 1940. A 1939 survey for the General Education Board showed
that 42 percent of American colleges and universities charged more than $200 in
tuition fees in 1936-37, whereas in 1928-29 only 37 percent had charged fees at
that level.”50
This tuition increase was a result of the earned income decline, effects of unemployment
and bank closures of the Great Depression. This directly impacted enrollment numbers as
“the depression of the 1930s may have contributed to slower growth in college
enrollment and participation” however “by the end of the decade, college enrollment had
reached 1.5 million with 9 college students per 100 18- to 24-year-olds.”51
There was also no national financial aid program at the time and scholarships
were extremely difficult to earn. This made it difficult for lower class families to send
their children to college. However, more middle class students were enrolling in college
compared to earlier years when it was mainly the upper elite. Many students sought to
offset their college expenses by cutting “room-and-board expenses by seeking out
cooperative living arrangements, by renting rooms in cheap boardinghouses, or by living
at home.” 52 A Federal Employment Relief Act was enacted that sought to employ
undergraduates and some colleges were assisted by the short term Works Progress
Administration and Public Works Administration. However students still faced a limited
job market upon their graduation and were often unemployed or underemployed.
As the build up for World War II increased, many colleges began to cooperate
with the war effort by “reconstituting itself to provide a hospitable setting for a variety of
intense military training programs”53 further helping to increase nationalism across the
country. American higher education was used as a key resource in the war effort by
Thelin. “History of American …251
United States Department of Education. 120 Years of American Education… 73
52 Thelin. “History of American …251
53 Thelin. “History of American …257
50
51
113
�spreading the win the war spirit and drafting athletes. Additionally, academic
collaboration at colleges helped aid the war effort. Language professors taught students
previously understudied languages such as Japanese, Italian, and Russian and history
professors taught students about foreign cultures, geography, and politics of often
forgotten countries. The science department also conducted research related to nuclear
weapons like the atom and hydrogen bombs, which would lead to future partnerships
between the federal governments and higher education institutions.
Many liberal arts colleges also sought to get involved in their immediate
community’s needs during the interwar period. They identified the importance of
teaching students about ethics and morals, which became to translate into a larger civic
mission. In a Wagner College Bulletin printed in February 1922, Dr. W.A. McKeever
writes about picking a college and what types of things to look for. He states there are
four types of colleges: the smaller church college, the larger church schools, the larger
non-sectarian colleges, and the big, state-supported, school. Dr. McKeever writes the
three curative college motives are moral direction, religious integrity, and spiritual
democracy. He states,
“without our moral education the individual becomes selfish and grasping;
without religious practice he becomes cynical and pessimistic; without
democratic training he becomes mean and intolerant. Heaven helps us all to
educate and guide our children toward a return to the type of moral and
spiritualized democracy.”54
This message clearly highlights the importance of morals and democracy in the college
structure as a tool in creating thoughtful leaders prepared to face a world of war and
genocide.
V. Access and Equity: Multicultural, Multidenominational, and Multilingual
Institutions
During the interwar period, many changes also occurred in the college and
university structure, including more access and equity for women and minorities. In the
early 1940s, the number of males dropped significantly at colleges as many went to fight
in World War II. However, from 1943–44, women quickly enrolled in college and
represented half the number of students; enrollment immediately surged.55
54
55
Wagner College. “Bulletin”. February 1922.
United States Department of Education. 120 Years of American Education… 73
114
�“Women had a strong numerical presence in higher education between the world
wars, constituting about 40 percent of the undergraduate enrollment in 1940—a
substantial increase, considering that sixty years earlier, few women had even
been permitted to work toward a bachelor’s degree. This dramatic gain was due
in large measure to the appeal of the new women’s colleges as well as the
policies of coeducation at many institutions.”56
The interwar period proved to be a time of true access to higher education for women.
Some liberal arts institutions, such as Wagner College, became co-educational and
allowed women to enroll in their schools versus other larger schools such as Dartmouth
College and Yale University which didn’t accept women into their institutions until the
later 1960s. In the February 1933 Wagner College Bulletin, it is noted that the college’s
trustees had successfully voted to admit women into their institution by that following
September, however “there will be no residence provided on campus for the women
students.”57 However, this suddenly changed when in the March 1933 bulletin an article
was posted entitled “Wagner Becomes Co-Ed Ahead of Schedule” when the first female
student, Evelyn Agnes Pedersen of Grymes Hill, “applied for immediate admission and
her request was granted.”58 Additionally, by June 1933, Wagner had began providing
housing for women away from campus that would be closely supervised as described in
the college bulletin. The women would be charged the same rate charged as the school
for room and board. Wagner College gradually became a school accepting of women and
saw their potential for becoming civic leaders in the world. Administration was aware of
the financial benefits the school would have if they allowed women to enroll.
This was a pattern viewed across the nation as “the number of women
undergraduates increased from about three hundred thousand just prior to World War I to
about six hundred thousand on the eve of World War II.”59 However, one major
drawback of this was that although women were being given more educational
opportunities, the curriculum and school dynamics did not always address discrimination
issues related to class, ethnicity, or race. Women were often encouraged to enroll in
certain professions and academic programs and often faced difficulty in extracurricular
life. “Although women enjoyed numerous, diverse opportunities within campus life, they
Thelin. A History of American…226
Wagner College. “Bulletin”. February 1933.
58 Wagner College. “Bulletin”. March 1933.
59 Thelin. A History of American…226
56
57
115
�were unlikely to attain positions of leadership such as editor of the student newspaper or
president of the student body.”60 Despite these challenges, women were provided more
access to education and therefore gradually expanded their roles in society.
African Americans still faced much inequity due to racism. Across the nation,
many colleges still excluded African Americans on the basis of “separate but equal”.
“Enrollment prospects for black students remained limited, not only in the segregated
states but nationwide.”61 This was directly reflected in nationwide enrollment statistics
that “just prior to World War II a white between the ages of eighteen and twenty was four
times more likely than a black of the same age group to enroll in college.”62 However,
undergraduate education exclusion as a result of segregation often led to more graduate
education access for African Americans in the North. This came as a direct result of
scholarship funds granted through Southern states for African Americans to study and
attend graduate studies programs outside the state, predominately in the North.63
Ultimately, racial segregation in higher education did impact the access that African
Americans had to schooling, however Historically Black Colleges and Universities, such
as Spelman University, did help to address the needs of the black community at this time.
“The HBCU history is deeply rooted in the Black community’s commitment to
racial uplift and community empowerment. This commitment has been
particularly meaningful given the sociopolitical policies and practices that
deemed Black men and women incapable of succeeding as learners because of
the unfounded belief that their race made them inferior and unable to appreciate
the benefits of post- secondary education.”64
Additionally, there was a major growth in blacks as faculty members at Spelman
College. Before the 1920s, the majority of the teaching staff was white with a few
African Americans that that graduated from the college. After the 1920s and 1930s, the
African American staff grew immensely and by 1937, African Americans were twice the
number of white staff members. Additionally, there were no male faculty members prior
to 1926 but by 1927, one had joined full time and the other part time. One quote from a
Thelin. A History of American…228
Thelin. A History of American…232
62 Thelin. A History of American…232
63 Thelin. A History of American…232
64 Albritton. “Educating Our Own…” 311
60
61
116
�Spelman student so eager to have an African American professor said, “…Wasn’t any
there but Miss Jane Anna Granderson—was the only black teacher on that campus. And
if ever saw anybody sophisticated! Jane Anna Granderson was something to look at.
She’d just inspire you—just looking at her…” 65 At Wagner, the first female faculty
member was Marion R. Bartlett who taught Psychology in 1937 and Rev. Dr. Samuel
Lewis and Rev. Llewellyn Williams were the first African American graduates in 1939.
VI. Curriculum and Civic Advancements in the Age of Reform
By 1932, Wagner Memorial Lutheran College began to make the transition to a
liberal arts college by redefining its mission statement and goals. Although they still
sought to serve Lutheran ministers, their new collegiate purposes began to address the
needs present in the twentieth century.
“We Are: A Church related school of the United Lutheran Synod of New York.
We Are: On the approved list of the Association of American Colleges of the
Middle States and Maryland.
We Are: A liberal arts college with a definite purpose of developing
appreciation and creativeness in conformity with the best educational principles.
We Are: A school with high traditions in honor and morality.” 66
Wagner’s mission statement showcases their desire to remain dedicated to their traditions
while at the same time beginning to expand their educational goals and have the school
accredited. They sought to infuse the practical liberal arts with their religious traditions
and beliefs of cultivating the creative, ethical lifelong learner.
Wagner’s President Clarence C. Stoughton, who served from 1935-1945,
identified many characteristics that allowed the college to thrive in his Inaugural Address
of November 1, 1935.
“Growth and flexibility of curriculum, first of all. I should like always to have
Wagner keep abreast the needs of the church she serves and the community she
serves, and to have the good sense and the ability to change her program to fit
those needs….Wagner shall continue to reverence personality as she has in the
past, that she will continue to put her emphasis upon individuality, that she will
never cease remembering that a college ought to be run in the interest of the
65
66
Sheftall Spelman: A Centennial…68
Wagner College. “Bulletin”. April 1932
117
�students…It follows from this that it is not our hope to built a great university.
We are blessed, in this metropolis, with some of the great universities of the
world. It would seem to me, this dream of another in this territory would have
many of the elements of a pipe dream. But while we do not need more
universities, we do need small liberal arts colleges, where personality remains
sacred, where the student is always an individual, where his individuality is
developed and emphasized.” 67
Stoughton proclaimed when, how and why it is vital to make changes to curriculum and
infrastructure in order to remain a successful institution. Stoughton recognizes how
imperative it is to remain true to what the school’s original mission was but at the same
time to adapt to the needs of the community and larger student body. His rhetoric and
emphasis on nurturing the student in mind, body and spirit showcases the dedication
Wagner has to fostering a liberal education. Further, Stoughton guided the school
through a significant evolution. He outlined his vision for the building of a chemistry and
biology building, the preparation of pre-medical, pre-dental, and pre-nursing students.
He “readied the school for the wave of students who were to swell its full time enrollment
from 250 in 1944 to 1,000 in 1948”68. He announced his dream of one day creating a
library building, increasing the school’s endowment, and “that it is our plan and purpose
that Wagner shall not only set in seal upon the diploma of its graduates, but upon each
life as well.”69 The emphasis on nurturing individuality shows the uniqueness of the
liberal arts education in contrast to larger universities. Stoughton also discussed Wagner
College’s desire to respect all religious denominations and differences by stating that
“Wagner will continue to aim to make better Lutherans from those who are Lutherans,
better Catholics from those who are Catholics, better Jews from its Jewish students, better
Protestants, better men and women.”70 This desire to create a multidenominational
institution to serve all the community’s needs and expand access to more individuals,
including women and immigrates, highlights the growing civic mission of the school and
the changing needs of the community and country.
His dreams for the future of the institution are clear and directly relate to the
academic changes occurring on the campus including the creation of nursing program,
67
Stoughton, Clarence C. “Inaugural Address”. Wagner College. November 1, 1935: 8
Rowen. The Emerging Identity…27
69 Stoughton. “Inaugural Address…9
70 Stoughton. “Inaugural Address… 9
68
118
�the one-unit program, evening sessions, an on campus high school, the transition from
teaching in German to English and an increased staff with stronger credentials.
The introduction of a nursing program occurred during the 1943-1944 school
year that Stoughton believed addressed the importance of a humanitarian profession and
the role the liberal arts education could have on that. Although many felt that a nursing
program had no place at a liberal arts college, he strongly felt that “the human individual
in the tradition and contents of arts and sciences can honestly be emphasized in education
and training for the calling of nursing.”71 Furthermore, a one-unit plan was established
and implemented from 1943 to 1946 that allowed students to complete one course in a
one month. This was typically three to four academic hours of work a week and was
essential to those being drafted into or volunteering for World War II. Typically, draftees
had a month’s notice prior to having to be inducted into the army. This program allowed
them to complete as many courses as possible without having to drop out before the end
of the semester and receive incompletes. “The course a month calendar permitted
students the opportunity to complete a course and not have to lose most of a conventional
semester. It appears that the nation’s need for nurses and health care professionals during
the war may have also made the unit plan a viable educational response to care for human
suffering and aid the survival of the country. The format of the unit plan enabled nursing
students to complete a diploma course in just three years.” The first graduating class of
nursing students, mainly women, consisted of forty-one students and was in 1946.
Additionally, the faculty grew in size from the 1930s to 1940s with many
earning their doctorates and “evening session enrollment expanded from twenty in 1944
to three hundred and ninety in 1946…”72. The evening session course offerings had
started in 1933 to “serve the needs of community residents who could not attend the day
session. The additional students…gave strength to the school financially and helped
publicize it in Staten Island.”73 Also summer sessions began in 1935 to help the school
financially. This showcases how the institution truly addressed the students’ needs and
sought to increase their endowment. Lastly, layman, including Clarence Stoughton,
Walter Langsam, and David Delo, who had typically provided ministerial training for the
students, also began to assume administrative roles by 1936 and oversee the institutional
goals, finances, academics, and record the school’s history. 74 Another innovative and
71
Rowen. The Emerging Identity…27
Rowen. The Emerging Identity…31
73 Hillila. Wagner College Policy…80-81
72
119
�unique curriculum change as described in a June 1933 Wagner College Bulletin was
college seniors majoring in education learning how to teach at Curtis High School on
Staten Island. These students practiced their teaching styles by teaching the high school
students and were exposed to an early form of experiential learning that provided them
with a hands-on example.
A final curriculum change for Wagner College was the transition from German
to English. Originally, Wagner sought to educate and train German-speaking students to
become Lutheran ministers. However by the 1930s, their mission had changed. “As the
constituency itself changed, the needs of that constituency evolved into different patterns.
Wagner gradually became a bi-lingual institution, with English on an equal footing with
German. Finally, English became the only language of instruction, with German taught
simply as one of the foreign language subjects.”75 It also has been noted by Hillila that a
group of English speaking churches left the German speaking New York Ministerium and
formed their own synod. However, after the language change at Wagner to English, this
new synod began financially supporting the college, which showcases one benefit from
the language change. Additionally, after fighting World War I against Germany, “the
climate of opinion was much more favorable for giving up the German pattern of
educational organization as well as the German language.”76 This shows the shift of
Wagner into a truly American college. There was also no longer a great need for German
speaking ministers in the community by 1918 so to address the larger English speaking
Wagner student body, faculty relaxed the language requirements in the curriculum.
Spelman College also had some major academic shifts in the interwar years that
highlight this school’s new identity in society. Under the leadership of President Florence
M. Read from 1927 to 1953, Spelman began to redefine its previous focus on vocational
training through the Home Economics, the Normal Department for teacher preparation,
and Nursing Department to a stronger emphasis on the liberal arts. Read once said
“in planning curriculum, it is possible to emphasize features that relate to the
general principles and conditions and also specifically to the life of
women….much attention is given to manners and much attend is given to
character in the women’s colleges…community and church work come more
easily to them afterward if they have a background of teamwork with other
74
Hillila. Wagner College Policy…80
Hillila. Wagner College Policy…76
76 Hillila. Wagner College Policy…78
75
120
�women in the college…the women’s college is fitted by tradition and by
circumstances to accomplish this highly complicated task of developing the
well-rounded person…the traditional women’s college is a place where culture
and all that it implies are an inherent part of the educational process.” 77
It is evident that Read saw the importance and great potential of women’s colleges in
providing females with a sound education that taught them the skills, dispositions, and
intellect needed to live and work in the world. To further expand the schools liberal arts
mission, the Nursing Program and the local elementary school on campus were
discontinued in 1927. This may have been to encourage female African American
students to enroll in vocations like teaching that would secure them with better jobs
versus nursing where they often would be forced to work in unsanitary hospitals and
would easily get sick. By 1930, the high school was also discontinued. All discontinued
programs were due to low enrollment, financial difficulties and inadequate space and
facilities. “…the aim of Spelman College was to provide a first-rate liberal arts education
to a small number of students that would be equal to that available elsewhere. To achieve
this goal, additional college courses in the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, and
natural sciences were established and the college faculty increased.”78 From 1901 to
1927, Spelman only granted 62 bachelors degrees, which the administration sought to
change.79 They began to focus on the quality of the liberal arts and added courses in
history, philosophy and mathematics to their academic catalogue.
“Lectures, addresses and chapel talks brought Spelman students and teachers
mental stimulus and made connections with the world at large.”80 This was perhaps
Florence Read’s greatest contribution to the school by the legacy she left behind of
wonderful guests that she had come speak and motivate her students. “These were
scholars…scientists and explorers…lecturers and authors….and musicians. She was
indeed wise because she not bid us enter the house of her wisdom, but rather led us to the
threshold of our own minds.”81 This often helped to bridge the gap between the school
setting and real world and helped students expand their horizons. In addition, a student
77
Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial…48-49
Sheftall. Spelman: A Centennial…51
79 Read, Florence Matilda. The Story of Spelman College. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1961): 210
80 Read. The Story of Spelman…223
81 Sheftall Spelman: A Centennial…68
78
121
�publication called the Campus Mirror started in 1924 that helped students voice their
concerns about the school.
Additionally, Spelman began to collaborate with Morehouse College, which
allowed faculty and the teaching staff to strengthen and increase.
“In 1928-29, three members of the faculty were employed jointly by the two
colleges. There were additional exchanges of teachers. Courses at Spelman
College opened to election by Morehouse juniors and seniors and courses at
Morehouse College opened to election by Spelman juniors and seniors enriched
the offerings of both colleges. Thoroughness in academic work was emphasized
throughout. The Summer School was operated jointly by Morehouse and
Spelman, with Atlanta University affiliated.”82
This partnership eventually evolved into a higher education consortium between Spelman
College, Morehouse College, and Atlanta University for African American students. In
addition, Clark University and Morris Brown University were later accepted into the
affiliation, which was renamed the Atlanta University Charter. The schools sought to
educate African Americans and struggled to raise funds for operation and endowments.
They sought to become an affiliate through the university plan where Spelman and
Morehouse would “retain their own boards of trustees and offers and managements” 83
and Atlanta University would be reorganized to include three faculty members from both
Spelman and Morehouse. These schools effectively worked together and began to again
redefine their purposes: “Spelman retained its identity as a liberal arts college for women,
Morehouse continued as a liberal arts college for men, and Atlanta University dropped its
undergraduate courses and concentrated its efforts on developing its graduate and
professional departments.”84
Another major curriculum change during the interwar period was the creation of
a Nursery School at Spelman in 1930. Administration saw the need for a school for
women that specifically trained and prepared them for motherhood. “…it had the
distinction of being the first school of its kind established at a black or women’s college.”85
Child development, caring for and teaching elementary children, and other skills were
taught in the school. Most importantly, “the school served as a training center for parents;
Read. The Story of Spelman… 219
Read. The Story of Spelman… 233
84 Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. Spelman: A Centennial Celebration…51
85 Sheftall Spelman: A Centennial…53
82
83
122
�a practice field for college students interested in professions dealing with young children;
a research site for graduate students in education, home economics, and psychology; and
an observation center for those interested in the care and training of young children.”86
The school was used as a federal model for its innovative approach to teaching students
about pre-school education and helped expand knowledge about child psychology and
child development.
A final particularly important change after the interwar period is the GI Bill of
1944 that granted World War II veteran’s benefits for higher education. By 1950, there
were massive increases in the number of students attending public colleges where
enrollment was split evenly between public and private institutions.87 The interwar period
helped to lay the foundation for this boom as it set in motion the civic and democratic
mission for many liberal arts colleges.
VII. Conclusion
Today both Wagner College and Spelman College have expanded their missions
of leadership, civic engagement, the importance of tradition and culture, as well as their
willingness to always redesign and redefine the school and curriculum to the needs of
their twenty first century students and the world at large. The Wagner College Plan for
the Practical Liberal Arts and Center for Leadership and Engagement, including their
IMPACT Scholars Program, have encouraged students to learn by doing and become
civically engaged agents of change in their communities. The Spelman College Center
for Leadership and Civic Engagement or LEADS Program, which stands for leadership,
economic empowerment, advocacy in the arts, dialogue across differences and service
learning, have helped generate open minded and empathetic students ready to be part of
their global world. Lastly, both schools are part of the prestigious Bonner Networks that
encourage students to complete hundreds of hours of community service and evolve into
professional experts on various fields of community work that can ultimately advocate
for change and on the behalf of those who are often not heard. These examples showcase
how both of these schools have adapted their missions even further to address our need
today for strong leaders willing to face the difficult issues in our world that are often
ignored and assist the people in our society that are often forgotten.
86
87
Sheftall Spelman: A Centennial…53
Thelin. “History of American …322
123
�Through exploring the rise of the liberal arts college, it is clear that these
institutions started with an uncertain purpose and place in American society, especially as
the United States became a more democratic nation and had to redefine what it expected
of its youth. As the nineteenth century progressed, the Civil War, Reconstruction era, and
massive immigration again redefined the purpose of our colleges as church schools that
sought to preserve tradition and maintain religious integrity associated with each
college’s respective denominations. By the twentieth century, colleges began to expand
and adapt their mission statements to fit the pressing needs in American society and face
the struggles of competing with the new university structure. During the interwar period,
a variety of factors led to a rethinking mission and curriculum of liberal arts colleges. The
most important of these factors were: economic hardships from the Great Depression,
new sources of philanthropy, wartime drafts and increasing demand for higher education,
and what some saw as the looming threat of communism.
Ultimately, these institutions of higher education effectively modified their
curriculum, mission statements, structure, and expectations to connect with what
American society needed its students to evolve into—democratically oriented, politically
consciously morally motivated, and intellectually curious agents of change able to give
back to their community and lead. Wagner College and Spelman College stood out as
two private four-year liberal arts colleges that have been able to flourish despite these
many challenges and emerge as stronger institutions with a more defined purpose and
better able to meet the demands of an increasingly democratic and global world.
This is the true purpose of our education: learning how to break down our own
psychological barriers and really examine our ignorance. As Socrates once said, “the
unexamined life is not worth living.” We must learn how to grow from our biases and
develop a new type of knowledge from it. We must examine our opinions to understand
how they form the basis for the way in which we live. Through truly examining these
things, we are able to grow as leaders ready to make a change in society and be part of
the global world. By taking action in our learning pursuits and constantly reflecting on
our thoughts, we are able to evolve into noble individuals seeking our own unique
definition of happiness.
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126
�Sin, Shame, and Maidenhead:
Analysis of John Donne’s “The Flea”
Stephanie Hinkes (Arts Administration)1
John Donne has created ingenious wit tangled with blatant sexual connotations
and other double meanings in his eloquent poem, “The Flea.” Donne never directly
mentions sex, but employs erotic language and persuasive thoughts all while discussing a
simple bug: the flea. The speaker poses a clever argument in an attempt to seduce the
idealized woman. The rhyme scheme “aabbccddd” is carried through three stanzas, where
Donne not only utilizes his words to portray the story, but also the blank space between
each stanza. Through the combination between the use of the white space and Petrarchan
conventions—that are skillfully reconstructed—Donne creates a satirical seduction poem.
Through the Petrarchan conventions such as military imagery, an unwilling woman, her
beauty, and the conflict of love, he further constructs the ultimate purpose of the poem:
the man’s pitiful attempt at using a flea to convince a woman to have sex with him.
Donne demonstrates the man’s dedication to seduce an unwilling woman while
demeaning her values of Christianity and chastity. A thorough analysis of the poem
yields an understanding of the woman’s gestures and the importance of her role which
contextualizes the Petrarchan attitudes and conventions in “The Flea.”
The poem opens with the speaker acknowledging the flea that will carry the
argument he plans to make in order to seduce the woman. The speaker states, “Mark but
this flea, and mark in this/ How little that which though deniest me” (1-2) to have her not
only acknowledge the flea’s presence, but also to acknowledge her lack of attention to the
speaker. The second line “immediately establishes the woman’s refusal to grant the
man’s wishes to fulfill his sexual desires” which thoroughly disappoints the speaker
(Adney 3). Her lack of concern for his feeling of deprivation makes the speaker feel as
though he must seize the opportunity that the flea has presented. “It sucked me first, and
now sucks thee” (3) explains the speaker, “And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be”
(4) so therefore, we might as well have sex. In modern society, this makes little sense.
However, in Renaissance times, it was believed that blood was mixed during sexual
intercourse (Perrine 5). Thus, because their blood is already mixed inside the flea, the
1
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley for EN304: Early Modern Literature.
127
�speaker feels that they should consecrate it with the physical act. Furthermore, this line
repeats the word “suck” twice, drawing attention toward the sexual word. The speaker
uses this language of pleasure to remind the woman of exactly what he is seeking, but in
the following line he is aware of her apprehension about acting out sinfully. The
woman’s only desire is in her need to uphold her power and keep her virginity—not quite
the desire the speaker seeks.
As the speaker notices her continued resistance, he attempts to persuade her in
line six by stating that this sexual act would not be “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of
maidenhead” and hopes to reassure her with such a convincing remark. The speaker
“indicates that she is a virgin and wishes to preserve her virginity until she can surrender
it without sin” (Perrine 5). The woman plans to defend her honor and in doing so, she
will not have sex until she is in wedlock. The speaker’s reassurance that this act would
not be a sin is not the least bit of interest to her since she is aware of his ploy to seduce
her. It is also noteworthy that the speaker intentionally uses the word “nor” to imply that
it is not either of the three, when in fact, it would be sin, shame and maidenhead if she
were to have sex with him. She maintains her power and ignores his pleas while he
complains that the flea has enjoyed more of her than he has. The flea has sucked both his
blood and her blood and enjoyed the sucking, while the speaker wishes he could suck her
himself. As the speaker contemplates his jealousy in all the sucking the flea enjoys, he
realizes that the flea’s enjoyment in sucking was unwarranted, “before it woo” (7).
Between his jealousy and the sexual language of sucking, the poem takes a further turn
toward the physical. The sexual language escalates from sucking into words such as
“pampered” and “swells” in line eight. Because it “swells with one blood made of two,”
the speaker may be implying a pregnancy, or more obviously, an erect penis. Assuming
that the swelling refers to the speaker’s erection, he complains in line nine that “this, alas,
is more than we would do” and begins to realize his argument is not strong enough.
To strengthen his argument and hope that they do “more,” he interprets the
swelling as a pregnancy in the first line of the second stanza. The speaker reiterates the
concept of “three lives in one” (10). Not only is he asking for the three lives to “stay” as
she moves to crush the flea, but he also recognizes the three lives at risk and their
relationship. As the speaker realizes the concept of three lives meaning pregnancy, he
chooses to expand on this seemingly brilliant idea by stating that they are essentially
already married within the flea (11). In the following lines, the flea becomes a symbol for
their marriage as he explains “this flea is you and I, and this/ Our marriage, and marriage
temples is” (12-13). He assumes marriage because their blood has already “mingled” and
128
�things are beginning to “swell,” so marriage is the logical next step. The speaker also
assumes that if he can convince the lady that they are married within the flea, she may be
more likely to submit to his desires, give up her virginity, and not feel such guilt from
what she perceives as sin. However, her actions must imply she is not buying into his
analogy because the speaker then states, “Though parents grudge, and you, w’are
met,/And cloistered in these living walls of jet” (14-15). He addresses the concern that
though her parents may resent this idea, along with her, their blood has “mingled” and
they have been united inside this flea. The imagery in line fifteen is dark. The concept of
living inside the dark, living body of a flea, is far from the romance that should be
implied with a marriage. It is also far from the analogy needed to persuade her or her
parents. In the lines that follow, the speaker addresses his concern that she still wants to
kill the flea. As a result, he attempts to persuade her not to kill the flea because, he
argues, it represents three lives. He acknowledges that although she wishes to kill him, if
she does so, she is also killing herself in the flea, because their blood is mixed (16-17).
As if she were not convinced by the idea of murder and suicide in killing the flea, the
speaker informs her that it would also be “sacrilege, three sins in killing three” (18). The
third sin is sacrilege because the “three in one” that has been carried throughout the
stanza is also symbolic of the trinity. Her desire to squish and kill the trinity would
indeed be “sacrilege.” By the end of the second stanza, the speaker has tried everything
he could in his attempt to seduce her. He thus concludes the stanza by informing her that
killing the flea would result in three deaths placing three sins on her hands and
conscience.
To his dismay, the woman acts regardless of his warnings, and squishes the flea
between the second and third stanzas. “The flea and the argument are both pests…and
she moves to crush them” in that white space (DiPasquale 177). In killing the flea, she
also kills his argument which makes this action that much more defeating for the speaker.
He immediately calls out to her, “Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/Purpled thy nail, in
blood of innocence” (19-20). He cannot understand how quickly her actions have turned
“cruel” and how she could possibly have killed such an innocent flea. Not only did she
kill an innocent bug, but it is implied that she also crushed their innocent love that was
contained within that flea. Their love is so innocent because he had not succeeded in
seducing her and taking her virginity. In the next line, the speaker questions how the flea
could have possibly deserved such a death. He explains that the flea’s only guilt is “in
that drop, which is sucked from thee” when the flea first bit her (22).
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�The speaker questions why the woman seems perfectly content with her actions
and sees no wrong in killing it. He also points out that she does not feel any “weaker”
now that she has crushed the flea and his argument, so he begins to question his own
feelings. They are no more worse off than they had been prior to her “purpling” her nail.
When the speaker realizes her reaction and the lack of remorse she feels for killing the
innocent flea, he refuses to show his own affliction. Rather, he pretends that he never
truly cared to seduce her and was in no way affected by her actions and refusal. With his
last lines, "'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be; / Just so much honor, when thou
yield'st to me, / Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee” (25-27), he attempts to
make her refusal seem trivial. He acknowledges that his worries were “false” because he
is not truly affected by any of this, nor is she, and thus, attempts to deflect her triumph.
Instead, he chooses to tell her that he was honored to have met her, but unfortunately
when she killed the flea, she killed the desire he had to seduce her. Unlike a typical
Petrarchan lyric where either the female submits to the male lover or the male lover
walks away broken hearted, Donne’s poem leaves the woman in power without having
said a word, and leaves the man claiming to be unfazed by the actions that took place—
very unconventional.
The power of the woman without words is a critical aspect of this poem. Donne
utilizes her lack of words to allow reading between the lines, literally, and the chance to
interpret what happens in the white spaces between the stanzas. Many critics have
construed Donne’s use of this wordless woman as misogynistic. However, “a closer
reading of this poem also yields readers with the possibility that through the monologue,
Donne is actually flattering women” (Adney 3). By allowing a woman with no words to
outsmart a man's attempt to seduce her, Donne is complimenting the power and
intelligence of women. His use of this atypical demonstration shows that he believes that
women do not need words in order to maintain power and have their “voice” heard.
Although the woman in “The Flea” was not given words of her own, she has a strong
presence in the poem. In many of Donne’s poems, “the women steer the action of the
poems—they have power—and this power was assigned them by [Donne]” (Adney 9).
This reiterates the conclusion that Donne thought a woman to be sufficiently intelligent,
not only to outsmart the typical male seducer, but also to stand her ground and maintain
power. He realized that the woman does not need words to have such a strong role in the
poem, and ultimately has more power with single gestures that are found between the
stanzas. Theresa DiPasquale addresses this white space by explaining that Donne
“assigns a given set of responses to the lady in the white spaces between the stanzas
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�and—in doing so—sets up the shifting strategies the speaker makes in response to ‘her’”
(DiPasquale 175). Between the second and third stanza of the poem, Donne not only
makes a shift in tone and plot, but he also implements the use of the “interruptive
gesture” (Hurley 78). This gesture is used by the woman between the stanzas, in the
white space, to interrupt the man’s attempt to seduce her and shut down his argument.
The woman’s gesture to shut down his seduction attempt does not stop the
speaker. The male continues his endeavor to persuade through the second stanza and then
“with one quick stroke of her finger she has indeed thoroughly discredited the young
man's ‘logic’” (Perrine 6). When the woman crushes the flea with her finger nail, she is
also crushing his argument. Donne uses this to show that the woman does not even need a
single word in order to shut down the man’s request for sex. In squishing the flea, she
kills any hope the speaker had in persuading her. Furthermore, by killing the flea “she
establishes herself as a worthy adversary, not simply a passive recipient” (Hurley 78).
Up until this point, the woman has listened to the speaker, but without her words, one can
only guess her actions based on the speaker’s words. In between the first and second
stanza, she does seem to make an attempt to kill the flea because from there, the speaker
strengthens his persuasion by explaining the “three lives in one.” By the time the speaker
completes the second stanza, the woman has had quite enough and in addition to crushing
the flea and his argument, she also establishes a position of power. She challenges the
man by squishing the flea and causes the third stanza to differ greatly from the prior two.
Now that the woman has deemed herself successful in shutting down the speaker’s
argument, he attempts to turn the situation around and act as though he does not care. The
combination between the power of the woman without words and the actions of the
speaker following the gesture help Donne’s “The Flea” differ from that of other
Petrarchan poets like Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Thomas Wyatt.
The power of the woman without words and her use of the gesture are unlike the
typical Petrarchan woman. “Donne’s lady in ‘The Flea’ signals by her gesture that she
was never the decorously Petrarchan ‘lady’ but someone clever enough to see where the
argument was headed and to give a witty twist to it by joining in” (Hurley 79). Many
literary critics agree that the woman is not the typical Petrarchan woman because of her
actions in the white spaces between the stanzas. Her ability to control the argument, end
the argument, with one flick of her nail, steers the direction of the poem and places the
power in her hands—the antithesis of Petrarchan convention. Petrarchan women were
usually the passive recipients of the male’s words and tended to submit to the ploy for sex
near the end. However, Donne’s women take part in the construction of witty sexual
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�humor. According to Helen Gardner, Donne “remained a Petrarchist to some extent, this
due to the fact that, no matter how strong one’s personal reaction is, one cannot avoid
belonging to a definite historical climate” (Gardner 71). Although John Donne breaks the
mold of the typical Petrarchan poem, he still wrote his poems during the time of other
Petrarchists. Therefore, his poems still follow some of the Petrarchan ideal, but with a
“Donne twist.”
Upon first glance, Donne’s poem mimics some Petrarchan conventions;
however, when reading more closely, one may find the poem more anti-Petrarchan.
Donne takes Petrarchan conventions and adapts them to suit his poems, and many times
completely inverts the ideas of Petrarch, like in the role of the woman. Although the
woman in this poem is unwilling to consummate the relationship, as in other Petrarchan
works, the fact that this unwilling woman remains an unwilling woman makes her antiPetrarchan. Even without speaking a word throughout the poem, she maintains her
superior power and virginity till the final line and never gives in to the speaker’s attempt
at sexual love. The combination of this anti-Petrarchan lady, the unusual metaphor, and
the other Petrarchan conventions that Donne has masterfully warped, portrays the
wordless woman’s ultimate refusal to forfeit her virginity to the male seducer which
poses the idea that John Donne’s “The Flea” is both witty and seducing, as well as antiPetrarchan.
Donne objected to some Petrarchan conventions, so even though he wrote within
their time period, he chose to make his works more anti-Petrarchan. In order to
understand Donne's take on Petrarchan love poetry and his wit in presenting it, it is
necessary to understand the concepts that Petrarch used. “Donne expects his reader to be
familiar with some of the stock imagery of Petrarchan love poetry and to be struck by the
novelty in his treatment of the standard poetic propositions that a love affair is war”
(Clements 203). In the love poetry, the love affair presented always appears as “war” in
the sense that they are on a battle field where the male is fighting for the woman’s
attention or acceptance to his proposal. In addition to the subject of love, Donne borrows
his themes from Petrarch before making his own twist and creating an anti-Petrarchan
poem. For example, the theme of the unwilling woman is used by Donne; rather than
having the woman giving in or feeling sorrow at the end, he creates a woman who has
just as much wit as the speaker. Likewise, rather than the speaker feeling sorrow about
the rejection, he attempts to flip the argument and appear unfazed by her refusal. Donald
Guss reiterates this notion and explains that many of Donne’s poems share the belief that
“Petrarchan love is the least efficient manner in which to win a woman; that love exists
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�only where it is returned” (Guss 50). Donne enjoys mocking the concept of unrequited
love by having the speaker use a flea to symbolize love and using the flea bite as an
expressway to sex. Rather than using flowers or a spring day, Donne uses an extremely
unconventional approach and chooses a bug that sucks blood.
Aside from this 'super romantic' concept, Donne uses his wit to twist Petrarchan
conventions. “Donne uses an accepted Petrarchan ideal as a springboard for his own witty
exploration of its significance” and in turn creates many poems that can be interpreted as
anti-Petrarchan (Ruffo-Fiore 401). Uniquely, Donne not only uses the pieces of Petrarch
that he is historically stuck in and that have value, but also uses a witty satirical approach
to set himself apart from the Petrarchan poets of his time. The idea of using Petrarchan
conventions as a “springboard” for Donne is ultimately what makes his work so witty and
entertaining. He uses the springboard, and in making his jump, flips many of Petrarch’s
ideas making “The Flea” more of an anti-Petrarchan poem. DiPasquale comments that
this is only one way in which to read the poem: “The first is an anti-Petrarchan, libertine
reading, based upon the principles of radical iconoclasm; the second is a response rooted
in an English Protestant semiotic, and finds in the speaker’s signs and gestures an
invitation to genuine erotic communion” (DiPasquale 176). Having each of these
“readings” within the same poem causes them to overlap, but it is clear that there is a
level of indulgence in Donne’s work as well as the obvious religious symbolism. The
libertine reading is anti-Petrarchan, but Donne broke from Petrarch because he disagreed
with his take on religion, making the second reading also anti-Petrarchan. Although on
the surface Donne seems to adopt some Petrarchan ideas such as subject of love and the
theme of the unwilling woman, many literary critics agree that Donne has transformed
Petrarchan conventions with his wit to create an innovative poem in the 17th century.
One of the most unconventional concepts within “The Flea” is the flea itself.
The fact that Donne has the speaker use a flea in an attempt to seduce the woman sets
Donne’s poem in an entirely different category, which has been argued, is antiPetrarchan. In Desiring Donne, Ben Saunders explains that the internal logical of “The
Flea” implies that “bullshit is the only thing that will persuade, where other more sincere
forms of argument, exhortation, and protestation have failed” (Saunders 150). He also
believes that Donne was successful because readers actually enjoy “bullshit.” Saunders is
referring to the concept of the flea, and that because it is so outlandish it appears as
“bullshit.” This plays on the idea that Petrarch tried to use the other forms such as a
sincere argument in his poems, and that approach proved unsuccessful. As a result,
Donne chose to mock that and use a flea to seduce a woman, and this has been interpreted
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�as enjoyable “bullshit.” Saunders belief that readers enjoy this explains why Donne has
reached such popularity. With his ingenious wit interweaving through sexual
connotations, Donne portrays a skillfully written anti- Petrarchan poem that gives power
to the woman without words. He helps the speaker to pose a clever argument centered
around a simple flea in order to persuade her to have sex. Without any words, the woman
utilizes the blank space between stanzas to implement the “interruptive gesture” and
crush the speaker’s hope within that flea. Donne’s brilliance in never actually mentioning
sex allows his readers to enjoy reading his poem with many interpretations. Whether
some read and see the Petrarchan surface, or read between the lines—literally—they will
find a skillfully reconstructed seduction poem filled with wit and double meanings.
Works Cited
Adney, Karley. "Defending Donne: ‘The Flea’ and “Elegy XIX’ as Compliments to
Womankind." Butler University English Language and Literature Commons, 2006.
Clements, Arthur L. John Donne's Poetry. 2 ed. New York: Norton & Company, Inc.,
1992.
DiPasquale, Theresa M. Literature & Sacrament: The Sacred and the Secular in John
Donne. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1999.
Gardner, Helen. John Donne: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall Inc., 1962.
Guss, Donald L. John Donne, Petrarchist. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1966.
Hurley, Ann Hollinshead. John Donne's Poetry and Early Modern Visual Culture.
Cranbury, NJ: Susquehanna Press, 2005.
Perrine, Laurence. "Explicating Donne: 'The Apparition' And 'The Flea'." College
Literature 17.1 (1990): 1-20.
Ruffo-Fiore, Silvia. "Donne's 'Parody' of the Petrarchan Lady." Comparative Literature
Studies 9. (1972): 392-406.
Saunders, Ben. Desiring Donne: Poetry, Sexuality, Interpretation. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2006.
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�Inventing Asexuality: Building Visibility
for the “Fourth Orientation”
Carly Schmidt (Art and Art History)1
The first thing people always ask when I tell them I’m asexual is whether or not
I bud. If they cut off my arm, could they grow another me? Once they are assured that I
am, in fact, human their next question is some variation of “I’ve never heard of that, what
is it?” Asexuality means different things to different people, but the most general
definition is a sexual orientation wherein the individual does not experience sexual
attraction to anyone regardless of gender (Brotto et al., 2010). One of the most wellknown studies of asexuality, done by Anthony Bogaert (2004), suggests that about one
percent of the population is asexual. Despite this fact, asexual visibility is not just low, it
is practically non-existent. The appalling lack of recognition within popular media and
society demands an increase in visibility for those who identify as asexual. It has become
necessary for members of the asexual community to take it upon themselves to invent
their identity.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when defining asexuality is
the distinction between asexuality and celibacy. Celibacy, unlike asexuality, is a choice.
Someone who is celibate has chosen not to engage in sexual activity for whatever reason,
but this does not mean that he or she does not have any sexual desire (Scherrer, 2008). In
addition, not all asexuals are celibate. There are a wide variety of reasons that asexuals
may engage in sexual activity. Many asexuals have sex before coming to terms with their
identity in an attempt to “fix” themselves or because they think their disinterest in sex
stems from a lack of experience. Others are in romantic relationships with non-asexuals
and have sex as a compromise or to please their partner (Bogaert, 2004). Still more
engage frequently in masturbation. In fact, Brotto et al. (2010) found that 80 percent of
male participants and 77 percent of female participants had masturbated. While this may
be surprising to some unfamiliar with asexuality, it is important to remember that
asexuals are as diverse as any other group of people.
Written under the direction of Drs. Eshleman and Ruff for the team-taught Intermediate
Learning Community Inventing Homosexuality.
1
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�Another important variation among asexuals is their romantic orientation, a
factor that is not often taken into account. Most people assume that all asexuals are also
aromantic, or not interested in a romantic relationship. However, romantic relationships
are not defined entirely by sex. Many asexuals are interested in platonic romantic
relationships. They are either heteroromantic, homoromantic, or bi- or panromantic.
These relationships include varying degrees of intimacy ranging from simple
handholding or cuddling, all the way to intimate kissing or, in cases where the partner is
not asexual, even sex on occasion. Because there is such variation here, it is difficult to
come up with exact definitions for romantic orientations. What one person calls
romance, another might call friendship (Scherrer, 2010). Bogaert (2004) found that 44
percent of asexual participants were currently in, or had at one time been in, long-term
relationships or marriages.
Anthony Bogaert (2004) analyzed data from a national probability sample of
British residents that was initially used to study sexually transmitted diseases. In a
sample of 18,876 participants (7,989 males and 10,632 females) between the ages of 16
and 59, 57 males and 138 females responded that they had “never felt sexually attracted
to anyone at all” (p. 281). Bogaert took the responses of these specific participants and
collected them together in an attempt to learn more about the demographics of the
asexual community. Asexuals were more likely to be female than male, and older
relative to sexual people. The asexual participants in this survey were more likely to be
from a lower economic background, non-White individuals, and less well-educated
relative to sexual participants. They were also more likely to have health issues, be
shorter, weigh less, and be more religious relative to non-asexuals. As important as this
study was, there has been so little research on the subject of asexuality that this study is
often cited as definitive. In reality, we cannot know for sure the exact percentage of
asexuals in society or whether these demographics trend to the asexual community
beyond this sample. More studies are critically needed.
Many non-asexuals may hear the number of one percent and not think much of
it. Surely one percent of the population is so insignificant a number that asexual visibility
is neither necessary nor important. However, if we assume that the population of the
Earth is about seven billion people, the estimated number of asexuals would still be a
staggering 70 million people. This is hardly insignificant. In fact, out of the over 18,000
participants in the data set Bogaert (2004) analyzed, there were almost as many asexual
people as homosexual and bisexual people combined. Although there were more gay and
bisexual men than asexual men, there were more asexual women than gay and bisexual
136
�women. So, while the asexual community may be somewhat small in comparison to
certain groups, it is still significant and even larger than some, more well-known minority
groups.
In another important survey, Kristen S. Scherrer (2008) drew upon one of the
most important resources for the asexual community, the Asexual Visibility and
Education Network (AVEN). AVEN was founded in 2001 by asexual David Jay. It has
since become the largest online community for asexuals and is often the first website
asexuals find when questioning their sexuality. Scherrer posted her survey on the AVEN
forums in the hopes of reaching as many asexuals as possible. The survey employed
open-ended questions and collected information about demographics, asexual identity,
relationship status, physical health, and mental health. Asking what being asexual means
to them, Scherrer received as many definitions as there were participants. One thing that
carried over through every participant’s answers, however, was the importance of the
sense of community that places like AVEN give to asexuals. Scherrer found that most
participants knew their entire lives that they were asexual, but until they stumbled across
sites like AVEN, not only did they not know what to call themselves, they did not even
know other asexuals existed. To these participants, discovering an asexual identity was
an essential part of not feeling alone.
This issue of isolation is one of the most important facing questioning asexuals.
Up to this point, the vast majority of research on low sexual desire has focused on
hormone disorders or psychological issues such as such as Sexual Aversion Disorder and
Hyposexual Desire Disorder. This can lead many questioning asexuals to believe that
there is something wrong with them or that they are sick. Asexuality is becoming more
and more accepted in the psychological community, but still lacks the acceptance
afforded to more common sexual minorities such as homosexuals and bisexuals
(Scherrer, 2008). As such, questioning asexuals who see therapists in an effort to find out
why they don’t feel sexual attraction are often told that they are simply undeveloped.
Perhaps they just have not had enough experience. Maybe they have had too much
experience! Certainly the patient must be repressing memories of past sexual abuse.
There can of course be no other explanation! In a world where sexuality is assumed, it is
no wonder that asexuals feel isolated or sick or somehow wrong (Bridgeman, 2007;
Cerankowski & Milks, 2010).
Asexuals face more problems than just isolation and low visibility. Even when
visibility is high, they must still face a great deal of negativity and discrimination. A
shocking study recently found that heterosexual people were more likely to have a
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�negative opinion of asexuals, wanted less contact with them, and were even less likely to
hire or rent an apartment to an asexual person, relative to other heterosexuals or even
homosexuals. This same study found that asexuals were often described as “machinelike” or “animal-like” (Hodson, 2012). Asexuals are often bullied over their orientation,
either for being a supposed prude or over the false assumption that because they are not
attracted to the opposite sex, they must then be gay. In extreme cases, asexual women in
particular are threatened or raped in an attempt to “fix” them or somehow change their
mind about being asexual (Absolon & Dore, 2011).
This may not be surprising to some. For those heterosexuals who are already
homophobic, it is not a far leap to be prejudiced against asexuals as well. If one is
already going to hate one group for being different, one might as well hate them all
(Hodson, 2012). Far more upsetting is the fact that many members of LGBTQ groups are
also prejudiced against asexuals. In 2012 The Trevor Project, a prominent LGBTQ
support community, added asexuality to its training materials for its suicide hotline.
Unbelievably, there were many in the LGBTQ community who reacted negatively to this
addition. Reactions ranged from thinking that asexuality was not a legitimate sexual
orientation, to assuming that asexuality is just repressed homosexuality, to accusing
asexuals of being homophobes. This post from a Tumblr user sums up some of the most
horrifying accusations:
You think that girl is cute, but deep down, you can’t imagine having sex with
her? Well, it could be related to deeply ingrained social messages about how
Gay sex is wrong, but let’s just say you’re Asexual instead! Here, you can
platonically cuddle with this straight girl who doesn’t like it when she’s touched
nonconsensually. What? What’s “rape culture”? That’s not a thing! There are
plenty of bitches who love being randomly groped, TV told me so! See ya later,
kids! Don’t kill yourselves. (Landis, 2012)
Not only does this post ignore aromantic or heteroromantic asexuals, it actually goes so
far as to assume that any asexual interested in platonic, non-sexual touching would be
doing so without the consent of his or her partner! This type of thinking is not only
wrong and prejudiced, but it is dangerous in that it could prevent suicidal asexuals from
getting the help they need.
Obviously the only way to prevent isolation, prejudice, and misunderstanding
within the asexual community is increased visibility. This means spreading the word to
psychologists and medical professionals not to dismiss someone’s identification as
asexual just because there’s a chance disinterest in sex could come from somewhere else.
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�It also means reaching out to media outlets and encouraging them to portray asexuals in
popular movies and television not as a joke but as human beings. Communities like
AVEN are attempting to spread the word through merchandise, pamphlets, marching in
Pride parades, and having people like David Jay appear on talk shows and radio
programs, but these steps are not enough (Cerankowski & Milks, 2010). We must all be
more committed to spreading awareness about asexuality. There is no excuse for anyone
to have to feel alone.
Works Cited
Absolon, E., & Dore, M. (2011, October 14). Asexuality and LGBT: The case for
inclusion. Asexuality Awareness Week. Retrieved from http://asexualawarenessweek.com
/docs/ASEXUALITY-and-LGBT-AAW-2011-version.pdf
Bogaert, A. F. (2004). Asexuality: Prevalence and associated factors in a national
probability sample. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 279-287.
Bridgeman, S. (2007, Aug 5). No sex please, we’re asexual. The New Zealand Herald.
Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid
=10455823
Brotto, L. A., Knudson, G., Inskip, J., Rhodes, K., & Erskine, Y. (2010). Asexuality: A
mixed-methods approach. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 599-618.
Cerankowski, K., & Milks, M. (2010). New orientations: Asexuality and its implications
for theory and practice. Feminist Studies, 36, 650-664.
Hodson, G. (Sept. 1, 2012). Prejudice against “Group X” (asexuals). In Psychology
Today. Retrieved Oct. 10, 2012, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/withoutprejudice/201209/prejudice-against-group-x-asexuals.
Landis, L. (2012, April 19). Is there a problem with the Trevor Project including
asexuality in its training materials? Asexual News. Retrieved October 13, 2012, from
http://asexualnews.com/index.php/cake-recipes/1257-is-there-a-problem-with-the-trevorproject-including-asexuality-in-its-training-materials
Scherrer, K. S. (2008). Coming to an asexual identity: Negotiating identity, negotiating
desire. Sexualities, 11, 621-641.
Scherrer, K. S. (2010). What asexuality contributes to the same-sex marriage discussion.
Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 22, 56-73.
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�Those Who Never Retreated before the Clash of Spears:
Motivations for Enlistment in the Irish Brigade
in the United States Civil War
Patrick Bethel (History)1
The Irish Brigade suffered the third most casualties of any brigade in the Union
Army during the Civil War. It did this while playing a vital role in several of the Union’s
most pivotal victories and suffered greatly during several of the worst defeats of the war.
Why did so many of New York’s Irish, who had been so ill treated by their neighbors,
forced to take the worst of work and so generally distrusted that an entire political party
Written under the direction of Dr. Alison Smith for HI297: The Historian as Detective:
Exploring the City.
1
140
�had been formed to combat their influence, decide to enlist in such numbers? What drove
them when “the leading Republican newspaper in the city at the time, had linked
Catholicism… with slavery as two institutions incompatible with the spirit of the age, and
liberty and civilization2”? There were five major reasons that men enlisted in the war.
Proceeding from the most to the least idealistic they were: first, the desire to preserve the
Union in order to fulfill a variety of other goals, second, to train the American Irish
population to form the core of a future Irish Rebellion, third, to emulate the example of
the European Irish Brigades under foreign service and the possible effects of an
American Irish Brigade, fourth, to weaken the United Kingdom by destroying their ally
in the Confederacy, and fifth because enlistment in the Union army allowed the Irish
population to support their families in a manner that civilian life could not. Overall, they
enlisted because enlistment was in their best interest, either because the aims of the war
were beneficial to them or because of other incentives to enlist.
Sparked largely by the Irish Potato famine, the late 1840’s and 1850’s saw a
massive influx of new Irish immigrants to America. There had been a large number of
Irish immigrants early in the history of the American nation and in the colonial era. These
early immigrants had almost exclusively been Scotch-Irish, that is to say Scottish
farmers, originally transplanted into what would become Northern Ireland in order to
pacify the region. They later emigrated to the American colonies, particularly the
Appalachian region, due a poor economy in Ireland and discrimination based on their
non- Anglican faiths in Ireland. They did see themselves as being, to an extent, Irish.
Indeed, George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, on two separate
occasions self-identified as Irish and was beloved of the Irish population but was of
Scotch-Irish decent.
The new Irish immigrants in the 1840’s were overwhelmingly poor, Catholic,
and from rural areas, lacking in marketable skills. Additionally, unlike any group of
immigrants who had come to America before them, these new Irish maintained strong
emotional and political ties to their homeland. They perceived America as a haven but
harbored hopes and dreams of returning home. Both the new immigrants’ religion and
their ties to their homeland unsettled the greater American population, with many
Americans seeing Catholicism as incompatible with the ideals of the Republic.
Americans viewed with distrust the Irish communities’ ties to their homeland as a sign
Thomas J Carughwell, The Greatest Brigade: How the Irish Brigade cleared the way to
victory in the American Civil War (Beverly Ma: Fair Winds Press, 2011), 23
2
141
�that they would not or could not truly assimilate into American society. “Already facing
‘universal hostility’ and occasional violence from the native working class with whom
they competed for jobs, the Irish found a more formidable enemy in the American Party
or Know Nothings--a political movement of the 1850s that fed on Protestant America's
fear of immigrants and foreign influence.3” The Know Nothing party competed with the
Republican Party to fill the void left by the Whig party’s collapse. The party grew to
great power in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, forcing the dissolution of Irish militia
regiments in those states. Even after the Republican Party’s rise to power was completed,
the nativist movement did not die. Many former Know- Nothing’s joined the Republican
Party, leading to widespread distrust of that party by the Irish population.
The most powerful motivation for the new Irish to enlist at the outbreak of
hostilities was the desire to preserve the Union for a variety of reasons. To the common
Irishman, America represented hope for a better future. Ireland, as much as they loved it,
was a hard land during the best of times, and the conditions during this period were far
from ideal. The native population had been decimated by the Great Hunger and those
who remained lived in abject poverty. America had taken them in when they were
penniless and had allowed them to make new lives that, hard as they were, were far
superior to what their lives would have been had they remained home. America
represented the hope that their families back home could live comfortably, and could
withstand poor harvests without the fear of losing all. Additionally, particularly for those
Irishmen who advocated rebellion in Ireland, America was an example that they wished
to emulate, a colony of Britain that had thrown off the foreign yoke and established a
prosperous Republic. In 1847, the Irish political movement met to debate whether to
renounce the use of violence to achieve their aims. Thomas Francis Meagher who would
be the driving force behind the creation of the Irish Brigade as well as its commander for
much of its history, evoked America in his ringing defense of the use of force. “Abhor the
Sword? Stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for at its blow, and in the quivering of its
crimson light a giant nation sprang up from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its
redeeming magic the fettered colony became a daring, free Republic.4” America was not
only the example that men like Meagher wanted their native land to emulate, it was a
3 Craig A. Warren, "Oh, God, What a Pity!":The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg and the
Creation of Myth, In The Irish Sword: The Journal of the Military History Society of
Ireland, 197
4 Carughwell, 28
142
�potential source of aid, but only once this crisis was over and her existence was assured.
They felt that they:
“Could not hope to succeed in our effort to make Ireland a Republic
without the moral and material aid of the liberty-loving citizens of these
United States. That aid we might rely upon receiving at the proper time.
But now, when all the thoughts, energies, and resources of this noble
people are needed to preserve their own institutions from destruction—
they cannot spare either sympathy, arms, or men, for any other cause.5”
To those men who greatly desired to see Ireland free, and there were many such men, the
maintenance of the Union was of paramount importance. This was one of the primary
motivations for enlistment both in the early days of the war and in the latter years of the
war, as the casualty rates mounted and the support for the war waned.
Many of the members of the Fenian Brotherhood, a secret revolutionary
organization founded in 1858 dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland and the
establishment of a Republican government there, saw an opportunity in the early days of
the war. When the war was only expected to last weeks or months at most, many of the
Fenians hoped to use Irish combat veterans to remedy a major reason that prior Irish
rebellions had failed, the lack of experienced men to form the core of a rebellion.
Although there had been many Irishmen fighting in foreign Irish Brigades, they had never
been used as part of a rebellion, that is to say that by the time news of an uprising reached
the Continent it had usually already been crushed. The Fenian Brotherhood in America,
now the only active Irish Republican organization, hoped to use the experience of war to
create a core of battle-hardened men who could be of use to Ireland in a future
insurrection. Given the future activities of the Fenian brotherhood, which included not
only two separate attempts to invade Canada in order to trade it for Ireland’s freedom but
also the first bombing campaign on British soil until the 1970’s, it seems likely that the
Fenians themselves would be the ones provoking the insurrection. Ensuring that the
Fenian veterans of the war would be able to take part. This motivation’s efficacy can be
seen in the vast number of Fenians who enlisted in the Brigade, men who had dedicated
themselves to attempting to overthrow the British rule in Ireland. “Some fifty Fenian
circles or branches ceased to exist when all their members donned the blue6”in early
Michael Cavanaugh, The Memoirs of General Thomas Francis Meagher (Ireland,
Messenger Press, 1892) 369 cited in Susannah Ural Bruce, “"Remember Your Country
and Keep Up Its Credit": Irish Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865” The Journal
of Military History, Vol 69
5
143
�1861, when Britain’s entry into the war seemed likely. Indeed, General Meagher himself
held this view, going so far as to say "It is a moral certainty that many of our countrymen
who enlist in this struggle for the maintenance of the Union will fall in the contest. . . .
But, even so; I hold that if only one in ten of us come back when this war is over, the
military experience gained by that one will be of more service in the fight for Ireland's
freedom than would that of the entire ten as they are now.7" However, this motivation
waned more quickly than any other. Early on in the war there was overwhelming support
among the Fenians of New York, but as the war dragged on and Irish casualties began to
mount, splits in the movement began to emerge. Michael Corcoran, a devoted Union
officer and leader of the Fenian Brotherhood, counseled his fellows that had not yet
enlisted to not enlist as the casualties began to mount. For he feared that the war would
destroy the brotherhood and leave them dead on southern fields. Following Corcoran’s
death in a riding accident, the movement’s anti-war wing came to prominence, leading to
a decline in Fenian support for the war.
A major reason that men enlisted in the Union Irish brigade was the tradition of
the Wild Geese, Irishmen primarily from the western province of Connacht who had
enlisted in foreign armies, in regiments and brigades that were fully Irish and under Irish
officers. This tradition had begun following the Glorious Revolution, when James II of
England was deposed by his son in law William of Orange. James’s army surrendered in
the city of Limerick. A provision in the Treaty of Limerick that ended the conflict stated,
that anyone in James’s army who wished to follow him into exile in France, as well as
their dependents “shall have free leave to embark themselves wherever the ships are that
are appointed to transport them8” as well as stating “The Roman Catholics of this
kingdom [Ireland] shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are
consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of king Charles the
second9” a provision that was broken shortly after the wars end. Many of the members of
Charles’s army took advantage of this article, creating a brigade in the French army that
was made up solely of Irishmen. “The separate Irish Brigade remained in French service
until it was disbanded in 1792 along with the French monarchy. Up to that time, the
brigade fought in all of France’s wars and, garbed in distinctive red coats, achieved
Joseph G Bilby, Remember Fonetnoy!; the 69th New York and the Irish Brigade in the
Civil War (Hightstown NJ: Longstreet House, 1995), 29
7 Cavanaugh, 369
8 Treaty of Limerick http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E703001-010/index.html
9 Treaty of Limerick
6
144
�distinction on many fields.10” Their example was emulated by Irish regiments in Spain,
Austria and Russia, creating a tradition of men who would live in Europe but would often
have wives and children back in Ireland. “More than mere mercenaries, these... Irishmen
took the only opportunity afforded them out of grinding poverty and political and
religious oppression. As elite troops in foreign lands they garnered more than their share
of what passed for glory and what was indeed tragedy.11” Many of the recruiting posters
for the regiments within the American Irish brigade referenced this tradition, often
mentioning the Treaty of Limerick that had created the first Irish Brigade and the
subsequent breaking of that treaty by the British. Many prominent figures in the IrishAmerican community, most prominently Meagher himself, felt that by creating an Irish
Brigade, and through that brigade’s service and sacrifice the Union government would
maintain that brigade following the war. Allowing the Irish back in Ireland the
opportunity to enlist in the forces of a republic rather than in the service the British crown12
. It was this desire that prompted Meagher to tender his resignation as commander of the
brigade in 1863 when his requests for either the brigade or himself to be given leave to
return to New York to recruit were denied. At this point the brigade was far understrength
for one regiment, let alone five, “down to only a few hundred men13” in a brigade that
should have been five thousand strong. During the Civil War the policy of the Union
government was to fight out regiments and replace them with new ones raised at home,
while Meagher wanted the Brigade to survive the war and hopefully be kept on in
peacetime. Ultimately the Irish brigade, was temporarily dissolved in July of 1864, but by
early 1865 sufficient replacements had been secured that the brigade could be reformed
Bilby, 145
Bilby, 146
12 By the 1860’s the Continental Irish Brigades had largely collapsed. The increased
enforcement of laws preventing British citizens from enlisted and the repeal of laws
preventing Catholics from taking up arms simultaneously made it more difficult for
Irishmen to enlist in Foreign brigades and allowed for Catholics to enlist in the British
army and take advantage of the economic benefits that enlistment offered. As a result, the
stream of new recruits largely dried up by the 1740’s, although many of the units, notably
the French brigade, had built up an expatriate community around them, allowing for the
perpetuation of the unit through the children of its members. However, political changes
in France and heavy casualties during the Napoleonic wars led to the dissolution of the
Irish units in France and Spain, although Irish officers continued to serve in the armies of
many Continental nations.
13 Craughwell, 142
10
11
145
�and take part in all of the battles in 1865, up to and including the surrender of Lee’s army
at Appomattox courthouse.
The desire to weaken England by removing a potential ally and by the same
token punish the South for seceding, was a persistent motivation for Irish enlistment,
particularly early in the war. The Southern Cotton industry was of great importance to
England’s textile industry which was central to the economy of the United Kingdom,
although as the war went on cotton grown in Britain’s colonies alleviated the loss of the
southern crop. Should the Confederacy have prevailed and gained independence, it would
have been almost solely dependent on Britain economically. The Confederacy grew
cotton, but did not weave it, that was done in Northern or British factories. Following a
Confederate victory, the northern factories would presumably be closed to southern
cotton, giving Britain a great deal of influence over Southern policy. This would
effectively grant them another colony to the south of the Union, allowing them a great
deal of influence in North American affairs. Caught between two British-dominated
lands, the Union would be vulnerable to British machinations, most pressingly to many
Irish, the Union would be unable to aid Irish revolutionaries for fear of British reprisals,
thus making a successful revolution even more difficult.
In the early years of the war, the UK acted in a manner more like an ally of the
Confederacy than a neutral country. The main point of collaboration between the British
and the Confederacy was the building of Confederate warships in British shipyards. The
most famous example of such a ship was the CSS Alabama, built in a British shipyard in
1862 for an initial price of “₤29,50014” followed by installment payments totaling
₤38,000. She sailed from Liverpool as a civilian vessel, headed for the Caribbean where
“She took her armament and crew and most of her officers on board near Terceira,
Western Islands15”. In the Western Islands, she was commissioned as the Alabama and
proceeded to raid Union shipping until her sinking off the coast of France in 1864. The
willingness of the British to allow such construction was contrary to international law,
resulting in a payment of over 15 million pounds from Britain to the United States in
1871 as recompense for damage caused by the Alabama and other British-built
privateers. Additionally, following an American raid of the British mail steamer Trent in
order to capture Confederate officials, the UK sent reinforcements to Canada, and drew
“C.S.S Alabama A Virtual Exhibit”, Marshal University, accessed 4/15/2013
http://www.marshall.edu/library/speccoll/virtual_museum/css_alabama/#
15 C.S.S Alabama A Virtual Exhibit
14
146
�up plans to invade the US should war be declared. Around this time, recruiting posters
issued by the 69th New York stated that “the cotton-lords and traitor-allies of England
must be put down!16” Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed and war between Britain and the
Union was averted. Following the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the threat of
British involvement in the war on the side of the Confederacy was greatly lessened due to
the staunchly abolitionist nature of British society at the time. This made entering the war
on the side of the Confederacy politically dangerous to the ruling party. However, prior to
the issuing of the Proclamation, a combination of British clandestine aid to the
Confederacy, the close business ties between the Southern cotton industry and the British
textile industry and Irish distrust of Britain- for at this point in history the Irish diaspora
population could be relied upon to oppose anything that the British government was
doing- served to drive enlistment into the Brigade.
All of these previous motivations, desire to preserve the Union, training for war
with Britain, the Tradition of the Wild Geese and the desire to prevent Britain from
gaining a southern ally, were strong, and some of them, particularly the desire to preserve
the Union, persisted through the war. However, as the war dragged on, Irish support for
the war declined. As early as 1862, recruitment for the Irish brigade waned now that “the
public was now fully aware of the ghastly nature of the war, the civilian job market had
improved and the minimal bounties offered recruits in the late summer of 1862 were not
enough to tempt many men to risk their lives17” The battle of Antietam in late 1862 did
not help matters, for in that battle “the Irish Brigade suffered five hundred and forty
casualties, most during its frontal assault on the infamous Bloody Lane. The 63rd and
69th New York absorbed sixty percent casualties18” and their fellow regiments suffered
similarly. Following the battle, General McClellan was relieved of his command, an
unpopular move with the Irish community given his heritage and his reputation as a
general who did not needlessly risk the lives of his men. He was replaced by General
Ambrose Burnside, a non-Irish general, who proceeded to lead his army into a battle that
would also heavily damage Irish support for the war, the Battle of Fredericksburg. In that
battle, Burnsides’ right flank was ordered to assault a Confederate position behind a stone
wall. The result was a slaughter as the protected Confederate Left was able to fire without
http://www.historicalimagebank.com/gallery/main.php/v/album02/album22/
album107/CWx17ds+-+69th+New+York+Regiment+Irish+Recruiting+Poster+
copy.jpg.html
17 Bilby, 50
18 Warren, 198-199
16
147
�fear on the advancing Union forces, including the Irish brigade. The vast number of the
dead and wounded was a major deterrent to enlistment to an Irish population that was
beginning to attribute “the high volume of Irish casualties to nativist generals and
politicians who viewed recent immigrants as ready-made cannon fodder19” before the
battle of Antietam. The events of that battle and particularly the battle of Fredericksburg
seemed proof of that view.
The last straw for mainstream Irish Catholic support for the war was the
Emancipation Proclamation, provisionally issued by President Lincoln in the days
following the battle of Antietam, taking effect on January 1st, 1863. This fundamentally
transformed the war, changing it from a war to preserve the Union into a war to free the
slaves, a goal that a large portion of the Northern population and nearly all of the Irish
community did not support. “Irishmen envisioned millions of former slaves rushing north
to take unskilled labor opportunities from them. Under the Republicans, the Democratic
Chicago Times warned, African Americans would ‛take the place of white laboring men20
’”. Following the issuing of the Emancipation proclamation, Union victory would mean
Irish defeat. In New York in 1855, a strike prompted by the lowering of the average
wage of a longshoreman- a profession that was almost entirely Irish- from $1.75 to $1.50
per day was broken through the use of colored labor. Violence ensued but the city’s
police intervened to protect the black workers. Eventually the strike was broken and the
whites returned to work and in time most of the blacks were discharged, kept on only by
those few employers taking the lead in lowering wages. In 1863, a strike was called in
late January in response to the news that wages would be again cut, this time to $1.12 per
day. This, coupled with wartime price increases was too much for the longshoremen to
bear. Again, members of the city’s free black community were called in to break the
strike, this time protected by federal troops to ensure the continued flow of needed war
material. The Irish population of New York in particular and of the North as a whole
feared that this would be their future, exploitation at the hands of wealthy business men
who could use the freedmen to break any strike the Irish called, thus permanently
preventing them from bettering themselves. The Irish Catholic population lived on the
razor’s edge, any negative event could well destroy them and the possible emancipation
Warren, 198
Susannah Ural Bruce, "Remember Your Country and Keep Up Its Credit":
Irish Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865, In The Journal of Military History,
Vol 69 343
19
20
148
�of the slaves filled them with fear for their and their family’s futures. They would still
fight, but they no longer looked forward to victory as fervently as they once had.
Bounties had almost always been a part of recruitment into the Union, and to a
lesser extent Confederate, armies. As the war dragged on, those bounties rose as it
became more difficult to convince Northerners of all stripes to enlist voluntarily. In late
1862, bounties of between 120 and 170 dollars were being offered to men enlisting in
either the Irish brigade, or its rival Irish brigade, Corcoran’s Irish legion21, often with the
first month’s pay being offered up front. Although the wage for an enlisted man in the
Union army was only 13 dollars per month, a slight pay decrease from what one could
earn in the civilian job market back home, the stability of that pay coupled with the fact
that the major expenses of life, food, shelter and clothing were provided by the military,
added to the economic allure of enlistment. By late 1863, those bounties had been raised
in some regiments by private citizens to up to 700 dollars.
However, despite these inducements, enlistment was not proceeding at a
sufficient rate to replace those being killed or whose terms of enlistment were coming up.
As a result, President Lincoln introduced the Conscription Act in order to ensure
sufficient forces for the prosecution of the war. This bill was poorly received by the
Northern population, as it would force men who did not support the war to fight in it.
Additionally, a man could be paid 300 dollars if he were to enlist in the place of another.
This exempted both men from being drafted, removed the risk to the poor man of being
drafted and deprived of the bounties offered for enlistment, as well as of his choice of
regiment. While this latter method did embitter some who saw the war as a rich man’s
war and a poor man’s fight, it was never the less a sizable amount of money for men who
often toiled for little more than a dollar per day. Even as the war became less and less
popular among the Irish, the funds offered remained tempting, a way for a working man
to provide for his family in a manner that he otherwise could not. Additionally, a
combination of poor harvests and news of a growing Northern wartime economy had
prompted many Irish to immigrate to New York, some specifically to enlist in the
brigade, many doing so when they realized how difficult life in America actually was.
For Irishmen newly arrived, even the modest bounties of 1862 would have been an
unimaginable wealth. The bounties being offered at this later stage were massive, up to
Corcoran’s Irish Legion Recruiting Poster http://irishfest.com/Irish-Fest/MusicArchives/Exhibits/When-Johnny-Comes-Marching-Hom/CorcoransIrishLegionSarsfield.gif
21
149
�ten years wages back home. Additionally, the monthly pay of a Union soldier exceeded
what they could have hoped to earn back home, providing further inducement to enlist.
There was precedent for Irishmen to enlist in armies that were politically against their
interests. Every province of Ireland had at least one regiment raised from it, with most of
the provinces having several regiments that would have been almost wholly formed out
of Irish Catholics. The Irish may have despised the British, but the fiscal benefits that
enlistment offered and to an extent the reputation that the regiments gained through
decades of service made enlistment a viable alternative to civilian life. A similar dynamic
was in place in New York, the Irish population may have not agreed with the war’s new
aims or its prosecution, but the sheer amount of money offered made it difficult for many
men to not enlist, particularly those at the very bottom of the social ladder, men whose
ranks had been swelled by new Irish emigrants.
Additionally, the Irish Brigade, and in particular the 69th New York had gained a
reputation for bravery that made enlistment a more attractive proposition. The 69th New
York had such a reputation for valor that following General Lee’s surrender at
Appomattox, he remarked on the regiment’s valor, referring to them as the Fighting 69th.
Other elements of the Union army also respected the Irish Brigades reputation. “General
George Armstrong Custer heard an Irish soldier singing Garryowen22 and liked the
galloping rhythm of the tune so much that after the war he made it the official song of the
7th Calvary23”, supposedly his troops were singing Garryowen as they rode into history at
Little Big Horn. Custer would not have made Garryowen the marching song of his
command prior to the war, as the Irish were held in too low esteem. But, after serving
with the Irish Brigade, Custer had a new appreciation for the Irish population allowing
for him to appropriate their song for his own command.
The service of the Irish brigade had a major impact not only on the outcome of
the war but on how their people were received by their fellow Americans in the post-war
world. Prior to the war the Irish Catholic population was a marginalized population that
was almost on the bottom of the social ladder with no real prospects for advancement.
However, “the courage and sacrifice of the Irish Brigade during the Civil War helped
diminish prevalent anti- Irish prejudice in America24”. Just as General Custer held the
Irish in higher esteem at the end of the war, to the point where he was able to take their
An Irish drinking song that had become the anthem of Irish regiments both in the
British army and of the Irish Brigade as a whole
23 Craughwell, 85
24 Craughwell, 212
22
150
�anthem for his own command following the war, so too did the population of the Union
begin to respect the Irish Brigade for its valor, and by extension the population that the
Brigade was drawn from. The Brigade was able to fight from the beginning to end of the
war despite sustaining massive casualty rates because they were able to recruit
successfully even during the darkest days of the war. The valor of the Brigade and the
population that supported it finally convinced the American population that the Irish
could be trusted, that they could in fact fully integrate into American society. The blood
of the fallen paved the way for their fellows to rise above their menial state and take a full
and active role in American society.
“Perhaps no class of our fellow citizens has carried this prejudice against color
to a point more extreme and dangerous than have our Catholic Irish fellow citizens, and
yet no people on the face of the earth have been more relentlessly persecuted and
oppressed on account of race and religion, than the Irish people.25” This quote by
Frederick Douglass perfectly describes the state of the Irish people before and indeed
during, the Civil war. Almost universally they were opposed to black emancipation,
opposed to the very cause that would come to define the war. At the same time that they
so vehemently opposed black emancipation, they themselves were distrusted, disliked
and despised by their neighbors in the North solely on the basis of their ethnicity and
their religion. Despite this, they enlisted in droves to fight, keeping the Irish brigade alive
until the end of the war in the face of casualty rates that were the third worst of any
Brigade in the Union army. Ultimately, the Irish enlisted because of motivations “based
fundamentally on what was most important to them and to their families, as both
Irishmen and Americans… When the cause of Union complemented the desires and
aspirations of the Irish American community, they supported the Northern war effort.
When the interests of Irish America clashed with these goals, however, many Irishmen
abandoned that cause.26” Throughout the war, those Irish who enlisted did so because
they felt that doing so would advance whatever cause they felt most passionate about.
Those who had dedicated their lives to the overthrow of English dominion in Ireland, like
General Meagher, enlisted because they felt that by doing so would advance that aim.
Either by preserving America as an example and ally, by depriving England of an ally in
North America or by training men to fight so that they could be of use to Ireland. The
Frederick Douglass October 22, 1883 Speech at the Civil Rights Mass-Meeting Held at
Lincoln Hall, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=774,
Accessed 13th April, 2013
26 Bruce, 359
25
151
�common men fought out of gratitude to the Union for sheltering them but mainly, and
nearly exclusively after the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, because by
fighting they could better their lives and those of their kin. Their valor on the battlefield
is not diminished by the inglorious reasons for which they fought. These men fought, and
fought well because they were not fighting for ideals but for people. Even the most
idealistic of men fought for their kin, either in America or in Ireland. They fought to free
their people, to better their lives and to make a place for themselves in a New World. For
that cause, and for no other, they fought and far too often died.
Works Cited
69th New York Regiment Irish Recruiting Poster Copy.
http://www.historicalimagebank.com/gallery/main.php/v/album02/album22/album107/C
Wx17ds+-+69th+New+York+Regiment+Irish+Recruiting+Poster+copy.jpg.html
Accessed,13 March. 2013.
Bilby, Joseph G. Remember Fontenoy!; the 69th New York and the Irish Brigade in the
Civil War. Hightstown: Longstreet House, 1995.
Bruce, Susannah Ural. “Remember Your Country and Keep Up Its Credit: Irish
Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865.” In The Journal of Military History, Vol 69
(April 2009): 331-359.
Corcoran’s Irish Legion Recruiting Poster http://irishfest.com/Irish-Fest/MusicArchives/Exhibits/When-Johnny-Comes-Marching-Hom/CorcoransIrishLegionSarsfield.gif
C.S.S. Alabama Virtual Exhibit Homepage. C.S.S. Alabama Virtual Exhibit Homepage.
Accessed 14 April, 2013.
Craughwell, Thomas J. The Greatest Brigade: How the Irish Brigade cleared the way to
victory in the American Civil War. Beverly: Fair Winds Press, 2011.
De Ginkel, Godert. The Treaty of Limerick http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E703001010/index.html
152
�Douglass, Fredrick. The Civil Rights Case. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/
library/index.asp?document=774. Accessed 13th April, 2013
Forde, Frank. “The Sixty- Ninth Regiment of New York.” In The Irish Sword: The
Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland, Vol. 17 (December 1989): 144-158.
Mahon, John. New York’s Fighting Sixty- Ninth. Jefferson: McFarland and Company,
Inc., Publishers, 2004. 144-158.
Warren, Craig A. “Oh, God, What a Pity!: The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg and the
Creation of Myth.” In Civil War History, Vol. 47 (September 2001): 193-221.
153
�Language Learning in Room
Ayesha Ghaffar1
Language is the most important aspect in the life of all sentient beings.
Language is used to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and
abstract thought, communicate with others, and establish rules. The acquisition of
language is what differentiates Homo Sapiens from all other species and makes them so
advanced (Berger 129). Emma Donoghue’s remarkable novel, Room, is narrated by a 5year-old boy named Jack who lives in a single 11-by-11 foot room and who has never
been to the outside world (Bender 2010). Due to being held in captivity by Old Nick for
years, along with his mother, one might think that Jack would suffer linguistically from
lack of exposure to language. Because of his mother’s education, however, and the word
games she invents for him, that is not the case.
On the very first page, the book opens up with Jack questioning his mother on
his fifth birthday to see if he was minus numbers before he was born. Through the
conversation that Jack has with his Ma about himself before birth, it becomes apparent
that Jack is a curious kid who likes to learn and has quite a bit of knowledge, since he
knows that he came from his mother’s egg and has heard about Heaven (3). Jack’s
intellect is further displayed in the novel when he mentions the name of all 5 paintings on
the walls of Room: “Great Masterpieces of Western Art No. 3: The Virgin and Child with
St. Anne and St. John the Baptist… “Great Masterpieces of Western Art No. 11:
Guernica” (5). He not only knows the names of these paintings, but also has a lot of
knowledge about them. Jack briefly speaks about the scene of the horse from the painting
“Guernica” while he is searching for a candle for his birthday cake (21). He seems to
know many details about the paintings, which is important because it informs the reader
that Jack is a smart, intellectual kid. This is especially important once the audience
becomes aware of the fact that Jack has never been in contact with the outside world, and
has been confined to a single room with only his mother for contact throughout his life. It
is astonishing to see that regardless of the situation, Jack knows how to communicate
Written under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Kiss and Dr. Carolyn Oglio for the team-taught
Intermediate Learning Community Children: Psychology, Film and Literature.
1
154
�very efficiently and knows names of things such as the paintings, and is also capable of
describing them.
Since the 18th century, there has always been an interest in cases of children
reared in environments of extreme social isolation. In previous real-life scenarios
involving the children, Genie and Victor, who were both feral children isolated from
people, it was discovered that both these kids had not acquired their first language. This
was an important finding for the psychologists, linguists, and other scientists who then
worked with these children in separate eras to gain further insight into the processes
controlling language acquisition skills and linguistic development. When the researchers
worked with Genie, they determined that Genie had not yet acquired language and was
thus faced with the task of first-language acquisition that is normally completed before
age five. The researchers tried different techniques such as reading Genie a story, using
tests and games, using non-language cues and speaking directly to her to try to establish
Genie’s comprehension of language and increase her linguistic abilities (Curtis et al.,
1974). Thus, it was surprising to see that although Jack was also victim of extreme social
isolation, he was able to acquire his first language before the age of five. The main reason
why Jack was so advanced and had good language skills, even though he was also
socially deprived from the outside world, was that Jack was still in contact with his
mother, an educated adult.
Throughout the novel, the many techniques that Jack’s mom uses to reinforce
Jack’s language comprehension and language production are repeatedly shown. While
Jack eats with his mother, he and his mother “hum” nursery rhymes and songs and then
guess what the song is (6). This “Hum” game that Jack plays with his mother is
something that has been consistent throughout his life since he is able to guess the songs
right away: “I guess right away it’s Let it Snow” (8). Another tactic related to this is the
“Orchestra” game that Jack and his Ma play, where they both run around the room and
see what noises they can bang out of things (16). Both humming and banging things to
produce noises are non-speech sound stimuli that Jack becomes aware of at a young age
and is able to distinguish, which helps improve his linguistic skills. A study done by
Merzenich along with his team of researchers showed that children with language-based
learning impairments (LLI) have major deficits when it comes to recognizing successive
phonetic elements and non-speech sound stimuli. The research suggests that phonological
processing deficits may be at the heart of language-learning impairments, and thus the
researchers trained the children with LLI using computer games, audiotapes and
educational CD-ROMs that were designed to increase the language comprehension
155
�abilities of LLI children by emphasizing and extending the critical cues within the
context of the speech. At the end of the study, it was concluded that there were significant
improvements in the language comprehension abilities by the two independent groups of
LLI children (Merzenich et al. 2007). This study is important because it relates to Jack’s
language development in that Jack’s repeated exposure to “humming” songs and banging
objects to see what sounds they make introduced Jack to the concept of non-speech
sounds. During the study, when the LLI children were exposed to different techniques
that allowed them to become more familiar to non-speech sounds and phonetic elements,
the children demonstrated significant improvements in speech discrimination and
language comprehension (Merzenich et al. 2007). When an infant is between 3-6 months
old, this is when he or she begins to use new sounds such as squeals, growls, trills and
vowel sounds to communicate. It is not until the baby turns a year old that it can finally
use spoken words of the native language to communicate, so sounds play a huge role in
language development (Berger 142). Phonology is the ability to produce and discriminate
the specific sounds of a given language and this is something that the LLI children had
trouble doing which made it difficult for them to comprehend language (Busari &
Weggelaar). Since Jack’s mother followed the routine of humming songs and making
Jack aware of sounds by banging objects, he did not go through that problem and was
able to efficiently learn language.
Another important aspect of language learning is the ability to pronounce words
correctly. When Jack repeated the words while playing the game Parrot, Ma said
“Good pronunciation… Poignant…” (34). It was important for Jack’s mom to interrupt
Jack while he was repeating the words to tell him to pronounce them correctly because
this way Jack was able to improve his language skills and most likely not make the same
error the second time. Throughout the entire book, it is shown that Jack’s linguistic
ability is enhanced due to the questions that he asks his mother about words and other
objects that he is unaware of. Jack is often shown asking his mom to explain the
definition of words that she uses. For instance, when Jack’s mother says “That’s normal”
Jack replies saying “What’s normal?” or when Jack’s mother informs him about “the
Spring equinox,” Jack asks her what “equinox” is, and then he is even shown attempting
to use the word “equinox” later on (24). This communication between Jack and his
mother was important since it enhanced Jack’s vocabulary range.
Research done by Anne Fernald, a psychologist at Stanford University, showed
that at 18 months, children from wealthier families were able to identify pictures of
simple words they knew much faster then children from low-income families. The study
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�showed that by age 2, the children from the wealthy family were able to learn 30 percent
more words than the children from low-income homes. This finding supported the
findings of earlier research that showed that children from wealthier families learn many
more words because their parents speak so much more to their children. The children of
these professional parents hear 30 million more words by age 3, as stated by the early
literacy experts (Rich 2013). Although in this case, the comparison of low income and
high income families on language development cannot be done, the finding that parents
who speak more to their children causes the children to learn more words can be related
to Jack and his mother. One reason that the children from the wealthier families knew
more words such as a dog or a ball is because those children most likely owned both a
dog and a ball, or owned books which showed pictures of them. Wealthier families own
more stuff than the low-income family, causing their children to be exposed to more
material and thus the children become aware of more things and learn the names. Another
key factor noted in this research was that the communication between the parents and the
children was key for efficient language development. Although Jack and his mother did
not have many resources, they were both always with each other, and thus, Jack is
advanced because the only person he spoke to was an educated adult. Another finding
that was displayed in the research done by Anne Fernald was that disadvantaged children
were not that efficient with their language abilities because oral language and vocabulary
are connected to reading comprehension. The low-income families that had a median
income of $23,900 were most likely not able to provide their children with as many
reading sources, if any, as the wealthy parents (Rich 2013). However, it is apparent
throughout the novel, that although Jack’s mother doesn’t have access to all the material
that she wishes she could provide for her son, she still thinks of many clever ways to
make sure that her son is able to learn language as efficiently as possible. When Jack tells
his mother “Look how big my muscles are,” Jack’s mom replies saying “vast” and then
Jack continues by saying “Gigantic” and so on. Jack then says the word “hugeormous”
and says “that’s word sandwich when we squish two together” (13). By using this
technique of saying different synonyms for a word, and using “word sandwiches,” Jack is
able to learn a lot of new vocabulary, which enhances his language development, since he
is learning many new words.
On page 16-17 of Room, the readers become aware of the fact that Jack not only
knows the title of the nine books he has, which he names, but he also knows what all the
books are about. Jack’s mother reads the books out loud to Jack with a pitch and proper
tone to keep Jack interested. This is exhibited when Jack’s mother reads the book Dylan
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�the Digger: “Heeeeeeeeeeere’s Dylan” (17). By reading the books to Jack in such a
manner, Jack’s mom keeps him interested in hearing stories. Almost every night before
Jack goes to sleep, he requests that his mom read a book and sing a song to him. Jack is
also able to identify various objects in the pictures of the book and then is capable of
describing them: “There’s a cat in the second picture, in the third it’s on a pile of rocks.
Rocks are stones…cats fall down, but cats have nine lives not like me and Mama with
just one each” (17). It is astonishing to see that Jack is able to determine what the objects
are in the picture, and to describe details about them such as the cats having nine lives.
Jack’s mother spent time explaining unfamiliar words to Jack from the books. Jack has
such a huge interest in reading stories that sometimes before he fell asleep in the
wardrobe he would lie down there and replay the stories in his head, such as when he
thought about Old Nick and then remembered the story about Jack and the Giant (27).
Jack’s mother provides Jack with interesting, knowledgeable information and books such
as “How the Berlin Wall Fell Down” (71). Since Jack’s mother reads educational books
to Jack that a typical five year old wouldn’t normally read, one could propose that Jack
most likely is more advanced in his linguistic abilities than other kids his age. Further on
in the book, Jack mentions that “I read the five books all myself only just bits of Alice,”
which shows that over time Jack’s vocabulary and language development had increased
so much due to word games and other techniques used by his mother that he was able to
read some of the books on his own (62). Other word games that Jack’s mother played
with him were finding difficult words from the milk carton “like nutritional and
pasteurized” and testing Jack to see if he knows about them (33). Jack was so advanced
when it came to vocabulary and language development that he knew the meaning of
difficult words such as “pasteurized” which is something that a normal five year old
would most likely not know. Another reason behind Jack’s advanced vocabulary and
language abilities was the use of the TV by Jack’s mom to further increase the range of
Jack’s vocabulary. Jack’s mother would put on the television, allow Jack to listen to
what’s being said, and then eventually mute the TV. She then said “Parrot” and Jack
would repeat whatever he heard. What was interesting was that Jack’s mother would
switch over to an educational channel where the usage of language was quite complex.
Regardless of that, Jack was able to repeat the complex language with good
pronunciation (34). When Jack repeated the words, he also made sure that he questioned
his mom about any word that he was unaware of. For instance. “I want to ask what a
cornices is…” (42). Thus, through this game, Jack not only learned how to properly
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�pronounce words, but also learned new words, which further enhanced his linguistic
abilities.
Literacy experts have documented that there is a connection between a child’s
early vocabulary and later successes in reading comprehension. There was actually a
study done by an education professor at Harvard University that tracked children from
age 3 through middle school and showed that a child’s score on a vocabulary test in
kindergarten could predict the reading comprehension scores of the child in later grades
(Rich 2013). This was an interesting finding and can be compared to all the techniques
that were used by Jack’s mother to make sure that Jack has advanced linguistic abilities
to when Jack enters the outside world. When Jack and his mother leave the Room, they
are sent to stay at the clinic where they meet Dr. Clay. Jack is able to pinpoint various
things that his mother and Dr. Clay discuss such as “depersonalization, jamais vu and
cognitive distortions.” It is interesting that Jack is able to pick out words like this as a
five year old, but it is also expected since this is something that he was used to doing
through the word games that he played with his mother. When Jack finds a newspaper
with a picture of his mother and him, he is able to make out the words “Hope for Bonsai
Boy” (215).
Jack’s ability of being able to interact with other people in the “outside world”
and being able to identify difficult words during speech is due to the foundation that his
mother set up for him. Literacy experts emphasize the importance of natural
conversations with children, asking questions while reading books, and helping the
children identify words during playtime. Through studies, it has been shown that parents
who speak to their children more frequently can enhance the vocabulary of their children.
The reason behind this is because children who hear more words are able to understand
the words more quickly and have larger vocabularies. Experts have suggested that parents
engage verbally with their kids so their kids can become more proficient in language
development (Rich 2013). Jack’s mother was successful in making Jack advanced by
using methods which helped provide Jack with a huge range of vocabulary and quick,
proficient language development. By using techniques such as humming, creating word
sandwiches, reading books, saying rhymes before sleeping, singing while bathing,
explaining the definition of words, testing difficult words, playing Parrot, and repeating
voices while playing “Telephone,” regardless of the situation that Jack was placed in,
Jack’s mother was able to make Jack a linguistically advanced child in spite of his many
deprivations.
159
�Works Cited
Bender, Aimee. “Separation Anxiety.” Sunday Book Review. The New York Times,
2010. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Bendert.html?_r=1
&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1382439989n66k1zVCwVB9IGSFKYmkvw&>.
Berger, Kathleen Stassen., and Ross A. Thompson. The Developing Person through
Childhood. New York, NY: Worth, 1996. Print.
Busari, Jamiu O., and Nielske M. Weggelaar. “How to Investigate and Manage the Child
Who Is Slow to Speak.” NCBI. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2004. Web. 23 Oct.
2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC324459/>.
Curtiss, Susan, Victoria Fromkin, Stephen Krashen, David Rigler, and Marilyn Rigler.
“The Linguistic Development of Genie.” JSTOR. N.p., 1974. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/412222>.
Donoghue, Emma. Room: A Novel. New York: Little, Brown and, 2010. Print.
Merzenich, Michael M., William Jenkins, Paul Johnston, Christoph Schreiner, and Paul
Miller. “Temporal Processing Deficits of Language-Learning Impaired Children
Ameliorated by Training.” Science Mag. Science AAAS, 1996. Web.
<http://psych.stanford.edu/~jlm/pdfs/MerzenichEtAl96.pdf>
Rich, Motoko. “Language-Gap Study Bolsters a Push for Pre-K.” Education. The New
York Times, 2013. Web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/us/language-gap-studybolsters-a-push-for- pre-k.html?_r=0>.
160
�Helen Keller’s Political and Social Activism
Julia Loria 1
Helen Keller was one of the first well-known disabled persons in the world to
“speak out” and act politically (Quicke 1). She is mostly known as the deaf-blind girl
who was taught to communicate by Anne Sullivan Macy and whose biography is
portrayed in the movie The Miracle Worker (Quicke 1). The media, however, has
underemphasized her political career as a radical and a socialist.
Keller’s Fight for Disability Rights
Keller’s life was influenced and shaped by her relationship with her teacher
Anne Sullivan Macy, as she is the one who helped her learn how to speak. After her
teacher passed away, Keller carried on advocating rights for people with disabilities.
Keller is an inspiration to so many people as she accomplished what was considered
impossible at her time: being deaf and blind and learning how to speak. In her lifetime
Keller, “visited Japan three times, and many of the blind children there call[ed] her
Mother” (Keller 127). This demonstrates how much of an impact she had on blind
children, and how she influenced a movement that sparked disabled people to advocate
for rights they deserved.
Keller believed that the blind should not be characterized as one people; they are all
different individuals and should not be stereotyped. According to Keller, the “public
thought and still thinks of the blind as one class. As a matter a fact no two blind
individuals are alike any more than the seeing are alike; they need as many different
kinds of help as there are blind people,” (Keller 149). This demonstrates how Keller tried
to fight for equal rights for blind people.
Many asked Keller for advice on what the best way to help the blind would be. She
told them the best way they could help was by reading industrial economics. Quicke
argues that by this Keller meant, “that ‘the way to help the blind or any other defective
class is to understand, correct, remove the incapacities and inequalities of our entire
civilization,’” (Quicke 2).
Written under the direction of Dr. Patricia Moynagh for the Reflective Tutorial associated
with the LC7: Human Rights and Human Wrongs.
1
161
�Keller Considered a Threat and a Traitor
Keller was seen as dangerous, both abroad and in the United States. In 1936, her
book of political essays, Out of the Dark was “thrown on the bonfire by the Nazis”
(Quicke 2). In America, Keller was considered a traitorous influence. Her socialist
writings, speeches and activities made the FBI open an investigation into her works.
Additionally, people tried to keep her silent. Keller scared the government, as she was a
left wing extremist and a popular figure who lived a handicapped person’s version of the
American dream (Quicke 2). Quicke also points out the following: “Once she had started
to ‘speak out’ her political development was rapid,” (2). She wrote an article for a
magazine called The Ladies Home Journal in 1907, in which she stated that blindness
was preventable. Keller knew that blindness was caused, in part, by sexually transmitted
diseases however she chose not to include this information, as it would scandalize
readers. Later she wrote in again, discussing the same topic, this time using the
euphemism “bitter harvest of wild oats” as it was still taboo (Quicke 2). In addition, she
claimed, “the causes of blindness are ignorance, poverty and the unconscious cruelty of
our commercial society,” (Quicke 2). These ideas were considered to be revolutionary
during that time period, which is why she got so much attention and why people began to
consider her a threat to their society.
Keller was subscribed to a German socialist newspaper, which made her familiar
with the political convictions of Libknecht, Lenin and Trotsky. A few months after the
Nazis had burned her book, the publisher of her autography Midstream recommended
that she take out all the references she made to Lenin. This frustrated Keller, not for
selfish reasons, but because of her political views as a socialist (Quicke 1).
Keller, an Example of the “Strenuous Life”
According to reviewers of Keller’s book Story of My Life, “she assumes different
identities that challenge social conventions,” (Montgomery 39). At times, she represents
herself as an example of the strenuous life. According to Theodore Roosevelt, the
“strenuous life” is the idea that strenuous effort and overcoming hardship should be
embraced by Americans in order to attain an improved nation (Montgomery 39). As
President of the United States, “such a life offered the requisite discipline and training for
social and political leadership” for Roosevelt (Montgomery 39). Keller is an example of
that lifestyle, as she practiced and practiced, and had to repeat words and sentences for
hours in order to learn how to speak. This proves Keller’s determination and drive, thus
illustrating how she lived a strenuous life. Although Roosevelt portrayed the strenuous life
162
�as the ideal way to live a life, Keller was punished for leading one. This is an example of a
double standard as Roosevelt was glorified for that idea, however when Keller followed it
she was not regarded with the same respect.
Keller’s Political Activism
Even though the American Foundation of the Blind forced her to be discrete,
Keller remained a socialist and spoke publically on platforms about politics. She opposed
Hitler, Mussolini and the fascist ideals, and continued to admire Lenin.
Article 18 of the International Bill of Rights states “Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers,” (International Bill of rights 3 ) This signifies that everyone
should have the right to speak freely. Keller, however, was not really free to speak out.
The government tried to keep her silent, and tried to hide her political opinions.
Gaining the ability to speak was a life changing moment for Keller. She stated “with
the acquisition of speech I moved from the baby phase of my mental growth to my
identity as a separate, conscious, and to a degree, self-determining ego” (Keller 63). This
led to Keller giving powerful and effective public speeches. Prior to World War I, Keller
spoke at socialist conferences about anti-preparedness and anti-war. Keller believed that
war and violence were unjustifiable; she was a pacifist.
Furthermore, she was an opponent to Woodrow Wilson and World War I. Keller
referred to World War I as the “capitalistic war” because J.P Morgan and other financers
supported the movement of national defense in the country, for their own selfish interests.
(Giffin 27). She stated, “Woodrow Wilson is the greatest individual disappointment the
world has ever known,” (Loewen 31). She encouraged people to fight for justice and not
war. In Strike Against War, she stated, “Be heroes in the army of construction”(Quicke
3).
In 1944 she campaigned for Roosevelt. “She became one of the many radicals,
progressives, socialists, communists and others who belonged to the Independent Voters
Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt” (Quicke 3). When Roosevelt died,
however, Keller was in favor of Henry Wallace because of his opinion towards
international issues and how he was against the war. She campaigned for civilian power
over atomic energy and supported the Committee of One Thousand against the House of
Un-American activities.
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�As Keller shifted towards a radical and socialist position, it caused her extreme
political principles to be overlooked by commentators (Quicke 1). From 1909 until 1921
Keller was part of the American radical movement (Giffin 27). Her radical view
consisted of being devoted to humanity and believing that “the brotherhood of man has
no room for cave-man ethics” (Giffin 27). Her radicalism was shown in her fight against
World War I. Keller also joined the Socialist party of America and was an active member
who spoke on their behalf. She was an idealist who felt compelled to right existing
wrongs. Additionally, Keller also supported the labor force. In 1915, she spoke at a
Labor Forum to protest against war. She believed workers had nothing to gain from the
war (Griffin 28). She supported the Industrial Workers of the world also known as “The
Wobblies” (Quicke 3).
Keller’s “accomplishments led Mark Twain to characterize her as ‘the greatest
woman since Joan Arc,’” demonstrating that not everyone opposed and she did have
some popular support, (Giffin 27). Although Keller’s political convictions and activities
were a big part of her life they are not mentioned in many articles written about her. Most
of the articles that have been written about her focus on “her religion, her basic
education, her communication skills and her psychological attributes,” (Quicke 4).
According to Quicke, this is “because of the threat she posed to the establishment and the
dominant ideology,” (Quicke 4).
A lot of reports in newspaper articles said that Keller became a socialist because
she was “indoctrinated” by her teacher Anne and Anne’s husband, John Macy (Quicke
4). Anne and John were an influence for Helen, and they helped her write her books and
articles. Nevertheless, her articles and books are her own works. In an article called
“How I Became a Socialist,” Keller justified that although Anne did spark her interest in
socialism by introducing her to H.G. Wells’ New Worlds for Old, She became a socialist
before Anne (Quicke 4). In addition she explained how John Macy did not talk about
socialism as much as she would have liked.
The Comparison and Contrast Between Helen Keller and Other Peace Activists
Even though Helen Keller and Sophie Scholl are from different times and
different countries they have a lot in common. Keller and Scholl were both women, who
advocated for human rights, and they both fought for equality amongst all humans.
Similarly, they protested against cruel stereotypes. They did not let anything get in their
way and nothing stopped them no matter the consequences. Scholl and Keller both spoke
164
�out when they were told to be silent. Additionally, they were both pacifists who
advocated peace for all individuals.
Although they have a lot in common, Scholl was considered a privileged
woman, as she was white, Christian and a college scholar. When she was put in prison for
passing out anti-Nazi leaflets, she was given multiple chances to deny her involvement
with the White Rose, but she declined the opportunities and was decapitated. According
to Griffin, Keller, on the other hand, was actually “treated rather gently compared to
many other peace advocates,” (Griffin 28). They were both treated unfairly because they
were both women who were not afraid to speak up about political issues and were
considered crazy for doing so.
As a nursing student, Scholl was also struck and affected by the injustice
towards disabled people. In the biographical movie of her life, Scholl is portrayed as
someone who stands up for human rights in the face of injustice and oppression. When
the mentally disabled children were taken out of the hospital and placed into vans and
never came back, the other children asked where they had gone. The nurses had to tell the
kids they went to a happy place but in reality the mentally disabled children were sent to
gas chambers because of their mental disabilities.
Keller and Scholl both had very strong convictions regarding human rights, they
believed everyone was entitled to just, equal rights; that no one should be treated
differently, inferiorly, superiorly because of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or
political views.
One also sees similarities between Helen Keller and Martin Luther King Jr.
King and Keller both fought for equal rights for minority groups. Similarly, Keller and
King were both pacifists. King believed a non-violent campaign would help obtain equal
rights and justice, and Keller fought against war and violence. In addition, they were both
determined and strong willed. King died fighting for justice, and Keller never stopped
practicing until she was able to speak (King 5).
Keller’ s Feminism
Furthermore, Keller was a feminist. She joined the National Women’s Party and
advocated the right for women to be able to vote. She published an article on the need for
women’s suffrage in the New York Call, which had the thesis “if women could vote the
cruel suffering of the war would soon be over,” (Griffin 27). She stated that states
managed by men stimulate and promote rebellious public opinions that make war always
possible. Keller was disheartened by the fact that people’s love for their country turned
165
�into patriotism supporting the war: “It suggests drums, flags and young men eager to give
their lives to the rulers of the nation,” (Griffin 28). According to Keller this would not
happen if women could vote as they knew the price of suffering and sacrifice in a way
that men could never understand. Women would use their ability to vote to stop all ideas
of war.
As men would not listen, Keller took things to another level: in 1915 she wrote a
letter to president Woodrow Wilson. On the behalf of Jane Adams and other female
leaders of peace, Keller sent Wilson a telegram. The telegram asked Wilson to help
promote the movement for a conference of neutral nations, which aimed to find a just
resolution to the war, (Griffin 28). In addition, she supported birth control, which was
considered radical and scandalous at that time. She also admired Margaret Sanger, who
was the inventor of birth control (Dreier 3).
When Keller helped with social service and blind people, she was
complimented, praised and referred to as “‘wonder woman’ and a ‘modern miracle’”
(Dreir 1). When she talked about poverty, however, and how America was following the
wrong economic principles by supporting the industrial system, it was a different story
(Dreier 1). In a letter Keller wrote to Senator Robert La Follette in 1924, she sarcastically
stated, “‘to advocate that all human beings should have leisure and comfort, the decencies
and refinements of life, is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its
realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind’” (Dreier 1). This emphasizes how
Keller had to fight to be heard in order to share her political views.
Keller, an “ Unsung Hero”
Howard Zinn argues that society should recognize Keller’s political activism:
“Should we not bring forward as a national hero Emma Goldman, one of those Wilson
sent to prison, or Helen Keller, who fearlessly spoke out against the war?” (59). Keller is
an “unsung hero,” as most people do not even know about her political involvement
(Zinn 59).
Furthermore, Zinn strongly argues how “Our country is full of heroic people
who are not presidents or military leaders or Wall Street Wizards, but who are doing
something to keep alive the spirit of resistance to injustice and war” (58). Some people
are not necessarily recognized for their actions that make an impact. Helen Keller is
known for fighting for disability rights, however most people do not know how she made
an impact with her involvement in political activities. The fact that Keller’s political
actions are undermined, demonstrates how society should be more attentive, appreciative
166
�and recognize everyone’s actions that contribute to making our world a better one. In
addition, it shows that we should make our own judgments and opinions, and we should
keep in mind that the media does not always tell the whole truth and we should be more
open minded. As stated by Zinn, it is important to remember all heroes: “To ward off
alienation and gloom, it is only necessary to remember the unremembered heroes of the
past and to look around us for the unnoticed heroes of the present,” (61).
In the final years of her life, Keller was still politically active. Even though she
had to depend on others she obtained an independent political career (Quicke 1). Her
campaigns were successful: “Many of her appeals to state legislatures resulted in
measures to help the blind and she saw herself as spearheading the demand for state
intervention,” (Quicke 3). She was indeed one of the first deaf and blind people who
learned how to read and write and who wrote a book. She did much more than that,
however; she led a movement that advocated for disability rights. In addition to her
feminist views, her political and radical activities contributed to the evolved world in
which we live today.
Although Keller did great work, disabled people are still experiencing
oppression and discrimination today. Disabled people as a minority group still feel
stereotyped and stigmatized (Quicke 1). Recently, disabled people have felt a deficiency
of real change. Disabled people have taken more and more of a stand to speak for
themselves. They are very determined to control their own lives and organizations. As
Quicke compellingly states, “They are becoming more assertive and more political,” (1).
It is very important to remember Keller for her courage and determination, and not just
her disability. Her political activism was a great part of her life and unfortunately it is
largely ignored. Without Keller’s dedication, the suffragist movement would not have
been the same, disabled people would not have been given a voice and people might not
have even known it was possible for a blind and deaf person to learn how to speak. Not
only did she learn how to speak, but also she learned how to speak out against injustice.
If people today were better educated about Keller’s ideals and her philosophy there might
not be as much discrimination towards disabled people.
167
�Work Cited
Dreier, Peter. "The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller." YES! Magazine. 12 July 2012.
Giffin, Frederick C. "The Radical Vision Of Helen Keller." International Social Science
Review 59.4 (1984): 27-32. America: History & Life. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
International Bill of Rights CP.1-5
Keller, Helen. Teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy. United States, Library of Congress, 1955.
Print.
King, Martin Luther Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham jail.” CP. 1-9.
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History
Textbook Got Wrong. New York, NY: Touchstone, 1995.
Montgomery, Travis. "Radicalizing Reunion: Helen Keller's 'The Story of My Life' and
Reconciliation Romance." Academic OneFile. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
Quicke, J.C. "'Speaking Out': The Political Career of Helen Keller." Article. Taylor and
Francis, June 1988. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
Wolfe, Kathi. "Helen Keller, Radical." Utne. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Zinn, Howard. “Unsung Heroes.” CP .57-61
168
�Music as a Unifying Art Form in Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun
Lauren Russell (Business Administration)1
Throughout all of human history, music has been used as a means of
communication, expression and unification. In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half
of a Yellow Sun, these themes can be traced with a precise exactness. Adichie’s language
works to convey exactly how people are able to use music to connect to one another on
both individual and national levels.
Adichie’s understanding of human nature, coupled with her eloquent portrayal
of a country fighting a bitter civil war, works to illustrate the various ways in which
music affects daily life. In the beginning of the novel, for example, when Ugwu is first
introducing himself to Odenigbo, the man for whom he will be working as a servant, he is
intensely questioned about the status of his education, before being asked to break into
song: “‘Sing me a song. What songs do you know? Sing!’ Master pulled his glasses off.
His eyebrows were furrowed, serious. Ugwu began to sing an old song he had learned on
his father’s farm. His heart hit his chest painfully. ‘Nzogo nzogbu enyimba
enyi…’”(Adichie 14). A translation reveals that the lyrics actually mean “Stomp down
your feet and kill whoever is there, we are a mighty nation we are” (Ugochukwu 6).
Ugwu picks this song seemingly at random, but its status as a traditional war chant of the
Igbo people wins him the approval of his master after his singing voice grows into a
powerful shout (Ukiwo 23). Ugwu has passed the outwardly simplistic test without really
knowing that his knowledge of the simple tune has actually helped to bring him closer to
his Master, unifying them as Igbo people.
Ugwu is not the only character in the novel to feel specifically targeted through
the use of music. Another instance of such manipulation occurs when Olanna is working
together with the family’s new neighbor, an American woman by the name of Edna
Whaler. Though friendly with Edna, Olanna does not share much of her personal life with
her until one day when a Billie Holiday song prompts an intimate conversation between
the two women. Holiday’s “My Man” is about a woman who stays with a physically
Written under the direction of Dr. Ann Hurley for the honors section of EN111(W, I): World
Literature.
1
169
�abusive man out of love, in spite of the physical trauma as well as the fact that he is
cheating on her. While singing along with the tune during work one day, Edna asks
Olanna, “‘Why do you love [Odengibo]?’…Edna raised her eyebrows, mouthing but not
singing Billie Holiday’s words” (Adichie 286). The question, coupled with the song, stirs
up a lot of emotions in Olanna. She begins to have a negative reaction to the song; “Billie
Holiday’s plaintively scratchy voice had begun to irritate her.” She is trying, for the first
time, to deal with the fact that Odenigbo was unfaithful to their relationship (Adichie
287). In this case, music acts a catalyst for an emotional revelation, and the eventual
reconciliation between Odenigbo and Olanna.
In addition to being an extremely personal experience, music also provides the
soundtrack and sets the tone for countless social gatherings, rallies and protests
throughout the course of the novel. One of the most important songs detailed in the novel
is the Biafran National Anthem, seeing as it, like most national anthems, inspires hope for
its people. When it is played on the radio, in fact, both Olanna and Ugwu stop what they
are doing: “…the…national anthem burst out and filled the silence. Land of the rising
sun, we love and cherish, Beloved homeland of our brave… But if the price is death for
all we hold dear, Then let us die without a shred of fear… They listened until it ended”
(Adichie 348). The song commands their attention, and for a moment they pause, unified
by a sense of pride for Biafra. It demands reverence, given that it “[re]presents the
country, as well as the nation’s hope and sombre determination,” especially during the
height of the Nigerian civil war (Ugochukwu 2).
As with any group of people struggling with the horrors and turmoil of war, the
Biafran people turned to music for a sense of inspiration and unification. At the
beginning of the war, Olanna and Odenigbo bring Ugwu and Baby to a rally held by
students and lecturers in Freedom Square. They burst into song, joyously proclaiming
“We shall not, we shall never move, Just like a tree that’s planted by the water, We shall
not be moved…” (Adichie 204). Not only are they singing together as one with each
other, but also one with nature: “They swayed as they sang, and Olanna imagined that the
mango and gmelina trees swayed too, in agreement, in one fluid arc” (Adichie 204). The
sense of togetherness is overpoweringly hopeful in this scene, and it illustrates the way in
which music can be uplifting, even in times of pain and suffering.
Wartime songs contain powerful imagery that unites people not only physically,
when they gather to sing, but also lyrically, with content that provides a sense of strength
and power. Such imagery “personally encourages individuals to join the group, presented
as an alternative family, a source of strength and protection; it builds a relationship with
170
�the audience with the constant use of the ‘we’ pronoun and words like ‘commando’,
‘group’ or ‘solidarity’” (Ugochukwu 9). Indeed, Adichie proves the definition correct
when she includes a scene in which Ugwu sings along with a crowd of Biafrans: “Solidarity forever! So-lidarity forever! Our republic shall vanquish!” (248). While
repeating these words with the rest of the crowd, Ugwu realizes his yearning to join the
Biafran army, to help lead his country to victory. In this sense, the musical propaganda
has achieved above and beyond what it set out to do; not only are the Biafran people
inspired to help their country, but are also prepared to lay down their very own lives to
help the cause.
Accompanying the progression of the war is, understandably, the sowing of the
seeds of doubt in the minds of Biafra’s people. Olanna in particular represents such a
change in the morale of Biafra. Though she proudly sang her country’s praises at the
beginning of the war, as it continues to rage and take its toll on her daily life, Olanna
cannot join Special Julius and Odenigbo when they sing “Biafra win the war. Armored
car, shelling machine, Fighter and bomber, Ha enweghi ike imeri Biafra!” (Adichie 345).
While “Odenigbo sang lustily… she tried to sing too, but the words lay stale on her
tongue,” so she returns to the house with Baby (Adichie 345). At this point in the novel,
Olanna has been plagued by bombings and horrific scenes of death and violence; she can
no longer be bothered to support the war that is destroying her life. Indeed, Ugwu notices
the change in her as well, when he notes that she will sing “Caritas, thank you, Caritas si
anyi taba okporoko, na kwashiorkor ga-ana” when she returns from the relief center, but
that “she did not sing on the days she came back with nothing” (Adichie 356). While
Olanna still hopes to one day see Biafra become a free nation, the war has had a deep,
emotional effect on Olanna, and her relationship with music illustrates this fact.
Music, in addition to connecting and inspiring people in a single, specific,
country, works to unite people around the world as it provides an escape from the events
occurring in a particular area2. Kainene’s relationship to music in Half of a Yellow Sun is
perhaps the most exemplary of this type of reaction, as she repeatedly uses popular music
to mentally escape from the war-torn Biarfra. Initially, in fact, it appears as though she
uses music to escape from reality altogether: “She was scanning a newspaper and
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has adamantly spoken out against the dangers of
perpetuating the notion of a “single story” in regards to African countries: “The
consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition
of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different, rather than how we
are similar,” (TEDGlobal).
2
171
�nodding her head to the Beatles on the stereo, and she made it seem normal, that war was
the inevitable outcome of events…” (Adichie 226). Notably, in this particular scene,
Richard, a foreigner to Nigeria, is vastly more concerned about the country than is his
girlfriend, Kainene, who was born and raised there.
It is no coincidence, then, that when Kainene’s sister Olanna is approached by
Odenigbo, requesting her permission to join the Biafran army, that “she kept her gaze
averted and got up and turned on the radio and increased the volume, filling the room
with the sound of a Beatles song; she would no longer discuss this desire to the army”
(Adichie 416). The fact that both sisters use internationally popular music, specifically
that of The Beatles, to momentarily escape the oppressive forces invading their lives in
Biafra is representative of their desire to put the war behind them. The twins are welleducated, and this could also contribute to their knowledge of intercultural popular music,
such as The Beatles: “The music studied in the [Nigerian] classroom is not the music that
moves and develops the economy. One finds mainly Western popular music and nontraditional popular music which are very important in the society and in the economy”
(Okafor 64). While it is never expressly stated that either Kainene or Olanna studied
music while in school, it can be assumed that they have a much more intimate
understanding of popular Western music than most other native Nigerians do.
The fact that both examples of internationally popular music include references
to The Beatles is significant in many ways. For one, the band is British, like the
colonizers of Nigeria. In the United States, they sparked the playfully named British
Invasion, and yet, as a darkly ironic twist, in Nigeria the violence associated with such a
term was all too real. It could be argued, then, that not only are Olanna and Kainene
attempting to escape to a different location through the use of music, but also into the
past -- or anywhere that will remove them from the brutal war that is occurring around
them. There is, however, a complex irony being represented here: The fact that these are
the only points in the novel wherein the music being referenced is British, as opposed to
Biafran, illustrates how easily a hegemonically oppressed people can revert back to their
oppressors in a time of need. These scenes work to convey how difficult it is for the
colonized citizens of a country to fully extract themselves from the influence of their
colonizers.
Finally, it is important to realize that, although both the Beatles and Biafra are
relics of the same decade, The Beatles have had a much more significant impact on pop
culture, and made a more lasting impression in the minds of 1960s teenagers than the
short-lived country of Biafra did. Few people know the details of the Nigerian Civil War,
172
�or that one even took place, while the legacy of Beatles music continues, to this day, to
impact listeners young and old. In choosing to have her characters listen to The Beatles,
Adichie makes a bold statement about society’s erasure of Biafran history. One can
almost immediately conjure a series of images based around the sheer mention of The
Beatles, and yet at the same time an entire novel must be read and analyzed in order to
grasp the events that were taking place in Nigeria during the height of the Beatles’s
popularity.
Whether it is made expressly obvious or left to a reader’s interpretation, it is
inarguable that the musical references in Half of a Yellow Sun are important to
understanding not only the text, but also the Biafran culture. The music that works to
unify individual characters, as well as large groups of hopeful citizens, also works to
illustrate the separation and depression that war causes, the mental and physical tolls that
it takes. Through song, people can express themselves, either by singing along with the
crowd or by listening and allowing the music to say what they are unable to communicate
on their own. The examples of music in this particular text are rich with cultural imagery,
and provide a great deal of insight to the characters, based on their reactions to them.
Humanizing, unifying or comforting, music plays an important role in daily life, and
Adichie’s complex representation of this allows her novel, the characters and the history
it contains, to seem much more realistic and relatable.
Works Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story.” TEDGlobal. July 2009.
Lecture.
Okafor, Richard C. “Music in Nigerian Education.” Bulletin of the Council for Research
in Music Education, 108 (Spring, 1991): 59-68.
Ugochukwu, Francoise. “Songs on the battlefield - Biafra’s powerful weapon.” A Survey
of the Igbo Nation. Transatlantic Books, New York, NY. 2012.
Ukiwo, Ukoha. “Violence, Identity Mobilization and the Reimagining of Biafra.” Africa
Development. Vol. 34.1. (2009): 9-30.
173
�
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Section I: The Natural Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 3 Time of Flight Calculations for Linear and Non-Linear Approximations to the Brachistochrone Problem / Vincent Lombardo -- Section II: The Social Sciences -- Full Length Papers -- 23 Establishing God: The Effects of Missionization and Colonialism in Vanuatu / Elizabeth Cohen -- 43 Behind the Label: Comparison of Garment Sweatshops in Dhaka, Bangladesh to New York City and Milan / Christopher DeFilippi -- 74 Imprisoning Sexuality: Exploring the Fluidity of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior Within the Marginalized Sub-Culture of Women’s Prisons / Joey Sergi -- Section III: Critical Essays -- Full Length Papers -- 99 The “Truly American College”: Establishing a Civic and Democratic Mission at Wagner College and Spelman College in the Interwar Era / Gary Giordano -- 127 Sin, Shame, and Maidenhead: Analysis of John Donne’s “The Flea” / Stephanie Hinkes -- 135 Inventing Asexuality: Building Visibility for the “Fourth Orientation” / Carly Schmidt -- 140 Those Who Never Retreated before the Clash of Spears: Motivations for Enlistment in the Irish Brigade in the United States Civil War / Patrick Bethel -- 154 Language Learning in Room / Ayesha Ghaffar -- 161 Helen Keller’s Political and Social Activism / Julia Loria -- 169 Music as a Unifying Art Form in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun / Lauren Russell
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