Jack does it again

Once again, Jack has shocked me with his wisdom and the profound nature of his observations. This is, of course, not the first time, as I was previously taken aback by his vocabulary, literacy, and ability to face the unknown so trustingly. Recently, I was impressed by this question:

. . . I bang my head on a faucet.

“Careful.”

Why do persons only say that after the hurt? (283)

This, to me, really captures a predominant theme of the novel. Once Ma and Jack have escaped Room, they find their own struggles in dealing with Outside. One of Ma’s is that people are celebrating their escape so much without paying any attention to those suffering in similar situations. When Jack highlights society's lack of forewarning and tendency towards useless advice after the fact, it reminded me of Ma’s complaints during her interview. Though she didn’t complain about the fact that nobody found the shed suspicious in the seven years she was locked in there, it certainly would've been reasonable to do so. If people care so much about Jack and Ma once they’re out of Room, it makes you wonder what efforts they made to recover them in the interim between Ma’s capture and their escape. As Jack says, they’re seemingly only concerned for Jack and Ma “after the hurt.”

As I mentioned before, Ma expresses her concern for those still in isolation during her interview:

“Her hand is pointing at the puffy-hair woman. “As for kids--there’s places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind--” (235-236)

Just like with Jack and Ma, it’s an all-too-common phenomenon that society will celebrate a heroic story of somebody escaping their abysmal circumstances without bothering to combat the root of the problem. Jack, in his innocent, curious, and subtly profound way highlighted what is one of the most deeply rooted problems with Outside.

Critical Mass

The situation in Room has evidently reached a tipping point—Ma has revealed more about the world to Jack in the last few days than she had in the previous five years. But why? What happened to cause such cataclysmic reveals about Jack’s reality?

Well, it all seems to start with Jack’s birthday. Literarily speaking, it’s not surprising that this is the starting point of the novel: if we jumped in the story before his birthday, we’d just get more of their daily routine than we need, and we’d miss important events if we came in after his birthday. But what about a birthday makes it such a significant starting point?

First of all, a birthday is a time when everyone is very much aware of the passage of time. Even though nothing in particular changes, it’s been a whole year since the last birthday; it gets you thinking about what all has happened since then. Jack succinctly summarizes what’s already happened: “Today I’m five. . . . Before that I was three, then two, then one, then zero” (3). Ma, on the other hand, has obviously been more aware of the time passing than Jack has been. For her, this birthday marks yet another year that she has been confined to a workhouse by a psychopathic kidnapper. This unfortunate milestone certainly does nothing to set Ma at ease and probably renews her thoughts about how to try escaping from the room.

Jack, not disturbed by his birthday as Ma is, discovers a newfound responsibility and sense of self-assurance once he turns five. He wants to make his own decisions:

                “Either way would be fun. Will I choose for you?” asks Ma.

                “Now I’m five, I have to choose” (4).

(Above, they’re talking about when Jack will receive Ma’s present for him.)

Jack also wants answers to his questions and presumably presses for them more than he has before. When he sees the bottle of painkillers in a TV commercial, he doesn’t drop his question when Ma tries to play down its importance.

            “But the bottle, how did he get it?”

            “I don’t know.”

The way she says it, it’s strange. I think she’s pretending. “You have to know. You know everything.”

            “Look, it doesn’t really matter.”

            “It does matter and I do mind.” I’m nearly shouting.

            “Jack—“

            Jack what? What does Jack mean?

            Ma leans back on the pillows. “It’s very hard to explain.”

            I think she can explain, she just won’t. “You can, because I’m five now” . . . (59).

Jack suspects that Ma is holding something back and thinks that Ma can tell him now that he’s five. In this way, Jack’s personal sense of entitlement and ability to process new information has grown.

As we’ve discussed, Ma surely knows that she can’t hold the illusion that Room is all that exists forever, so it was really just a question of when it would break down. Jack’s birthday and all the change that comes raining down with it seem to be the formula which ultimately created the events of this novel. Now the only question is: what next? 

An Introduction to the Apostle Paul

From the very institution which sentenced him to death emerges one of Jefferson’s most compassionate allies. Sound familiar? If you know your early Christian history or paid attention in class, it definitely should. The arc of Deputy Paul Bonin’s interactions with Grant and Jefferson has echoes of the story of Saul of Tarsus. For those of you who don’t have as much prior knowledge on the subject, I thought I’d explain the parallels we observed in some more depth, as well as why they’re so significant.

Here, in a nutshell, is the story of the conversion of the apostle Paul:

Saul of Tarsus was a pharisee - a teacher of Jewish law, part of a sect which felt that Jews were beginning to become too much like the world around them and tried to go back to the laws of the scriptures. Pharisees were well known for being too fixated on law for their own good, which was especially true for Saul of Tarsus. Pharisees did not think Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of the Jews, so they believed he was blaspheming. That’s why Saul was persecuting Christians – he believed they were following a liar and straying from Judaism.

On his way to arrest Christians in Damascus (capital of Syria), Saul saw a light from heaven and heard  a voice asking him, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He fell to the ground and replied, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” Jesus’ voice responded. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” Saul was blind for three days, and upon God’s command went to a Christian in Damascus who, also on God’s command, gave Saul sight once more. Saul immediately began preaching Jesus to the masses and was eventually accepted by other disciples who were understandably wary at first. Saul and the other apostles grew the church immensely in the years that followed. Unabridged version here: https://goo.gl/snQChW

(A note on names: He was born Saul of Tarsus, but dual names were common back then, so he was also called Paul his whole life. He likely changed his principal name to Paul since it’s a more familiar name to Gentiles and to symbolize the transformation he underwent.)

Alright, back to comparisons. With some more background on the apostle Paul, we can start to see some major differences as well as significant resemblances between the two narratives. We meet Deputy Paul about one-third through the book, the first time Grant visits Jefferson. By the end of the chapter, Paul already makes a good impression. Grant remarks that he “looks decent,” as opposed to his immediate negative impression of the head deputy. Already, we have a major difference: Saul was definitely not “decent” to Christians before his conversion. He pursued, jailed, and executed them. The fact stands, however, that Deputy Paul is a member of the system which opposes Jefferson, just as Saul was diametrically opposed to the Christian church.

As the story progresses, Deputy Paul continues to be kind and shows he cares about how things are going for Jefferson and Grant - ‘“What do you think?”’ Paul asks Grant after a visit (140). Once Grant’s been visiting awhile, Deputy Paul knows full well that Grant is a good man, and doesn’t want to search him. “He knew it was unnecessary to search me and the food, but he knew he had to do it” (168). Therein lies Deputy Paul’s conversion - he’s initially “decent” but seems to have no particular stake in how things turn out for Jefferson. By the end of the book, he’s so emotionally invested that he even attends Jefferson’s execution. While not as abrupt and extreme as Saul’s conversion, Paul’s increased sympathy for Jefferson is undoubtedly significant.

Looking past the end of the novel, our class speculated a lot on whether Deputy Paul would play a role advocating for the black community in the future. Though we’re given no explicit indication that he will, the resemblance to the story of the apostle Paul certainly points towards the possibility. The apostle Paul was one of the greatest allies of the early church after his conversion. God himself said “‘This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.’” Deputy Paul could very realistically hold a higher position of power later on than he does in the course of the book, and even if he is unable to bring about direct change to how the black community is treated, Grant and Paul created a bond through Jefferson that can advance the community’s racial relations in the long run. Despite the novel’s somber conclusion, the future is bright with Paul and all he can do for Jefferson’s legacy.

The Christmas Program

When we were approaching the chapter about the Christmas program, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was going to look like – I wasn’t sure if Grant was going to skim over the Christmas program like As I Lay Dying skimmed over Addie’s burial, or actually give some details about it. Since it doesn’t seem particularly monumental in the grand arch of the story, I could really see it going either way. But as we’ve seen, Grant isn’t really the type to skim over things. He gives tons of information as to what happens in the Rainbow Club and gives a long, detailed monologue concerning what it means to be a hero.

It’s not surprising, then, that Grant does cover the Christmas program with a certain amount of detail. But when I read the chapter, it did surprise me a little exactly how much detail he gave. I was expecting something more like a list of the songs they sang and maybe a couple of highlights. Instead, Grant describes the members of the audience, elaborately describes every aspect of the dramatic reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and even gives quite a lengthy excerpt of the program’s dialogue at one point. Why might Grant give so much effort telling us about an event which likely won’t have too great an impact on the events of the rest of the story?

To me, it seems like Grant is sort of taking this chapter as an opportunity to redeem himself in the readers’ eyes. At this point, he hasn’t made too much progress with Jefferson (although it isn’t far off!). Personally, I would be disappointed, apprehensive, and doubting my ability to make any impact on Jefferson before his execution. This chapter might serve as a reminder both to the readers and to Grant himself that he is, in fact, capable of making a difference as a teacher, and capable of success in general. In light of the imminent progress Grant will have with Jefferson, perhaps the Christmas program really worked as a self-esteem booster. 

How Addie's chapter changes the narrative

In any form of entertainment, there are people who stand out with their ability to stay relevant even through the dynamic interests of their audience. Ryan Higa, a popular YouTuber, has been creating videos for over 10 years now, but still has millions of views on his most recent videos. Addie seems to have achieved a similar feat in As I Lay Dying. Despite the fact that she dies relatively early after the beginning of the novel, she narrates her own chapter once the trip to Jackson is well under way. So how, or why, is Addie’s point of view still pertinent when she’s dead?

There is obviously a reason why Faulkner included multiple narrative points of view – if they contributed nothing to the story, it would only be useless and confusing to have them. The purposes, as I see them, are to give us various points of view on the same person (as we saw through the class activity about Anse) as well as a sense of each character’s unique qualities based on how they narrate (e.g. we learn that Cash is diligent but not all-too-interested in narrating to us, and that Vardaman is truly trying to make sense of what’s going on with Addie’s death and all). Readers can expect, then, that reading a chapter narrated by Addie herself will give us some insight into her feelings about her own life and death, about the journey to Jackson with her body, about the other characters, etc.

What we see in Addie’s chapter reflects these things and more. She starts off by telling readers “In the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose, instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them” (169). Well… Addie is not the most sympathetic person, it seems. This apathetic and somewhat contemptuous attitude continues throughout the chapter. Near the end, Addie says, “And now he has three children that are his and not mine. And then I could get ready to die” (176). This sentiment reflects a notion Addie learned from her father, that “the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time” (169). Addie apparently thinks herself ready to die after having corrected the situation with her illegitimate child. Around the middle of the chapter, Addie discusses the word “love” and how she doesn’t see a place for it, but doesn’t really care if Anse uses it. Also, Addie says that she’ll get Anse to take her to Jackson when she’s dead as a form of revenge.

By making Addie seem wholly unconcerned about her life once all her mistakes had been corrected, I think Faulkner is trying to make the reader less likely to pity Addie during the journey to Jackson. If Addie had portrayed herself as someone who loved life, loved those close to her, and whose only dying wish was to be buried in Jackson, As I Lay Dying would have been a very different story. Addie’s corpse is terribly abused in the course of the journey, and if Addie had cared about her memory being honored, then the journey would be an abysmal failure and really quite hard to stomach. However, since Addie seems not to have cared too much about anything, we as readers can see the journey less like something which was truly important to Addie and more like something which she requested just for the hell of it; rather than feeling bad that Addie’s corpse is constantly being treated irreverently, we can focus on the journey itself and the characters who are still alive.

The Coens' Critique

I think that most of us will agree that O Brother, Where Art Thou? was packed with very clever and well-thought out comedic moments as well as some good ole’ fashioned slapstick. All this on top of the Coen brothers’ intriguing and very unique re-staging of a classic hero’s journey made for a very enjoyable film experience. Furthermore, there seems to be a level of judgment and commentary from the Coen brothers regarding a question which has been very popular in our class: is Odysseus as great as everyone makes him out to be?

Any reader of the Odyssey knows that Odysseus is far from perfect. Strong, cunning, and handsome? Undeniably. But he is in equal measure prideful, unfaithful, and selfish. And any viewer of O Brother, Where Are Thou? could make similar observations about Ulysses Everett McGill: he’s suave and has a pretty rockin’ voice, but he’s a criminal, a conman, and the list goes on. I think the Coen brothers intentionally created Everett’s character with amplified versions of some of Odysseus’ flaws in an effort to inject their personal opinions about Odysseus into the film.

First off, what has been the general consensus as to Odysseus’ greatest flaw? Everyone say it with me: Pride. Odysseus screws up tons of stuff because he’s prideful, two main examples being the loss of much of his crew to Polyphemus and then his pissing off Poseidon by hurting the cyclops.  All this could easily have been avoided. And if you were to choose a single object to associate with Everett McGill? Dapper Dan. Everett is so vain that his first concern after his encounter with the sirens is the appearance of his hair.

But the Coen brothers don’t stop at vanity. Everett is also prideful in tons of ways in the film. When Pete and Delmar get baptized, Everett does not, calling himself a man of reason and science as opposed to his easily satisfied, simple-minded companions. In addition, despite declaring himself the leader of the trio and calling himself “the tactician” pretty early on, Big Dan lures Everett and Delmar to the picnic super easily. Everett doesn’t even retaliate when Big Dan whacks Delmar with a branch, but instead goes for a “What’s going on, Big Dan?” And finally, when Everett is about to hanged, he cries out to God for mercy and forgiveness, and expresses his desire for more time with his children… but then immediately retracts these sentiments when he’s safely floating on the lake, claiming he knew all along that the valley was being flooded, and that this was presumably his plan? I don’t think so.

We also discussed in class that a possible parallel to The Odyssey’s Aeolian winds incident was Everett basically ruining Pete’s life by convincing him to escape with only two weeks left on his sentence. Pete was so close, but was then driven so far away by someone else’s actions/motives. But in the film, it’s flipped from The Odyssey. The main character is the one who ruins it for his crew instead of the other way around. Finally, the plot of the film is fundamentally driven by the fact that Everett is a criminal, as opposed to Odysseus’ struggles tracing back to his heroism at war.

So, it seems that the Coen brothers agree with the majority of us – Odysseus isn’t as great as Homer makes him out to be. Their exemplification of the same flaws Odysseus has, along with more flaws to further undermine Everett’s initially heroic image suggest that the Coen brothers could be critiquing The Odyssey in their film instead of simply recreating it in a very different setting.

Loyalty in The Odyssey

Before the satisfying and somewhat shocking rendering of the suitors’ fates, there was quite a lot of dramatic and plot-driving build up in the form of Odysseus testing everybody’s loyalty. Despite numerous reports he had from seemingly trustworthy sources, Odysseus wanted to test every person’s loyalty. If this extensive and taxing corroboration doesn’t highlight the importance of loyalty to the Greek culture in which The Odyssey takes place, I don’t know what does. Except maybe all those other times we’ve seen loyalty as absolutely paramount.

Even starting with the Telemachiad, we saw how important loyalty is to these Greeks. Penelope’s cunning in weaving and unweaving her burial shroud is portrayed as one of her best qualities in Homer’s storytelling. And this cunning is just Penelope’s way of being loyal to Odysseus. On the other hand, Homer portrays the suitors not only as greedy, selfish, and disrespectful of the customs of hospitality, but also disloyal to their king*. This latter trait, we saw towards the end of the epic, was really the one which sealed their fates for them. 

Odysseus’ loyalty while away from home is also a very important point to consider, and a less straightforward one at that. While our class has pretty much condemned Odysseus’ personal defense regarding his sleeping around while he was away from Ithaca (i.e. that the women never won him over in his heart), it is nevertheless a fact that this is how Homer chose to write the story. Rather than leave the narrative at the face value of his physical disloyalty to Penelope, he did include that Odysseus claimed never to have been won over by the women in his heart. This inclusion could suggest that Homer still viewed Odysseus as loyal, or at any rate, more loyal than we think he is. So even if Odysseus’ stark loyalty isn’t what we’re meant to take away from his unfaithfulness while at sea, perhaps it is simply meant to bring the issue of loyalty to our attention.

The reunion scene between Argos and Odysseus is another poignant scene that drives home the emphasis on loyalty. This scene contains one of two times that I remember Odysseus crying (I could be forgetting something though…) and the other was his reunion with his son. The fact that the emotional connection Odysseus has with his dog Argos is almost on the level of connection he has with his own family speaks volumes. Homer goes into detail about how Odysseus trained Argos as a pup. Having built this bond at a young age, showing that each of them cares so much about the other, even 20 years later, shows that their loyalty to each other was not lost with all Odysseus’ time away from home.

Homer really, really seems to like his recurring themes, huh? How does this theme compare with the others people have posted about?

*I recognize the differentiation between the translated term “king” appearing in the Odyssey and our conventional English definition of the same, but this distinction doesn’t take away from the fact that Odysseus held a position of power and respect in Ithaca which should have commanded a certain level of respect from all these suitors. In violating this level of respect by courting Penelope improperly, they are being disloyal to Odysseus in my eyes.  

Because you asked about the line between heroism and the humdrum

Cultures change. Big-time. Of course, this isn’t new information to anybody, but the implications of such a commonplace fact could certainly be lost on an unobservant audience. However, we, the Uni High Hero’s Journey scholars are no such audience. In discussing George Saunders’ “Victory Lap,” we quickly identified that a clear act of heroism for Kyle was simply leaving his yard (well, for starters). This highlights the clear distinction of Kyle’s family as compared with a more typical American family; with such overprotective parents, violating tons of “directives” takes a lot of courage on Kyle’s part, whereas for other children raised differently it might be second nature to do as Kyle did. So we have no problem in saying that even in the same broad cultural context, heroism looks different for all.

So let’s expand the comparison. In The Odyssey, even though we technically haven’t gotten there yet, we all know that the main hero’s journey is Odysseus’ return home. Now, what about this journey makes it heroic? First of all, he was a hugely important hero in the Trojan War, so his homecoming should be a big deal. Second, he has to overcome all kinds of obstacles on his way home, many of which are supernatural beings pitted against him in the context of Greek mythology. Few would argue that Odysseus is a hero. But if someone nowadays were to do as Odysseus did, would it be heroic?

The short answer is “yes.” If anyone played as important a role in a war as Odysseus played in his, and faced obstacles comparable to those which Odysseus faced, the public would be hard-pressed to not consider that person a hero. But a less extreme version of this return home wouldn’t be treated in the same way then and now. Like I said, cultures change. With little knowledge of the culture at the time, I still think it's safe to assume that any person returning from a cross-ocean voyage would be welcomed home with joy and celebrations and praise to the gods. That is in stark contrast to present, with multitudes crossing oceans safely every day and resuming their normal lives with little to no fuss over their safe return. Naturally, their loved ones are still thrilled to see them safely at home, but nonetheless do not view them as any kind of hero for having kept safe on the flight home. The reason for this change is obvious: the differing states of technological advancement in the two cultures.

Societal development has killed the heroism of previously heroic acts. There is something intrinsically brave and daring in crossing the violent and untamed ocean on a floating construction of wood, and something intrinsically not brave and daring in being carried over an ocean at hundreds of miles per hour. By taking so many of the unpredictable factors out of the equation (or at least vastly reducing the time they have to screw things up), modern technology has taken the need for bravery and heroism out of tons of activities.

But on the other hand, modern technology has created a new kind of heroism. Significant advancements in any field of science are now awarded with honors and praise – they are heroic achievements. Technology has taken advanced scientific principles out of the realm of the supernatural, as they were for ancient cultures, and now hails them as important and heroic advances for the general good. So, because you asked about the line between heroism and the humdrum (shout-out to Majerus’ poetry class XD), the determining factor seems to be technology. (Which seems to be the answer to a lot of questions about why our culture is how it is, does it not?)