ometimes that well-worn adage doesn’t really mean what our literal-minded, text-focused, Google-driven world thinks it means. One reason this happens is that, quite simply, language evolves.

To further complicate matters, as with books, all too often the context of these popular wisdoms has been forgotten. Though these aphorisms may still contain some good advice, their original message is typically richer and more profound than our contemporary interpretation.

This Book is Banned proffers a few proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom that have been “unplugged,” as it were. We’ve rebooted, gone back-to-basics, and re-discovered their intended message. For example:
…

Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps

We may not be sure what bootstraps actually are, but we know we’re supposed to stop whining, and pull ourselves up by them. These days, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps means to succeed on your own, through sheer will and hard work.

It’s a phrase that’s made the rounds on social media lately, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is an impossible feat. And people really got steamed when she said “the whole thing is a joke.”[1] She took a lot of flak for saying that, but she’s absolutely right. The expression was indeed originally intended as sarcasm to describe an absurd and futile act.

Its earliest written documented use is from a Vermont newspaper in 1834, in response to one Nimrod Murphree’s claim to have discovered perpetual motion. The article bitingly speculated that Murphree could probably raise himself over “a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots” too.[2]
____________________________

[1] Mohamed, Theron. “‘It’s a physical impossibility to lift yourself up by a bootstrap’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argues everyone needs help to succeed.” Feb. 7, 2020. Businessinsider.com; AOC bootstrap meme.
[2] The Vermont Courier. Woodstock, Vermont. Oct. 3, 1834, pg 3.

______________________

Check out more unplugged proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom here.

.
#Aphorisms Unplugged

They finally started coming for the information

Just as they once went after music

Put a parental warning sticker over my mouth

and the mouth of every writer out there

To Kill a Mockingbird and Lady Chatterly’s Lover

are cast back in the fire

Howl and Tropic of Cancer

are back in court upon appeal

The busybodies are out for blood

out for ink

and out after all the silly misfits

.

Evil deeds have hidden behind

noble language so long

they are now transparent

But now it stands

with the possibility of every Missouri librarian

facing anything

from a $500 fine to a year behind bars

No one has that kinda money

or that kinda time

.

It all comes down to small people

wanting big power

Maybe the biggest of all

The power to control the mind

To limit what goes in

Because these parents already have

the lives of their children

mapped out

And know who they want

living in their neighborhoods

.

A perfect little life

all planned out

And there’s no room

in a perfect little life

for questioning

all the little plans

.

Author Bio:

Daniel W. Wright is an award-nominated poet and fiction writer. He most recently wrote the foreword for Sacred Decay: The Art of Lauren Marx (Dark Horse, 2021). He is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Love Letters from the Underground (Spartan Press, 2021), Rodeo of the Soul (Spartan Press, 2019), and Murder City Special (Bad Jacket, 2017). His work has appeared in print journals such as The Literary Parrot, BUK100, 365 Days, and Gasconade Review, as well as online journals such as Book of Matches. He currently resides in St. Louis, MO, where you can usually find him in a bar or a bookstore. 

#On Censorship      #Banned       #Guest Essayists

Author photo by Gabrielle Blanton
Doll photo by Yousef Bagheri on Unsplash

ometimes that well-worn adage doesn’t really mean what our literal-minded, text-focused, Google-driven world thinks it means. One reason this happens is that, quite simply, language evolves.

To further complicate matters, as with books, all too often the context of these popular wisdoms has been forgotten. Though these aphorisms may still contain some good advice, their original message is typically richer and more profound than our contemporary interpretation.

This Book is Banned proffers a few proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom that have been “unplugged,” as it were. We’ve rebooted, gone back-to-basics, and re-discovered their intended message. For example:
…

Go the Extra Mile.

These days, “go the extra mile” means making a special effort to achieve a particular goal. Or it’s dished out as advice to do more than is required, in order to impress our boss.

In its original context, however, “going the extra mile” isn’t simply a way to get ahead in a competitive world. It’s a biblical reference, specifically the Sermon on the Mount. Needless to say, at that point in history Israel was occupied by the Roman empire. And the admonition to go the extra mile is actually a call to engage in non-violent resistance against an occupying power, the kind Ghandi learned in his regular readings of the Gospels.[1]

Not surprisingly, Roman soldiers could impose forced labor on subject people, at any time, and on demand. Going the extra mile refers to the very common demand to carry a legionnaire’s kit. The law, however, limited this form of forced labor to a single mile. Compelling a civilian to carry a pack any further carried severe penalties under military law. So, if that civilian publicly insists on “going the extra mile,” it puts the soldier in the unexpected and very uncomfortable situation of having to plead with one of the vanquished to put down his pack.

When a civilian “goes the extra mile,” the power dynamic is reversed. The empire’s authority has been challenged. And it is accomplished without resorting to the violence that would only lead to arrest and likely execution.[2]  So, going the extra mile is actually an early version of “stick it to The Man.” And that’s a world away from urging someone to do more than is required in an effort to impress their boss.

__________________________

[1] Watson, Blanche. “Passive Resistance of Soul Force.” The Open Court. Volume 35, Issue 12. December 1921, 715.
[2] Wink, Walter. The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millennium. (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 98-111.

Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash      https://unsplash.com/photos/hSliLYLmm-c

_______________________

Check out more unplugged proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom here.

.
#Aphorisms Unplugged

he idea for The Lottery popped into Shirley Jackson’s head on the way home from the market, as she pushed her daughter up the hill in the stroller that also held the day’s groceries. The narrative was fairly clear in her mind, and once she got home putting it on paper went “quickly and easily, moving from beginning to end without pause.”[1]

Jackson’s story seems to have been inspired by a typical, “all-American,” domestic situation. A mother and her young child making preparations for the family’s evening meal – what could be more benevolent than that? So, what made such a story so controversial? Why was The Lottery banned?

The story Jackson wrote that afternoon ends with a famously shocking plot twist, one that provoked controversy the instant it appeared in The New Yorker. The Lottery has been described as a story that “demands a reaction from its reader,” and boy, did readers react![2] Hundreds cancelled their subscriptions.[3] Many of them took Jackson’s story for a factual report. And vehement letters addressed directly to Jackson filled the mailroom, describing her story as “perverted,” “horrible and gruesome,” not to mention “in incredibly bad taste.”[4]

Reasons why The Lottery is routinely banned by public schools fall along similar lines. Jackson’s work was challenged at the Salem-Keizer School District in Oregon for its depiction of “morbid and grotesque ideas.”[5] It was challenged in Webster City, Iowa for being “like Friday the 13^th.” The school administrator specifically took offense to the story’s insinuation “that a child is stoning a parent.”[6]

Those who set out to ban The Lottery from school curriculums saw it as an attack on the family by way of undermined traditions. Challengers interviewed for an article in the journal Social Education expressed concern that reading Jackson’s story causes students “to question their values, traditions, and religious beliefs.”[7] And that instilling these thoughts in young readers’ minds is a subtle means of destroying the family unit.

These challengers may not be taking The Lottery as factual reporting, the way many who cancelled their New Yorker subscriptions did. But like those disgruntled subscribers, their objections are the result of a shallow, deficient interpretation of Jackson’s iconic story, of not thinking past the narrative much less their noses.

Though challengers’ observation about The Lottery questioning tradition isn’t inaccurate, it is terribly misguided. The point Jackson makes is more nuanced, and significantly more profound than a call to spit in the eye of tradition out of sheer defiance. The real question here is not, “how could she?!” but “why does Jackson advocate questioning tradition?” And no… it isn’t a devious plan to destroy the American family.
_________

Shirley Jackson’s Raw Materials.

 Who knows what was going through Shirley Jackson’s head as she walked home from the market, just before she put her daughter Joanne in the playpen, the frozen vegetables in the freezer, and The Lottery down on paper. What was so compelling that the story flowed “quickly and easily, moving from beginning to end without pause?”[8]

It might have been the feeling of being a “frozen out” faculty wife by the townspeople where she lived, or the painful awareness of anti-Semitism Jackson had acquired from personal experience.[9] Perhaps it was the anthropology book her husband recently brought home, or the witchcraft she’d been interested in since college. Maybe the motivating factor was world events, the disturbing revelations about  the Holocaust that emerged from the Nuremberg trials just a couple years earlier.[10] These were the raw materials that went into the making of The Lottery, to be sure. And they most certainly inform the shape the work takes. But what must have really been on Jackson’s mind as this story poured forth, was the notion that ordinary people are capable of horrific acts. She as much as says so in the San Francisco Chronicle:

I suppose I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story’s readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.[11]

And shock them she did. Significantly, Jackson’s story came out while American citizens were still trying to process the distressing reports about the Nazis’ persecution of Europe’s Jews, Romani people, and other victims. Many Americans were confidently insisting that nothing like that could ever happen here. Then along comes The Lottery, with a disturbing ending that blows a hole in American complacency – straight into the mailboxes of The New Yorker subscribers, no less.[12]

The juxtaposition of ritual murder with modern small-town America is pretty jarring. Especially when the ritual murder is carried out by stoning. As noted, this narrative certainly packs an emotional wallop. And when read for more than plot, when attention is paid to The Lottery’s structure and the symbolism Jackson employs, we see a summary of humankind’s savage past, as well as what her husband referred to as an “anatomy of our times.”[13] And what becomes clear is that humanity is not at the mercy of a “murky, savage id.”[14] No, we are the victim of an unexamined culture and unchanging traditions which, like the lottery in Jackson’s story, actually engenders a cruelty not rooted in our inherent makeup. [15] That is Jackson’s message. It’s also the very real horror within The Lottery.
_________

What Does the Three-Legged Stool Symbolize?

The obvious similarity between the village’s lottery and scapegoat traditions has been pointed out on many occasions. And this parallel gives us insight into the symbolic nature of the three-legged stool that’s placed in the center of the village square. Significantly, it is on this stool that the “the black wooden box,” the mechanism for conducting the lottery, rests.[16] The three-legged stool embodies examples of scapegoating, the raw materials mentioned above that inform The Lottery and its symbolism. One leg stands for the ancient scapegoat ritual itself, which Jackson had become familiar with through the anthropology book her husband brought home. Another leg signifies the Salem Witch Trials, made all the more relevant given her interest in witchcraft and magic. And the third leg represents the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust, still fresh in the minds of the entire world.
_________

What are the Origins of Scapegoating?

At its root, the scapegoat tradition is about purging evil, clearing out the ills that have been plaguing the community that is performing the rite. And the scapegoat is literally the vehicle for carrying this evil away. Scapegoating rituals can be found in many cultures, but the term comes from a rite in the biblical book of Leviticus. As in The Lottery, the sacrifice is chosen by lots, in this case a goat. The animal is symbolically marked with the inequities of the people and sent off into the wilderness. Hence, “(e)scape” goat. The goat doesn’t get too far, though, because it’s someone’s job to follow him and drive him off a cliff – backwards. The poor guy never sees it coming. The goat is clearly destroyed, and with it, the evil he was carrying.[17]

But not all scapegoats are goats. In some cultures, they’re human. When it comes to human sacrifice, the first civilization that comes to mind is probably the Aztecs, but they’re certainly not the only ones. Accounts exist from around the world and across the ages, from Ancient Greece to as late as the nineteenth century in the Pacific Islands.[18]  Whatever shape the scapegoat takes, the “general clearance of evil” described above (the purpose most often associated with the scapegoat tradition), occurred periodically. For agrarian cultures, that was typically at a time that coincided with planting or harvest.[19] Though June 27^th doesn’t strictly align with either of those agricultural events, Mr. Warner’s maxim “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” is clearly a nod in that direction.[20]

Though the practice of sacrificing human scapegoats is no longer ritualized, that doesn’t mean it no longer happens. The witchcraft hysteria that continues to inform New England culture, and the Salem Witch Trials specifically, are nothing if not scapegoating. Women labeled as witches (the operative word being labeled), were executed in order to purge their village of Satanic influence. And the Nazi’s effort to purify Germany by “exterminating” Jews, the Romani people and other groups, is scapegoating by industrial means. These are certainly not the only examples of human scapegoating that have taken place after the Age of Enlightenment, but they are the ones that inform The Lottery.
_________

Scapegoating in the Salem Witch Trials.

Jackson never explicitly tells the reader where the lottery takes place. And there’s a reason for that. If she did, her story would no longer be about “anytown America.” But the clues she gives us about the village are important to our understanding of The Lottery beyond simple ambiance. It’s a small farming community of about 300 people. And most of the population has a family name with Anglo-Saxon origins. The last detail Jackson gives us is that the land yields an abundance of stones, a fact critical to the story beyond the obvious reason. These clues suggest that New England is the locale of the story. When taken in total, this information points to the region’s history of witch trials and persecutions, especially when the village’s patriarchal power structure gets thrown into the mix. And the fact that critical scenes in in a young adult book Jackson wrote about witchcraft hysteria (The Witchcraft of Salem Village) parallel scenarios in The Lottery, substantiates an intended allusion to witch trials.[21]

An important parallel between Massachusetts during the witchcraft hysteria and the village where Jackson lived is the power dynamic between genders. In both cases, the targeted women respond to the pressure of male authority by betraying other women. It’s a classic “divide and conquer” scenario. The way this plays out in The Lottery is a testament to how successfully the male-dominated order has been imposed on the village’s women.[22] Tessie’s right when she claims that the lottery wasn’t fair. But not because they didn’t give her husband “enough time to choose.”[23] It wasn’t fair, intentionally or not, because the system was designed from a patriarchal perspective.

So, how does the lottery work? The village’s lottery seems random to all but the most meticulous of readers because, by and large, we still accept being classified by surname (in other words, our father’s name) as the standard. Drawing lots according to the household/ father’s name skews the odds toward “women of a certain age,” especially those with few, or female children. In terms of avoiding the black dot, younger is better because a woman’s children are still at home. Having more children dilutes the possibility of drawing the black dot. And having a lot of boys is better still because they won’t marry out of the family and increase their mother’s risk as she ages. Tessie’s betrayal of her married daughter, by insisting that she take her chances with the Hutchinsons, is born of this inequity.[24]

Our trip through the lottery process in Jackson’s village reveals a parallel between the demographic most at risk in The Lottery, and the women most frequently persecuted as witches. The witch trials of Puritan Massachusetts were founded on a patriarchal interpretation of the myth of Eve and her role in The Fall. A second layer of patriarchal thought deems her, and by extension all women, more susceptible to the demonic than men – at least according to a couple of Dominican inquisitors from 1486. And women labeled as witches (the operative word being labeled), were executed in an effort to purify their village of Satanic influence.

The group most vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft was women between forty and sixty. That’s the same segment of society most likely to draw the black dot in The Lottery. In Puritan Massachusetts, accusations of witchcraft served to crush a particular class of women, insufficiently docile women who failed to fit into their assigned role of submissive helpmeet, those who spoke their minds or attempted to run their own affairs.[25]

So, why was Tessie Hutchinson stoned to death The Lottery? Tessie is precisely this type of woman. She shows up late and must weave her way through the crowd to reach her husband, who had been waiting quite some time for her to arrive. Tessie barks at her husband to “get up there,” when it’s his turn to select a slip of paper from the wooden box.[26]  And she certainly isn’t docile when she shouts and yells, challenging the fairness of the lottery and by extension male authority.

Unfortunately for Tessie, much like the women of Puritan Massachusetts,[27] the other women in the village seem to have internalized the ominous lesson they were intended to learn, which is to keep their places in the established order.[28] For, it’s only women Jackson calls out by name as charging toward Tessie, stones in hand as the story ends.
_________

More Scapegoating in the Holocaust.

News from the Nuremberg trials, and revelations about the Holocaust were fresh in everyone’s mind. The horrific stories were more personal for Jackson than many Americans because, as the wife of a Jewish husband, she had first-hand experience with anti-Semitism. And though Jackson consistently refused to give a concise explanation of The Lottery, she did tell a friend that the story has to do with anti-Semitism.[29]

The scapegoating the Nazis employed on this colossal scale was an outcome of the ideological (mis)appropriation of Germany’s mythological heritage. The original concept was grounded in the idea that a proper nation, or Volk, requires a particular holistic unity. This totality must be comprised of a natural environment, a language and history rooted in a deep past and rural population, and the expression of that history in an indigenous mythology. The culture that emerged from this sentiment became radicalized, crystallizing as völkisch nationalism in the first third of the 20^th century. [30] Anyone perceived as not fulfilling all aspects of this unity was painted as an enemy. And in an effort to “purify” the Volk, those deemed outsiders were targeted. Though Jews were considered the primary enemy, the Romani people and a number of other groups were also among those who collectively fulfilled the role of scapegoat.[31]

Jackson’s story echoes the reported experience of Holocaust survivors in several respects. Let’s start with the hard truth that children are not exempt in either scenario. Like the little girl who wore the red coat in the film Schindler’s List, Davy Hutchinson is at risk as much as everybody else. And that reality is about as disturbing and heart wrenching as it gets.

But more significant in terms of The Lottery’s narrative and its structure, is the fact that the ritual murder in The Lottery is alluded to, although not seen by the reader. Like the execution of survivors’ family members, the act of stoning in The Lottery isn’t witnessed directly. Consequently, in both instances, the focus becomes the very personal experience of the selection process, which needless to say determines between “death or reprieve.”[32] Which is why everyone sighs when little Davy’s paper was blank.

The Lottery’s narrative is the selection process. Jackson’s story is essentially a detailed description of the mechanics of the village’s lottery. And the following high points of that process sound an awful lot like the frequent selections that took place in concentration camps. Flanked by Mr. Graves and Mr. Martin, Mr. Summers declares the lottery open. “A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared this throat and looked at the list. ‘All ready?’ he called.”[33] Once it was determined that this year’s victim would come from the Hutchinson household, each member of the family is called forth as they anxiously draw their individual lots.

This scenario is strikingly similar to the selection process Elie Weisel recounts in Night, the autobiographical account of his experience in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald:

 Three SS officers surrounded the notorious Dr. Mengele, the very same who had received us in Birkenau. The Blockälteste [barracks leader] attempted a smile. He asked us: “Ready?” Yes, we were ready. So were the SS doctors. Dr. Mengele was holding a list: our numbers. He nodded to the Blockälteste: we can begin! As if this were a game… I had one thought: not to have my number taken down and not to show my left arm.[34]

There are enough accounts of the numerous and varied atrocities visited upon the people that comprise the Nazis’ collective scapegoat to fill a library, and they have. Yet, Weisel’s testimony to what occurred in the camps makes it clear that the most terrible word, the one feared more than any other, was selection.[35] Jackson’s villagers must feel the same way about the term lottery.
_________

The Lottery’s Deteriorating Ritual.

Jackson points out that the original box the villagers used for the lottery had been “lost long ago.” The fact that it was lost, rather than destroyed by termites for example or burned in a barn fire, suggests that over time the villagers have been turning away from the antiquated pagan beliefs this ritual is clearly grounded in. There was once a ritual salute. The lottery official no longer stands “just so.” He doesn’t sing the “tuneless chant” anymore.[36] And at one time there might have been something about him walking among the people… maybe. But these days, the lottery is something to be rushed through so everyone can “get home for noon dinner.”

This evolution of the village’s ritual reveals that the appearance of progress in society is an illusion. Letting go of antiquated pagan beliefs makes it appear that the people in the village have become more enlightened. But, they haven’t. As Jackson put it, “although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.”[37] The point being, though the villagers have let go of most aspects of this pagan ritual they are not actually more civilized. The brutality at its core remains fully intact. And to drive that point home, what the tradition has evolved into, is simply an excuse for violence.

The most damning thing about this situation is that collectively, the townspeople could bring the lottery to an end. But, like the citizens of Salem who get drawn into the cycle of accusation rather than question church tradition, they don’t. They perpetuate this annual murder by teaching it to the younger generations. Someone not only helps Davy Hutchinson draw his slip of paper, they place stones in his little hand. And they do so simply for the sake of upholding tradition. We know this is the only motivation for continuing the lottery, because Old Man Warner’s only response to Mrs. Adams’ suggestion to give it up is nothing more substantial than, “there’s always been a lottery.”[38]
_________

In Conclusion

It’s no accident that Jackson chose stoning rather than a modern, mechanized method of ritual murder à la Nazi Germany, or the hanging employed in The Salem Witch Trials for that matter. She elected to use stoning, because pelting someone to death with rocks is as primitive as it gets. The symbolism is double-edged. Stoning not only speaks to the antiquity of the scapegoat tradition, most importantly it’s a statement about the current state of humanity. Jackson’s choice of stoning is her not too subtle way of saying we’re just as savage as we ever were.

Jackson paints a pretty dismal picture. She seems to be saying that these villagers (and by that she means the whole of humankind) will never be free of their primitive nature. At least, not until enough of them have been affected adversely enough by the horror of their tradition that they reject it and, as Mrs. Adams implies, destroy the box altogether. Or they fashion a new box, one that reflects their current social conditions and sustains them rather than pitting them against each other.[39] Until that happens, Tessie Hutchinson may be the only loser, but no one is a winner.

ometimes that well-worn adage doesn’t really mean what our literal-minded, text-focused, Google-driven world thinks it means. One reason this happens is that, quite simply, language evolves.

To further complicate matters, as with books, all too often the context of these popular wisdoms has been forgotten. Though these aphorisms may still contain some good advice, their original message is typically richer and more profound than our contemporary interpretation.

This Book is Banned proffers a few proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom that have been “unplugged,” as it were. We’ve rebooted, gone back-to-basics, and re-discovered their intended message.
…

Blood is thicker than water.

Your mom might have used this saying to explain why you have to take your little brother when you go to the movies with your buddies. You know, family relationships are more important than your friends. Well, you can tell your mom that the original meaning, which dates back about 3000 years, is exactly the opposite. On second thought, it might be a good idea to keep that information to yourself, at least until you’re grown.

These days we tend to interpret “blood” to mean bloodline, but that hasn’t always been the case. The full version of this wisdom is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”[1] This understanding is frequently applied to the bond formed by soldiers who have fought on the battlefield together being stronger than a relationship you may have with someone simply because you’re siblings.[2]

But it also has to do with ancient blood rites found in every quarter of the globe. Some of these rituals, such as circumcision in the Abrahamic tradition, form a covenant with God. Others, like the clasping of lacerated hands as seen in Norseland sagas, form a “covenant of blood-friendship,” a relationship considered to be the most enduring and sacred of compacts.[3] The Araucanian people of South America are among a number of cultures that used animal sacrifice to enter into “blood-friendship.”[4]

Whatever part of the world we’re talking about, those in a covenant of blood-friendship were expected to not only give up their own lives for each other, they were also supposed to relinquish any other life they hold dear.  So yeah, the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, in a serious sort of way. And there’s a whole lot more at stake than just having to take your little brother to the movies.
________________________________

[1] Halliwell, Nikki. Etymology Series: Part One-History of Proverbs.
[2] Jack, Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep. (New York: Penguin, 2005), 95.
[3] Trumbull, H. C. The Blood Covenant. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885), 5, 42.
[4] Trumbull The Blood Covenant, 334; Smith, Edmond Reul. The Araucanians or notes of a tour among the Indian tribes of Southern Chili. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855), 261-2.

Image:
Museo nazionale romano di palazzo Altemps.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grande_Ludovisi_Altemps_Inv8574.jpg

______________________

Check out more unplugged proverbs, sayings, and other pearls of wisdom here.

.

#Aphorisms unplugged

F
Frank Baum set out to write a “modernized fairy tale” for the children of his day.[1] According to the Library of Congress, he did more than simply accomplish his goal. He ended up producing “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.”[2]  So, it seems inconceivable that certain parents and teachers have been trying to ban The Wonderful Wizard of Oz since its publication in 1900.[3]

Well, they have. In 1928, public libraries across the country pulled the books from their shelves.[4] ­­­Why was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz banned? Reasons range from Baum’s “wonder tale” being “untrue to life” (isn’t that the point of a wonder tale), to the use of witchcraft, to its portrayal of a strong female protagonist.[5]

One of the most publicized cases against The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, however, occurred in 1986. A group of Fundamentalist Christian families from Tennessee got together and tried to have the book removed from the public school syllabus. Baum’s work was among a number of books that the families felt promoted “occultism, secular humanism, evolution, disobedience to parents, pacifism, and feminism.”[6]

The families specifically disapproved of Baum’s characterization of some witches as good, because as we all know witches are in fact bad, very, very bad. One mother worried that reading this book would cause her children to be “seduced into godless supernaturalism.”[7] The federal judge who presided over the case ruled that children of the parents who brought the suit could be excused from lessons about Baum’s book. But the families weren’t happy with such a limited outcome. They wanted to make sure that no students were reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in class. So, they appealed the judge’s decision to the United States Supreme Court. Thankfully, the justices refused to hear the case.[8]

Objections to Baum’s book are clearly based on a literal, and therefore anemic reading of Baum’s book, a level Hermann Hesse describes as reading “naïvely.”[9] If these families had considered anything about who L. Frank Baum was or when he was writing, they would have seen a slice of American history reflected in the work’s imagery. And if they’d been familiar with the notion of symbolic language, they would have realized that literal magic is not what Baum was talking about.

They would’ve discovered what makes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz so special. There’s more to Baum’s book than “girl power!” and “pointy-hatted witches are a really a thing.” There is a deeper meaning behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The fantastic creatures that inhabit Oz are not just the trappings of a wonder tale. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion are more than just new friends Dorothy makes along the way. And the trials they endure serve a purpose other than simple adventure. Baum’s philosophy for writing successful children’s stories points the way to understanding why The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is more than just a fun story. __________

Oz, a land Betwixt & Between.

According to Baum, “Many authors have an idea that to write a story about children is to write a children’s story. No notion could be more erroneous. Perhaps one out of a hundred alleged children’s stories possess elements of interest to the real child – but that is a liberal estimate.”[10] Maybe so. But whether his comment is statistically accurate or not, the following excerpt from Baum’s article What Children Want reveals his philosophy for writing (undeniably successful) children’s books:

It is said that a child learns more during the first five years of its life than in the succeeding fifty years. This may well be true, for all the marvels of life and the wonders of the universe are brought to its notice and registered upon the sensitive film of its mind in those years when it first begins to understand it is a component part of mighty creation. The very realization of existence is sufficient to set every childish nerve tingling with excitement, and when the mind has absorbed the astonishing circumstances of its environment there comes a time when comprehension pauses, to resume more deliberately the practical details of worldly experience. Thus the amazed child, wild-eyed, eager, nervous and filled with unalloyed vigor, steps upon the threshold of real life…  Positively the child cannot be satisfied with inanities in its story books. It craves marvels – fairy tales, adventures, surprising and unreal occurrences; gorgeousness, color and kaleidoscopic succession of inspiring incident.[11]

In short, children’s books should engage their imaginations and promote wonder, like when a little one “tak[es] its first peep at the world’s wonderland.”[12] More importantly, Baum’s article gives us insight into why The Land of Oz evokes a sense of wonder and fascination, and engages his intended audience the way it clearly has. It isn’t just because Baum was an excellent storyteller. Oz is chockful of marvels, adventure, and dreamlike happenings because it is a liminal realm, one that’s “betwixt & between.”[13] The Land of Oz is betwixt & between because the structure of Baum’s work parallels the pattern within rites of passage.

What are rites of passage?  Think Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings. Rites of passage bring about the transition from one “mode of being” to another.[14] For example, the shift from childhood to adulthood in the case of bar mitzvahs. Or the switch from the mode of being single to the state of being married that a wedding produces. Dorothy’s transition, however, is from the mode when a child lacks the understanding that they’re “a component part of mighty creation,” to the point when they deliberately embrace “the practical details of worldly experience.”[15] This transformation ultimately prepares children to “step upon the threshold of real life.”[16] (Keep in mind that the Dorothy Gage in Baum’s book is significantly younger than Judy Garland’s portrayal in the 1939 film.)
__

How Do Rites of Passage Work?

Rites of Passage contain the following three sub-categories:

.
The first and last stages are self-explanatory. They detach the subject from their old place in society, and return them, inwardly transformed, to their new station in life. As to the middle phase, the term “liminal” comes from limen, the Latin for “threshold,” indicating the “transition between.”[17]

Though all three stages are present in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum primarily focuses on the liminal phase. Unlike the movie, all we get in the book is mere snippets of Kansas, just enough to anchor the story and show how fantastic Oz is by comparison. Oz’s fanciful nature is significant because liminality is by definition an unpredictable state. It’s a “realm of pure possibility,” between the two stable points (signified here by Kansas) that bookend the progression from one mode of being to another.[18] __________

What is Liminality?

During the liminal phase, the subject develops an awareness that changes their “inmost nature.”[19] They acquire knowledge that prepares them for their new status. In the context of Baum’s article, this knowledge consists of “the marvels of life and the wonders of the universe” that are brought to a child’s notice and “registered upon the sensitive film” of their mind.[20] Consistent with both the fantastic nature of liminality as well as the Baum excerpt above, everything in Kansas is colorless like the “great gray prairie” (even Aunt Em), but The Land of Oz is:

 …a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had ever seen.[21]

The Witch of the North’s response to Dorothy’s question about the existence of witches in Oz reinforces its liminal status. The Good Witch explains that “in the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized.[22] In other words, Oz does not represent one of the stable points within Dorothy’s transition. As noted, those are represented by Kansas.

Instead, The Land of Oz is topsy-turvy and chaotic, the defining characteristics of liminality. Oz is also “cut off from all the rest of the world,” which parallels the isolation of ritual subjects from the larger community during the liminal stage of their initiation. “Therefore,” the Witch of the North states, “we still have witches and wizards amongst us.”[23]  Because liminality is where the transformative magic happens. __________

Oz as Liminal Space.

Ritual devices, things like masks, figurines, and body paint used by traditional societies during the liminal phase in rites of passage, are created by taking cultural elements out of their usual contexts and re-configuring them into something new, something that doesn’t exist in reality. Though these materials can be monstrous, the point is less about terrifying initiates out of their wits, than it is about making them “vividly and rapidly aware” of important aspects of their culture.[24] The purpose of these devices is to startle initiates into thinking about objects, relationships, and aspects of their environment they have taken for granted up to this point. Or, in the context of Baum’s article, “marvels of life and wonders of the universe” that hadn’t registered in their minds before.

The fanciful characters in The Land of Oz are consistent with this recombination of elements, confirming Oz’s liminality. A living scarecrow and talking lion are just for starters, not to mention the bear-tiger combo called the Kalidah, flying monkeys, and combative trees. Then there are the field mice organized as a monarchy, people who are made of porcelain, and the Quadlings who have no arms but a spring-loaded head. If these don’t say liminality, I don’t know what does!

But why does alluding to liminality make Baum such a successful writer of children’s books? Because doing so taps into what his young audience is experiencing during this stage of their development. As Baum notes, the fresh “realization of existence” sets every nerve “tingling with excitement.”[25] He may have found it surprising that other adults “so evidently fail to grasp” the mentality of those taking their “first peep” at the world, but Baum clearly understood their mindset.[26]

Since Baum’s aim was to write a wonder tale for the children of his day, it’s understandable that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz reflects the culture he, and they, experienced. Symbolism associated with the stages in Dorothy’s transition are inspired by Baum’s life experience. For example, westward expansion was significant in nineteenth-century America, with a lot of people moving into tornado-prone areas. Seeing the west as a place “where an intelligent man may profit,” Baum was among them.[27]  He published a newspaper called the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, and one article he wrote involved a tornado that launched a pig hiding in a buggy a distance of 300 feet. Happily, the pig was uninjured, but more importantly Baum had the inspiration for Dorothy and Toto’s arrival in Oz.[28]

Needless to say, the cyclone that sets the story in motion represents the separation phase within rites of passage. The twister literally detaches Dorothy from the dry, colorless Kansas prairie, and symbolically speaking, the mode when a child lacks the understanding that they’re “a component part of mighty creation.” When the cyclone hits, Dorothy is taking shelter in the family’s empty farmhouse. Being alone in an empty house is a common dream symbol for an old personality structure, which underscores the symbolic link to Dorothy’s childhood development.[29] __________

Entering the Liminal Stage.

Upon landing in Oz (on top of the Wicked Witch of the East to be precise), Dorothy enters the liminal stage of her transition. And she is promptly greeted by the Witch of the North, who functions as the village elder responsible for shepherding an initiate through their rite of passage. Much has been written about Baum’s connection to Theosophy, an esoteric movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century. The Witch of the North parallels the wisdom’s “world Mother,” who in a very real sense, takes “all the women of the world” under Her charge.[30] Which is precisely what she does with Dorothy.

Naturally, the witch’s association with the North suggests a connection to the Pole Star, which according to Theosophy keeps a “watchful eye” on the “Imperishable Sacred Land” around the North Pole.[31] Consistent with this imagery, the Witch of the North gives Dorothy a protective talisman – a kiss on the forehead. The kiss is clearly a nod to what is known in Theosophy as “Dangma’s opened eye,” the inner spiritual eye of an advanced student.[32]

The Witch of the North ultimately sends Dorothy to the City of Emeralds, in the hope of an audience with the Great Wizard. But not before she puts on the silver shoes that previously belonged to the Witch of the East, which marks Dorothy’s acceptance of her role in this rite of passage. The road that will lead Dorothy to the City of Emeralds is famously paved with yellow brick, an image that recalls Baum’s years at military school in Peekskill, NY., a manufacturing center of Dutch paving bricks, which are bright yellow in color.[33] __________

A Fellowship of Initiates. 

The liminal stage within rites of passage includes a series of trials. These tests serve to determine if the subject is ready to assume their new standing in the community. In collective rites (especially from childhood to adulthood), they are also intended to promote a bond among initiates. The fellowship that forms during this period surpasses distinctions of rank, age, kinship position, and in some cultures even gender.[34]

The Scarecrow is, of course, the first of Dorothy’s new-found companions. And meeting him is significant because he’s the first being Dorothy comes across who embodies the recombining of elements inherent in the liminal phase. She’s obviously getting deeper into liminality. After traveling together for a few hours, the road begins to get rough, and “the farther they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became.”[35] It’s clear she’s about to encounter the testing aspect of liminality, especially since the pair come to a great dark forest which is a traditional threshold symbol, as well as a place of testing and initiation.[36]

In keeping with the “comradeship” that forms as a result of the trials within the liminal phase, the Tin Woodman and the Lion join Dorothy’s party during her journey through the forest. The Scarecrow is reconfigured from Baum’s childhood nightmares, but he also reflects the significance of American farmers during this period.[37] The Tin Woodman looks like a display Baum put together for a hardware store during his days as a window dresser. But more importantly, being a mechanical man, he signifies the rapid industrialization of the times. In the context of liminal recombining, he is the grafting of twentieth-century technology to the fairy tale tradition.[38] The Cowardly Lion’s very nature, and ability to speak deem him a liminal character. And he’s been said to represent orator and politician William Jennings Bryan.[39] __________

Dorothy’s Trials.

Consistent with the forest’s capacity as a testing ground, the group’s progress is thwarted when they come upon a great gulf that blocks their path. After some considerable thought as to what they should do, the Scarecrow devises a plan to build a makeshift bridge.

Just as Dorothy and company start to cross the bridge, a pair of Kalidahs, “monstrous beasts” with incredibly sharp claws, comes charging toward them.[40] But after some roaring and wielding of the Tin Woodman’s axe, the troop manages to send the “ugly, snarling brutes” to the bottom of the gulf.[41]

The “Deadly Poppy Field” is yet another trial the group faces.[42] The Queen of the Mice owes Dorothy and friends a favor for saving her from a wildcat. So, the queen gathers her people to help rescue the Lion, who has succumbed to the poppies’ stupefying fragrance.[43]

Next Comes the Ordeal.

Many cultures describe rites of passage as “growing” a child into an adult.[44] Which is why they typically include an ordeal of some sort, one that signifies the dissolution of the initiate’s previous state.[45] Needless to say Dorothy’s ordeal is to kill the Witch of the West. The fact that there’s no road to the Witch of the West’s castle underscores the distinction between this undertaking, and the tests Dorothy and friends encountered in the forest. But after several run-ins with the witch’s minions, including the famous encounter with flying monkeys, Dorothy accomplishes her task.  And given that the purpose of such liminal ordeals is dissolution of the initiate’s previous state, it’s only fitting that Dorothy succeeds in her ordeal by melting the Witch away to a “brown… shapeless mass,” which she promptly sweeps “out the door.”[46]

After wrapping up a few loose ends with the Winkies, Dorothy and company return to Emerald City. Because the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are from the Land of Oz, the tokens the Wizard gives them are enough to achieve new status. Dorothy, on the other hand, needs to get back to Kansas in order to carry out the final, re-incorporation phase of her rite of passage. But the Wizard is proven to be a fraud, and unable to send Dorothy home.

So, at the suggestion of the guardian of Emerald City’s gate, the group is off to ask Glinda, Witch of the South, for help. As Oz scholar Michael Patrick Hearns suggests, the adventures that take place on their way to Glinda’s castle allow Dorothy’s companions to utilize their new skills, and embrace their hard-won status.[47] Dorothy, on the other hand, remains betwixt & between.

And Finally, On to Re-incorporation.

Shortly after the troop arrives at her castle, Glinda advises Dorothy that all she has to do is “knock the heels” of her Silver Shoes together three times, and command them to carry her wherever she wishes to go.[48] And before Dorothy knows it, she’s back in Kansas, sitting in front of her family’s new farmhouse, “built after the cyclone had carried away the old one.”[49]  While the house that Dorothy was carried away in symbolizes her old personality structure, this one represents the new mode of being Dorothy has just attained. And Aunt Em “folding the little girl in her arms,” constitutes rites of incorporation.[50]

Dorothy has completed her transition. We know this for a couple of reasons. First, she has shed the silver shoes she’d been wearing throughout her journey in Oz. But more importantly, in that it’s developmentally significant, prior to the cyclone Dorothy didn’t engage with either Uncle Henry or Aunt Em. In fact, Baum explicitly states that her only interaction was with Toto, which signifies her lack of understanding that she’s “a component part of mighty creation.”[51]

So, their hug isn’t about Dorothy’s new-found appreciation for Aunt Em. Dorothy has loved Aunt Em from the beginning. Not only was Dorothy concerned that Em would be worrying about her, returning to Em was the entire motivation for Dorothy’s journey. After taking out the Witch of the West, Dorothy could have claimed the Yellow Castle for herself and lived quite comfortably with her friends in Oz forever. Instead, she returned to Emerald City to claim the Wizard’s promise to send her back to Kansas.

What Dorothy’s hug for Em does signify, is that her mind “has absorbed the astonishing circumstances of [her] environment.” Dorothy is deliberately (and quite literally) embracing “the practical details of worldly experience,” the world of the broad Kansas prairie, where the days are filled with activities like milking cows and watering the cabbages.

In Conclusion.

Dorothy may have returned to Kansas, but she isn’t right back where she started. She has been transformed. She is now, as Baum described it, “filled with unalloyed vigor” and ready to step “upon the threshold” of life.[52] And Dorothy’s transition to this new mode of being was brought about by her journey through liminality, as signified by Oz, a land betwixt & between. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is indeed a wonder tale. And the realization that it’s more than just a fun ride on an adventurous narrative makes it even more wonderous.

That’s my take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – what’s yours?
Check out this discussion guide to get you started.

Download L. Frank Baum’s wonder tale here.

#banned books       #witchcraft      #liminal      #published 1900    #betwixt & between          #rite of passage

Endnotes:

[1] Baum, L. Frank, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Harper Collins, 1987), 1.
[2] The Wizard of Oz: An American Fairy Tale. Library of Congress Exhibitions.
[3] Field, Hana. “Years of Censoring ‘Oz.’” Chicago Tribune. (May 8, 2000).
[4] Rosenthal, Kristina. The University of Tulsa Special Collections.
[5] Baum, 1; “Dorothy the Librarian.” Life Magazine. (Feb. 16, 1959), 47; Field.
[6] Taylor, Stuart. “Justices Refuse to Hear Tennessee Case on Bible and Textbooks.” The New York Times. (Feb. 23, 1988).
[7] The Gazette (Montreal). (Oct. 25, 1986).
[8] Taylor.[9] Hesse, Hermann. “On Reading Books.” in My Beliefs: Essays on Life and Art. Edited by Theodore Ziolkowski, translated by Denver Lindley. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 101.
[10] Baum, Frank L. “What Children Want.” Chicago Evening Post. (November 27, 1902).
[11] Baum What Children Want.
[12] Baum What Children Want.
[13] Turner, Victor. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage.” Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation. Edited by Lois Carus Mahdi, Steven Foster, Meredith Little. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987), 7.
[14] Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960), 10; Eliade, Mircea. Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth. Translated by Willard R. Trask. (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), xiii.
[15] Baum What Children Want.
[16] Baum What Children Want.
[17] Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982), 41.
[18] Turner, Victor. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 97; Turner, Victor. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage.” Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation. Edited by Lois Carus Mahdi, Steven Foster, Meredith Little. (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1987), 7.
[19] Turner Betwixt and Between, 11.
[20] Baum What Children Want.
[21] Baum Oz, 22.
[22] Baum Oz, 28.
[23] Baum Oz, 28.
[24] Turner Betwixt and Between, 14.
[25] Baum What Children Want.
[26] Baum What Children Want.
[27] Koupal, Nancy Tystad. “The Wonderful Wizard of the West. L. Frank Baum in South Dakota, 1888-91.” Great Plains Quarterly. (Fall 1989), 204.
[28] Schwartz, Evan I. “Matilda Joslyn Gage-the Unlikely Inspiration for the Wizard of Oz.” Historynet.com
[29] Jones, Raya A. “A Discovery of Meaning: The case of C. G. Jung’s house dream.” Working Paper 79. School of Social Sciences. Cardiff University, 9; Peterson, Deb. “The Hero’s Journey: Refusing The Call to Adventure.” ThoughtCo.com.
[30] Leadbeater, C. W. The World Mother As Symbol and Fact. (Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1928), 1-2.
[31] Blavatsky, H. P. The Secret Doctrine Vol. II-Anthropogeneis, (New York: The Theosophical Publishing Co, 1888), 6, 400, 6.
[32] Blavatsky Secret Doctrine, 6, 400, 6.
[33] Schwartz, Evan. Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story. (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 2009), 13.
[34] Turner Forest of Symbols, 100-101.
[35] Baum Oz, 51-52.
[36] Cooper, J. C. An Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. (High Holborn: Thames and Hudson, 1987), 72.
[37] Gourley, Catherine. Media Wizards: A Behind-the-scenes Look at Media Manipulations. (Brookfield, Connecticut: Twenty-First Century Books, 1999), 7.
[38] Haas, Joseph. “A Little Bit of ‘Oz’ in Northern Indiana.” Indiana Times, May 3, 1965; Gardner, Martin and Russell B. Nye editors. The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was. (East Lansing: Michigan University Press, 1994), 7.
[39] Littlefield, Henry M. “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.” American Quarterly, Vol. 16, No.1, 53.
[40] Baum Oz, 93.
[41] Baum Oz, 94-97.
[42] Baum Oz, 102.
[43] Baum Oz, 122.
[44] Turner Forest of Symbols, 101-102.
[45] Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. (New York: Cornell University Press, 1969), 103.
[46] Baum Oz, 182.
[47] Hearn, Michael Patrick. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. (New York: Norton, 2000), 313.
[48] Baum Oz, 303.
[49] Baum Oz, 305.
[50] Baum Oz, 307.
[51] Baum What Children Want.
[52] Baum What Children Want.

Images:

Title page. Baum, L. Frank. Illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Geo. M. Hill Co, 1900). Public domain. Source: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library  via Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz,_006.png
Image has been retouched by user.

All other illustrations from Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
 Baum, L. Frank. Illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Geo. M. Hill Co, 1900). Public domain.
Source: Library of Congress Children’s Book Selections. https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use     Item number- https://lccn.loc.gov/03032405

Rites of Passage table constructed by author.

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T
he Giver is about Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy who lives in a futuristic society where life appears to be nothing less than idyllic. If everything in this world is so perfect, what‘s the rub? Why was The Giver banned? Why has it been one of the most controversial books since its release in 1993?[1]

Like most books about so-called utopias, this society has a dark underbelly. And the most frequent reason for the book’s ongoing challenges is the claim that it’s “unsuited” to the middle-schoolers it is primarily assigned to.[2] Parents of a 2007 challenge summed up this sentiment with their characterization of Lowry’s book as “too dark” for preteens.[3]

The novel’s first notable banning came in 1994, when California parents complained about passages that deal with sexual awakening.[4] In 1995, a Kansas parent challenged The Giver over references to suicide and murder, as well as a perceived “degradation of motherhood and adolescence.”[5] In 1999, it was challenged in both Ohio and Florida by parents offended by mentions of suicide, infanticide, and euthanasia.[6] Challengers in 2007 added “adolescent pill-popping” to the list of objections.[7] The Giver continues to appear on the American Library Association’s list of 100 most banned and challenged books for all the same reasons.

Granted, the society Lowry created contains some dark elements. There’s a reason for that. These dark elements prompt the reader to think about topics like ethics, democracy, and human interdependence. As one teacher points out, “there’s a lot of strength and power” in discussing questions like “what makes a good society?” and “what is my role in society?” with middle-schoolers. They’re beginning to grapple with such issues.[8] So, is The Giver really too dark for preteens? No. It’s just dark enough to spark a conversation about what kind of world they’ll want to build when their generation takes the reins.

Despite some challengers’ misguided ideas, The Giver is not a portal to the dark side. In fact, a careful reading like the one that follows, reveals that it’s a lesson in how to avoid going to the dark side.
———-

Liberal Arts — Rx for the Human Condition.

“You and I are the only ones with access to the books.”[9] This comment by The Giver seems like a throwaway line having more to do with his apprentice’s future living arrangements than anything. But it isn’t. This typically overlooked remark is actually the key to unlocking Lois Lowry’s novel, especially when considered alongside a similar statement made by The Giver later in the book… “Jonas, you and I are the only one who have feelings.”[10]

How are access to books and having feelings related? Ursula K. Le Guin sums it up nicely:

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel—or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel—is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become… And a person who had never listened to nor read a tale or myth or parable or story, would remain ignorant of his own emotional and spiritual heights and depths, would not know quite fully what it is to be human. For the story—from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace—is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding.[11]

One example of the ways literature broadens our horizons can be found in James Baldwin’s anecdote about a time when he was very young. He “assumed that no one had ever been born who was only five feet six inches tall, or been born poor, or been born ugly.”[12] “No one,” he believed, “had ever suffered” the way he did.[13] Then, after reading Dostoevsky, he realized that such concerns are common, if not universal. Baldwin described this realization as a “liberation,” one that empowered him to take charge of his life and write about such social issues, which lead him to become the cultural icon he is today.[14]
———-

The Seductive World of The Giver.

Lois Lowry set out to seduce the reader with a world that “seems familiar, comfortable, and safe.”[15] On its face this unnamed community is an orderly and peaceful place where life appears to be nothing less than idyllic. Lowry got rid of everything she “fear[s] and dislike[s],” things like poverty, pain, inequality. And according to one of her young fans, the cherry on top of this utopian sundae is that the people in this world don’t even “have to do the dishes.”[16]

All that sounds great! However… the very word utopia indicates that they don’t exist. The term is derived from the Greek ou-topos meaning “no place” or “nowhere.” It was coined by Thomas More for his sixteenth-century book of the same name, as a pun on the nearly identical Greek word eu-topos, or “good place.”[17] So, Jonas’ world may be void of poverty, pain, and inequality, but what else is it missing?

Music, theatre, and art are all conspicuously absent. There’s no literature either, none of the novels, plays, poetry, or histories that address the human condition, broaden our horizons, and keep cultural memory alive. The Giver shows us what happens to society when a Liberal Arts education is deemed frivolous, when the Humanities and fine arts are cast aside, disciplines that produced the likes of our Founding Fathers among others. It’s an important and relevant message. Rather, a warning given our obsession with STEM studies over the past several decades to the neglect of a Liberal Arts Education.

According to a recent study, the downturn in Humanities degrees appears to be a global phenomenon. The Humanities’ share of bachelor’s degrees conferred in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries is at its smallest number since a complete accounting of Humanities degrees first became possible, in 1987. And the United States ranks below the OECD average – not only at the bachelor’s level, but for advanced degrees as well. [18]

Albert Einstein himself advocated a Liberal Arts education. He said, “it is not enough to teach a man a specialty,” noting “through it he may become a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality.”[19] Einstein also pointed out that “overemphasis” on merely finding a job, and “premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness, kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends,” including the technological insights STEM studies are intended to produce.[20] Einstein goes on to say that students “must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good.”[21] Because ultimately, they “must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow men and to the community.”[22]

It was clear to Einstein then and continues to be true today, neglecting the humanities is doubly destructive. Not only does an education lacking in these disciplines stunt the growth and development of the human person, it unleashes technology with no ethical constraints. We see both of these disastrous developments in The Giver.
———-

When the Humanities are Neglected.

No one in The Giver’s world has experienced the universal emotional response to powerful music, like that produced by Beethoven, Wagner, or Nine Inch Nails, or Johnny Cash for that matter.[23] Nor have the citizens in this literally colorless community, where everything appears in black and white like a 1950s T.V. show, felt awestruck while gazing on a painting by the likes of DaVinci, Rembrandt, O’Keefe, or Basquiat. These arts are nonexistent, as are the emotions they evoke. This stunted emotional development is symbolized by the daily pill all citizens are required to take at the onset of sexual “stirrings,” a drug clearly designed to keep all emotions at bay.[24]

As Lowry’s protagonist Jonas points out, the only books in his dwelling are the “necessary reference volumes” that occupy a shelf in every household: “a dictionary, and the thick community volume containing descriptions of every office, factory, building, and committee. And The Book of Rules, of course.”[25]

Given this selection of books, Jonas’ community is undoubtedly well-organized and efficient. For example, all children in a given age-group dress identically, in clothing that reflects their stage of development and indicates their age.  The universal mode of transportation is the bicycle, and every child receives one in their ninth year. And the Department of Bicycle Repair keeps every bike in tip-top shape for the entire life of its owner. Every adolescent is assigned a job, one they’ll do for the rest of their working lives. Jobs are chosen by community elders according to each young adult’s proficiency and aptitude. From this point on, a student’s schooling consists exclusively of training for their future occupations.

This system does indeed produce capable workers. Like The Giver, says, “Everyone is well trained for his job.”[26] But as noted earlier, literature, or any other art for that matter, is non-existent in this society. There is nothing to cultivate an appreciation for the difference between “earning a living” and actually living.[27] And without the cultural memories and emotions that literature nurtures, as The Giver goes on to say, “it’s all meaningless.”[28]

The job Jonas was assigned, Receiver-in-Training, is like no other. He’d been selected as successor to the outgoing Receiver of Memories, a position of great honor. Through a bit of magical realism, the Receiver holds the collective memory of the entire world. But it’s time for the Receiver to pass these memories to Jonas. Therefore, he is now called The Giver. And by way of the same magical realism that allows him to hold an entire world’s memories, The Giver transfers these memories to Jonas through touch.

After receiving several memories from The Giver, Jonas realizes that he’s developed a new depth of feeling. His emotions are no longer the shallow sentiments dissected each night with endless talk and “precise language.”[29] He now understands that maternal love could be deeper than the anemic variety his mother has been conditioned to feel, more than simply a question of whether she “enjoy[s] him” – which she assures Jonas she does. And a father’s love is not limited to taking pride in his child’s accomplishments – which Jonas’ father confirms that he does. Jonas has experienced the physical sensations that come with emotions like joy and grief. He can truly say that he feels “such love” for his friends Asher and Fiona.[30] Sadly, he also understands that they can’t “feel it back.”[31]
———-

And Back and Back and Back.[32]

During his first session as Receiver-in-training, Jonas was surprised and confused by the concept of previous generations. Bewildered, he tells The Giver, “I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.”[33] He had never thought beyond his own nose so to speak. It never occurred to Jonas that his parents must have also had parents, never mind pondering questions about how or why his community developed the way it did, and how it may change in the future.

This scenario reflects the shortsighted perspective, and diminished understanding of the world that develops without a grasp of History. No matter who we are, where we live, or what we do for a living, studying history helps us understand how our world came to be, which in turn gives us insight into our place in society. Connecting with history also makes the world come alive. It fills us with curiosity, as it did for Jonas who suddenly had a string of questions: “Why don’t we have snow, and sleds, and hills? And when did we, in the past? Did my parents have sleds when they were young?”[34]

But history’s function doesn’t end with connecting the present to the past. Understanding how our society came to be doesn’t just give us insight into today’s world, it also helps us deal with the societal shifts that will inevitably occur in the future. In short, knowledge of history is a through line from the past-to the present-to the future. Bearing this in mind, the “releases” that take place in Jonas’ world, euthanizing the elderly and certain infants, reflect the severed connection to both the past and the future that occurs when history is deemed a frivolous subject. Once again, The Giver’s dystopian society exhibits the deficiencies that arise from an education lacking in the humanities.

On their face these euthanizations (which prompt virtually every banning of The Giver) embody the technologies that have been used unethically over the course of history. At a speaking engagement for Lowry’s book Number the Stars, a woman sighed loudly and asked “Why do we have to tell this Holocaust thing over and over? Is it really necessary?”[35] Lowry quoted her German daughter-in-law, who asserts “No one knows better than we Germans that we must tell this again and again.”[36]

Familiarity with the history of such atrocities and understanding the environment that produced them, is the first step toward preventing them from happening again. And realizing that such barbarity occurred can shed light on present-day circumstances. For example, knowing that smallpox-laden blankets were delivered to indigenous tribes as a means of quashing Indian resistance makes it easier to understand the Native American’s ardent response to the pandemic currently wreaking havoc in our nation.[37]

Finally, the study of philosophy is increasingly seen as nothing more than “navel-gazing.” Unfortunately, a failure to understand ethics increases the possibility that a technology like the euthanasia seen in The Giver’s world will be turned on the weak, sick, or non-conforming in our own. We’ve seen it before – but you have to be acquainted with history to know that.
———-

The Road to Elsewhere.

As indicated above, The Giver passes “knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth” along to Jonas.[38] The same thing happens every time we open a book. And like Jonas’ daily visits to The Giver do for him, the more books we read the more our horizons are expanded.

After a year of studying with The Giver, Jonas sees the river that borders the community differently. Prior to his training as Receiver of Memories Jonas only saw in black and white. Now he sees “all of the light and color” the river contains.[39] He now understands there’s an “Elsewhere” that the river came from, and an “Elsewhere” that the water is heading toward. Jonas has also learned enough about history and ethics that, like the middle-school students who read this book, he is asking questions like “what makes a good society”? And as a result, Jonas reaches the conclusion that his world isn’t what it could, or should be. But here’s the important thing… he’s inspired to do something about it.

Jonas realizes that the citizens of his community would benefit greatly if they shared the memories The Receiver of Memory now holds for them. They would acquire the sorely missed wisdom that comes with such knowledge. Together, Jonas and The Giver devise a plan to make the memories he carries go back to the people. It’ll be tricky and dangerous to pull off. And it will be painful for the community at first, but The Giver will help them integrate the difficult memories, as he had done with Jonas.

Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. A sudden decision to “release” the infant Jonas had been helping care for forces him to slip out in the middle of night, baby in tow and ill-prepared for their journey. And this turn of events is symbolically significant.

It’s no coincidence that Jonas and Gabriel both have pale eyes, not to mention The Giver. Readers often ask if Jonas and Gabriel are brothers, or if The Giver is Jonas’ father. Given the way families are formed in Lowry’s book, this is certainly a practical explanation for why these three share the same eye color.  When we engage Lowry’s symbolism, however, we see that pale eyes signify a capacity for empathy, and the emotional development that Humanities nurture.

It’s also no coincidence that three generations are represented. The past is embodied in The Giver, whose abilities were severely restricted by The Committee of Elders. Jonas, of course personifies the present, with the infant Gabriel signifying the future Jonas is attempting to rescue from a dystopian past.

The process of returning the memories to the community, however, does work just as Jonas and The Giver anticipated. Through the same magical realism Lowry used when The Giver transferred memories to him, Jonas begins to “shed” these memories once he and Gabriel get beyond the bounds of the community.[40] As a result, the color, trees, wildflowers, and animals that had long been missing in his world, return to the landscape. Finally, after walking (apparently in circles) for days, at a point when it appears that he and Gabriel are going to die from starvation and exposure, they crest a snow-covered hill and come upon a place Jonas recognizes… from a memory of his own. It is familiar but different, he could see lights, red, yellow, and blue ones, twinkling on trees as they shine through the windows of places where families “created and kept memories, where they celebrated love.”[41] And Jonas could hear something he’d never heard before, something he knew must be music. “He heard people singing.”[42]
———-

In Conclusion.

With the return of memories long held by The Receiver, the people of Jonas’ world have clearly realized a thing or two about actually living. This final scene embodies what The Giver has to say about the significance of the humanities and the importance of a Liberal Arts education, an insight crystalized in Steve Jobs’ oft-quoted remark:

Technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the result that makes our hearts sing.[43]

As The Giver makes clear, the Humanities are central to cultural heritage, not to mention critical to our development as human beings. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, they “make your soul grow.” [44] But unlike the memories Jonas returned to the people, insights the humanities have to offer don’t magically take root in our minds. Which is why it’s crucial that Liberal Arts programs be supported rather than allowed to languish in the shadow of STEM studies. Lowry’s novel gives us a glimpse of what happens if we don’t.

.

Albert Einstein is literally the face of the STEM education so highly regarded in society today. We see his likeness on countless numbers of brochures for science programs, camps, and fairs. But, what did Einstein himself say about education? A lot of us would be shocked to discover that he championed a liberal arts education. Given (as the expression goes), when we look up “genius” in the dictionary we see a picture of Einstein, we should listen to what he has to say.
_____

What does Einstein say about a Liberal Arts education?

During Einstein’s first visit to the US, the Boston press greeted him with a question. The query came from Thomas Edison’s recently created test to evaluate potential employees. Edison’s survey was born of his view that “college men” (by which he meant those with a liberal arts education) “don’t seem to know anything.” The test consisted of practical questions like, “What is shellac,” and “Of what is glass made?”[1]  Not surprisingly, the question posed to Einstein was, “What is the speed of sound?” His response… “I don’t know. I don’t burden my memory with such facts that I can easily find in any textbook.”[2]  According to Einstein:

The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.[3]

Though it seems paradoxical, Einstein believed that “the development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.”[4]  And his remarks aren’t limited to a student’s college years. He further states, “it is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed personality.”[5]
_____

On a Practical Note.

As Einstein notes, overemphasizing “the competitive system,” and “immediate usefulness” kills the spirit that feeds cultural life. [6]  Not so ironically, this includes the new and innovative specialized knowledge on which STEM disciplines depend. Einstein sums up this thinking by asserting that those whose education is limited to specialized knowledge “more closely resemble a well-trained dog” than a well-rounded individual.[7]

On a practical note, Einstein also points out that those who have “learned to think and work independently” are able to adapt to “progress and changes” more readily than the person whose training principally consists of acquiring “detailed knowledge.”[8]  Given that career trajectories these days are not as steady as they once were, the capacity to adapt is more beneficial than ever.  An ability to adjust to new developments in the job market is increasingly necessary, especially considering that many current high school students will work in jobs that don’t even exist yet.

_____

Arts and Sciences: branches of the same tree.

Einstein reminds us that the “arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.”[9]  Directing his observation toward the medical sciences, he stressed that while “sufficient knowledge and a solid background in the sciences are essential,” it is “not enough.”[10]  Physicians are not just scientists, or good technicians. “[They] must be more than that… [They] must have a personal understanding and sympathy for the suffering of human beings.”[11]  And a good dose of liberal arts cultivates the compassion that makes the difference between simple health care professionals and exemplary clinicians.
_____

Literature & Medicine.

Literature & Medicine programs like the one administered by the Maine Humanities Council, which engage health care professionals with literature, exemplify what Einstein meant by the arts and sciences functioning as branches of the same tree. Evaluating patients requires the same skills employed by careful readers of literature. For example, respect for language, adopting points of view other than your own, as well as interpreting the meaning and significance of isolated phenomena (a clinician evaluating physical findings parallels a reader interpreting symbols and metaphors within a literary text).[12]

As any book lover will tell you, literature immerses the reader in situations outside their own experience. Consequently, Literature and Medicine programs amplify participants’ ability to not only interpret their patients’ illnesses, but care for them in a more comprehensive fashion. For example, engaging with Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis enlightens participating clinicians to the ways illness and injury can disfigure, isolate, and transform a person. Depression, as depicted in Jane Kenyon’s collection of poetry, Otherwise, has helped participants realize the need to move beyond a strictly intellectual understanding of the illness. And reading Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey has deepened clinicians’ understanding of the ways warfare and post-traumatic stress disorder effect the individual.[13]
_____

A richer foundation for machine intelligence.

Another example of how arts and sciences are branches of the same tree concerns the research and development of the Artificial Intelligence that’s rapidly coming our way. As Fei-Fei Li, one of the top minds working in the field, remarks:

Despite its name, there is nothing ‘artificial’ about this technology – it is made by humans, intended to behave like humans, and affects humans. So, if we want it to play a positive role in tomorrow’s world, it must be guided by human concerns.[14]

It’s no simple task, however, to make Artificial Intelligence sensitive to the scope of human thought. Li advocates connecting AI with fields like psychology, cognitive science, and sociology. Stressing that this approach provides a richer foundation for the development of machine intelligence, she calls on universities to promote interdisciplinary affiliations between computer science, social sciences, and the humanities.

In doing so, this intimidating technology would be more than the job displacing competition we worry about. According to Li, AI would become a partner in “securing our well-being,” by “enhancing us” rather than replacing us.[15]  And once again, the nuanced understanding necessary to make this visionary undertaking succeed is cultivated by the liberal arts. Without Humanities to shape technological advances like Artificial Intelligence, we end up with a dystopic society like the one in Lois Lowry’s book The Giver.
_____

The most important benefit of all.

Einstein also addressed an aspect of a liberal arts education typically overlooked in the STEM vs liberal arts debate… perhaps the most important benefit of all.  As he observed, these disciplines are “directed at ennobling man’s life.”[16]  For most of human history, education meant job training. Hunters and farmers taught the young to hunt and farm. And warriors taught their kids how to fight. Children of the ruling class were instructed in the arts of war, governance, and the exercise of authority. But, even that education was simply preparation for the roles they would assume as adults rather than for any broader purpose like truth, justice or equality.[17]

Around the fifth century BC, however, some of the Greek city-states began experimenting with a new form of government.[18]  They called it democracy. And they did so because, as noted by Athenian statesman Pericles, “power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.”[19]  Not surprisingly, this radical change in government called for a simultaneous transformation of education. This innovative new curriculum was passed on to the Romans, and it came to be known as a liberal arts education. The term liberal is derived from the Latin liberalis, meaning instruction particularly suited to the youth who is free.[20]

Democratic governance is a complicated matter. And the liberal arts curriculum was specifically designed to nurture a community of engaged citizens, and bolster the robust exchange of ideas necessary for a democracy to function. Einstein reiterates the Greeks’ foundational sentiment when he observed that, in order to form proper relationships (both to other individuals, and the community we live in), we must learn to understand “the motives of human beings, their illusions and their sufferings.”[21]

Schooling limited to the instruction of practical skills certainly won’t facilitate the fellow-feeling that democracy is founded on. But, an education grounded in the liberal arts will. Books like Of Mice and Men, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Thirteen Reasons Why, for example, nurture the empathy necessary to understand where our fellow citizens are coming from.
_____

We need this today more than ever.

It’s no coincidence that the divisions prevalent in our country come at a time when there is so much disregard for a liberal arts education. Humanities programs in K-12 education have been diminishing for decades. And a liberal arts education is increasingly characterized as frivolous. So, no one should be surprised that today’s headlines are filled with stories about American democracy being in crisis.

Deliberation between an instrumental view of education, and those who consider it to be in and of itself, goes back as far as Plato. Inspired by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle considered education to be a search for truth. On the other hand, the rhetorician Isocrates and his followers believed a person could arrive at virtue and make a good living through more practical skills. This debate clearly continues to the present day.[22]

The more practical perspective may have gained the upper hand as early as the ancient world, but as Einstein emphasized above, the Arts and STEM disciplines are “branches of the same tree.” A liberal arts education teaches us to think independently, as well as connect with our fellow human beings. And it actually makes science better.

But don’t take my word for it… listen to Einstein.

#liberal arts     #benefits of the humanities      #Plato      #critical thinking

Endnotes:

[1] “Edison on College Men.” New York Times, May 6, 1921; “Edison Questions Stir Up a Storm.” New York Times. May 11,1921.
[2] Frank, Philipp. Einstein, His Life and Times. Translated by George Rosen. Edited and Revised by Suichi Kusaka. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1947), 164.
[3] Frank, 164.
[4] Einstein, Albert. “On Education.” In Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words.  (New York: Open Road integrated Media, 1950).
[5] Fine, Benjamin. “Einstein Stresses Critical Thinking.” The New York Times. October 5, 1952.
[6] Fine.
[7] Fine.
[8] Einstein. “On Education.” In Out of My Later Years.
[9] Einstein. “Moral Decay.” In Out of my Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words.  (New York: Open Road integrated Media, 1950).
[10] Fine.
[11] Fine.
[12] Bonebakker, Victoria. “Humanities at the heart of healthcare.” Hektoen International: A Journal of Medical Humanities. 
[13] Bonebakker.
[14] Daly, Ciarán. “Fei-Fei Li: How To Build Human-Centered AI.” AI Business. March 12, 2018.
[15] Daly.
[16] Einstein, Albert. “Moral Decay.” In Out of My Later Years.
[17] Zakaria, Fareed. In Defense of a Liberal Education. (New York: W. W. Norton &Co, 2015).
[18] Kimball, Bruce, The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Documentary History. (New York: University Press of America, Inc., 2010), 1.
[19] Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Rex Warner (New York: Penguin, 1954), 2.37.
[20] Kimball. The Liberal Arts Tradition, 14.
[21] Fine.
[22] Zakaria; Kimball, The Liberal Arts Tradition; Kimball, Bruce. Orators & Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education. (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1995).

hy are books written, if not for a reader’s enjoyment? People have been telling stories since the dawn of time.  As Ursula K. Le Guin points out, “There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.”[1] That said, as much as some of us like to just kick back and ride a good narrative, storytelling has never been just about entertainment.

Narrative is so important because stories have always been the best way to pass on essential knowledge. It’s important to know the best place to look for grubs, for example, or the rules and expectations of the clan. Putting this information in an entertaining package not only helped it take root in young minds, a message embedded in an enjoyable story was more likely to be passed on.[2] And narrative continues to serve such a  purpose.

The Celtic tale about a supernatural woman winning the footrace she was forced to run against the king’s chariot despite being in the throes of birth pangs, is a fantastic story to be sure.[3]  But the underlying message in The Curse of Macha is that we should treat our mothers well. It isn’t called the “Curse” of Macha for nothing. Yarns about the child-snatching arctic sea monster Qallupilluk are exciting on their face, but the lesson is clear. “Inuit children, ‘it is never safe to play on the beach alone!’”[4] And the warning imbedded in the fairy tale thriller Little Red Riding Hood is quite simply, “don’t talk to strangers.”[5]
_________

Legends and Epic Poetry
Shape History and Cultural Beliefs.

Take Gilgamesh for instance, said to be the oldest written story in the world.[6] The epic’s hero was a historical king of the Mesopotamian city Uruk, and versions of his legendary deeds had been handed down in oral fashion for hundreds of years. Gilgamesh’s exploits involve the face-changing monster Humbaba, a pantheon of gods and goddesses, not to mention the wild man Enkidu. Though they are indeed gripping tales of adventure, they were “printed” during the reign of King Shulgi (of the Third Dynasty of Ur) for a political purpose. King Shulgi claimed the gods and ancient Kings of Uruk as ancestors in order to strengthen the legitimacy of his own kingship.[7] Literally setting the epic in stone, or in this case clay tablets, gives King Shulgi’s claim an authority impervious to challenge. And given the permanent nature of the written word, he gets to control what is now an incontrovertible narrative.

When it comes to Virgil’s Aeneid who doesn’t love a good battle scene, especially one fueled by a vindictive goddess? But once again, there’s more to it than that. There is a longstanding view that Virgil was commissioned to write his epic poem by Emperor Augustus, in an effort to unite the Roman people after a long period of civil conflict. The Aeneid not only depicts the founding of Roman society, it hearkens back to a period of strength and glory in Rome’s past. Virgil uses the long-running conflict between Rome and Carthage to unify the Roman people by reminding them of a time when their greatest threat was from a foreign power.[8]

Merlin, and the references to dragons in Arthurian legend are great fun. But yet again, the reason for their existence is not entertainment. During the period following the Norman conquest of England, Celtic literature exploded.  And much of it revolved around triumphs of Celtic Britons against their new masters, clearly sending a political message to the Normans. All such stories need a hero for the troops to rally around, which is where Arthur comes in. But the Normans were there to stay and ultimately, Arthurian legend served to introduce them to the culture and past of the Celts.[9]
_________

Literature is a Fundamental
Source of New Insights.

Literature, and a liberal arts education generally, is a fundamental source of cultivating new insights.[10]  L. Frank Baum may have claimed that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is simply a “wonder tale” written to bring pleasure to children of his era, but the fact that he characterizes his work as a “modernized fairy tale” confirms its function as commentary. Baum reveals one newly discovered insight by stating that the “fearsome morals” in the Grimm and Anderson tales are no longer necessary because “modern education includes morality.”[11]

Published in 1951, the insights expressed in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye are in response to a newly nuclear world, post-World War II uniformity, and the numbing malaise produced by materialism. Catcher’s teenaged protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is the quintessential anti-hero. He considers just about everyone to be “phony,” as mindlessly falling in line with artificial conventions, and amiability is simply camouflage for self-interest. In a generation defined by conformity, Caulfield has been described as “an icon of restlessness, discontent, rebellion, opposition to the status quo.”[12] Holden Caulfield was a lightning rod for such sensibility, opening the door to the anti-establishment culture that defined the following decade (1960s).[13]

But what about The Zombie Survival Guide and its companion World War Z? Surely those are intended as entertainment. Nope. Needless to say, all writers want their books to be well-received, and Max Brooks is no different. But it is important to note that Brooks had the HIV epidemic in mind when he wrote those.  Not to mention that the CDC was inspired to form a zombie task force, and to establish a Zombie Preparedness page on their website. The campaign is tongue-in-cheek of course, but the CDC put Brooks’ insights to use, in order to educate people about very real hazard preparedness.[14] More broadly, the first of these books is about responding to tragedy when it inevitably strikes, whether that tragedy takes the shape of a tornado, a flood, or the death of your mother, things “that come into your life without prejudice, and destroy it.”[15] The follow-up work, World War Z, is essentially how not to deal with such “zombies.”
_________

Books Allow us to See the World
Through Someone Else’s Eyes.

Perhaps the most important function literature serves is to enable us to see the world through someone else’s eyes. This viewpoint not only broadens our horizons, it helps us realize as Neil Gaiman phrases it “that behind every pair of eyes, there’s somebody like us.”[16] Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man specifically deals with this issue, of not being seen as a unique individual, but merely as a stereotype and therefore not fully human. Books like Ellison’s, that is works that facilitate a shift in perspective by shedding light on uncomfortable situations, may not be “fun,” but as you know by now, literature isn’t written just to entertain us.

Concisely put, literature cultivates empathy. According to John Steinbeck, a base theme runs through “every bit of honest writing in the world,” and that theme is we should “try to understand men (and by that he means people).”[17]  Elaborating on his point Steinbeck further stated, “if you understand each other you will be kind to each other.”[18] In keeping with his observation, the concept of understanding forms the foundation of Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men. Bearing literature’s function of cultivating empathy in mind offers significant insight into other books like this one as well, those with a less than joyful plotline. Franz Kafka sums it up nicely, “If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?… A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”[19]

The understanding and kindness Steinbeck was referring to goes beyond the “be nice” variety we all learned about in kindergarten. As H. G. Wells observed, the success of civilization itself “amounts ultimately to a success of sympathy and understanding.”[20] Fittingly, Wells indicated that if it had been up to him, every candidate applying for the post of Workhouse Master would be required to pass an exam on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.[21] For Dickens was a master at revealing the humanity in characters typically seen as unsympathetic during the Victorian era. And in doing so, he exposed how inhumane the social institutions of his day were.
_________

Novels are a Powerful Platform
for Examining Societal Ills.

As Dickens’ work shows us, literature provides a powerful platform for examining societal ills. Novelists of every generation have put unjust, and inappropriate conduct on display. It is critical to remember, however, that depicting such behavior does not mean endorsing it. Sadly, the vast majority of “banned books” are deleted from school curriculums or removed from libraries, because those who challenge them fail to understand this very important point. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a perfect example of such unfortunate misinterpretation. Readings of this novel are all too often limited to plot, as a period piece set in the decadent “Roaring Twenties,” glorifying alcohol, adultery, and wealth obtained at any moral cost. Fitzgerald, of course, belonged to the World War I-era “Lost Generation.” In a clear Gatsby reference, Beat author John Clellon Holmes described the Lost Generation as “discovered in a roadster, laughing hysterically because nothing meant anything anymore.”[22] Fitzgerald is not condoning the self-destructive practices he depicts. Rather, he shines a light on this conduct as commentary on how devastating The Great War was, in the hope of waking people up to the fact that those lost on the battlefield were not the only casualties.[23]

Authors and their works continue to present, analyze, and illuminate social maladies through and through. Words may appear innocent and powerless when we see them in the dictionary, but as Nathaniel Hawthorne observes, they become incredibly potent “in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”[24] Some social wounds are so cruel, and so deeply ingrained that, as Toni Morrison points out, unlike reparations, vengeance, or even the justice victims of societal ills seek, it is only writers who can turn such trauma and sorrow into meaning. Only writers can sharpen our moral imagination. Once again, and more emphatically than ever, literature is not written simply for a reader’s gratification. To quote Morrison precisely, “a writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”[25]

_____________________________________

Be sure to check out these companion articles:

Novels are Like a Layer Cake,
Be Sure to Get Every Bite.

If You’re Not Engaging a Book’s Symbolic Language,
You Aren’t Really Reading It.

Literary Devices:  
Literary Devices: The Author’s Toolbox

#literary criticism     #The Art of Reading   #liberal arts      #critical thinking

.
Endnotes:

[1] Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 22.
[2]Gaiman, Neil. “How Stories Last.” The Long Now Foundation.  Video Seminar. (June 9, 2015).
[3] Gantz, Jeffrey. Early Irish Myths and Sagas. (New York: Penguin Books, 1981), 128-129.
[4] Qallupilluit. http://www.inuitmyths.com/story_qua.htm ; Doucleff, Michaeleen and Jane Greenhalgh. “How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger.” NPR.org.
[5] Perrault, Charles. Tales of Passed Times. (London: J. M. Dent & Co, 1900), 23.
[6] Mitchell, Stephen. Gilgamesh: A new English version. (London: Profile Books Ltd., 2005), 8.
[7] Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. The Epic of Gilgamesh. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1989), xxii-xxiii.
[8] “Making Rome great again: fake views in the ancient world.” University of Cambridge, Research.
[9] The British History of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Translated by A. Thompson, Esq. (1842 edition); Wood, Michael. “King Arthur, ‘Once and Future King.’” BBC History.
[10] Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 732.
[11] Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (New York: Harper Collins, 1987), 1.
[12] Shields, David and Shane Salerno. Salinger. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), 260.
[13] Castronovo, David “Holden Caulfield’s Legacy.” New England Review. Vol. 22, No 2 (Sprint, 2001), 180; Shields, David and Shane Salerno. Salinger. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2013), 260.
[14] Brodesser-Akner, Taffy. “I can’t think of anything less funny than dying in a zombie attack.” The New York Times. June 23, 2013; https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm
[15] Brodesser-Akner.
[16] Gaiman, Neil. “How Stories Last.” The Long Now Foundation.  Video Seminar. (June 9, 2015).
[17] Steinbeck, John. Journal entry quoted in Steinbeck Center director Susan Shillinglaw’s introduction to the 1993 Penguin Classics edition of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Kafka, Franz. Letters to Friends, Family and Editors. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. (New York: Schocken Books, 2016), 16.
[20] Wells, H. G. “The Contemporary Novel.” The Atlantic Monthly. (January, 1912), 1.
[21] Wells.
[22] Holmes, John Clellon. “This is the Beat Generation.” The New York Times. Nov. 16, 1952.
[23] Licari, T. S. “’The Great Gatsby’ and the Suppression of War Experience.” The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. (Vol. 17, 2019), 207-208.
[24] Nathaniel Hawthorne. Quoted by William Safire. “On language; Gifts of Gab for ’99.” New York Times Magazine. Dec. 13, 1998.
[25] Morrison, Toni. “Peril.” Burn this Book: notes on literature and engagement. Ed. Toni Morrison. (New York: Harper, 2009), 4.

Images:

[1] Legends and Epic Poetry.  The Gilgamesh Flood Tablet is a Mesopotamian clay artifact created in 700 BCE. It lives at the The British Museum in London. The image is in the public domain, and tagged epic poem, cuneiform and artifact. Source:  https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_K-3375

[2] Literature is a Fundamental Source of New Insights. Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/QfAX7_xjxm4?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

[3] See the World Through Someone Else’s Eyes. Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash.
https://unsplash.com/photos/OqQyk8vN30k?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

[4] Platform for Examining Societal Ills. Photo by The New York Public Library  on Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/fMFqbGVP2is?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

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