UnJi Nam
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Lit
27 August 2008
The Summer Day
If life is wild and precious, for most of my life, I didn’t know it. I had a standard childhood, cramped, passionate and overall spent in happiness. As a girl, I would catch bugs, pluck flowers, collect pretty little stones and pony figures, all for my own happiness. I would regularly destroy furniture. I would have heated fights with my older sister. It was a normal set of self-indulging, formative years.
Then came older childhood, when the inches measured each year would exceed two, and when concepts of beauty and friendships extended beyond princess dresses and the joy of playing with each others unicorn collection. There the storms of little things overwhelmed, and would often leave me in tears. Acidly jealous of a friend, with physics-defying slimness and clarity of emotion swaying in her graceful features. This was late Elementary, when being the right kind of feminine was so important, when little girls knew little else that could compensate for a face that would topple crowds. This was the eager times, when one would conform fiercely to the ideals of girlhood that others had set for us. Wear coquettish skirts with flowers and fluffy sweater for the cute look that would wow teachers and strangers. Have long, smooth hair. Delicate features. Know everything about fashion. I followed, and was mostly miserable for it. Being chubbier and taller than all the other girls of my grade meant I stood out awkwardly in nearly all things feminine. Skirts didn’t fit right. Pretty rings wouldn’t fit on my large fingers. There were good times. Fishing for tadpoles until your knees turned green-grey with dried mud. Climbing a tree to grapple with ripe mangoes. Playing a fast and hard game of dodge ball. And there was always paper and pencils, where I could lose myself in pursuit of graceful lines for hours. But for the most part, these activities were looked down upon by teachers and classmates, and would usually lead to some expression of contempt. This didn’t help build up much self-esteem.
I remember one time in particular when I was ten, playing on the play field with classmates. They were of the slim and wide-eyed variety that the Romantics of the nineteenth century would have adored. A dance teacher suddenly came up to us with a camera, and motioned us all to come over by a large neon slide. We ran over in curiosity.
“Hi girls! Would you like to be in a yearbook picture?” she asked liltingly. In a strong chorus of smiles and gasps, we all showed our burning desire to be in the yearbook. This was something to be proud of—in a joint elementary, middle and high school, especially with the high school students managing the yearbook, shots of elementary students were rare, beyond class pictures. In a rush, we all crowded and balanced on the slide. The teacher took one photo, paused, and then frowned.
“You there,” she said, pointing at me. “Could you move out of the picture?”
Surprised, I slowly crawled off the slide from the mass of posing girls. I watched from the side the smiling girls pose before an enthusiastic photographer saying a variation of “Wow, that’s pretty, girls!” and “Beautiful!” I was vaguely hoping that the photographer had only waved me aside to take a picture just of me alone. But she soon finished, and amiably thanking the girls, walked away. I remember feeling my throat ache and eyes sting as I wondered what was wrong with me. Why pretty, shiny things like Valentine cards and the attention of a camera weren’t for me, but for girls like them. My childhood diary entry of that day only notes a stoic desire to better myself. “I’m ugly. That’s the truth…That is it. I’m using cream for your skin to take freckles away. The problem is my fat. I’ll bike every day and swim on weekends. No more leg, belly, arm and good riddance to cheek fat. Aloe Vera applied twice a day. I’ll brush my hair and wash face at lunch too. A new, pretty hair style too. I vow to be skinny.”
Even before I hit the rocky teenage years, I was none too happy about myself. I wasn’t skinnier by then, I was still growing alarmingly, and I felt unlikable, worst of all. Not being able to smile and chat easily like other kids, but shy and withdrawn. I felt that people saw me as large and awkward, not made to be treasured like other girls. Forever doomed to play the bumbling villain instead of the princess on the playground. Forever to be the handmaiden to others.
Things changed, slowly and quietly. I moved from the tropical nest that was Singapore to the colder climes of North America. I survived middle school, with its even fiercer preenings and now competition for gentleman attentions. I found other venues to find a power and a voice that was listened to that I never found in trying to be pretty. But to this day, I still struggle with that demon. The one that says one is never good enough. One is never going to be loved, or appreciated, or even remembered when gone. That being precious and treasured is all about being chased after, being physically exquisite.
But the thing is, I know better now. When I was younger, I had nothing to believe but the surface world around me that valued princesses and models. That a girl’s value is measured only by her graces and charms. Now I am older. I can make beautiful things now out of paper and pencils. I care for a gold-livened slip of scale and fins in a fishbowl that grows more precious in sight and heart as the days go by. I can make precious things. I can and will do things like climb a tree or catch live beetles for pets without worrying so much about other people’s reactions. I can appreciate “the grasshopper…gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.” Life in its beauty. I only wish I’d been more attentive to the world outside the artificial when I was younger, not so focused on the world that people make that is often cruel but yet asserts itself as the only world worth living in. There were scoffers in Mary Oliver’s poem too, ones who said there were better ways to spend time than dreaming about in the fields. One has to find out on their own the validity of other experiences, of the existence of other worlds. So I am not always treasured in an image-conscious suburban society that prizes vivaciousness and beauty in girls above all. Now I see: why should I even labor to change myself to be more of the standard of such a world anyways? Not that genetics is really that malleable anyways, but the point is, there are other worlds. One that I create out of paper and colors in which my skills lead the way. Other in which nature in its beauty envelops and swallows me up. Worlds in which that which I treasure the most, in my “one wild and precious life” can be the highlight, rather than the accessory or a pretension in others.
The hurt is still there. There are days when my body and face are hateful to the sight. But now there are more days when I simply do not care. When I am alive to inspiration and the thrill of a good book. There are less days now, spent hurt over the past, and the injustices of the present, and more days spent ready for tomorrow. A tomorrow I will make on my own, not slanted to please the world and its denizens so hungry for things. A life for my own, made to enjoy every bit of things, from the scent of books, to the stress and anticipation of projects, to dreams of making something beautiful for the world. A life not so caught up in a rat race of beauty and wealth that never is won, but a life more focused on simply enjoying. Enjoying fresh flower buds, appreciating warm tea in winter, taking every little thing and packaging it in lavender for years to come, rather than swallowing them all and only wanting more and better that never is the best.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Personal statement: informal essay 3
UnJi Nam
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Lit
25 August 2008
Famous
I am famous to a battered set of aged color pencils. They are blind, deaf and dry mouthed; the yellow one is pockmarked with the marks of my toothed distress, and the Deco blue is spindling away to nothing, spinning aerie and wistful spun on its roiling past of sheets. They generally lie in a rainbow clatter on the top of my desk, and are often left for weeks at a time languishing under dust and thread of glue. But when I do use them, I do so with a fury. The satin wood is carved bright under a box cutter until the sharp eyed steel finds the vein of pure pigment. The once pointed pencils now spend most of their time in stub-nosed labor. The wee morning hours, then the late morning hours will pass by without notice, and one measures time by the ages between each new re-sharpening. I use them ferociously, and they in turn leave me shaky-eyed and ambivalently proud of a new piece of art in the morning’s light.
Ours is a partnership. We have aged together well, and like those in an old marriage, we understand each other, and make allowances henceforth. I pare the wood carefully away from the sensitive color, backbone and life span of the pencil. Stripes of color always apply smooth and strong, without having to leave valleys crisscrossing the surface to do so. There is also responsibility at work. I ply light colors, especially flesh tones, carefully away from pencil lines, since the two blends easily, and tend to make variations on the color of a dead salmon. The pencils will not shift to inform me what colors look devilish together, or will join only to form mud on the paper. They will not murmur when what started as a candy-pop picture of sweetness sours to clotting rainbow matter degenerated all over haphazard space. The fault lies solely with the artist. She should know better. Or so I thought.
I remember when I first inherited the set from my sister in middle school. It was a limited edition set of 72 shades, and they were Prismacolors to boot, meaning these were one of the best to be had in the glorious world of color pencils. Soft buttery wood that didn’t fight with the razor, color as vibrant as pastels, and the pencils themselves cool to the touch with imposing gold leaf lettering indented on the side. No more of those dry and squeaky Crayola affairs. As an aspiring artist, I hoped I had the talent to properly do these pencils justice. In those early days, I took them everywhere with me, to school where they would be jostled, borrowed, trodden on and whisked out at every opportunity. They collected in a puddle of magnificence in the bottom of my purse, and served many uses, among them good luck charms, fake claws wedged between knuckles in drama class, and swipe tool to collect coins that hid under the refrigerator. They were beloved, and some did snap in the process. In those bright pastel days, art was everything and yet nothing. There was no perfection, no such concept as serious art, and no such bully as the muse known.
Things changed, as it does. An artwork of mine met with honorable attention at a student art competition. All of a sudden, I was expected to recreate the airiness of the original, forge it with ease again and again. And I wanted to as well. What was once only a fragment of a dream, a fleshing out of a feeling, was now important and flush with meaning. When I would once start drawing instantaneously, I would now look at the uncertain paper and fight with myself, plead with the gods to make something positively breathtaking. Something to make people stop and notice. I’d think back on other inspiring works of art that drew praises, and try to recreate it in my own way. Though my skill level had not changed much from before to now, now was the constant scrutiny, the constant judging—and more often than not, constant anguish over my pale imitations. The pursuit of perfection, which had belonged to many a better artist before me, was now mine as well. Art was no longer a social hobby, involving friends who wanted cats or flowers for binder art, but was now a serious activity involving quiet, cold and wide rooms with only self-doubt and brief, sweaty-palmed glories speaking to me.
And my artwork and skills did improve under the tyranny of self-doubt and lust of importance, the need to grab attention and soul of my audience. This was power that I in my other lives as little sister, quiet classmate, or bookwormish student never possessed. And by the time I entered high school, my faithful Prismacolors were still with me. Except now, the pencils were always to be found in their original gold-embossed package, neatly arranged and carefully sharpened. I carried them to school in a separate bag, and made sure not to drop a single pencil for fear of breaking the fragile twig of color within. Art was no longer spontaneous for me, shown in the rigidly perfect and fearful compostions, and in the tightly cosseted pencils. I would spend hours fighting with the blank paper trying to perfect the idea spinning in my head before commiting a single line. The act of drawing and coloring became painful cycles in self-doubt and misery over whether I’d made a mistake in picking Night Blue rather than Royal Violet. But I fought doggedly on clinging to the art long after it became a chore; through late nights of frustration and tears, nail marks embedded in palms, and gut clenching jealousy of other artists who seemed to carelessly waltz through their work and win awards while my own painstaking work went unsung to an early grave. The pursuit of perfection through other people’s opinions was destroying the reason why I even started drawing, long past when I was five and rollicking with candy bright markers on the wall. I was so engrossed in perfection that the organic love of just creating was forgotten. I had metaphorically sold my soul to the devil for the things that I thought my art could bring me: accomplishments, self-esteem, the regards of others.
Nowadays are more calm days. Life, more often than not, levels out most human efforts. But I’ve never luckily lost the joy of creating, slim though that flame faded. Now I try no longer to use my art so much as a accomplishment, a skill used to please other people, and hence myself. I have little desire to be famous now as the word is defined by Hollywood and the world. Rather, I look to Naomi Shihab’s version—namely, that famous which is that I “never forgot what it could do.” Not to let my color pencils and I be merely decorative for others. But to know that I have my own strength, to live apart from my fears that demand me to be famous, popular, accepted by all. That I and my passion can live together, famous to the other, and that would be all we ever demanded of the other. Not fame, not money, not social acceptance. Just a comfortable silence and well-worn nubs of color.
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Lit
25 August 2008
Famous
I am famous to a battered set of aged color pencils. They are blind, deaf and dry mouthed; the yellow one is pockmarked with the marks of my toothed distress, and the Deco blue is spindling away to nothing, spinning aerie and wistful spun on its roiling past of sheets. They generally lie in a rainbow clatter on the top of my desk, and are often left for weeks at a time languishing under dust and thread of glue. But when I do use them, I do so with a fury. The satin wood is carved bright under a box cutter until the sharp eyed steel finds the vein of pure pigment. The once pointed pencils now spend most of their time in stub-nosed labor. The wee morning hours, then the late morning hours will pass by without notice, and one measures time by the ages between each new re-sharpening. I use them ferociously, and they in turn leave me shaky-eyed and ambivalently proud of a new piece of art in the morning’s light.
Ours is a partnership. We have aged together well, and like those in an old marriage, we understand each other, and make allowances henceforth. I pare the wood carefully away from the sensitive color, backbone and life span of the pencil. Stripes of color always apply smooth and strong, without having to leave valleys crisscrossing the surface to do so. There is also responsibility at work. I ply light colors, especially flesh tones, carefully away from pencil lines, since the two blends easily, and tend to make variations on the color of a dead salmon. The pencils will not shift to inform me what colors look devilish together, or will join only to form mud on the paper. They will not murmur when what started as a candy-pop picture of sweetness sours to clotting rainbow matter degenerated all over haphazard space. The fault lies solely with the artist. She should know better. Or so I thought.
I remember when I first inherited the set from my sister in middle school. It was a limited edition set of 72 shades, and they were Prismacolors to boot, meaning these were one of the best to be had in the glorious world of color pencils. Soft buttery wood that didn’t fight with the razor, color as vibrant as pastels, and the pencils themselves cool to the touch with imposing gold leaf lettering indented on the side. No more of those dry and squeaky Crayola affairs. As an aspiring artist, I hoped I had the talent to properly do these pencils justice. In those early days, I took them everywhere with me, to school where they would be jostled, borrowed, trodden on and whisked out at every opportunity. They collected in a puddle of magnificence in the bottom of my purse, and served many uses, among them good luck charms, fake claws wedged between knuckles in drama class, and swipe tool to collect coins that hid under the refrigerator. They were beloved, and some did snap in the process. In those bright pastel days, art was everything and yet nothing. There was no perfection, no such concept as serious art, and no such bully as the muse known.
Things changed, as it does. An artwork of mine met with honorable attention at a student art competition. All of a sudden, I was expected to recreate the airiness of the original, forge it with ease again and again. And I wanted to as well. What was once only a fragment of a dream, a fleshing out of a feeling, was now important and flush with meaning. When I would once start drawing instantaneously, I would now look at the uncertain paper and fight with myself, plead with the gods to make something positively breathtaking. Something to make people stop and notice. I’d think back on other inspiring works of art that drew praises, and try to recreate it in my own way. Though my skill level had not changed much from before to now, now was the constant scrutiny, the constant judging—and more often than not, constant anguish over my pale imitations. The pursuit of perfection, which had belonged to many a better artist before me, was now mine as well. Art was no longer a social hobby, involving friends who wanted cats or flowers for binder art, but was now a serious activity involving quiet, cold and wide rooms with only self-doubt and brief, sweaty-palmed glories speaking to me.
And my artwork and skills did improve under the tyranny of self-doubt and lust of importance, the need to grab attention and soul of my audience. This was power that I in my other lives as little sister, quiet classmate, or bookwormish student never possessed. And by the time I entered high school, my faithful Prismacolors were still with me. Except now, the pencils were always to be found in their original gold-embossed package, neatly arranged and carefully sharpened. I carried them to school in a separate bag, and made sure not to drop a single pencil for fear of breaking the fragile twig of color within. Art was no longer spontaneous for me, shown in the rigidly perfect and fearful compostions, and in the tightly cosseted pencils. I would spend hours fighting with the blank paper trying to perfect the idea spinning in my head before commiting a single line. The act of drawing and coloring became painful cycles in self-doubt and misery over whether I’d made a mistake in picking Night Blue rather than Royal Violet. But I fought doggedly on clinging to the art long after it became a chore; through late nights of frustration and tears, nail marks embedded in palms, and gut clenching jealousy of other artists who seemed to carelessly waltz through their work and win awards while my own painstaking work went unsung to an early grave. The pursuit of perfection through other people’s opinions was destroying the reason why I even started drawing, long past when I was five and rollicking with candy bright markers on the wall. I was so engrossed in perfection that the organic love of just creating was forgotten. I had metaphorically sold my soul to the devil for the things that I thought my art could bring me: accomplishments, self-esteem, the regards of others.
Nowadays are more calm days. Life, more often than not, levels out most human efforts. But I’ve never luckily lost the joy of creating, slim though that flame faded. Now I try no longer to use my art so much as a accomplishment, a skill used to please other people, and hence myself. I have little desire to be famous now as the word is defined by Hollywood and the world. Rather, I look to Naomi Shihab’s version—namely, that famous which is that I “never forgot what it could do.” Not to let my color pencils and I be merely decorative for others. But to know that I have my own strength, to live apart from my fears that demand me to be famous, popular, accepted by all. That I and my passion can live together, famous to the other, and that would be all we ever demanded of the other. Not fame, not money, not social acceptance. Just a comfortable silence and well-worn nubs of color.
Informal essay: Personal Statement 2
The world I come from is a true salad. A salad in my definition is a mix of vegetables, sometimes strange combinations, all brought together with the common bond of the dressing. In my case, my world is made up of slices of my solid homeland that is South Korea, enlivened with dashes of Arizona, curls of green Georgia, and among other things, brought together by the common splash of Singapore, the latter being the best place to be when trying to be reconciled to the constancy of moving boxes. There, the inhabitants are used to living with many cultures and traditions jostling side by side. In the homes and apartments, different things designate different worlds. Some have bright red and gold firecracker bunches hanging on the door at New Years day to usher in luck and prosperity. Some may have jasmine flowers tied up in necklaces on a tiny shelf up above the doorbell, the sweet scent of them embracing the neighbors as well. In Singapore, if you are a combination of cultures, no one will notice much. As a salad, one is enriched by this medley of cultures and customs; a salad is a poor thing if it’s only made of lettuce, or bacon. To take a literary standpoint: Adah of The Poisonwood Bible, noting that with standardization “what you have to lose is your story, your own slant.” Without one’s own story, where would you be in the sea of bright trinkets and lights? The many sentences, phrases and excerpts of everyone’s stories make up the fullness of life.
But wherever one does come from, or end up living in, some things are always the same. People are driven by ambitions, dreams, and basic needs no matter where they live. There may be friends, there may be enemies, there will always be people, and the capacity to appreciate beauty. No matter where I’ve ended up, everyone can marvel at basic beauty. Given, definitions of beauty change. A flock of green and red birds flying over the sky at sunset may not attract much attention in Singapore, but a ripe branch of red and green rambutan fruit will bring smiles and whistles of appreciation. People anywhere are just people. They are the true note to a dish that brings all the conflicting tastes of vegetables to one perfect dish. However, with isolation and fear of other cultures, people ultimately limit themselves, such as considering one culture to be better than another, or never seeing the lifestyles of a group as anything beyond a National Geographic special. The basics are the same. We are all trying to thrive and we are all trying to find happiness and purpose. It’s how we go about it that differs.
I want to be able to connect all these people, their different stories and backgrounds. With constant exchange of values, people can help and enrich each other. That is why I want to be in health science—keeping someone well and fit is a universal good, no matter where you are. By being in this field, I would come in contact with more people as well as more kinds of cultures. By simple interaction, one could contribute to a future with better multicultural relations. A true salad of a world.
But wherever one does come from, or end up living in, some things are always the same. People are driven by ambitions, dreams, and basic needs no matter where they live. There may be friends, there may be enemies, there will always be people, and the capacity to appreciate beauty. No matter where I’ve ended up, everyone can marvel at basic beauty. Given, definitions of beauty change. A flock of green and red birds flying over the sky at sunset may not attract much attention in Singapore, but a ripe branch of red and green rambutan fruit will bring smiles and whistles of appreciation. People anywhere are just people. They are the true note to a dish that brings all the conflicting tastes of vegetables to one perfect dish. However, with isolation and fear of other cultures, people ultimately limit themselves, such as considering one culture to be better than another, or never seeing the lifestyles of a group as anything beyond a National Geographic special. The basics are the same. We are all trying to thrive and we are all trying to find happiness and purpose. It’s how we go about it that differs.
I want to be able to connect all these people, their different stories and backgrounds. With constant exchange of values, people can help and enrich each other. That is why I want to be in health science—keeping someone well and fit is a universal good, no matter where you are. By being in this field, I would come in contact with more people as well as more kinds of cultures. By simple interaction, one could contribute to a future with better multicultural relations. A true salad of a world.
Personal Statement: Informal Essay
When I was seven, I was seriously ill. It started with my legs first. Tiny red dots sprinkled liberally on my ankles, inching up to the knee caps. It was a pointillism painting on my skin, and my mother couldn’t read it at all. She furrowed her eyebrows at my explanation that her freckles were contagious. She took me to the hospital when the icy green of winter was thawing into spring, where the walls were eternally pea-green soup frosted slick. The doctors ordered tests, smiled brightly at me, and told me that I would be out in no time. Indeed, time in the hospital follows no rules of the universe. It is a limbo outside of a bustling world. At first, I thought it fun, lying in a bed all day, exempt from the schedule of classes and homework.
A child of seven isn’t really aware of death. Injections, spinal taps and pills were nuisances, not life lines. I wanted to know why I couldn’t handle community books, or go outside to see the roses bloom in summer. But you’re not completely unchanged. You would have bedmates that would help you make a Lego castle, and the next day, their beds would be empty, the sheets folded into a small, neat roll. You’re aware that your condition hurts your family, though you’re not exactly sure why. While I lay there, in boredom, aware of my parents hurt, aware that my life meant so much to them, I slowly formed a few resolutions, for when I got out of limbo. I wanted to get better, for them. For myself.
I try to keep those promises I made to myself at seven today. I read a great deal. It started in the hospital, and still do today. To know everything you can about this world and how it relates to you, instead of isolating yourself from it. I read a poem that encapsulates much of what I feel recently. Written in the 17th century by a Robert Herrick, it was called “To the Virgins, to make much of time”. To “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”…it’s a difficult sentiment to live. But necessary. If life is precious, than so is this world that we spend it on. Both are ours for just a little while.
When a friend of mine became ill, I knew what I could do for her. I packaged my Chicken Soup for the Survivor’s Soul book which I had read shakily through at eight; brought some spicy chicken broth to counteract the eternal blandness that is hospital food; and the latest school gossip. She was paler and looked lost in her bed. After a while of talking, she began to cry. She was scared and didn’t know if she would make it through kidney cancer, or what her future would be like if she did. I didn’t know what to say. Careless words can wound worse than any needle. They can make you feel alone in this world. I hugged her, and we both started to cry. I knew I could lose her and I wanted so badly to at least give her some peace of mind.
“Hey. Let’s go look at the roses.”
The flowers bloomed bright in the spaces of the brick garden. We didn’t say anything, but for the short time we had left, gripped hands tightly.
A child of seven isn’t really aware of death. Injections, spinal taps and pills were nuisances, not life lines. I wanted to know why I couldn’t handle community books, or go outside to see the roses bloom in summer. But you’re not completely unchanged. You would have bedmates that would help you make a Lego castle, and the next day, their beds would be empty, the sheets folded into a small, neat roll. You’re aware that your condition hurts your family, though you’re not exactly sure why. While I lay there, in boredom, aware of my parents hurt, aware that my life meant so much to them, I slowly formed a few resolutions, for when I got out of limbo. I wanted to get better, for them. For myself.
I try to keep those promises I made to myself at seven today. I read a great deal. It started in the hospital, and still do today. To know everything you can about this world and how it relates to you, instead of isolating yourself from it. I read a poem that encapsulates much of what I feel recently. Written in the 17th century by a Robert Herrick, it was called “To the Virgins, to make much of time”. To “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”…it’s a difficult sentiment to live. But necessary. If life is precious, than so is this world that we spend it on. Both are ours for just a little while.
When a friend of mine became ill, I knew what I could do for her. I packaged my Chicken Soup for the Survivor’s Soul book which I had read shakily through at eight; brought some spicy chicken broth to counteract the eternal blandness that is hospital food; and the latest school gossip. She was paler and looked lost in her bed. After a while of talking, she began to cry. She was scared and didn’t know if she would make it through kidney cancer, or what her future would be like if she did. I didn’t know what to say. Careless words can wound worse than any needle. They can make you feel alone in this world. I hugged her, and we both started to cry. I knew I could lose her and I wanted so badly to at least give her some peace of mind.
“Hey. Let’s go look at the roses.”
The flowers bloomed bright in the spaces of the brick garden. We didn’t say anything, but for the short time we had left, gripped hands tightly.
ISP: The Color white as a symbol
UnJi Nam
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
6 Jan 2009
ISP: The Symbolism of the color white
Although Western literature has spawned many symbols that are now part of the public consciousness, the color white as a symbol is by far one of the more long-lasting and established symbols. It finds its way in much literature over the centuries, from the Bible that formed the basis of the rise of western literacy to Heart of Darkness, Moby Dick, all the way to modern day’s The Poisonwood Bible. The color white also holds much symbolism in everyday Western life—wedding dresses and religious wafers are white for purity. White pages present endless possibilities, light made up of all seven colors holds completeness, and the moon presents hope and wonder. And yet despite the symbol’s basic meaning being well entrenched, the color white has changed meanings in the past as seen in literature. As Western society struggled with new moral questions, new endeavors into the world, the symbol of white also shifted meanings and depths in the literature of the day that questioned events and ideas. The color white, so favored by western culture as a symbol of purity and goodness which the West claimed a monopoly on in centuries past, is interesting to see as it, along with the society that made it so prominent, changed in response to events in history, and shifts in ideas.
The Bible, as it was read and distributed across Europe, was most responsible in establishing the color white as a major symbol in literature. In the Bible, the color is used to represent purity and innocence, as seen in the Old Testament laws that dictate the use of white animals as a sacrifice to God for sins committed. If white is also applied to the symbol of light which it is often tied to in the Bible, it can also be seen as a sign of divinity, a sign of good.
By the time of the 19th century, the color white’s meaning was well known enough as one of morality and Christianity. The short story Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad takes advantage of this to twist the symbol on its head, representative of the general message of the text of western civilization’s powerlessness and hypocrisy in the face of sumptuous riches and primal instincts. White in the story is used in describing a city that is compared to a sepulcher, a white marble tomb that holds rot and bones inside. White is also a description for the race that runs wild in Africa, looting and killing with no thoughts of Christian morals or ideals of civilization and brotherhood. White was used first in describing the light of Western civilization, made concrete by the sailing ships on the Thames River of England. “Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire…What greatness had not floated out on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!” These very ships, carrying the West to the unknown lands, are the ones who unload cannonballs, epidemics, exploitation and greed onto those far-off shores. This is the Western light brought onto the world, not the hazy and warm ideals of brotherhood, improvement, and morals that those who stay in the West enjoy, but a harsh illumination of man’s basic corruption and evil, unleashed in fertile, primordial soil. The story, using white as a symbol of hypocrisy, made its point on an optimistic, self-congratulatory society that plumed itself to be the guiding light of intellect and civilized behavior. Humans anywhere live with basic primal instincts of survival that do not always accord well with Romantic Western ideals of transcending flesh to become almost divine. It was a sharp reprimand of late 19th century Western society, and an early questioning of the ideas behind western colonialism. Colonization of nations was justified by some saying that the spread of Christianity and civilization uplifted the regions. Conrad here deftly deflates that rationale of Western superiority.
Moby Dick has arguably the most famous use of the color white as symbolism in his creation of the white whale, which in itself is a complex symbol. By using the hunt of the white whale as a symbol for man’s need for purpose, as well as an exercise in the question of divinity in relation to humans, Melville elevated whaling and the common man into a noble enterprise of life, one that confronted its members regularly with the mysteries of life. Thus, one can see the rise of the common laborer in the consciousness of western society, a rise that was slowly being mirrored in reality with the rise of unions and improvement of working conditions. In both situations, the working man was uplifted to humanity, no longer just a drudge, but a human being with a right to necessities and to grant purpose onto his existence. The symbol white echoes the idea, as the object of the whalers desires proves to not be economic gain, but a desire to uncover the existence of divinity, to know the deepest mechanics of nature and the universe—in short, to find purpose in life against the inclinations of society.
In The Poisonwood Bible, white again shifts from its traditional meaning. In this case, white is like the sap of a poisonwood tree, irritating and toxic to all that it touches. This symbolism is extended to the West’s ideas of government, religion, politics and civilization that are imported into the Congo of the novel, which are personified in the missionary Nathan Price. Though these ideas, this western “interpretation” of living may have been beneficial back in America, like poisonwood, these interpretations prove to be useless and even harmful to the Congo. Like the symbol of white, inverted from its western roots to become something harmful instead. White is also seen in paleness of skin, bones, and in light in the novel. None of these things are seen as particularly good in the novel, especially pale skin. Rachel, extremely light in complexion and materialistically western in thought is called “The Termite” for her paleness, but one can also see how the name can apply to her contributions to Africa—a parasite who feeds off its bounty. This inversion of the symbol is meant to emphasize the West’s effects on the lands it claimed it was trying to uplift into civilization by colonialism. Whatever ideals and love the West had to impress upon others was lost in translation.
Ultimately, as Western society continues to face new challenges and questions, it will also continue to dissect and answer issues in its literature as well, proving the intellectual answer to the mass events that affect all. And as it do, its literary symbols can also be expected to grow and change in response.
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
6 Jan 2009
ISP: The Symbolism of the color white
Although Western literature has spawned many symbols that are now part of the public consciousness, the color white as a symbol is by far one of the more long-lasting and established symbols. It finds its way in much literature over the centuries, from the Bible that formed the basis of the rise of western literacy to Heart of Darkness, Moby Dick, all the way to modern day’s The Poisonwood Bible. The color white also holds much symbolism in everyday Western life—wedding dresses and religious wafers are white for purity. White pages present endless possibilities, light made up of all seven colors holds completeness, and the moon presents hope and wonder. And yet despite the symbol’s basic meaning being well entrenched, the color white has changed meanings in the past as seen in literature. As Western society struggled with new moral questions, new endeavors into the world, the symbol of white also shifted meanings and depths in the literature of the day that questioned events and ideas. The color white, so favored by western culture as a symbol of purity and goodness which the West claimed a monopoly on in centuries past, is interesting to see as it, along with the society that made it so prominent, changed in response to events in history, and shifts in ideas.
The Bible, as it was read and distributed across Europe, was most responsible in establishing the color white as a major symbol in literature. In the Bible, the color is used to represent purity and innocence, as seen in the Old Testament laws that dictate the use of white animals as a sacrifice to God for sins committed. If white is also applied to the symbol of light which it is often tied to in the Bible, it can also be seen as a sign of divinity, a sign of good.
By the time of the 19th century, the color white’s meaning was well known enough as one of morality and Christianity. The short story Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad takes advantage of this to twist the symbol on its head, representative of the general message of the text of western civilization’s powerlessness and hypocrisy in the face of sumptuous riches and primal instincts. White in the story is used in describing a city that is compared to a sepulcher, a white marble tomb that holds rot and bones inside. White is also a description for the race that runs wild in Africa, looting and killing with no thoughts of Christian morals or ideals of civilization and brotherhood. White was used first in describing the light of Western civilization, made concrete by the sailing ships on the Thames River of England. “Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire…What greatness had not floated out on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!” These very ships, carrying the West to the unknown lands, are the ones who unload cannonballs, epidemics, exploitation and greed onto those far-off shores. This is the Western light brought onto the world, not the hazy and warm ideals of brotherhood, improvement, and morals that those who stay in the West enjoy, but a harsh illumination of man’s basic corruption and evil, unleashed in fertile, primordial soil. The story, using white as a symbol of hypocrisy, made its point on an optimistic, self-congratulatory society that plumed itself to be the guiding light of intellect and civilized behavior. Humans anywhere live with basic primal instincts of survival that do not always accord well with Romantic Western ideals of transcending flesh to become almost divine. It was a sharp reprimand of late 19th century Western society, and an early questioning of the ideas behind western colonialism. Colonization of nations was justified by some saying that the spread of Christianity and civilization uplifted the regions. Conrad here deftly deflates that rationale of Western superiority.
Moby Dick has arguably the most famous use of the color white as symbolism in his creation of the white whale, which in itself is a complex symbol. By using the hunt of the white whale as a symbol for man’s need for purpose, as well as an exercise in the question of divinity in relation to humans, Melville elevated whaling and the common man into a noble enterprise of life, one that confronted its members regularly with the mysteries of life. Thus, one can see the rise of the common laborer in the consciousness of western society, a rise that was slowly being mirrored in reality with the rise of unions and improvement of working conditions. In both situations, the working man was uplifted to humanity, no longer just a drudge, but a human being with a right to necessities and to grant purpose onto his existence. The symbol white echoes the idea, as the object of the whalers desires proves to not be economic gain, but a desire to uncover the existence of divinity, to know the deepest mechanics of nature and the universe—in short, to find purpose in life against the inclinations of society.
In The Poisonwood Bible, white again shifts from its traditional meaning. In this case, white is like the sap of a poisonwood tree, irritating and toxic to all that it touches. This symbolism is extended to the West’s ideas of government, religion, politics and civilization that are imported into the Congo of the novel, which are personified in the missionary Nathan Price. Though these ideas, this western “interpretation” of living may have been beneficial back in America, like poisonwood, these interpretations prove to be useless and even harmful to the Congo. Like the symbol of white, inverted from its western roots to become something harmful instead. White is also seen in paleness of skin, bones, and in light in the novel. None of these things are seen as particularly good in the novel, especially pale skin. Rachel, extremely light in complexion and materialistically western in thought is called “The Termite” for her paleness, but one can also see how the name can apply to her contributions to Africa—a parasite who feeds off its bounty. This inversion of the symbol is meant to emphasize the West’s effects on the lands it claimed it was trying to uplift into civilization by colonialism. Whatever ideals and love the West had to impress upon others was lost in translation.
Ultimately, as Western society continues to face new challenges and questions, it will also continue to dissect and answer issues in its literature as well, proving the intellectual answer to the mass events that affect all. And as it do, its literary symbols can also be expected to grow and change in response.
Formal Essay: Frankenstein
UnJi Nam
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
1 Jan 2009
Frankenstein: The makings of a monster
In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley delves deeply into her characters and settings in order ask the following questions: What is a monster, and how does one create one? What makes a human, with his or her own inalienable rights to basic necessities, knowledge, and fellow sympathy? To answer the question, the novel introduces the two main characters of the text: Viktor Frankenstein, scientist and creator of the nameless human-like creation who haunts him. At first glance, one would be tempted to immediately assign Frankenstein humanity, and the creation bestiality. After all, Frankenstein seems to the reader at first “a noble creature, destroyed by misery…so gentle, yet so wise…and his words flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.”, a person blessed with the best of humanity’s virtues—intelligence, a happy childhood, a loving family, friendship, and love. The monster, when created, leaves a swath of death and sorrow, and eventually leads to the death of its own creator. However, Shelley makes it clear that Frankenstein, first impressions by reader and the character Robert Walton nonetheless, is not an innocent character who had suffered unfortunate circumstances. It is by his unswerving pursuit of knowledge, even against moral and spiritual concerns, as well as his fundamental selfishness and irresponsibility that leads to his calamitous end. The “monster” that Frankenstein creates acts violently, but it does so out of loneliness, despair, and rage stemming from his situation, all very human emotions and motives. Throughout the novel, as Shelley details their interactions and decisions, she makes many criticisms on the culture of her day—the question of moral evil, the exclusion of moral guidelines in scientific pursuit, and man’s ultimately degenerate nature as opposed to Romanticist’s optimistic view of self-improvement.
Frankenstein as a character is ultimately a frustrating one for readers to swallow. He may have seemed to be like the Romanticist’s ideal at first: intelligent; avidly pursuing knowledge; appreciative of nature and its almost divine “power of elevating soul from earth.”; and almost passionately individual and separated from an ordinary society. But as the novel progresses, the reader slowly loses any respect and awe Frankenstein may have garnered at first. One sees that the character, despite the perfection of his upbringing and childhood in terms of family, love, and friendship, the man is ultimately selfish, easily leaving behind his family to pursue his education abroad, and once there almost completely ignoring them in the pursuit of knowledge. In a way, Frankenstein’s later fall from grace can be foreshadowed in the way he rejects the pure and good represented in his family, particularly his mother and his love Elizabeth. Perhaps Shelley meant to make a point that Frankenstein the monster was birthed by Frankenstein’s lack of balance—his overwhelming pursuit of his studies even when it led him to unsavory deeds such as grave-robbing, his over-emphasis of masculine traits such as rationality and swallowing of emotions and morals. Because whatever Frankenstein’s good intentions were before the creation of his experiment, they dissipate into horror and rejection at the sight of the creature. Though Frankenstein himself in the progression of the novel learns to some degree how responsible he is for the evil that stalks him and his loved ones, he never really loses his basic evil traits—his rejection of responsibility to the “monster”; his selfishness that causes him to send Justine to her death and ignore the monster’s own right to happiness. Though society and the world may commend him, the monster he created is living reminder of his sins. If he had taken responsibility for it, cared for it and educated it as to right and wrong, the monster could have avoided a future of loneliness, violence and vengeance. Instead, as with many of the evil things man has made, such as a polluted environment, man has simply left it behind him and left it alone, forgetting such ugly things created in pursuit of his own selfish desires. By Frankenstein’s rejection of the experiment and its ultimate vengeance, Shelley shows her point that man cannot trust his own judgments in all situations, that he by nature is an unfit judge for himself. The idea of her day, that an individual rather than society was more fit to deem morals for oneself, is dismissed here—Frankenstein, as a human, cannot judge for himself the right path, and hence brings himself, experiment and family into destruction. This is a clear rejection of Romantic ideals of man being basically good, and capable of refining his nature. Society is pictured not as the immoral and soulless system some intellectuals of the day painted it as, but a system to control and lessen the effects of the perversity in an individual’s heart. Shelley does not clear society at large of all responsibility for the evils of humanity—it is interesting to note that while Frankenstein in his ambiguous deeds and misguided actions is widely respected by his peers who are sympathetic to him, society reviles his creation, which is more innocent than his creator.
The monster himself, never named throughout the book, works mostly as a moral counterpart to Frankenstein, posing to his creator the uncomfortable questions of how justified his creator was in making him, and rejecting him. Just by what superiority did Frankenstein believe in that gave him the right to create intelligent life? His supposedly better morals? And by what authority does Frankenstein have in trying to destroy the creature? That he is violent? That he cannot control himself? The creature has no traits that a human does not, and whatever evils he does commit come from the evils that he learned at the hands of humanity. If anything the creature, despite the lack of anything perfect in terms of human interactions and basic necessities, has a better nature than Frankenstein. He is shown to be caring, kind, hungry for affection and curious, though not to the same obsessive degree as Frankenstein. If anything, the tragedy in the novel consists not of Frankenstein’s decline and death, which actually works to underline Frankenstein’s degeneracy and just reward. The tragic feature is the moral decline of the monster himself, who turns to wrath and violence upon humanity for his loneliness imposed upon him, and the fact humanity reviles him the more for his justifiable actions. This is the alienation man faces as he marks his irresponsibility and selfishness on the globe—a sickening environment, radical and aggressive post-colonial nations, social unrest as income gaps widen.
In the end, Frankenstein the technically human is not so much an admirable character as so much a portrait of human evil condensed into a person. The monster, in his innocence, wrath, and eventual grief and penitence, is far more human, far more admirable than his creator himself, lost forever due to humanity’s evils that could swallow any sins of its own but not of others. It is his loss that makes culpable both the irresponsible individual and society as the true monsters.
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
1 Jan 2009
Frankenstein: The makings of a monster
In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley delves deeply into her characters and settings in order ask the following questions: What is a monster, and how does one create one? What makes a human, with his or her own inalienable rights to basic necessities, knowledge, and fellow sympathy? To answer the question, the novel introduces the two main characters of the text: Viktor Frankenstein, scientist and creator of the nameless human-like creation who haunts him. At first glance, one would be tempted to immediately assign Frankenstein humanity, and the creation bestiality. After all, Frankenstein seems to the reader at first “a noble creature, destroyed by misery…so gentle, yet so wise…and his words flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence.”, a person blessed with the best of humanity’s virtues—intelligence, a happy childhood, a loving family, friendship, and love. The monster, when created, leaves a swath of death and sorrow, and eventually leads to the death of its own creator. However, Shelley makes it clear that Frankenstein, first impressions by reader and the character Robert Walton nonetheless, is not an innocent character who had suffered unfortunate circumstances. It is by his unswerving pursuit of knowledge, even against moral and spiritual concerns, as well as his fundamental selfishness and irresponsibility that leads to his calamitous end. The “monster” that Frankenstein creates acts violently, but it does so out of loneliness, despair, and rage stemming from his situation, all very human emotions and motives. Throughout the novel, as Shelley details their interactions and decisions, she makes many criticisms on the culture of her day—the question of moral evil, the exclusion of moral guidelines in scientific pursuit, and man’s ultimately degenerate nature as opposed to Romanticist’s optimistic view of self-improvement.
Frankenstein as a character is ultimately a frustrating one for readers to swallow. He may have seemed to be like the Romanticist’s ideal at first: intelligent; avidly pursuing knowledge; appreciative of nature and its almost divine “power of elevating soul from earth.”; and almost passionately individual and separated from an ordinary society. But as the novel progresses, the reader slowly loses any respect and awe Frankenstein may have garnered at first. One sees that the character, despite the perfection of his upbringing and childhood in terms of family, love, and friendship, the man is ultimately selfish, easily leaving behind his family to pursue his education abroad, and once there almost completely ignoring them in the pursuit of knowledge. In a way, Frankenstein’s later fall from grace can be foreshadowed in the way he rejects the pure and good represented in his family, particularly his mother and his love Elizabeth. Perhaps Shelley meant to make a point that Frankenstein the monster was birthed by Frankenstein’s lack of balance—his overwhelming pursuit of his studies even when it led him to unsavory deeds such as grave-robbing, his over-emphasis of masculine traits such as rationality and swallowing of emotions and morals. Because whatever Frankenstein’s good intentions were before the creation of his experiment, they dissipate into horror and rejection at the sight of the creature. Though Frankenstein himself in the progression of the novel learns to some degree how responsible he is for the evil that stalks him and his loved ones, he never really loses his basic evil traits—his rejection of responsibility to the “monster”; his selfishness that causes him to send Justine to her death and ignore the monster’s own right to happiness. Though society and the world may commend him, the monster he created is living reminder of his sins. If he had taken responsibility for it, cared for it and educated it as to right and wrong, the monster could have avoided a future of loneliness, violence and vengeance. Instead, as with many of the evil things man has made, such as a polluted environment, man has simply left it behind him and left it alone, forgetting such ugly things created in pursuit of his own selfish desires. By Frankenstein’s rejection of the experiment and its ultimate vengeance, Shelley shows her point that man cannot trust his own judgments in all situations, that he by nature is an unfit judge for himself. The idea of her day, that an individual rather than society was more fit to deem morals for oneself, is dismissed here—Frankenstein, as a human, cannot judge for himself the right path, and hence brings himself, experiment and family into destruction. This is a clear rejection of Romantic ideals of man being basically good, and capable of refining his nature. Society is pictured not as the immoral and soulless system some intellectuals of the day painted it as, but a system to control and lessen the effects of the perversity in an individual’s heart. Shelley does not clear society at large of all responsibility for the evils of humanity—it is interesting to note that while Frankenstein in his ambiguous deeds and misguided actions is widely respected by his peers who are sympathetic to him, society reviles his creation, which is more innocent than his creator.
The monster himself, never named throughout the book, works mostly as a moral counterpart to Frankenstein, posing to his creator the uncomfortable questions of how justified his creator was in making him, and rejecting him. Just by what superiority did Frankenstein believe in that gave him the right to create intelligent life? His supposedly better morals? And by what authority does Frankenstein have in trying to destroy the creature? That he is violent? That he cannot control himself? The creature has no traits that a human does not, and whatever evils he does commit come from the evils that he learned at the hands of humanity. If anything the creature, despite the lack of anything perfect in terms of human interactions and basic necessities, has a better nature than Frankenstein. He is shown to be caring, kind, hungry for affection and curious, though not to the same obsessive degree as Frankenstein. If anything, the tragedy in the novel consists not of Frankenstein’s decline and death, which actually works to underline Frankenstein’s degeneracy and just reward. The tragic feature is the moral decline of the monster himself, who turns to wrath and violence upon humanity for his loneliness imposed upon him, and the fact humanity reviles him the more for his justifiable actions. This is the alienation man faces as he marks his irresponsibility and selfishness on the globe—a sickening environment, radical and aggressive post-colonial nations, social unrest as income gaps widen.
In the end, Frankenstein the technically human is not so much an admirable character as so much a portrait of human evil condensed into a person. The monster, in his innocence, wrath, and eventual grief and penitence, is far more human, far more admirable than his creator himself, lost forever due to humanity’s evils that could swallow any sins of its own but not of others. It is his loss that makes culpable both the irresponsible individual and society as the true monsters.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Formal Essay: Poisonwood Bible
UnJi Nam
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
7 January 2009
Interpretations in The Poisonwood Bible
At the start of The Poisonwood Bible, the reader understands the straightforwardness of the plot and mission—the Price family of Bethlehem, U.S.A, is going to the Congo as a missionary family. The expected reasons are stated: for the noble pursuit of saving souls; educating the people to be more civilized; and the education of the daughters to be less worldly and better Christian women. Of course, as the novel progresses, events don’t turn out as planned. What was the beginning of a simple, clear-cut mission grows in the soil of African society to have different ramifications and consequences for everyone, including the Prices. As the family continues in their stay in the Congo, they begin to learn just how many and varied nuances there can be things—words have multiple meanings, actions carry subtle agendas underneath the surface, and events can be double-edged. The effect that the presence of these multiple realities presents on the reader is simple. Leah, the second oldest daughter, later on in her life sums it up as “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place. Especially here.” After all, Prices’ came into Africa believing they had pitiably little—a mere forty-four pounds plus some of worldly goods to keep them all alive and sheltered from the jungle. The Prices came into the jungle believing that their good intentions would redeem them and save the natives of Congo. The Prices came into the Congo thinking that they and their country were qualified to judge and intervene in others due to their superior position in morals and way of life. The Price women believed that it was the natural way of the world to have one entity dominating the other. It is these basic, unspoken beliefs that end up changing in the Price women, as they in varying degrees learn of the Congo’s own strengths, and the validity of other viewpoints besides their own—a theme that echoes at the individual and political level of the novel. The American citizens who learned of their own responsibilities for the Congo’s troubles, the country that subsidized war and dictators abroad for its own gains but claims innocence.
For the Price girls, Africa to them is a frightening, almost threatening new world at times. Represented by the ill-fated garden their father Nathan Price tries to cultivate in African soil, the girls at first grow well under his watchful supervision. They grow a new interest in maintaining the home at first, traditional sphere of women, using the house as protection from their new lives. But they and the garden grow quickly out of hand, as they both settle into the environment. Ultimately, the girls abandon what their father has taught them, and take up different parts of his philosophy to form their own individual beliefs. Nathan Price himself never changes much, rather stiffening in response to new ideas that threaten his own and decrying them all. In his own views, he is a steadfast servant of God, standing his moral ground as the prophets did in the old days, come hell or high water. In the women’s standpoint, in varying degrees he is a restrictive, illogical and tragic figure that cannot help the people he came to save, nor his own tortured soul. The point the novel raises in response to the many possible realities and “slants” of a single event or question is: Is there really a set, universal truth? Is there really a single viewpoint, a single interpretation that holds true in all circumstances? Or is such a belief of a single superior translation a mark of ignorance, a tragic feature of colonialism, in domination in general? What Nathan Price is to the world and to his family is one example of an event with multiple “translations”.
The main question asked by Kingsolver in the novel is “How does one respond to the situation of Africa, of all colonized regions, in regards to personal responsibility? How is one individual responsible for the calamity of an international scale?” The five women of the novel: Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May answer and respond differently. For Leah, she as an individual is still responsible for what happened in the Congo despite her ignorance—colonization, political subordination, human rights violations—she as part of a country’s citizen, by her very ignorance of such a situation going on, is guilty. She responds by political activism, by educating her neighbors in Africa and America, by she and her family staying in Africa despite the hardships—her own method for redemption. She maintains yet her old idealism, hope for justice, and love for her community. In a way, though she is no longer a Christian, she has kept to the old ideals of the religion better than her father the missionary ever did. Rachel remains stubbornly the same over the years as she continues to reside in Africa, still self-centered and materialistic as ever, maintaining that whatever tragedies did happen, she was only a bystander in it, floating along with the crowd. Her new religion now is herself as the goddess, she and her needs alone to be taken care of—a distinctly American philosophy. While she is haunted by the knowledge that the western position in Africa is one with no true authority to meddle, one of greed and selfishness mirrored in her, she ultimately chooses to ignore her thoughts, and continues to live for herself without attempting to change the situation. Again, a very American philosophy, mirrored by her peers at home. Adah takes a wider view of life, maintaining the right of all creatures, from viruses on up, to fight to survive for life. She sees political events as ultimately useless when it comes to the whole of life. Orleanna goes the most in depth as to what her sins were—complicity by submissiveness, loss of innocence and trust in her husband, who represents Western ideas, and inaction due to pressing family needs. And lastly, Ruth May takes no sides, but chooses to emphasize how the many opinions and slants of individuals change history and the future, the perfect judge in the trees. Ultimately, the effect is that no one interpretation, no one action can claim to be superior then the other. It was living that diverged the individuals, the events of their own lives that caused them to find their own separate philosophies to survive. Ruth May, the guiding light of the family, leading the women from a state of innocence, to tragic knowledge, leads her family at the end of the novel from divergent views to unite them in basic shared humanity—love, light and forgiveness.
Ultimately, the novel delves into what is true darkness, and how people choose to respond to it. Many, such as Nathan Price, dream of destroying it heroically despite the costs, hence redeeming and glorifying himself. Kingsolver illustrates that it is his very determination and stubbornness to not change his ideas for others that leads to his tragedy—his own ideas made nothing more than “most insufferable”, a mistranslation of the West’s ideals of love and right of the individual into evil for the Congolese instead. It is the women who the ones that see how “the last shall be first”; who responds to darkness on their own terms, re-interpret the ideas and texts of their youth and continue living. It is those that can appreciate the many versions and translations of an event who can best keep the “light”—human virtues of love, friendship, mutual benefit—alive.
Mrs. Elliott
AP English Literature
7 January 2009
Interpretations in The Poisonwood Bible
At the start of The Poisonwood Bible, the reader understands the straightforwardness of the plot and mission—the Price family of Bethlehem, U.S.A, is going to the Congo as a missionary family. The expected reasons are stated: for the noble pursuit of saving souls; educating the people to be more civilized; and the education of the daughters to be less worldly and better Christian women. Of course, as the novel progresses, events don’t turn out as planned. What was the beginning of a simple, clear-cut mission grows in the soil of African society to have different ramifications and consequences for everyone, including the Prices. As the family continues in their stay in the Congo, they begin to learn just how many and varied nuances there can be things—words have multiple meanings, actions carry subtle agendas underneath the surface, and events can be double-edged. The effect that the presence of these multiple realities presents on the reader is simple. Leah, the second oldest daughter, later on in her life sums it up as “Everything you’re sure is right can be wrong in another place. Especially here.” After all, Prices’ came into Africa believing they had pitiably little—a mere forty-four pounds plus some of worldly goods to keep them all alive and sheltered from the jungle. The Prices came into the jungle believing that their good intentions would redeem them and save the natives of Congo. The Prices came into the Congo thinking that they and their country were qualified to judge and intervene in others due to their superior position in morals and way of life. The Price women believed that it was the natural way of the world to have one entity dominating the other. It is these basic, unspoken beliefs that end up changing in the Price women, as they in varying degrees learn of the Congo’s own strengths, and the validity of other viewpoints besides their own—a theme that echoes at the individual and political level of the novel. The American citizens who learned of their own responsibilities for the Congo’s troubles, the country that subsidized war and dictators abroad for its own gains but claims innocence.
For the Price girls, Africa to them is a frightening, almost threatening new world at times. Represented by the ill-fated garden their father Nathan Price tries to cultivate in African soil, the girls at first grow well under his watchful supervision. They grow a new interest in maintaining the home at first, traditional sphere of women, using the house as protection from their new lives. But they and the garden grow quickly out of hand, as they both settle into the environment. Ultimately, the girls abandon what their father has taught them, and take up different parts of his philosophy to form their own individual beliefs. Nathan Price himself never changes much, rather stiffening in response to new ideas that threaten his own and decrying them all. In his own views, he is a steadfast servant of God, standing his moral ground as the prophets did in the old days, come hell or high water. In the women’s standpoint, in varying degrees he is a restrictive, illogical and tragic figure that cannot help the people he came to save, nor his own tortured soul. The point the novel raises in response to the many possible realities and “slants” of a single event or question is: Is there really a set, universal truth? Is there really a single viewpoint, a single interpretation that holds true in all circumstances? Or is such a belief of a single superior translation a mark of ignorance, a tragic feature of colonialism, in domination in general? What Nathan Price is to the world and to his family is one example of an event with multiple “translations”.
The main question asked by Kingsolver in the novel is “How does one respond to the situation of Africa, of all colonized regions, in regards to personal responsibility? How is one individual responsible for the calamity of an international scale?” The five women of the novel: Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May answer and respond differently. For Leah, she as an individual is still responsible for what happened in the Congo despite her ignorance—colonization, political subordination, human rights violations—she as part of a country’s citizen, by her very ignorance of such a situation going on, is guilty. She responds by political activism, by educating her neighbors in Africa and America, by she and her family staying in Africa despite the hardships—her own method for redemption. She maintains yet her old idealism, hope for justice, and love for her community. In a way, though she is no longer a Christian, she has kept to the old ideals of the religion better than her father the missionary ever did. Rachel remains stubbornly the same over the years as she continues to reside in Africa, still self-centered and materialistic as ever, maintaining that whatever tragedies did happen, she was only a bystander in it, floating along with the crowd. Her new religion now is herself as the goddess, she and her needs alone to be taken care of—a distinctly American philosophy. While she is haunted by the knowledge that the western position in Africa is one with no true authority to meddle, one of greed and selfishness mirrored in her, she ultimately chooses to ignore her thoughts, and continues to live for herself without attempting to change the situation. Again, a very American philosophy, mirrored by her peers at home. Adah takes a wider view of life, maintaining the right of all creatures, from viruses on up, to fight to survive for life. She sees political events as ultimately useless when it comes to the whole of life. Orleanna goes the most in depth as to what her sins were—complicity by submissiveness, loss of innocence and trust in her husband, who represents Western ideas, and inaction due to pressing family needs. And lastly, Ruth May takes no sides, but chooses to emphasize how the many opinions and slants of individuals change history and the future, the perfect judge in the trees. Ultimately, the effect is that no one interpretation, no one action can claim to be superior then the other. It was living that diverged the individuals, the events of their own lives that caused them to find their own separate philosophies to survive. Ruth May, the guiding light of the family, leading the women from a state of innocence, to tragic knowledge, leads her family at the end of the novel from divergent views to unite them in basic shared humanity—love, light and forgiveness.
Ultimately, the novel delves into what is true darkness, and how people choose to respond to it. Many, such as Nathan Price, dream of destroying it heroically despite the costs, hence redeeming and glorifying himself. Kingsolver illustrates that it is his very determination and stubbornness to not change his ideas for others that leads to his tragedy—his own ideas made nothing more than “most insufferable”, a mistranslation of the West’s ideals of love and right of the individual into evil for the Congolese instead. It is the women who the ones that see how “the last shall be first”; who responds to darkness on their own terms, re-interpret the ideas and texts of their youth and continue living. It is those that can appreciate the many versions and translations of an event who can best keep the “light”—human virtues of love, friendship, mutual benefit—alive.
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