Rewrite of Gabriel Marquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings"

Crouched in the gravel driveway, Michael was searching for perfect pebbles. . Michael considered himself a good judge of what made a pebble perfect; angles were bad, he could only get one or two bounces with an angled pebble. From time to time he would come across a pebble that was so different from his understanding of pebbles that he would place it in his fifth pocket, just to see what happened when he threw it in to the oversized instant coffee tin that was his target. Michael sighed; perfect pebbles were in short order today. Deciding to make the best of what he had found, he stuffed the pockets of his faded blue jeans with those pebbles he found most useful.

As Michael snuck around the side of his weather beaten home, he took the risk of peeking through the window on the side of the house, which looked into the living room. There Grandma Muriel sat, shaking her finger at the television and letting Jerry Springer know just what she thought of transvestites. As Michael continued his stealthy journey to the backyard, he breathed a little easier, knowing that Grandma Muriel would be occupied for the rest of the afternoon.

Michael allowed himself to become fully absorbed in the placement of the instant coffee can inside of the small and grey sandbox which lay at the foot of the giant oak tree in his backyard. He decided that he was going to go up to the fifth branch today. Michael had never gone that high before, but he always enjoyed doing things that he knew he shouldn’t be able to do. Like the time he saw a middle school boy pulling the hair of a girl from his class. Michael couldn’t even remember her name but something inside of him was set aflame when he heard her cry out. Fortunately, the vice principal was too amused at the idea of this 5^th grade boy chasing off a high school student with rocks to even call Michael’s mother.

Michael felt it immediately, as he placed his hand on the lowest branch of the wizened old tree; the sense that something was all together wrong with his second home. Alarmed he began to climb faster, stopping at every perch along the way to check his stashes of perfect pebbles for tampering. It was not easy finding pockets in the large oak in which to store his treasures and sometimes pesky squirrels would dig them out and replace them with acorns. As Michael was checking his deposit by the third branch, the smell hit him. It reminded him of when his mother burnt squash but there was something different about it; it was mingled with the smell of rain on hot pavement. The combination was so curious that Michael paused for a moment to inhale deeply, that was when he noticed the fine layer of silvery dust that was covering the entire tree. Slowly, painfully, Michael turned his head upward and there, inches from his tiny blue eyes was a wrinkled and filthy foot.

Michael screamed and reflexively stood up, banging his head on the branch above him and losing his balance. As gravity began to assert itself over him, Michael did the only sensible thing a falling young boy could do; he grabbed the foot and held on for dear life. To his surprise the foot was warm and tensed under his viselike grip. For a moment, the world around Michael was utterly silent. No birds sang, no cars passed, the power lines even stopped their constant hum. All that Michael could see was the slow decent of silver coated leaves and dirty feathers which the sun shone through as if to defy the filth which coated them. Then the back door slammed and a shrill voice cried out, “MICHAEL ANTHONY TANNIN, YOU GET OUT OF THAT TREE THIS INSTANT BEFORE YOU BREAK YOUR NECK!”As if to respond to the demand, there was a rustle in the tree; followed by the bellow of a grown man. No words were formed, but a distinct sense of outrage was conveyed as the full sized man with filthy white wings tumbled out of the tree with little Michael attached to his foot.

Ambri leaned her head against the window of her boyfriend’s car and watched the street signs slide past her. She sighed inwardly as she caught sight of herself in the rear view mirror. The dark circles that told the tales of all the double shifts that she was working were extra loud tonight. Her sandy blonde hair was lifeless and smelled of deep fried everything. In spite of her somewhat haggard appearance her eyes were still sharp as ever. She was tired, but at least it was payday. Ambri especially enjoyed paydays because her boyfriend, Botis, always picked her up from the Denny’s she worked at on pay day. Botis worried about her taking the bus on days when she got paid. Botis was a sweet man; he even let Ambri invest half of each of her paychecks in his savings account. One day, he promised, he would take her and Michael to the rich side of town. Ambri’s daydreaming was interrupted by a hand slowly snaking up her leg.

“Not now hun,” Ambri protested, “I promised Michael that I would watch a movie with him.”

The hand ceased its ascent. “What movie are you two going to watch?” Botis asked casually. “Michael always wants to watch war movies, but I was hoping to get one more Disney movie out of him before he out grows it.” Ambri mused “Do you think we could stop by the rental store before you drop me off?”

“Nothing would bring me greater joy, my dear.” Botis grinned, never taking his eyes off of the road. Ambri frowned as the hand started moving again.

Muriel’s hands were shaking as she pecked out the numbers on the phone.

Nine

“What am I supposed to say to them?” she thought to herself; “Hi, this is Muriel Tennin over on 5^th street, my grandson fell out of a tree with a hobo angel and now they won’t get up.” “These people are going to lock me up!”

One

What am I going to tell Ambri? “Yes dear, while you were out slutting around with your worthless con artist boyfriend an angel attacked Michael.”

One

Ambri was staring out the window again, only this time she couldn’t see her face in the rearview because it was dark outside. She clutched the copy of, “Lady and the Tramp” in her hands and thought about what to make for dinner. Suddenly, the car screeched to a halt, flinging debris from the back seat forward and further disheveling Ambri’s hair. As Ambri opened her mouth to ask what was going on, she saw the lights at her house. There were vehicles laying siege to her home, half a block deep. Police cars, ambulances and strange looking vans with satellite dishes were scattered all about.

Botis leaned over her and opened her door, pushing it wide. “I will go find a place to park. You go on ahead to see what happened.”

He growled the words as if he sounded annoyed. Ambri, who was too shocked to reply, stumbled out of the car, still clutching her copy of “Lady and the Tramp.” As she began running towards her home, she heard the screech of tires as Botis sped off in to the night.

As Michael opened his eyes all he could see was a blinding white light. He felt lighter than air and leaned forward, as if to fly into the light would require no more effort than that. Then he heard a man’s voice cry out, and the light suddenly vanished. The man leaning over him was stuffing something into the breast pocket of his paramedic uniform.

Then his mother was there, picking him up in spite of the protests of the paramedics.

“Mom, I saw an angel. I think I was dead.” Michael said softly.

Michael heard his mother take a deep shuddering breath as she put him down. The man with the paramedic uniform was talking to his mother and pointing at his head. For some reason Michael could not focus on the words the man was saying. Then he noticed his shirt lying on the ground. It was cut up the middle, half covered in blood and completely coated in silvery powder. Michael’s eyes widened as he realized that the angel was real!

Michael tugged on his mother’s sleeve, “Mom, can I see the angel?” Both adults immediately stopped talking and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Marfugo day wisa poh doo?” His mother asked him.

Michael rubbed his head and felt the stitches. The pain from just touching them made him swoon and the world went black.

The events of the next month left the entire Tennin family reeling. Most of it was due to Grandma Muriel’s actions after her breathless call to 911. The operator was skeptical as to the old woman’s story and had not made sending assistance a priority. During the hour that passed, Grandma Muriel made no less than 47 phone calls. She started with friends and acquaintances, but finding her little black book lacking, soon found herself on the phone with local media and even the Jerry Springer hotline! Apparently, Jerry had been trying to put a show together on real life angels for quite some time now and her story was fantastic enough to lead it! Before the men from the child welfare office arrived at her home, she had already taken several dozen Polaroid pictures of the angel and young boy together, surrounded by silvery dust, feathers, and an instant coffee tin.

The interviews alone kept Muriel and Ambri busy for the next two weeks. Botis returned the very next morning, after seeing the newspaper, to help the family make sure that they got their fair share of all the money which was suddenly flying every which way(minus a modest 10% management fee). The Polaroid photos were the only images of the angel which were available to the public, the rights to which were purchased by the “Never Blink” instant coffee company, whose can was present in half of the images. The sum of all their profits from the pictures and interviews was in the seven digit range and almost all of the family reveled in their good fortune; except for Michael. Michael refused to do interviews; he would not leave his room no matter how much he was coaxed. Even Ambri, whom he worshipped, could not persuade him no matter what she offered. Michael just sat on his bed, listening to the radio coverage of what the world was now calling, “Proof of Heaven.”

At the end of that month a series of heavy footsteps, made their way to Michael’s room; followed by three soft taps on his door. Michael did not stir from his bed. Twenty minutes passed with no footsteps leading away and no additional tapping. Curiosity finally got the better of Michael; he cracked the door and peeked out. Michael found himself staring at a computer tablet with a live feed of the angel on it. The angel was staring directly at Michael; he looked tired like his mom used to.

“May I come in, young man?” A gruff voice intoned.

Michael took a step back from the door to allow the man in. He was a wiry man with sleek hair, in a black suit with shiny shoes.

“My name is Mr.Beleth. I am in charge of your friend here.” He said with a forced attempt at a smile. Mr.Beleth did not appear to be very well practiced at smiling.

“I have been talking with your mother and it seems as if you and our mutual friend here have a few things in common.” Mr.Beleth said.

Michael brightened up when he heard Mr.Beleth call the angel his friend.

“Oh!” Michael exclaimed, “Like what?”

“Well,” Mr.Beleth began, “Neither one of you seems to want to talk about what happened, or anything else for that matter, and you are both going to be seeing a lot of me until that changes.”

Michael had seen this type of man before, when he watched war movies after mom went to bed. This was a man who got answers in the end. Michael knew how to deal with this type of man; he swallowed hard, stood up straight, looked him right in the eye and said, “I have never seen that man before and I would like to see my attorney.”

The smile that Mr.Beleth grew upon hearing this seemed more genuine. Mr.Beleth hunched down so that he was eye level with Michael.

“Look Michael, I can be a reasonable man. You want to see the angel, right? Well, I have things that I need too. I need to know why he is here. For Christ’s sake we have a few thousand fanatics clogging the streets in Washington, demanding to see the “angel.” Mr.Beleth sneered when he said the word, “angel.”

Michael, being the observant young boy that he is noticed this and asked; “You don’t think he is an angel do you?”

Mr.Beleth grimaced, “Son, I was raised Roman Catholic. If you told my mother that angels smelled like burnt vegetables and sewage, she would whip you until you couldn’t sit down for dinner. That is not even the worst of it; he defecates on himself and does not seem to care in the least. He doesn’t speak a word of Latin, he is covered in lice and most of his teeth are missing. Whenever we try to clean him up he makes these noises. We have had language experts in from all over the world and none of them can make heads or tails of it.” Mr.Beleth let out a long sigh. “You seem like a smart kid, you have to realize that you were not my first choice for this. In fact, you are the last stop on the train before it runs off the tracks if you know what I mean.”

In truth, Michael did not know what most of that last statement meant. Something about trains, (grownups make absolutely no sense sometimes) but Michael did recognize the look in the man’s eyes from all those war movies. If Michael did not find some way to talk to the angel, Mr.Beleth was going to kill it. Michael looked desperately at the tablet, where the angel was staring back at him, its index finger buried to the second knuckle in its right nostril.

“Who is Lilith and what exactly did you do for her last night that she is thanking you for?” Ambri asked in a confused tone as Michael walked into the kitchen. Botis snatched the new cell phone out of Ambri’s hands and it quickly disappeared in to one of the many pockets of his new Italian suit.

“I told you not to read my texts!” Botis snapped at Ambri. “How am I supposed to tell which ones I have read when you keep sifting through them and marking them all as read?”

“You still have not answered my question.” Ambri said coolly eyeing Botis.

“If you must know she runs the limo service I hired to take Michael to the base today.” Botis said after a contemplative sip of instant coffee.

“Oh don’t worry about that;” Michael chimed in helpfully “Mr.Beleth is having a real army jeep sent to pick me up!”

Grandma Muriel laughed so hard that she almost spilled instant coffee on her Jerry Springer sweatshirt.

Michael swallowed hard as the heavy iron door slammed behind him. As he looked across the dark and cold room at the angel, he studied it. It seemed ancient, like nursing home ancient. The beginnings of a beard were forming on its wrinkled chin. Its sagging chest had even more hair than its face and head combined, but it was hard to tell because it was matted with dirt and other various forms of filth. Its eyes were unfocused and its head lolled around like Botis’s head did sometimes when he came in late and caught him watching war movies. Michael wanted to leave; he wanted to run as far away as he could get from this terrifying thing.

As he took a step backwards, Mr.Beleth’s voice came over the intercom, “Is everything all right in there, son?”

The voice was enough to remind Michael what would happen if he ran away. Michael nodded and waved his hand, and began to walk slowly towards the angel. The smell got monumentally worse with each step. Finally Michael was hunched near the angel. The angel’s eyes did not focus on him at all, but it seemed to relax. Its breathing became easier and its head stopped its incessant rolling. Michael tried whispering to it, he tried singing and telling stories. He even tried showing it some of his favorite pebbles. No response from the angel. After several hours, Michael began to cry softly. This elicited a response from the angel, who for the first time, looked directly at him with what appeared to be understanding. At least that’s how Michael felt when he received the gaze. They stared at one another for another full hour before the heavy iron door opened and Mr.Beleth entered.

“Well kid, what is going on? I didn’t bring you here so you could make sappy eyes at each other. The fanatics I told you about, they are outside and they are starting to get rowdy.” Mr.Beleth lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall.

Michael walked up to Mr.Beleth, swallowed hard, stood up straight, looked him right in the eye and said, “Get me some soapy water and a sponge . While I clean him up get a stage ready so that he can talk to the people.”

Mr.Beleth laughed, “What are you playing at kid?”

“He told me that he wants to talk to the people, but he is embarrassed about how he looks and smells. “Michael said staring evenly in to Mr.Beleth’s eyes. “He won’t let anyone wash him but me, because he has chosen me to help him.”

“He never said a word to you, kid. I was there the whole time, listening.” Mr.Beleth said, seeming a little less comfortable than he had moments ago.

“If he wanted to talk to you, I wouldn’t have had to come here.” Michael said patiently, as if speaking to an invalid.

Mr.Beleth paused for a full minute; glancing back and forth between Michael and the angel. The silence was broken by the bark of the radio that Mr.Beleth wore on his hip. Cursing, Mr.Beleth tore it off of his hip and put it to his ear. After a moment, he lowered it and replaced it on his belt next to his sidearm.

“Alright kid, your “angel” is gonna get his shot. You have twenty minutes to get him presentable.”

The iron door slammed shut.

As Michael crossed the stage, holding the angel’s hand, he searched the crowd. He saw thousands of faces, all cheering and chanting. Michael turned his attention to the dozen soldiers guarding the stage. He examined their stances, the way they were holding their assault rifles. Some of them shifted their weight back and forth while others stood stock still. Some had locked knees while others were keeping theirs lightly bent. Some looked at the crowd while others looked at faces in the crowd. After a few seconds that passed like hours for Michael, he had found the perfect soldier.

Mr.Beleth had bound the angel’s wings at the base, near his back. When Michael protested, Mr.Beleth said, “Well we can’t have him flying away and we can’t have him in shackles. We don’t want to look like monsters, now do we?”

Ambri was more excited than she had ever been in her life. Not only would she never have to work again, but her son was responsible for bringing the word of heaven to the world. She stood proudly in the front row, beaming as her precious Michael held the hand of God’s messenger and led him to the microphone laden podium. For the first time since she had arrived earlier that morning, the crowd was silent. She tightened her grip on Botis’s hand. Every eye firmly attached to the sagely looking angel who stood, somewhat shakily, at the podium. Long minutes passed and the angel just stared out at them, its wings twitching ever so slightly. Finally, just as its mouth opened, a soldier cried out, clutching his ankle where her little Michael had just landed a rock with some rather wicked looking edges. As he stumbled, Michael swiftly removed his field knife and ran to the angel. The other soldiers reacted moving towards Michael, but it was too late. Even as the rifle butt connected with his head, Michael succeeded in severing the bindings. Before Michael’s unconscious form hit the stage, the angel was in flight. Some of the soldiers began to take aim. The crowd reacted immediately, hurling stones and themselves at the stage. Panicked, some of the younger soldiers started firing into the crowd. Botis quickly pushed Ambri in front of him, to act as a shield, but he used too much force and succeeded only in throwing her prone and flat in front of him. The barrage of bullets that slammed in to him knocked him clean out of his imported sheepskin shoes. The last thing Ambri remembered seeing before she fainted was the angel gliding off in to the clouds.

Overview of my rewrite of Gabriel Marquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings"

I chose to rewrite, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” written by Gabriel Marquez. It was by far my favorite piece of the semester. The idea of Magical Realism fits directly in with my world view and I would love nothing more than to see a dragon land in the parking lot of a grocery store.

I felt that the original was successful in making a statement about not only the church, but about society as a whole. I just don’t think he was willing to, “push the envelope.” I wanted to take the story farther than Marquez did. I think that in a story that revolves around a mostly silent character that the burden of storytelling falls on the other characters. That is what led me to the decision to make Michael the main focus of the story. Michael is likeable, honest and has a strong sense of right and wrong. He is the real angel in the story, not the feeble old man with wings. In regards to the other characters, they were all named after and based on angels from a wide variety of faiths.

One of the other things that really irked me about the original was the lack of closure. When I finished the story I felt like the author stopped early because his printer ran out of ink. I am aware that this is a distinctly American perspective, but as Popeye says, “I ams what I ams.”Admittedly, there is more room for character development in my version of the story, but since this was only my third attempt at fiction; I thought it prudent to not get too carried away.

The specific message I am trying to convey with this work is something that I am not willing to go in to specifics on. I feel that it is my duty as an artist to leave some things open to the reader’s interpretation, so as not to deprive them of the chance to discover something other than what I had intended.

-Kristian Smith

Go Away

There was a time when I hated algebra. Not because it is difficult, which it most certainly is for me. I hated algebra because the concepts presented had no attachment for me in the world in which I live. The first time someone asked me to define, “X” I was tempted to tell him that it was the letter after W in the English alphabet. As my resistance lessened through comprehension, I came to enjoy solving inequalities and equations. As an avid gamer, who adjusts the difficulty of all games which I play to the highest possible setting, overcoming the challenges presented by the most basic aspects of algebra was exhilarating for me. All of this changed the first time my professor uttered the words, “imaginary numbers.” I had just started to value and respect algebra as the language of reality, the vowels of the universe, and the mere notion that I was to waste my time masturbating with numbers that had earned a phrase so alien to anywhere academic, save for a kindergarten classroom was appalling. The remainder of that semester along with the following one left me feeling like a dog being taught to jump through flaming hoops, the difference being that a hoop-jumping dog actually gets to work with real tangible things, unlike imaginary numbers.

Recently, I enrolled in a summer semester algebra class. This was the first and last algebra class that would transfer to a four year college and actually have a significant impact on my future as a student. I was daunted; I knew my attitude towards algebra was less than conducive to my success in learning much. Fortunately, I was blessed with a professor who speaks algebra as well as English, and has the ability to translate the more abstract concepts of algebra in a way that I can not only comprehend them but also see their value to the standard of living to which I am accustomed to. One of the first topics he tackled was that of imaginary numbers.

“Who cares about imaginary numbers?” He said with a Cheshire grin.

He went on to explain how many of the modern technologies we enjoy would not be possible without them. From space travel to architectural stability projections, life would not be what it is today without imaginary numbers. This revelation brought me to a place where I can not only enjoy the time I spend in class and out, working on algebra, but also removed the negative barrier I had erected out of ignorance.

In the second week of the course we have started exploring the world of graphing. As my professor began describing the formula for finding the length of a right triangle, he was reminded of a mathematician by the name of Fermat. Fermat was a prominent mathematician in the 17^th century, who asked a question to which no answer was found for more than 350 years. One of Fermat’s final acts was a proclamation; he had scribbled in the margin of a book he was reading that he had solved the question but lacked sufficient room in the margin to detail it. Fermat died before recording the solution. The quest to solve the problem spanned hundreds of years and thousands of attempts, monetary awards were given for merely progressing the problem by a few solutions, but no formula was discovered to absolutely solve the problem for a very long time and it was achieved with the help of a computer’s processing power.

I was ready to be thrilled by the impact that the solving of the problem had on our understanding of science and the universe. Instead, my professor said that he felt that the use of a computer was a form of cheating, thereby lessening the significance of the solution; that some guy and his computer, “all fat and happy” had deprived humanity of some great achievement by using a computer to solve this problem which had stumped some of the greatest minds that the area of algebra had to offer for centuries.

It is exactly this kind of thinking which has caused plateau of our progression on a scientific, political, and social level. It is these backwards fossils who refuse to retire, step down, and let a younger and fresher generation who is not afraid of using the tools which our elders provided for us, to create a better tomorrow for ourselves and our children. It is not like someone walked into a clearing and picked the first computer off of a tree and carefully cultivated it to produce better models. The computer is one of the few permanent tangible representations of the technical progress of the past fifty years and the margin by which it out preforms itself on an annual basis is breathtaking to say the least.

This line of thought is evident in our political system as well. All of the rallying cries to revere the constitution as some sort of holy script, never to be deviated from, are the drowning calls of old white men who are afraid of a world which is rapidly growing too fast for them to adjust to, that or people who lack the insight to comprehend that the constitution is a living document, written by a collaboration of men with an enormous foresight, but not omnipotence. They did however have the wisdom to speak against the forming of a two party system; George Washington was against the idea of dividing the republic, presumably because the kind of stalemate that we currently see in D.C. is inevitable under these conditions.

John Addams once said, “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

Let’s forget that some of the same people whom we revere as great leaders and minds told us in no uncertain terms that the way in which we are running things is flawed and inevitably will lead to our downfall. Let’s just examine a document that is several hundred years old with a modern eye so we can justify screwing over the majority of the masses so that our elected officials can play at governing our nation, and when it all goes to shit and we go in to the red, we can just say “oopsie doodles” and raise the debt cap while taxing the poor some more. The majority of which are poor because these fossils won’t take their abacuses off somewhere and retire.

The Dangers of Political Correctness

“The notion of political correctness declares certain topics, certain expressions, even certain gestures, off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship.” George Bush quotes (American 41st US President (1989-93), b.1924)

Wait a minute! Political correctness is a good thing, right? It is a set of rules that tells me how to speak to what I perceive as minorities and members of social groups that are victimized by some unique preference/color/gender or sexual orientation. It lets me make generalizations about someone’s race without offending them! It helps me feel safe when I discuss things in class like the impact of race or gender on job hiring. Well hold on, when was the last time I talked about anything racial in public? OH RIGHT, I am not allowed to, that would be politically incorrect.

Forget the fact that the perceived need for diversity can compromise the entry standards of some of our most prestigious institutions, such as our very own Naval Academy. Academy English professor Bruce Fleming has written numerous articles outlining the lower standards applied to applicants who are not white. The need to appear politically correct overshadows the safety of our enlisted troops, who are expected to follow the orders of officers who gained entry to the academy because of what Fleming refers to as a two-tiered admissions system, “because minority candidates have lower test scores and grades than their counterparts.”(Fleming) Certainly such a generalization does not sound politically correct, that is because it is not; it is an honest assessment based on Fleming’s several years of reviewing test scores as a member of the admissions board at the Naval Academy.

This phenomenon is not limited to the Navy. Do you remember the massacre at Fort Hood in 2009? Major Nadal Malik Hasan, a medical officer in the United States Army, opened fire on unarmed solders in the base itself, killing 13 and injuring two dozen more before he was stopped. Gettysburg HACC’s own Professor Hallberg addresses this incident in the upcoming revision of his book “Return to First Principles”, to be released next year. Professor Hallberg reports that in spite of numerous warning signs, which began weeks before the incident, Major Hasan’s colleagues were afraid to report him “for fear of being seen as discriminatory against Muslim soldiers.” The focus on this incident was understandably directed at the lives lost, but the issue which created this situation, political correctness, was not only overlooked by the majority of major media sources, but additionally compounded by a statement made by Army Chief of Staff General George Casey, “a greater tragedy than the carnage inflicted on unarmed soldiers by an officer of their own army would be anything that called into question ‘diversity’ as a priority of the American military.” Professor Hallberg responds in “Return to First Principles”, “It seems to suggest, Army policy holds that diversity trumps human life.” As a former enlisted airman, these sentiments fill me with great trepidation as to the path that our future military leaders are being guided towards.

What exactly is the widespread result of assigning people and groups with these hyphenated labels? How many of us truly believe that the fact that Mike’s ancestors are from Africa has a profound impact on his performance as a college student; that a professor’s height hinders or helps their ability to effectively impart their knowledge to a classroom of students? I like to believe that in this day and age, not many of us. These are thinly veiled attempts to classify and separate us as a culture. What brings us together as Americans is not our differences, but our common goals, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In order to facilitate our progression as a culture, as a race of humans, we need stop using these labels to distinguish ourselves from others and embrace what attributes we share. I am not so naive as to believe that we are ready for a national handholding ceremony to sing Kumbaya, but if any progress is to be made towards racial and cultural acceptance, the issues need to be able to be freely discussed, with respect not fear.

America the Strong-Counterpoint

America the Strong!

America the Proud!

Where did this country with a flag that has stripes that represent the blood of the fallen go? Where did it come from? It was built on the hard work of great men and women. Men like my grandfather who left high school early and lied about their age to enlist, so that they could go fight for it. This country invested so much of itself into World War II that it went bankrupt for a time. Perhaps you have heard of it, the great depression. After it was over, and we had annihilated our enemies, what did we do? Did we move into Japan and teach them how to police themselves? Did we go to Germany and teach them the finer points of democracy? Hell no we did not! We jumped on the global market as one of the only remaining super powers with an intact industrial structure and got ourselves established.

In those days returning from war, having served one’s country was a badge of honor to be worn proudly. What badges of honor do our youth strive for now? The media glamorizes men wearing oversized jewelry. It is now socially acceptable, even expected, for successful business men to have their nails manicured! How about famous people being proud of being on welfare? Anyone remember when “Ol Dirty Bastard” (ODB) went to collect his welfare check in a limousine? They shot that live and plastered it all over MTV. Why the only thing classier than that would have to be the glorification of being a drug addict and advocating date rape, SURELY no one in this great country would get rich and famous from that, unless your name happens to be Marshall Mathers. If that happens to be the case your career might just net you 13 Grammy awards and enough money to buy your own record label. Even land a sponsorship for a car manufacturer in your hometown to be played during the Super Bowl.

Well the media is just a show, right? All that stuff is pretend you say? Let’s talk about something more real and current. You may remember Terry Jones, a minister from Gainesville, Florida. Terry wanted to burn a stack of copies of the Koran to commemorate the anniversary of 9-11. Certainly, in a country that endorses individuals who rap about illicit drug use and murdering your daughter’s mother would be okay with something like this. It is constitutionally safe to burn the flag as a symbol of protest, why not some books? Terry Jones was crucified in the public media. Terry even received several calls from White House staff and a four star general in our great army, warning him that his actions would put our troops “in harm’s way.” I’m sorry, I thought that driving a Humvee over an improvised explosive device was deadly whether your enemy was angry with you or if they were happy with your country’s stance on religious tolerance.

Now before you go out and boot up your copy of Word to write to me in all capital letters, indented and in 56 pt. font, I would like you to consider the following; what exactly would our nation’s response be to a National Bible Burning day in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Forum Trolls... Pay the toll

This is the age of social media, cyber communities and online research. The majority of these services are available to us for the low cost of a monthly internet fee and tolerating the occasional blinking advertisement on the side of the page we are accessing. With new frontiers there are opportunities for new crimes: digital piracy, copyright infringement, identity theft. Like crime that happens in the physical world, many of us can avoid being victimized by staying in the right neighborhood and acknowledging that most things that are too good to be true, are in fact not true. This applies to pop up ads that tell us that we are winners or that they can remedy our endowment insecurities for the low price of $4.99 a month. The toll I am concerned with is the intellectual toll that we pay the forum trolls whenever we go searching for information.

A forum troll (n) or trolling (v) is a person or act with the sole purpose of adding conflict to an issue or to garner the poster attention that is typically lacking from their unimpressive social or family lives. The sheer size and often anonymity of the internet lends the troll all the safety they need to freely spew vile rhetoric, racial slurs or whatever else they feel they need to do in order to elicit a response to their post. When responded to, even if the response is completely lacking in hostility, you can expect a reply along the lines of, “UMAD BRO?!?!”or, “LAWL.”

These social deviants are protected by forums that allow users to post without providing accurate contact information. Of course, their words are protected by the first amendment. Anyone is free to say whatever they please. The issue at hand is not a legal one; rather it is a matter of ethical consideration. How many of these people would actually write this filth if their REAL name and photo were sitting right there next to their post? Should we really have to pay the toll of sifting through an immeasurable volume of baseless mental diarrhea to access a real intellectual debate on a forum? Debate is the cornerstone of our whole political and legal system. It is one of the things that make this country great. Would you willingly sit through a presidential debate if one of the candidates were wearing a paper bag over their head with a happy face drawn on it?

Why don’t the forum moderators put a stop to it? The answer is money. Let’ say you are looking for a forum debate regarding Pro-life vs. Pro-choice. The forum thread is 18 pages long. Every other post is some nut with a screen name like, “I8urb4by”who is adding nothing but off topic quotes about porn and making fun of dead babies. However, the actual discussion is insightful and thought provoking. So you are resigned to navigating through 18 pages of a thread that only has 9 pages of information you want. Every time you load a new page of the thread, 4 side bar advertisements load. Every advertisement gives the people running the forum a nickel. By not removing the troll’s posts, the forum has made $3.60 off of your time instead of $1.80.

There are several ways to combat this phenomenon. The easiest and least committal would be to never respond to a troll’s post. “Feeding” the trolls is the most direct way to add to their sense of power and ensure that they will continue posting. A more drastic and time consuming method is to only visit forums with a thorough application process and extremely active moderators. The latter will most assuredly limit the quantity of material you have at your disposal, but it will inevitably increase the quality.

Mommy, Death is Under My Bed

It is safe to say that people fear death; not only the death that they all will one day face, but also the death of their loved ones. What is it that fuels this fear? Is it a rational fear? It is difficult to believe that so many people are plagued by this aversion to an event which so little is known about. Exploring the mindset towards the death of a loved one may seem like an exercise in simplicity, however, the rationale behind the fear of a loved one dying is not as simple as it may seem.

Since no one has successfully returned from a death that they maintained long enough to garner any insight into what happens, one can only presume that the real pain caused by the death of a loved one is a pain of personal loss. Not a soul on this earth can, on substantial authority; state that death is a negative experience for the participant. By comparison, the Harry Potter Bertie Bott's Jelly Beans come in an immensely diverse array of flavors. Some of the more abstract flavors include: Chocolate, Brussel Sprouts, Strawberry Jelly, Rotten Egg, Toe nails, Dirt, Biscuit, and the ever popular Vomit. One would think, as a result of people’s inclination to presume the worst, that these flavors would be sorted by flavor; this is not the case. People have spent millions of dollars on boxes where their next jellybean has as much a chance of tasting like earwax as it does buttered popcorn.

Why this presumption that death is going to be an earwax jellybean? There are numerous cultural influences that make death seem like something most of us would rather avoid for ourselves and our loved ones. A good place to start would be the personification of death itself, The Grim Reaper. The first psychopomp is believed to be Charon, the ferryman who conveyed the newly dead across the river Styx into Hades, the land of the dead. Interestingly, the idea of a psychopomp, (one who watches over the dead), would seem to say that humans want a greater understanding of death; after all, is that not the point of personifications? Where does the modern visage of death come from? According to William Bramley, author of Gods of Eden, in Brandenburg, Germany, there appeared fifteen men with “fearful faces and long scythes, with which they cut the oats, so that the swish could be heard at great distance, but the oats remained standing”. The visit of these men was followed immediately by a severe outbreak of plague in Brandenburg. It is all so clear now, people do not want a kinship with death, people want a scapegoat.

What is the reasoning behind humans needing a scapegoat to throw the burden of death upon? When addressing questions such as this, it is most prudent to consult the mechanics who study the moving parts of the mind, psychiatrists. Jeff Schimel covers the history of TMT or terror management theory in his article, “Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility.” This theory is quite elaborate, yet scientific in nature and rings true in the face of empirical study. Schimel writes that all living things share the lineage of evolution; that is to say, all life began as one thing and changed into another. Based upon this line of thinking, it can be stated that all life shares a common trait, the powerful drive to adapt to its surroundings and overcome any adversity that it faces. As a life form, human beings share this trait but there is an added complication in our evolution as a species. Human beings developed sentience or self-awareness. We not only have natural instincts which guide us towards survival, but we are also aware of the consequences of our failure to successfully perform these functions. Schimel elaborates on these ideas warning of the intrinsic flaw in our sentience; that even if we are successful in our endeavors for survival, we will eventually fall victim to the inevitable boogie man of death. This conflict between a need for survival and knowledge of the impending demise creates what is referred to as TMT. Schimel goes on to write that, “Humans mitigate this fear through the development and maintenance of a dual-component anxiety buffer consisting of a cultural worldview and self-esteem.” Translated into laymen’s terms this means that much of the desire for achievement that motivates us to do great things is based on a desire to defy that scythe wielding monster, who we all are painfully aware is waiting for us. Alleviation of TMT is achieved through adhering to popular worldviews set forth most commonly by major religions, which tell of a symbolic defiance via an afterlife or a more literal non-cooperation by means of having children or works of art which will survive long after the lights go out. According to TMT, death motivates the human race to achieve great things! By that rationale a fear of dying is not only inherent to us as a species, but it places us above other pattern based thinking life forms. This author believes that this level of acceptance is utterly reprehensible. Why should mankind’s major motivation be fear? The elimination of death as a negative event would eliminate an anxiety which plagues every single member of the species on a daily basis. Even the possibility of death being a good thing could create a less stress ridden existence. As any student of psychology can attest to, Skinner proved that a rat is more prone to preform positively when given a pellet rather than an electric shock.

To address the loss of a loved one through the lens of TMT, explains much of the apprehension behind human’s fears of such an event. Orson Scott Card writes of the thoughts of a dead man, Mark, viewing his own corpse in his short story, “Quietus”, “…he turned around to the coffin, which fascinated him, and he opened the lid again and looked inside. It was as if the poor man had no face at all, Mark realized. As if death stole faces from people and made them anonymous even to themselves.” The view of death as not only a loss of proximity but also existence is completely without supporting evidence., yet the mere possibility of this is enough to send an entire species into a sort of frenzied achievement mode; constantly ensuring that loved ones are aware of our love in case it is the last time that they get to hear it. Joseph Hayes alludes to the idea that according to TMT, our need for sexual conquest, procreation, marriage, sustained monogamy, anniversaries, and even tokens of affection are a result of our fear that that person may leave us uninformed as to our true feelings.

To summarize, for such a motivating force in the human race as a whole, there is absolutely no empirical evidence that death is a negative experience for the participant. This detail does nothing to dull even the idea of the inevitable blow which awaits us all. Based on how the scientific community views Freud’s works, which also cannot be proven by empirical testing, the default to negative death is completely absurd. The fact that a possibility exists, does not make it a fact or even likely to be a fact.

Works Cited

Bramley, William. The Gods of Eden. New York: Avon, 1993. Print.

Card, Orson Scott. "Quietus." Maps in a Mirror: the Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2004. 25-26. Print.

Hayes, Joseph, Jeff Schime, Jamie Ardnt, and Erik Faucher. "A Theoretical and Empirical Review of the Death-thought Accessibility Concept in Terror Management Research." Psychological Bulletin 136.5 (2010): 0033-2909. Web.

Schimel, Jeff, Joseph Hayes, Todd Williams, and Jesse Jahrig. "Is Death Really the Worm at the Core? Converging Evidence That Worldview Threat Increases Death-thought Accessibility." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92.5 (2007): 789-803. Print.

A Jungian Analysis of Young Goodman Brown

The Delusions of Young Goodman Brown

The story, “Young Goodman Brown”, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a work of art. If one were blessed with infinite time and access to the author, along with all of his influences, one could ascertain the original intent that drove Hawthorne to craft such an intricate tale. Unfortunately, such resources are not available to anyone; that being the case, art must be defined in the terms that make the most sense to the onlooker. The result is an infinite amount of interpretations, all filtered through the variables of the person experiencing the work. The particular translation that this paper will validate, is that Young Goodman Brown did not leave his home to meet with Satan, rather that he set forth to confront certain aspects of himself that he could not accept being a part of the man he viewed himself to be.

In order to fully realize the theory, groundwork must be laid out. Fortunately, Neo-Freudian psychiatrist, Carl Jung, spent the majority of his career exploring and theorizing about the makeup and motivations of the human mind. D.J. Moores notes that, Jung disagreed with Freud’s claim that the subconscious is mostly driven by libido. (Moores) D.J. Moores also tells us that Jung believed that there exists a shadow behind a person’s conscious mind. (Moores) This shadow is comprised of the aspects of oneself which are repressed by the society one exists in and the standards to which one holds oneself. In a rigidly Puritanical society, such as the one Young Goodman Brown finds himself in at the onset of the story, the pressures to be prudent and morally beyond reproach would be quite oppressive. To summarize, a confrontation with Young Goodman Brown’s own shadow, is the destination that our protagonist leaves his faith behind to visit in the woods.

An examination of the specific aspects of Young Goodman Brown’s departure from his wife, “Faith”, lends a fair amount of depth to this allegorical perspective. From the onset Faith attempts to dissuade Young Goodman Brown from his task. If one considers Faith’s role as that of Young Goodman Brown’s faith, then the following passage holds an entirely different connotation.

‘"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year."’(Hawthorne)

Young Goodman Brown’s faith is aware of his meeting with his shadow, at least on any level as faith could be, for faith is not known for being the most informed of motivations. One may ask, “Why would he set off on this quest to confront his shadow; he seems happy with his faith?” D.J. Moores tells us that, The answer from a Jungian perspective is that Goodman Brown is in fact seeking himself his lost/unwanted parts, the psychic energies he keeps locked in the dungeon of the unconscious because they threaten to overwhelm his Calvinistic value system, which has no room for darkness, shadow, and "evil."(Moores) The urge for internal completion is what drives Young Goodman Brown into the woods that night, in spite of the happiness his faith offers him.

The following passage is a reflection by Young Goodman Brown after he has already left his faith behind.

‘"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven."’(Hawthorne)

Of the several relevant points displayed in the previous passage, the first is how he refers to his faith as “little”; almost as if he is acknowledging that it is insufficient for her to solely support him, absent the meeting he is en route to. Young Goodman Brown feels the guilt of leaving behind his faith in this pursuit, calling himself a “wretch.” This is further evidence of the deterioration of his already compromised Puritanical values. Paul Hurley presents the idea that this endeavor would result in the death of his faith, were he successful; sidestepping this reality Young Goodman Brown is under the impression that his distance from his faith will only be temporary. (Hurley) When viewed from the Jungian school of thought, this is quite an elegant little piece of foreshadowing. Paul Hurley agrees that, the irony in this passage lies in the idea that once Young Goodman Brown has finished with his confrontation with his shadow that he will return to his faith and earn access to heaven by merely clinging to her skirts. This mindset does not sound like a faithful Puritan, who believes that his virtues and good deeds will gain him passage through the pearly gates. (Hurley) Perhaps, he is aware of the folly of this spiritual attitude on a subconscious level and that doubt feeds his shadow all the more.

Young Goodman Brown’s meeting with the Devil is full of telltale signs that this is his own personal devil. The choosing of Satan to represent Young Goodman Brown’s shadow is not a farfetched one.” Satan, according to Jungian theory, is Christianity's shadow; he is all the religion refuses to tolerate.” (Moores) One of the indicators that this particular vision is a product of a tormented mind is the resemblance the figure bears to Young Goodman Brown. Hawthorne describes him as a man who is, “apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son.” (Hawthorne} All obvious similarities aside, the specification of the parallels in expression lend weight to the theory that this man is an aspect of Young Goodman Brown’s mind.

The inclusion of the various townsfolk represents the Jungian aspect of projection. Jung wrote. "Hence one meets with projections, one does not make them" The surprise meeting of persons to whom his moral standing was of great import is evidence that his shadow was attempting to rationalize with him by showing that even these great moral beacons in his life, his deacon, his bishop, his wife, and even the woman who taught him the catechism, were capable of evil.

Young Goodman Brown’s refusal to participate in the ritual and merge with his shadow left him in a desolate position, aware of his shadow yet unable to accept it Young Goodman Brown sought the only refuge of a mind faced with a reality it cannot handle, the projection of its own flaws onto those around it. Thus, Young Goodman Brown’s rejection of the rest of his village and wife was nothing more than the result of a failed merging with the inescapable parallel that lay behind all of his noble aspirations.

Works Cited

Moores, D.J. "Young Goodman Brown's 'evil purpose': Hawthorne and the Jungian shadow." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 27.3-4 (2005): 4+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Apr. 2011.

Hurley, Paul J. "Young Goodman Brown's 'Heart of Darkness'." American Literature 37.4 (Jan. 1966): 410-419. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 29. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Apr. 2011.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” 40 Short Stories. Ed. Beverly Lawn. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009, 1-11. Print.