PAPERS

From Qirmizy to Crimson

2007-07-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

One of my students, a young Muslim woman, was upset. Like many students, she spends her entire day on campus. Traditional Muslims pray several times a day, and the student was looking for a quiet corner. When she asked a campus employee for help, the employee replied, "Why not try the restroom?"

The student was offended. To her, the restroom is a place of waste, an unclean place—not a proper place for prayer. I understood her revulsion. At the same time, however, I understood the employee who made the suggestion. There are few quiet places on campus. To a non-Muslim, and secularized American, the restroom does not have unclean or degrading connotations. The employee was trying to problem-solve—propose a compromise.

The employee's suggestion was not the most tactful reply to the student's need, but it illustrates an important aspect of communication. Our backgrounds and cultures influence our comprehension. "Quiet" to one person includes a sacred nuance. To another person, it implies literal silence. What we hear is not necessarily what the other person means.

Not only does culture influence our understanding of language, the very structure of our "mother tongue" influences how we approach a new language. We cannot help but view the new language through pre-established expectations. We apply our expectations throughout the learning (acquisition) process as we hunt for similarities between the mother tongue (language 1) and the new language (language 2). This is called language transfer.

Language transfer is natural—although the field itself is filled with controversy. In my grammar classes, I encounter a growing number of ELL students whose "mother tongues" influence their understanding of English grammar. Many of these students are Sudanese; their first language is Arabic. As their teacher, I can assist the acquisition process by appreciating the role of language transfer, learning the structures and expectations of Arabic, and preparing tasks that take those expectations into account.

Language transfer is a complicated discipline. It seems self-evident that one's native language influences one's perception of Latin, French, English or Arabic. Controversies over language transfer cluster around the process of that influence. Some theorists argue that language transfer is largely behavioral and cultural (as illustrated by the above anecdote). More recently, language transfer theorists have applied statistical methodology to cases of language learning.

My primary interest is how the teacher should take language transfer into account, specifically in the study of grammar. S. Pit Corder's article "A Role for the Mother Tongue" can help the teacher recognize language transfer in the classroom as natural and even necessary. Corder (1992) argues with the original model of language transfer whereby the "mother tongue" interferes/inhibits the learner from grasping rules of the new language. Learning a language, Corder contends, is not like memorizing a list of structures. "[This notion]," he writes, "is . . . reinforced by the nature of the structural syllabus upon which our teaching programs have been for so long based" (pp. 21-22). Corder's article is more than ten years old, but his comments are still applicable today.

The process of learning a language is more complex than accumulating drills. Grammar rules in language 1 cannot be transferred directly to the grammar of language 2; people do not always learn languages progressively. Consider the difference between a second language learner who learns from a textbook (linearly) and the second language learner who lives amongst speakers of the second language. As common knowledge (and language students) testify, the latter group learns the language more rapidly and more idiomatically.

Corder, however, is concerned primarily with the process of language transfer (rather than the milieu). He argues that the "mother tongue" facilitates acquisition. He refers specifically to what he calls "performance phenomenon"—"borrowing." When a second language learner is under pressure, the learner will "borrow" or substitute words from the mother tongue (p. 26). Borrowing occurs because communication is the learner's primary goal, rather than obedience to grammar rules. This was true when I took French literature in college. After four years of high school French, I could read French fairly well but could not (and still cannot) speak it without serious embarrassment. During class, the professor wanted us to use French to discuss the day's assigned reading. Inevitably, I would start out, "Je connais . . . " but within moments, I would fall back into English. I was reverting, not borrowing. Borrowers retrieve words and structures from the mother tongue to help their developing sense of the second language (Corder, 26). In both cases, however, being understood is the primary goal.

Corder's article is helpful to any teacher of ELL students. Since grammar courses are designed to be "cumulative"—to borrow Corder's term—such courses contain strong expectations that students will learn a concept and then move on. It is always disconcerting when students, both native and non-native speakers, continue to make errors covered in earlier lessons. An individual's internal understanding of a language is not nearly as systematic as grammar workbooks would have teachers believe.

Corder also makes clear that language transfer is not an equation. Many times, language 1 does not contain forms or concepts that can be transferred to language 2. It is hopeless to search for feminine and masculine articles (le/la) in English. English capital letters find no equivalent in Arabic. Learning a language does not mean forcing the mother tongue to conform to a new set of rules. A new language is its own entity.

Arabic and English, for example, have many differences. The differences are ingrained, not superficial. Arabic has no modal verbs (can, could, may, might, will, would) and also no form of "to be" in the present tense (am, is, are) (Swan & Smith, 2001, pp. 201, 203-204). I encounter errors in these areas when I correct essays by my Sudanese students. One student wrote, "[T]he demon didn't like my mother because she Christian." The same student combined a modal verb with a noun: "getting marriage" and "could get marriage" Another student produced a similar error, writing, "[I]t had never been snow."

Other transfer issues surround prepositions. Arabic contains prepositions, but not all Arabic prepositions can be "transferred" directly into English, either in terms of usage or purpose (Swan & Smith, 2001, pp. 206-207). Unnecessary prepositions occur in my students' essays: "[F]or the first day I got here, I did not like [the cold]." "After 25 years later, my great-grandfather die." "[I]t gives more opportunity to the people to be able to work." In all instances, the extra preposition or prepositional phrase is added for the sake of emphasis.

Understanding these types of errors, and why they occur, can help the grammar teacher appreciate what challenges Arabic-speaking students face. When I look over my students' essays, I am impressed by how many times they experimented, unconsciously or consciously, with grammar structures; they were creating what language transfer theorists call an "interlanguage," or developmental language.

Keeping ELL students in mind, the grammar teacher should prepare lessons which teach the existence of the grammar rule, not simply the application. Sandra Fotos stresses this approach in her chapter "Structure-Based Interactive Tasks for the EFL Grammar Learner" in New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Fotos (2002) compares implicit instruction with explicit instruction. In implicit instruction, such as the communicative approach, students are exposed to examples of writing that use certain grammar rules (p. 136). The communicative approach rests on the idea that grammar structures occur in context, not in the "ordered lists" criticized by Corder. Certainly, the communicative approach has a place in grammar curriculums. Yet Fotos cites research where "learners benefit from formal instruction prior to meaning-focused activities because such instruction promotes their attention to the forms they will encounter" (p. 137). Learners need explicit instruction to help them focus.

Corder and promoters of the communicative approach are not wrong when they argue that acquiring a language is not a systematic act. However, the need for explicit instructions in the classroom is clear. Just as explaining the rules and then moving on to the next chapter is not enough, presenting material and leaving students to their own devices is not fruitful. Fotos' solution is "structure-based interactive tasks" that combine implicit and explicit instruction. She focuses mainly on EFL classrooms—where English is taught not for daily use (as a second language) but in order to pass a test or move on to another level (much as I learned French in high school)—but her task types can be used in ESL or regular grammar courses. In the first task type, students use a targeted grammar principle to complete an activity (p. 144). In the second task type, students must complete a meaning-based problem using correct grammar (p. 145).

Fotos' standard for these tasks comes from Peter Skehan. According to Skehan, a task should (1) communicate primarily through meaning; (2) present a problem to be solved; (3) have real world application; (4) resolve with (5) a measurable performance (Fotos, p. 140). Using both Fotos and Skehan's recommendations, I created two tasks for the lesson, "Helping Verbs." I chose this lesson because of its possible pitfalls for Arabic speakers. The tasks will be aimed at that group.

Introduction to Tasks:

There are three types of verbs in English: action verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs. Helping verbs include the following: be, being, been, am, are, is, was, were, do, does, did, have, had, has, shall, should, can, could, will, would, may, might, must.

Shall, should, can, could, will, would, may, might, must are also called "modals."

Not all languages have helping verbs or modals. In English, helping verbs are used to say whether something took place in the past or will take place in the future:
We have seen the movie already. (We saw the movie in the past.)
I will go to the ballgame tomorrow. (I go in the future)
Modals are used to suggest a possibility or a necessity:
I may walk the dog.
I should feed the cat.
HELPING VERBS ARE ALWAYS USED WITH BASE VERBS. The base verb is usually an action verb. Find the action verbs in the above sentences (go, see, walk, feed).

Task I: Combining helping verbs and base or action verbs

Using helping verbs, students must complete the phrases on the board:
I _____ going to the mall this afternoon.
I ______ spoken to the lawyer about the will.
He ______ thinking about selling his boat.
We ______ wish to visit the memorial.
They ________ planning a picnic for Friday.
You ________ tell me if the parade cancels.

(Again, the base verbs are "go," "speak," "think," "wish," "plan," "tell.")

Task 2: Teaching the modal

Pass out pictures of people from magazines.

Students should write a paragraph about what their person will do in the future. (Hint: use "will," "shall.")

Students should then write a paragraph about what their person ought to do in the future. (Hint: use "should," "may," "might," "must.")

Analysis of Tasks

The first task uses explicit instruction. The students are required to finish incomplete sentences with the correct form of a helping verb. To emphasize that the helping and base verb go together, the teacher and students could use a specific color pen for the verbs.

The task should emphasize the use of helping verbs in both the past and present tense. When reviewing the answers, the teacher should point out the possibility of several right answers ("He is thinking about selling his boat." "He was thinking . . ."). The teacher should not single out students who answer wrongly. Rather, the teacher should show why an answer is wrong. If a student writes, "We have wish," for example, the teacher could talk about tense forms. If a student writes, "I am spoken," the teacher could talk about subject-verb agreement.

The second task uses implicit instruction. There are no modal verbs in Arabic. However, in all cultures, people think about the future, and people give advice. Task 2 parlays that natural human tendency into the correct use of "modals." Like many grammar rules, modals are difficult to explain at a purely definitional level; the words "would," "should" and "must" represent differing degrees of necessity, but the nuances are slight, even to native speakers. Practice is the best guide here. In order to make the second task more relevant, the teacher could substitute a real person for the picture person: "What do you think your sibling should do in the future?"

Conclusion

Learning a new language can be a stressful event. Even the best-prepared teacher will encounter problems unconnected, on the surface, to grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary. In their introduction to Language Transfer in Language Learning, editors Susan Gass and Larry Selinker (1992) list various factors in learning a new language: "age . . . motivation, loyalty to a language, language aptitude, and attitude" (p. 4). Teachers cannot cancel out these factors, but they can, hopefully, lessen the uneasiness or fear felt by most language learning students. Teachers can be alert to "transfers" and "borrowings" that students may make as they acquire the new language.

The teacher can use interactive tasks based on Fotos' model. Both explicit and implicit instructions are necessary in the classroom; explicit and implicit tasks encourage students to focus and to apply their learning. The teacher should emphasize not just the necessity but the usability of correct grammar.

Teachers need to keep ELL students in mind, whether or not they teach ESL classes. Within just the last year, the number of Sudanese and Somalian students in my classes has nearly doubled. Many of these students have not taken ESL classes. Their level of acquisition varies greatly. I have had students with almost no verbal skills, and students who use American-English idioms without effort. I have had students who cannot write complete sentences, and students who write nearly flawless English. In all cases, I have to keep in mind what aspects of English may cause the most confusion for my students. Some problems, like run-on sentences and fragments, apply to all students (all the time!), but other issues, such as the use of helping verbs, the use of prepositions, and the use of capital letters are specific to my Sudanese and Arabic-speaking students. I will not be able to address every issue that my students face but hopefully, I can make English more accessible to them while I encourage them to enjoy the wonderful language they are learning.

References follow. This research paper was written for an education course. An analysis of the course can be found at Votaries of Horror.

References

Corder, S. Pit (1992). A role for the mother tongue. In S. Gass & L. Selinker (Eds.), Language Transfer in Language Learning. (pp. 18-31). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Fotos, Sandra (2002). Structure-based interactive tasks for the EFL grammar learner. In E. Hinkle & S. Fotos (Eds.), New Persepctives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. (pp. 135-154). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gass, Susan M. & Selinker, Larry (Eds.). (1992). Language Transfer in Language Learning. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Hinkle, Eli & Fotos, Sandra (Eds.). (2002). Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Student papers (names withheld), Introduction to College Writing, Fall 2006.

Swan, Michael & Smith, Bernard (Eds.). (2001). Arabic speakers. In Learner English. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Check Out My WebQuest

2007-07-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Creating Effective Description

Reflective Paper for Teaching Class

2007-05-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

In order to get certified, I am currently taking "Teaching the Exceptional Student in the Classroom" which is code for "learning the law regarding children with disabilities and special needs so the school doesn't get sued." I will be posting the occasional paper from that class. The paper below has to do with the problem of inclusion. Inclusion is the idea that instead of sequestering children with disabilities, they should be included in mainstream classes (the proper term is "general" classroom). I have very mixed feelings about this, not because I am opposed to inclusion but because the philosophy behind it seems so demanding.
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The philosophy of inclusion is enlightened and enchanting in its possibilities. However, like so many abstract concepts, implementation can prove difficult. I have a great deal of sympathy for teachers who are put off by both the complications of special education law and by the demands of implementation. I agree with Debi Smith and Betty Bolte (Smith, 48) that collaboration is the best solution, although collaboration can produce complications as well.

My teaching experience is mostly at the college level-—I currently teach English at both Southern Maine Community College and Andover College-—although I have substituted at the high school level and in resource rooms. In the college setting, I deal mostly with learning disabilities rather than physical impairments or mental retardation. My following comments rise mostly out of perceived obstacles encountered by elementary and high school teachers; some of my comments deal with the end result-—what I encounter at the college level.

I believe in teaching. I believe in the necessity of conveying basic instruction to people of all ages and all backgrounds. It is very exciting to develop and utilize different techniques in order to connect with a wide range of students. Yet I am increasingly frustrated by how much teaching has morphed, even at the college level, into social management. Teachers have always had to deal with administrative issues, but current teachers seem to be self-contained CEOs, required to keep afloat a multitude of meetings, legal requirements, collaborative sessions, interventions, supervisions, mediations, anything and everything except teaching. Students benefit socially and emotionally from such a well-organized system, but the educational fall-out can be severe. I find it profoundly disturbing how little my 20-year-old students know about basic writing and grammar even while they expect constant supervision and direction. It worries me how little they are willing to think on their own.

Furthermore, I wonder how many potential teachers-—people who know how to communicate ideas and ground students in fundamental concepts-—are put off by the expectations of inclusion. The law itself can be rather daunting, especially since teachers are so exposed to public criticism. I worked as a secretary for ten years. Being a secretary is a hard job; you are at the beck and call of others, yet even as a receptionist, I was never answerable, performance-wise, to more than three people. Now, I have seventy people with some say in how I teach. That doesn't include the heads of my departments, college administrations, accreditation committees, students' parents (not as big a concern in the college environment, thank goodness). Consequently, I've developed a thicker skin, but I've never been able to shake the vague uneasiness that accompanies any environment with multiple rules. I would never purposefully ignore a legal requirement, such as finding a note taker for a student. But suppose, through lack of communication, I failed to follow through on such a request? What would happen to me? Students have sued colleges; suppose, unintentionally, I leave my department open to such an action?

Teachers bear the brunt of many of our culture's expectations and, consequently, are expected to perform duties that go beyond teaching. I want desperately for my students to reach their educational goals: write a clear essay, use correct punctuation, properly research information. In order to help them reach these goals, I have to accommodate different learning styles while keeping the class involved and on-task. It can be very difficult, and I cannot imagine running the kind of classroom envisioned in Teaching Students with Special Needs where all mental, physical and cultural diversities are simultaneously recognized and celebrated (Smith, 41). Teachers do get to know their students (better, I sometimes think, than the students realize), but understanding is difficult enough amongst our closest friends and relatives; to expect that level of understanding from teachers towards all of their students regarding all aspects of their students' lives seems, well, a bit demanding.

That being said, the philosophy of inclusion is the right philosophy, and legal efforts on behalf of children with special needs are right and commendable. It does not surprise me that children with disabilities do better when incorporated into general education classrooms. During one of my subbing jobs in a resource room, I witnessed a young woman of nineteen with severe retardation (possibly Down syndrome). She was the oldest student in the room. Throughout the day, she became repeatedly belligerent and aggressive. She cheered up when a senior from a general education class came in; she addressed the senior by name in a pleased, excited voice. At some level, she must have felt the wrongness of being nineteen and yet removed from students close to her in age. I felt rather limp and ineffectual (even more than the usual substitute blues); she was so frustrated, yet unable to articulate her frustration. And yet, after all, what could anyone do? She attended general education classes, but her disability was severe enough that she spent a lot of time in the resource room. The resource room concentrated on both teaching and life skills, and she returned to the room mostly for the latter. Although the resource room staff (there must have been about five of them overall) struck me as somewhat patronizing, they were also reasonable and patient and, quite frankly, I didn't have to deal with the young woman everyday. (The aggressiveness was a daily occurrence.)

I think this indicates the crux of uneasiness over inclusion: how much is enough? There is always something to be done, and ideally, we should always try to make people's lives better. Realistically, money is a concern; time is a concern; resources are a concern. And they will always be concerns; even if every school in the country had all the money it asked for, such concerns would still arise: human needs and desires are limitless; money and time and resources will always run short.
With that in mind, I am a huge advocate of peer support. I have found that group learning can be quite effective. There are always students in my classes who never speak and students who answer every single question; there are students who have difficulty motivating themselves, and students who are self-motivators. When I mix up the groups (and mix them up good, so the students aren't simply grouped with their neighbors), the outcome is always better. The mix leads to collaboration. Students encourage each other, learn about each other, and exchange ideas. Also, since teaching is the best way to learn, encouraging high performance students to teach low performance students can keep the high performance students engaged.

Collaboration is the key to inclusion. I promote peer support, rather than professional collaboration, simply because it seems more accessible. But consultation with colleagues is always helpful. Some of the best teaching advice I've received came from other adjuncts. Many times, they have been-there-done-that and can suggest possible solutions.

Collaboration is necessary for any teacher, and constant collaboration, especially for elementary school teachers, who are isolated from their peers, is vital. The dark side to collaboration is that it depends on other people: other people's availability; other people's understanding; other people's agreement; other people's personalities! Ms. Moffett's First Year by Abby Goodnough records the tension between a new first grade teacher and the school's principal. Ms. Moffett, the teacher, is inexperienced but committed and wants to try different teaching techniques. The principal considers Ms. Moffett's ideas foolish and unnecessary; she is more concerned with a stable and well-disciplined classroom. Ms. Moffett comes off as somewhat naïve, but a principal with a different personality might have understood Ms. Moffett's intentions and encouraged her creativity rather than squashing it.

But then, all schools could use perfect principals as well as perfect teachers. And that isn't possible. To be honest, my primary reaction to Teaching Students was exhaustion. How can anyone live up to these ideals? I understand the necessity of complying with the law, and I commend the promotion of inclusive classrooms, but I sure wish Teaching had a less rose-colored view of the issues at hand. How about stories where things didn't work out? However, perhaps the authors are right; disillusionment has never been a particularly good instruction tool. Inclusion is important as well as collaboration, and teachers should attempt to live up to those ideals, no matter how often they fall below the mark.

Book: Teaching Students with Special Needs in Inclusive Settings by Tom E.C. Smith et al. 4th edition. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006.

THESIS: Introduction

2006-09-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here it is! Concerning my purpose in writing the thesis (other than wanting to graduate), the Introduction, which follows, is more or less self-explanatory. Suffice it to say, This is my attempt to bring into the academic study of literature, the kind of in-depth and enthusiastic discussions that fans carry on everyday. And no, unfortunately, I couldn't just say that and be done.

I would like to thank my friends and family with whom I have held many, many in-depth and enthusiastic discussions about, well, everything, but especially about books, films and television shows. Any experiential authority I might have in this area is due to you.

Please feel free to comment, only not, I beg you, on textual errors. At this point, as the thesis is being bound and stuck somewhere in the USM library, I really don't want to know. To reach me, e-mail: woodburykate@yahoo.com

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Inside Knowledge: Votary Theory at Work

People who are fond of books know the feeling of
irritation which sweeps over them [when disturbed].
The temptation to be unreasonable and
snappish is one not easy to manage.
The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The first time I forgot myself while reading was in second grade. I barely remember the book now, except that it was an easy reader and about a cat. I do remember that I became so absorbed, I was late for school lunch. It was the beginning of many years of inattentiveness. Ten years later, I would get moved to the front of eleventh grade math for reading Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bears during class. Upon entering the work force as a secretary, I learned never to bring interesting books to my desk. I was liable to bark, "What do you want?" to interrupting supervisors.

My enthrallment with books started before I learned to read myself. I was read to as a child, mostly by my mother, who also told me fairytales, including her own (about a troll named Milo). I developed a predisposition then for audio performances. I would also act out the stories I heard. I would experiment mentally, and physically, with crafting fictions: if you change all the female characters in Cinderella to male and the male characters to female, does it alter the story? Suppose a certain event, crucial to the original text, does not occur? Suppose we add a character--what happens then? Story was a real as well as a made thing.

Despite growing up without a television, I was surrounded by performances: ballet (my sister Ann's interest), plays in the park--Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde--opera, symphonies, Peter, Paul & Mary, black & white oldies (shown at the old-style, downtown theater), Star Wars, The Cat from Outer Space. Once I bought a television at the age of twenty-six, I became equally enamoured with commercials, sitcoms and television dramas (Criminal Minds, Buffy, Star Trek). The remarkable aspect of my youth, however, was not the plethora of art to which I was exposed but the fact that so little of it was accompanied by any valuation.

Sincere Marxists and semiologists will insist that I did unwittingly receive the valuations of a dominant culture. A Caucasian female living in upstate New York, I was inculcated through the shows I attended, the radio I listened to, and the movies I watched with images, icons and concepts that supported and furthered the agendas, opinions, values of my white, middle class culture. The equation is complicated somewhat by the fact that I am a Mormon and was raised as one, but nevertheless, I am, in fact, Anglo and middle class.

Suffice it to say that defending my Anglo, middle class upbringing was not a factor of my childhood. I never needed to defend anything I read to anyone. We went to see Shakespeare because my parents like Shakespeare not because he was valuable or important or canonized. We also went to see the aforementioned Star Wars and scads of Little League baseball games. Every event was approached with the same interest, humor and post-show analysis. The idea of placing books or playwrights or films into hierarchies was never addressed, nor were the books, plays and films linked to political or social agendas. I am still flummoxed when I run across readers who equate their particular likes and dislikes with membership in a specific political party.(Footnote 1) Most importantly, my reactions--despite the post-show analysis--were never formalized or made relevant. No one asked me if I'd caught the symbolism in C.S. Lewis' Narnia series (my comprehension of the symbolism was taken for granted); no one asked me what Shakespeare meant to me. (A lot.) And certainly, no one ever asked me if I intended the novels of Orson Scott Card to form a life-long interdisciplinary reading pattern between religion and science-fiction, although that kind of happened anyway.

Subsequently, upon entering college, I experienced a minor shock. In retrospect, the Humanities program at Brigham Young University in 1989 was, if anything, geared towards formalism, even New Criticism; formalism, I don't mind; what I wasn't prepared for was the high-mindedness attached to literature and the subsequent politics that accompanied that high-mindedness. Reading literature did not just mean that one learned a great deal about the Romantics, Beowulf and Maya Angelou. It gave one clout of sorts. If one read Henry V, one could make comments about the Gulf War. Or women's rights. Or anything.

It occurred to me that the humanities was fighting a desperate, and rearguard, action against the hard and soft scientists who did use their disciplines to comment on such things as women's rights or, in the case of the hard scientists, to address the provable workings of the universe (all while we humanities scholars were nitpicking nuances in The Tale of Genji). Justification for one's discipline appeared to be tied to one's ability to slather the outcomes of that discipline onto the rest of the world. Hence the desire by humanities students, and professors, to use their Insights Into Human Nature to Say Profound Things. Which seemed, to my twenty-year-old mind, unbelievably dumb. I gravitated towards professors who emphasized authorial intent and historical context and who were, as well, overwhelming engaged by their particular specialties (I am happy to say that they were there to find). In the meantime, I developed, as twenty-year-olds are wont to do, a Theory in which I condemned every artistic work that meant something. Author makes statement equals bad literature, I decided.

That lasted right up until I realized that I'd condemned C.S. Lewis and Dostoevsky amongst others. I tried to fit exceptions into my theory and then gave it up. But my dissatisfaction with the search for Meaning or Purpose in literature remained, a dissatisfaction that has been exacerbated by current trends in critical theory. The compulsion by humanities students to Talk About Life appears to have intensified in the last ten years. In issuing pronouncements on race, class and gender, the humanities discipline appears more and more like an extension of the Sociology Department, its language a blend of labels and jargon and a rather excessive use of the word "ideology."

Power lies at the core of this abandonment of aesthetics for "relevance." As in the game of hot potato, humanities students breathlessly follow the exchange of power from discipline to discipline, group to group. Now, women have it (who will get it next? where did it go?). Now, it's back to the white males. Oops, it crossed over to the resistant ideology. Nope, the dominant ideology snatched it back. A discipline intended for the study and enjoyment of literature has turned works of art into sociological springboards--what can we do with Jane Austen? Do we love her because she is a feminist? Do we loathe her because she isn’t feminist enough?--a type of blatant self-promotion fraught with irony, considering the anti-capitalistic tendencies of humanities departments. Straightforward commodification would bother me less, but I refuse to hand Pamela over to scholars who will claim great insight while deploying Pamela in their gender wars. (Although to be fair, I doubt Richardson would have minded.)

Where, I wonder, are the scholars who love literature just because it is literature? Who don't need to dismantle it or politicize it or defend it in terms of "real-life applications?" Who experience, as Roland Barthes called it, jouissance, the fun of the thing. I know these scholars exist. I have myself been in thrall to artistic works, in love with words, images, dialogue, faces. Moreover, I have encountered amongst my friends and relations (and through them, other lovers of artistic works) a fondness for entering fictional worlds. My friends and family and I will discuss film and novel characters as real people, not bothering to preface our remarks with "according to the author" or "as seen through our eyes." I have also witnessed a flexible and objective independence by which fans will reject an event within the "canon" story because it doesn't ring true while remaining faithful to the author/director's overall characterizations and design.(Footnote 2)

Too often, this type of creative involvement is perceived by humanities scholars as a nice, but useless, side-effect, not the principal response to the arts under discussion.(Footnote 3) Again and again, they return to the value of a work as a source of historical, sociological, even personal change. In her book on the Oprah Book Club, Kathleen Rooney echoes an idea common amongst many scholars (and readers) when she writes, "[I]n many cases the very impulse to read [amongst high brow and low brow readers] may very well be delineated in terms of . . . . self-improvement." It is foolish, Rooney argues, to attack Oprah for doing the very thing promoted by academe. She continues, "One of the things--but certainly not the only thing--genuinely good books can do for us as readers is inspire us to higher levels of morality, in the sense that they put us through the paces of moral awareness and affiliation, and disaffiliation." Rooney, I should state, makes a valiant effort to not reduce the literary search for self-improvement to mere platitudes or lessons. Nevertheless, her attitude that literature should mean or do something--should feed us in a practical rather than creative way--is at the root of not only Oprah's Book Club but contemporary academic approaches to the arts.(Footnote 4)

The search for a usable purpose in the arts is hardly new to Western Civilization. It extends back as far as Plato. Many groups and cultures consider that the arts are only palatable if they contain a moral lesson. However, the issue I wish to address is not, Do people believe that art should educate? but, What is the job of the humanities scholar in regards to the arts? Is it our job to fight over artistic works, pushing and molding them until they say the "right" kinds of things, the things we personally approve of and hold important, insightful and necessary to society? Should every production of Taming of the Shrew be preceded by a lecture on the evils of chauvinism, or, contrariwise, on the resistant aspects of feminist ideology? Are humanities scholars condemned forever to hold the position of cultural judges: this is acceptable because it addresses race, class and gender; this isn't acceptable because it promotes capitalism and other nefarious ideologies?

I hope not. I believe the job of the humanities scholar is to understand an artistic work on a creative level. Political commentary, gender commentary, social commentary may be entertaining, but they are not our primary responsibility. Rather, the artistic works of any age--be they popular, middlebrow, classical or indeterminate--are themselves the scholar's responsibility: a wide and deep area, hence the need for specialties. Our responsibility is not one of judgment, although judgment is not always out of place. Rather, our responsibility is to acknowledge, comprehend and just plain care about artistic works--literature, plays, poems, films: the outpouring of creativity throughout the ages.(Footnote 5) We should learn their contexts, learn how they have been used, how analyzed. We should understand their audiences. Most importantly, we should look for the creative desire, manifested throughout these works, in both the artist and in the reader/spectator.

Once again, hopefully with more success that when I was twenty, I have developed a theory. In this case, the theory is meant as a tool, a way of approaching artistic works that will address them at the creative level. I call this tool votary theory.(Footnote 6) Votary theory, while not ignoring historical or social realities (the influence of context), focuses on the creativity within artistic works rather than on their power-related or usable applications (social, political, personal). More precisely, votary theory postulates that power is not, in fact, the overwhelming determinant that so many critical theorists suppose. People do not watch plays, read books, listen to music, go to movies for the sake of reinforcing political (and therefore power-ful or power-less) positions. Finally, votary theory presents a set of tools with which to address individual works. Hopefully, through votary theory, the worst excesses of critical theory can be avoided. Artistic works should never be subsumed by signifiers, ideologies or political labels, languages that do almost anything except understand the things they describe.

1. A secretary (and political science major) I once worked with informed me that Republicans don't like Harry Potter. Since I know a number of Republicans and since most of them have read and liked Rowlings' books, I was at a loss as how to answer. "Uh…."

2. Many Buffy fans were upset by a last minute cancelled wedding that occurred in the second to last season. As a result, some fans, like myself, re-imagined the script to accommodate the unexpected ending while others simply ignored the event as "non-canon"; however, no fan abandoned the story line for that season as a whole. Like it or not, the characters didn't get married.

3. Reader response theorists being the notable exception. The current trend in reader response, however, is largely sociological, i.e., Elizabeth Long's Book Clubs: Women and the Uses of Reading in Everyday Life (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003) and Janice Radway's Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press, 1984, reprinted 1991).

4. Kathleen Rooney, Reading With Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2005), 76. "[T]ruly great novels," Rooney writes in the same chapter, "result not only from an author's intellectual, political, social and cultural seriousness"--yikes!--"but also from an author's ability to evoke a kind of enigmatic, philosophical and almost spiritual quality," 98-99.

5. There is a beautiful passage in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose (New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1980) in which the narrator imagines books conversing through time: "Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves . . the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialog between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors," 342-343.

6. My use of the term "votary" comes from a 1946 review of The Duchess of Malfi by Brooks Atkinson in which he refers to playgoers as "votaries of horror." I prefer "votary" to "fan," not because my conceptualization of a votary is very different from that of a fan but because "fan" carries a somewhat single-minded/popular culture connotation. I needed a broader term.

Chapter 1

2006-09-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1 is the boring chapter. There are a few zingers, but you have to hunt for them. However, Chapter 1 was necessary to the thesis; here, I attempt three things: (1) to prove to my professors that I know enough (just) about critical theory to get away with inventing a new theory; (2) to establish the background to which I am responding; (3) to establish the axioms of votary theory, namely that people are individuals and individuals have creative desires.

If you are thinking, "You had to defend the idea that people have personal likes and dislikes over art? Are you kidding me!?" . . . you and me both, baby, you and me both.

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Votary Theory

After a lecture of my own I have been accompanied
from Mill Lane to Magdalene by a young man
protesting with real anguish and horror against
my wounding, my vulgar, my irreverent
suggestion that The Miller's Tale was
written to make people laugh.
Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis

The humanities often becomes obsessed with the desire to be relevant. This desire takes two forms: relativistic interpretations based upon personal or sociopolitical demands (and often completely unrelated to the text); and, cultural interpretations in which the text or performance becomes merely a peephole into its surrounding milieu, supplying the scholar with pedantic, often power-oriented, lessons about a time-period or culture. In the first case, context--the author's intent, the work's historicity, its relationship to other works--is lost; the work becomes no more or less deconstructable than a car manual. In the second case, the work becomes little more than evidence for other concerns, of little worth in its own right. In both cases, the work is robbed of its creative essence. It is my hope that votary theory will help the humanities scholar approach artistic works with balance; more importantly, it will enable the scholar to focus on the creative strengths, or weaknesses, of an artistic work and on the creative desire that connects that work to its audience.

The relationship between historic context and creativity must first be addressed. Picture a container, a plastic glass from Wal-Mart or Target, the kind that is sold with summer patio items. It is tall, colored with pastel stripes or dots. This glass can hold lemonade or iced tea, water or soda: a host of liquids. It would not be wise to fill it with especially hot items; the plastic has a tendency to melt.

The container represents context; it is empirical in nature, composed of proof held together by narrative or theory. It morphs--these glasses tend to crack, chip and warp slightly with the passage of time, although they are surprisingly hardy--and its base rests on an ideal: that history can and should be submitted to the strictures of responsible evidence.

The glass's content is much more variable and far less definite. It is personal, emotional, creative, qualities difficult to quantify. But no matter how abstract, the content must fit the glass. It is not wise, or responsible, to pour into the glass a flood of expectations which the glass is not equipped to handle; another container should be found. Likewise, we must accept that our desires about the past must fit their proper contexts. The very real creativity of Shakespeare is not exchangeable with the very real creativity of Arthur Miller. William Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot could not have walked in each other's shoes. Steven Spielberg is not Homer with a slightly different schtick (although that may be debatable).

Thus the relationship, in votary theory, between historical context and the creative act. Votary theory focuses ultimately on the artist's and audience's creative desire, an ineffable, indeterminate quality, difficult to categorize; yet that quality must fit its container, its moment of occurrence. In this way, even something as relativistic and theoretical as creativity can be held to a standard of proof. It is customary to assume, for example, that the opinions we hold in the present are opinions we would hold in another time. We are tempted to believe that a tolerant twenty-first century liberal would behave with tolerance and liberalism in the seventeenth century. It is far more likely that the expression of a similar state of mind would occur. From this perspective, the blue-state horror of gun-toting and overly religious red states has a far closer emotional link with the Puritan fear of displeased, displaced and (uniquely) religious Native Americans than with any Quaker-like tendencies from the same time period.

This does not negate the presence of tolerance (or paranoia) in either the blue-state or the Puritan; rather, it points to differing modes of expression. Likewise, votary theory postulates the existence of a creative desire which, like envy, happiness, trust and love, appears over and over in historically unique guises. Further, votary theory, while not proposing an absence of political considerations, suggests that the creative desire may have more influence within history than is usually credited. Through votary theory, an aesthetic appreciation of a work within its historical moment may be achieved. This is accomplished by focusing not on the work's purpose or the reader's use of the work, but on the reader/spectator as he or she exists inside the work.

Votary theory begins with an acceptance of a work's audience as composed of individuals; an individual engages an artistic work in a particular time and place, crafting a position within that work in order to enjoy its creative reality. Unlike reader response, votary theory does not examine the linear engagement between the reader/spectator and the work: the ways by which the reader processes a text, accepting or rejecting signifiers, information, themes. Neither does votary theory focus on the use that individuals make of artistic works (social, political, personal). Rather, votary theory focuses on the reader/spectator within the artistic work, the creative experience rather than the self-referential one. Readers/spectators willingly enter an author's creation, suspending other desires or impulses for the sake of the experience. How they behave within the work--whether they feel at home there, whether they wish to remain, to return--is the concern of votary theory. The reader as an historical being bears on the experience of engagement but the historical relevance of the work should excite the humanities scholar less than whether, and how, the reader's creative desires were satisfied.

In order to explicate this concept, it is first necessary to defend the individual as a creative agent since positioning within a work cannot be accomplished, or discussed, en masse. Without agreement at this fundamental level, the humanities scholar will not be able to utilize the tools offered by votary theory. If the individual experience of an artistic work doesn't matter, then social/political commentary is the only thing left to us and the humanities may as well relinquish its responsibility towards the arts to the manipulations of sociology. Votary theory, therefore, attempts not only to provide a tool of understanding but to defend the creative experience at an individual level.

The Individual as Agent

The individual as agent, and, specifically, the individual as a creative agent is often dismissed by theorists as naïve and jejeune, an old-time attitude of Western civilization long outgrown. Few contemporary scholars go so far as the Frankfurt School, which perceived mass culture as modern bread and circuses, entertainment designed to distract the lower orders from the ennui and dissatisfaction of the capitalistic system. Yet many scholars, including structuralists and postmodernists, remain surprisingly wedded to the concept that something is going on within mass culture other than personal enjoyment. The "something else" is either resistance or citizenship.

In the first case, resistance, scholars hope to awaken the masses--Brechtian-like-- to read "against the text." Popular culture becomes legitimate the more it is perceived as adversarial, attacking the dominant culture rather than reinforcing it. "[M]ass culture," Dana Polan wrote in 1986, "has become one of culture studies' most recurrent Others--a repository and a stereotypic cause of all the social ills of life under capitalism."(Footnote 1) If scholars can prove instead that popular works undermine the conventions of the dominant culture, freeing audiences from society's capitalistic mantle, such works will gain legitimacy as academic topics. In many ways, such scholarship is similar to the treatment of Harry Potter by occasional Christian fundamentalists; to avoid condemning the popular children's series as tainted by black magic, they interpret the texts as Christian, replete with allegorical significance. In both cases, mass or popular culture performs an acceptably edifying function. That a revelatory and edifying mass culture might also bore people to death hardly matters in the face of enlightenment.

Communal resistance, followed by communal enlightenment, is only possible once the individual--idiosyncratic, sometimes irrational, wholly self-interested--is annihilated from the equation. Once that occurs, all responses become social responses, shared constructions which collectively sway the ship of culture one way or another. Theorists--who are as capable of discussing themselves as they are of discussing others--are not unaware of the flaw in this conception. If responses to art are socially constructed, then our understanding of those responses is also socially constructed. Roland Barthes himself drew a line between popular culture which evades the dominant ideology and popular culture which addresses it, either in acceptance or rejection; but post-post-modernists (if not Barthes himself) would point out that all of Barthes' arguments are drawn from a similar source and background: Western critical thought.(Footnote 2)

In recent years, theories about culture have drifted from the exposure of mass conventions to the shared social aspects of artistic works. In his book Re-Reading Popular Culture, Joke Hermes argues that popular culture provides a powerful form of citizenship which reaches across class, race and gender, including as well as excluding. He is less interested in deconstructing popular culture than in watching it at work in society. Popular culture becomes a resource for shared expression and dialogue. It is also a disciplinary force, with negative and positive effects.(Footnote 3)

Other scholars, noting the interdisciplinary threads of cultural research, have stressed that culture is complex: non-reducible to one theory, structure or set of signs. They examine the multiple interactions between a production and its community, but the interactions under study are almost always external--the organized, resistant or self-conscious reciprocity amongst viewers, fans, groups.(Footnote 4) Votary theory, on the other hand, examines what is, to an extent, entirely theoretical and unknowable: the internal delight which a reader/spectator feels towards a work--the enthrallment, the self-forgetfulness, the merging of the reader with the author's world.

Outside of reader response criticism, which seems to trundle along entirely apart from cultural and historical considerations, theorists remain wary of promoting the individual in culture--mass, popular or otherwise. Roland Barthes, a seminal figure in the field of critical theory, considered jouissance (delight in the bodily elements of popular culture) an individualistic experience, yet ultimately saw it too as political, an "evasion of ideology," a form of resistance.(Footnote 5) Susan Bennett's attitude in her book Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (1990) is typical of many contemporary theorists. While defending the individual's response to the theater, she is vaguely apologetic, assuring her readers that she is concerned with experimental theater which will change people socially and politically.(Footnote 6)

Theorists seem consumed by political and sociological perspectives. "I readily grant the argument that, as consumers, readers have little control over popular culture," Hermes writes, while Janet Staigner states, "[C]ritical approaches to autonomous literary or cinematic texts" are in fact arguments over "social arrangements."(Footnote 7) Richard Butsch in his book The Making of American Audiences argues that resistance must be collective in order to matter, stating, "Indeed, all actions (and inaction) are inescapably political, in the sense that every act inevitably contributes to recreating existing conditions or to changing them."(Footnote 8) Even reader response theorists, who have drifted closest to the scorned concept of the individual, were rescued from embarrassment by Stanley Fish's philosophy of interpretative communities, which posits that people--for all their personal experiences, thoughts, reactions--emerge from a culture which imbibes them with knowledge regarding culture-specific signs, constructions, and assumptions.

Fish is not necessarily wrong. The individual as separate from society (and hence history) is a rather palpable impossibility. Nevertheless, the reluctance--the fear--of scholars towards the individual in history strikes an odd note in the study of artistic works. Absent a truly relativistic mentality, most people would agree that we are biological beings who come into this world as individual brains encased in individual skins. For theorists concerned with categorizing mental behaviors or promoting social activism, the individual experience of life may not matter. For those of us more interested in comprehending the feel, aura, ambiance and sense of an event, the individual's existence, choices and creative desires carry enormous weight. Nothing can be understood without it.

Imagine such an event: war, flood, murder. The event is comprised of many individuals--from twenties to thousands--interacting, withdrawing, complaining, dying. As they make choices, deliver decisions, state motivations--however socially crafted--they influence other choices, decisions, motivations. The event becomes a veritable swarm of interactions: letters sent, received, read. Conversations overheard, ignored. Actions avoided, taken, apologized for. As each individual moves, acts, thinks, talks, connections form. Standing above the action, we can barely decipher where connections begin or end. So we form theories. We tease out elements here, now here, now here, and draw thick lines of connection: dot-to-dot formulations. Add a few labels, words like "ideological" and "construction"--you can throw in "imperialism" just for fun--and you have a seemingly perceptive theory that will, at a superficial level, explain just about anything you want it to. Now remove the black line; look again at the intertwining, and downright messy paths of individuals at work. The dot-to-dot formulations may explain some general principles; they it may address some wide-ranging ideas, allow for basic understanding, but they will never gratify the true historian's hunger for the reality of an event. How did it feel? What was it like? How did people behave, react, think?

What creative experiences did they engage in?

Sociologists have argued, cogently, that our current cultural assumptions make it impossible for us to ever fully adopt or live inside the reality of the past. When PBS valiantly attempted to produce "real" history by placing contemporary individuals in historical settings--1900 House, Colonial House--the result was inevitably problematic. Setting alone does not determine historical behavior. The entire mindset is missing. Nevertheless, we continue to seek for that quality of understanding; in doing so, we should remember that the individuals around us, and those of the past, are not so many constructs for us to borrow at will, rearrange at our pleasure. They are people who lived, died, loved, hated, endured, and we are passionately, consumably, aware of their materiality. We want to come to terms with that materiality, to grasp objectively, emotionally in what ways the people of the past are as real as us. This is true for the humanities scholar as much as for the historian, for it is only when we allow for the reality of others (past and present) that we will realize the creative substance of artistic works. As we learn to respect the audience as individuals, we will learn to respect the works those audiences imbibed.

For me, the issue of the individual comes down to one of love. As a Mormon, I believe in the salvation of the dead; that is, I believe I can be linked to my dead ancestors through religious ceremonies and that this link will preserve both them and me in the hereafter. This link does not wipe out historical relevance. I do not picture my pioneering ancestors or--to go further back--my blacksmithing and stewarding ancestors as belonging to the same political or social milieus in which I function. The nineteenth century Kellys who left the Isle of Man for the United States and, subsequently, Utah, lived in a different world from me. At the same time, I would be disrespectful if I imagined my ancestors as less engaged by religious principles, less capable of analysis and self-perception, less interested in artistic works and the joy those works bring. If I say, "My great-grandmother was a product of her time and location; she was obviously influenced in her decisions by the ideology of American westward expansion which further promoted her self-expression as a white woman in a patriarchal society," I am not really saying anything about her at all. I haven't captured her heart, thoughts, personality, day-to-day conditions. I have set her at one remove, pigeonholed by a thick line.

Context matters; I can learn a great deal about my great-grandmother by placing her within her time--what happened to her, what was being written and performed and preached during her time period, what we know (evidentially) about the nineteenth century--but accessing the quality of my great-grandmother's experience, and the pioneer movement, calls for something more insightful than ideological labels. Focusing on results, in other words, is not the best window into the human spirit and will not, in the end, give us a true or valid image of the past or the artistic works of the past.

More effective is an approach which positions us within the historical moment (see Fig. 4); from that position, we can follow connections as they branch, multiply, end, dive into odd corners. This is not relativism; one's perception changes with one's position, but the connections--decisions made, actions taken, thoughts transcribed--however confusing, continue to exist no matter where we stand. As we follow strands of connection, we may, in strange, unexpected moments, gain a glimpse of another world. Most importantly, for the purposes of votary theory, we can follow an individual's encounter with an artistic work, and in that way, hopefully come to appreciate the energy, creativity, triumph or failure of that work within its context.

Artistic works and their audiences deserve an approach that emphasizes a work's context without bypassing the individual and the individual's creative desires. An artistic work cannot be understood without its creator or its readers/spectators. The humanities scholar should know not only the who, where, when and why of a work's history, she should seek to comprehend the creativity/spirit/reality of the work and its performance. This will not occur until the creativity/spirit/reality of the individual in relationship to that work is accepted as a given. Broad social constructs do not convey this kind of information.

Through votary theory, I postulate that the individual's relationship to the work comes down to how that individual positions him/herself inside the work. The individual is motivated to do this by a creative desire. The first tenet of votary theory is that artistic works are enjoyed by individuals within their historical contexts. The second tenet is that individuals value and desire an interior, creative experience.

The Individual's Desires

Critical theorists, while allowing for "reflexive" attitudes on the part of audiences, consistently fail to allow for the creative desire within audiences (and sometimes even within artists). Discussions of individual desires inevitably take on social or political ramifications. The creative, imaginative impulse is lost in a storm of relevance. The result is a bizarre kind of literal aesthetic whereby any argument I make for a work's creative excellence is the result of my social/cultural status while, at the same time, I am being influenced, even indoctrinated, by the work's symbols and icons. I am too literal-minded to be swept away by the aesthetics of the work (my motivations are entirely reality and power-oriented) but too artistic to be impervious to the work's aesthetic operations. And if I read the thing backwards, presumably, I'll go join the Monkeys.

Creativity, first of all, is not a specialized right-brained activity, reserved for artists, poets and performers. People want to create all kinds of things: loving families, good filing systems, decent web sites, tasty treats, well-groomed animals, a trusty lesson plan. How that desire plays out may very well be influenced by cultural environments and institutions but votary theory postulates its existence regardless of external frameworks. The creative desire like any human desire (envy, hate, love) exists throughout time and history. The modes of its expression are influenced by context but context does not determine the desire. A contemporary Shakespeare would not, perhaps, write plays (unless he teamed up with Andrew Lloyd Webber); that a contemporary Shakespeare would have creative impulses I have no doubt.(Footnote 9)

The creative desire can antedate context because it does not have to be purposeful or political in order to exist. This is not to say that writers, actors, directors do not express political, purposeful ideas in their works. But the human desire to make something is not in itself political or power-centered--useful--however contextualized. Nor, when audiences revel in a made thing, are they acting merely out of contextually relevant considerations. Yet we in the humanities seem sometimes to function (and expect the past to function) in a pale world where delight for the sake of itself has been carefully sidelined ("Well, yes, I suppose it happens."). The humanities has taken the passion out of art, reduced it to a series of political constructs and then exhibited surprise and alarm at the result: Why is everything so political and class-oriented? In an attempt to recover passion, artistic works are sometimes further reduced to a series of activist demands; context, authorial intent, is abandoned for politicized relativism. What does it matter what Milton thought--all that matters is how we feel about him, especially if what we feel will get us what we want.

Although individuals will often enter artistic productions for the express purpose of finding relevant applications, what they experience there, what they enjoy, how they enjoy it, determines whether they will return much more than a politicized argument or even a useful emotional platitude. After all, why read, go to movies, watch television at all if only the application carries weight? For C.S. Lewis and many others, the reason is transcendence. In his polemic Experiment in Criticism, Lewis writes:

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself . . . Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.(Footnote 10)

The value of a literary work lies in the introduction to a mindset unlike one's own. Wayne Booth echoes this idea in The Company We Keep, where he stresses the dialogic nature of reading. As the reader encounters the text, he develops a relationship with the author. It is the reader's duty to extend magnanimity to the text, to take as much as the text is able to impart, but also to consider what the text has to say. According to Booth, the issue at hand is not whether Huckleberry Finn, for instance, utilizes hegemonic ideologies or draws on particular interpretative structures, but whether we agree with the ideas, themes, possibilities offered us by the author.(Footnote 11)

Arnold Weinstein also emphasizes the "other" quality of artistic works: our desire, through art, to reach beyond ourselves.(Footnote 12) In his book A Scream Goes Through the House, Weinstein argues that the feelings of pain, loss, love within art connect us as human beings. Weinstein is principally interested in the effects of art. Like Joke Hermes and Booth, he envisions a citizenship surrounding artistic productions, social connectivity across space and time.(Footnote 13)

Votary theory too postulates a desire to reach beyond the self, especially a desire to create beyond the self. Readers/spectators engage in fan fiction, on-line debates, conventions, role playing and other such performances. They exchange insights over a work, extrapolate possible outcomes, reject elements of a canon story, and analyze the characters. Although these behaviors are more obvious amongst popular culture fans, such excitement is not confined to a particular "brow"--high, middle, low, academic or popular. Fascination with Dante's Inferno, Shakespeare's Hamlet or Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables is rarely reducible to "good form" and splendid prose. We are entranced, "entangled," as Wolfgang Iser would say.(Footnote 14) We are entranced because we find ourselves wanderers in another's universe. Our entanglement there involves not only self-forgetfulness but a desire to make, complete or satisfy the requirements of that universe.(Footnote 15)

This latter claim separates votary theory from reader response. Wolfgang Iser, for instance, postulates readers who encounter blanks or gaps in an unfolding text. The blanks draw the readers in, forcing the readers to make choices. As they comply, their opinions regarding prior portions of the text are reevaluated while their decisions about future portions of the text are shaped. Reading is a linear engagement. Readers bring their personalities, opinions, plus social relations to the experience, but every response is the consequence of contact with the text.(Footnote 16) The result is a new "text" created by the reader's interaction with the author's intent (as located in the work). This "text," however intangible, is an external object, colored by "what this work means to me" and "what I got out of this experience." It is, in other words, entirely critical.(Footnote 17)

Votary theory also relies on the author's intent as found in a script, performance, book, story, poem. Unlike Iser, votary theory tackles an artistic work not as it is being processed (perhaps for the first time) or as a product of the reading/spectating experience but as it exists, within the individual's perception or memory, in its entirety. Votary theory attempts to address that moment of creative involvement in which process, and result, become supererogatory. The world of the author--whether a physical world like Middle Earth or an emotional world such as found within Kafka's cockroach--is accepted, if not fully grasped, as a whole by the reader/spectator. Within that work as a whole, readers/spectators establish a place for themselves. They become part of the author's world, consequently satisfying their creative desires.

Votary theory builds on a theory presented by C.S. Lewis in Experiment in Criticism. Lewis, like Iser, examines reading as a process. He postulates two classes, or types, of readers: those who use and those who receive. Users are those who look only for "the Event" in the book, the vicarious fulfillment of pleasure. They prefer texts that are easily personalized. Unlike users, receivers actively engage the text, reading and rereading it, giving it their whole heart and being altered because of it. "The 'recipient,'" Lewis writes, "wants to rest in [the book's content]. It is for him, at least temporarily, an end."

Lewis argues that rather than criticizing a book by its appellation--popular, highbrow, middlebrow--it should be criticized by the kind of reading or readership it engenders: receivers who enter into the work and allow that work to carry them on the journey as determined by the artist; or, users who treat the work as simply "assistance for [their] own activities," whether those activities be educational, political, social or economic. For users, texts/performances are mere manuals of self-instruction or activism; receivers, on the other hand, give themselves over to the language and world of the author. By Lewis' definition, academics can be as guilty of "using" as any romance reader while a science-fiction reader may behave as a receiver towards her genre of choice. Lewis furthermore protests against earnest readers who, in their attempt to wrest profundity from a text, fail to appreciate its humor or language.(Footnote 18)

The attractiveness of Lewis' argument is his focus on the artistic work as its own reward. Lewis resented educational approaches that reduced or "exposed" the "real" meaning behind the language of a work, thereby bypassing the work's creative offerings. In his literary analysis of Lewis, Alan Jacobs writes, "Lewis rails against [teaching skepticism rather than teaching a desire for truth], because he believes that in the long run this abdication of responsibility--the responsibility to seek knowledge--will lead to the 'abolition of man,' our transformation into a species unable ever to hear the music that Creation really does make." Here Jacobs reveals Lewis as a true formalist, with the typical Lewis' twist.(Footnote 19)

The reader/spectator of votary theory is a combination of Lewis' receiver and user. In behavior, the individual of votary theory appears like the receiver, swept along by the narrative--fearless, consenting, and generously willing to adopt the author's vision. Like the user, however, the individual rates satisfaction/fulfillment as a primary goal; he or she is not above manipulating a text (as much as it can be manipulated) or discarding texts until a good fit is found. The reader/spectator of votary theory is searching for a home, a place wherein to work out the creative desire. The importance of the work as a whole in this search cannot be underestimated. Creativity does not, as so many college freshmen seem to think, entail a lack of discipline. Once I am inside a work, I am held to its structure. I make a place for myself, but I cannot simply transform the work into a pliable piece of self-involvement. Whether or not I know the original author's intent, I am constrained by the work's shape as I am constrained by the shape of my living quarters. I may decorate my studio apartment according to my personal whims; I cannot alter the age or structure of the house in which my apartment resides--not without changing it, irrevocably, into something else. This forced organization is, to a great extent, the appeal of artistic works: I exercise my creativity within the confines of another mind.(Footnote 20)

Without understanding this desire, and the homes in which it roosts, much of our culture is practically (in the practical sense) incomprehensible. To a greater or lesser extent, we all--readers, spectators and artists--search beyond ourselves, partly for self-definition but also for self-production. Our participation in a book, movie, poem, television show enables us to make some thing. Our participation is personal, hands-on, engaged; yet, it is also objective and inventive.

Votary Theory as Tool

Votary theory begins with the reality of the individual; it postulates a creative desire on the part of that individual. Votary theory then suggests that a fundamental element of audience enjoyment is the ability of individuals to create inside an artistic work. We are not simply all voyeuristically bent on satisfying social needs: power, status, change. We desire to create; we exercise our desire through our own creations and within the works of others. Votary theory further suggests that this desire is fundamental to the human experience; without it, no artistic work can truly be understood.

Votary theory is a tool which brings together factors which, in the humanities, are too often held apart. The job of the humanities scholar is to understand artistic works, both their contexts (container) and their content (creative essence). A good scholar should never abandon context entirely for content; on the other hand, humanities scholars are often so busy dismantling texts in the search for context (or, rather, culture), they fail to be readers/spectators and enjoy the content. They forget, and sometimes even belittle, the staggering grandeur of artistic works: the poetic language, the well-crafted scene, the thoughtful characterization. Votary theory submits an approach that applies context without reducing works to mere contextual productions. As in religion, as in love, as in any transcendent moment, something else is going on.

To that end, votary theory presents three questions which will enable the humanities scholar to reach a complete understanding of an artistic work: 1. What is the historical context? What do we know about the time and place in which this work was generated? What do we know about the author and the author's intent?

2. What would readers/spectators have encountered when they engaged the work? What ambiance surrounded it? How was it treated by critics, other reviewers? How was it produced? Advertised?

3. Within a historical context (Question 1), faced with a particular form of engagement (Question 2), how might readers/spectators have exercised their creative desires? How might they have made a place for themselves within a work?

In answering the last question, humanities scholars will hopefully learn to appreciate artistic works at the creative level. Once individuals enter a work, we must rely on our glimpse--our sense--of their experience there. In its final stages, votary theory is entirely theoretical. In many cases, it is simply not possible to interview long-dead spectators, peppering them with surveys about their imaginative desires. Nor would such an approach be entirely appropriate (although it could certainly be done with a contemporary audience). Votary theory attempts to combine a moment in time (scene of a play, page of a book) with that moment's aura or quality (the creative desire flowing between the participant and the work). Many reader/spectator response surveys focus on the meaning or impact of a work to an individual after the event; the issue of creative excitement is rarely addressed; it is uncertain that it could be. As a teacher of English Composition, I have learned that artistic enjoyment is not always communicable. "I liked the characters," students tell me as we wrestle over literary analysis essays. "Why?" I ask, fully armed with my humanist analytical training. They don't know. They're not sure. They tell me how they feel, and I translate their language into a passable thesis. But I am aware, as they are, that my language may not be entirely accurate. Creative involvement is an elusive experience.

Consequently, the efficacy of votary theory is best proved through application. I have selected two works: The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster and the film, Late for Dinner. Both works are relevant to the American landscape and will be examined within that context. The Duchess of Malfi, although written circa 1612 by Englishman John Webster, did not appear in America until the mid-nineteenth century. It was performed sporadically on and off Broadway for the next 100 years. I will examine it specifically within the context of its 1946 production in New York City and will introduce an imagined 1946 spectator as part of votary theory application.

Late for Dinner is a more recent Hollywood film (1991) which uses cryonics as its central plot device. Although cryonics is a world-wide cause, the United States contains the largest number of cryonics organizations and the only cryonics organizations that freeze people. I will be examining the film as it might be examined by a future humanities scholar. The creative experience of a Late for Dinner spectator at the moment of engagement will be presented.

The fourth chapter of my thesis will also concern an artistic work, The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans. In this chapter, I will examine the relationship between language and votary theory. One of the overwhelming worries of critical theory, especially those theories which excise creativity from the artistic equation, is the power of language and aesthetic enjoyment. These worries are not only held by members of the academic elite. The Last Promise was removed from LDS-run bookstores for its possible negative influence on Mormon readers. I will address the issue within the context of Mormonism and as an active Mormon but will present votary theory as a tool that renders these fears irrelevant for the humanities scholar. In this chapter, the possibility of individual audience interviews will be tackled in more detail.

Votary theory does not answer all the problems encountered by the humanities scholar, who seeks to understand a work's context as well as its creative essence. Rather, votary theory functions as one possible approach, a position within the strands of human connection. It is an enlightenment tool, but it works precisely because it does not insist that enlightened messages must be embedded in artistic works or that artistic works must be linked to enlightened theories. Individuals of the past or present do not need to see what we see (or want to see) in order for us to credit their experiences. Their motives do not need to be ideological, powerful or historically significant in order to be of merit. Creativity is a good enough reason to study a work. More than anything, votary theory is an attempt to restore balance to the study of artistic works. We need to drag our appreciation of such works away from their enslavement to hegemonies and hidden messages to a more holistic, and wholesome, position. The study of power has some merit, but in its demand for attention, the individual's creative desire is often bypassed, shoveled off to the side. Votary theory wishes to restore that desire to a position of respect.

1. Dana Polan, "Brief Encounters: Mass Culture and the Evacuation of Sense" in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 167.

2. Barthes' approach is summed up in John Fiske's Understanding Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 1989), 54-55. Comments about the Catch-22 exhibited by theorists, who attack Western culture while relying on it, arise in several contexts. Dana Polan in "Brief Encounters" states, "[B]oth Kaminsky and Eizykman share in the ideological binary opposition of mass culture and avant-garde culture," pointing out that despite their differing analysis, the two critics depend on the same assumption that "mass culture is essentially the regime of content, theme, the formulaic regularity of simple explanatory myths, an art tied to the givens of an everyday world," 168. In an essay from the same book, Tania Modleski warns against feminist scholars who attack the dominant ideology; she points out that women, in many artistic contexts, are connected with the dominant ideology: to attack the dominant ideology in art will be to attack women. "The Terror of Pleasure: The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory," 163-164. Although these criticisms of postmodernism are recent, the Catch-22 of postmodernism was acknowledged early on. In a 1930s English murder mystery by Dorothy Sayers, her detective, Peter Wimsey encounters a group of Marxist musicians who promote a "soul of rebellion" in their music. Another spectator scoffs; their "Bourgeois music [has] "resolution at the back of all [its] discords . . . Till you can cast away the octave and its sentimental associations, you walk in fetters of convention." Ever obliging, Wimsey agrees: "That's the spirit. I would dispense with all definite notes . . . It is only man, trammeled by a stultifying convention--" at which point Wimsey has to go solve the murder. It is just as well. As Wimsey fully knows, if his suggestion were taken, it would do away with the discussion, not to mention the music. Critical attacks on conventions must beware, else in banishing all forms of convention, they banish themselves as well. Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), 84.

3. Joke Hermes, Re-reading Popular Culture (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 8.

4. Butsch, for example, argues against the idea that audiences are passive, unable to "manage mass media." Richard Bustch, The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 280. Mukerji and Schudson point out that Marxist-influenced theories tend to "obscure the complex ways people make sense of and use their tastes" in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspective in Cultural Studies, Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 34. Janet Staigner argues that "scholars may get further in analyses once they stop assuming that individuals have one, logical relation to the movies." Jane Staigner, Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 12. However, Staigner also argues that individual agency is a nineteenth/twentieth century concept and relies on Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive frames.

5. Fiske, 50.

6. Susan Bennett, Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (New York: Routledge, 1990), 177-182.

7. Hermes, vii; Staigner, 210-211.

8. Butsch, 292.

9. It is likely, for instance, that Beatrix Potter never would have written a word if she had not wanted a life independent from her parents. The creative desire, which emerged in her watercolors and stories, may simply have found a different outlet--as it did in her later life, when she focused all her energies on her farm.

10. C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 140-141.

11. Wayne Booth, The Company We Keep (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 135.

12. In fact, an encounter with the "Other" (another world, mindset, set of experiences) is a recurring refrain in writers as diverse as C.S. Lewis, Kathleen Rooney, Wayne Booth, Camille Paglia, Dorothy Sayers, Umberto Eco, Alberto Manguel. Votary theory postulates that (1) this experience, encounter, is not limited to authors and critics, they just happen to be more articulate when it comes to explaining it; (2) the experience is often perceived as a result rather a moment of creative engagement; votary theory examines the moment.

13. Arnold Weinstein, A Scream Goes Through the House (New York: Random House, 1988), xxi.

14. Wolfgang Iser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach," in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane Tompkins (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1980), 65.

15. A great deal of fan fiction takes place "off-screen," that is, during periods of time not covered by the original text (book or television series), either during the summer (when television series go into re-runs) or after a series (book or television) has ended. Although the fan fiction contains "off-screen" material, it is often measured (by fellow fans) by how well the writer has captured the characters as determined by the original text. Has the fan writer remained true to the author's universe, vision?

16. Iser, 54.

17. Similarly, certain types of criticism produce creations, new texts, themselves. The object of votary theory, however, is to examine the creative desire not in its parasitic use of works but in its symbolic conjunction with works.

18. Lewis, 88-89.

19. Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis (San Francisco: Harper, 2005), 174, emphasis in text. Lewis' art for art's sake stance never descended into an attack on popular culture. He did detest modern poetry, for almost unfathomable reasons, but in general he could be surprisingly non-elitist.

20. The image of reader/spectator inside the artist's world is not a new concept. The issues of distance and connection bridge both literary and performance theory; film and theater scholars often refer back to critical and reader response theories, applying similar concepts and rules to various types of production. Daphna Ben Chaim goes so far as to compare novels, film and theatre. In the film and the novel, the narrative is controlled by a point of view. The reader/spectator of a novel/film has to make a more concerted effort to climb inside the story, to see it from another perspective, than the spectator of a play. Yet Ben Chaim argues that the experience of the theater compared to film is "really one of differing degrees, not of opposition." We can apply the same generous attitude to texts. After all, like the play and film, a novel cannot be enjoyed until it is engaged. All artistic works, to an extent, rely on an appreciative (or angry) participant. Daphna Ben Chaim, Distance in the Theatre: The Aesthetics of Audience Response (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1984), 56.

Chapter 2

2006-09-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2 is the most polished of the chapters. I wrote it first. In fact, I wrote it last fall for a pre-thesis class called "Reading & Research." It flows more smoothly than the other chapters; it is also the most "historical" and contains the best evidence. Consequently, it also has the most footnotes. Many, many, many footnotes.

Thanks, Mom for supplying the biographical evidence for the 1946 spectator. There are many perks to having a family which can, and will, produce primary source material from the last hundred years or so. This is one of them.

*****************************************************

The Duchess of Malfi

If truth-in-advertising principles applied to the
titles of 17th-century plays . . . [the] current production
would be called something like
"The Guy Who Did In the Duchess of Malfi
and Then Felt Bad About It."
New York Times reviewer of a 2003 performance

The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster did not arrive in America until nearly 200 years after its birth. Unlike Shakespeare's plays, it was not performed in the colonial era or published by eighteenth century American presses. Nor does it appear to have entered the colonies in chapbook form. The play was first performed on Broadway in 1858. For the next 100 years, it lurked in the cultural mainstream; it was referred to in book reviews and magazine articles; discussed on radio and television. Through the 1970s and '80s, the play faded until now it is performed only occasionally in off-off Broadway productions.

The Duchess' arrival in America was contingent upon certain cultural conditions--fascination with Shakespeare in the mid-nineteenth century; the middlebrow approach to classics in the 1940's. During the mid-twentieth century, it became a vehicle for an ambitious, Hollywood-oriented star. It was advertised as a thriller in the age of film noir and detective novels. It continually failed in the theatre, yet was continually revived. Through votary theory, we will hopefully reach an understanding of how 1940's audiences might have dealt creatively with The Duchess--how they might have positioned themselves within its performance.

The Play's History

John Webster wrote The Duchess of Malfi in the early part of the seventeenth century. It was performed at the Globe Theatre between 1613 and 1614 and printed in 1623. Although Shakespeare and Webster overlap, Webster has always been attached, by scrupulous critics, to the Jacobean era. This is fitting since unlike the heroic pageantry linked with Elizabeth's reign (and at work in Shakespeare's earlier plays), the Jacobean era possesses a darker caste of mind. Many of Shakespeare's more problematic, less definable dramas--Othello, All's Well That Ends Well, The Tempest--were written after James I began his reign.

The Duchess commences with two brothers confronting their widowed sister. They wish her not to marry again--partly out of greed (they don't want her fortune to pass into non-related male hands) and partly from sheer cussedness. One brother is a corrupt Cardinal. The second is a high-strung Duke who will later repudiate and mourn his sister in the same breath. The Duke leaves his henchmen, Bosola, in the Duchess' service. Bosola discovers that the Duchess has taken a lover--she bears three children in the course of the play--but fails to discover the lover's identity until the Duchess reveals it to him under the misapprehension that Bosola is a friend. (There is more than a hint of Iago in Bosola's character.)

Her lover--or husband, depending on how seriously you take their marriage vows--is Antonio, her steward, a man of Bosola's class. Bosola is impressed by the Duchess' choice, but he too is a faithful servant (unlike Iago, he does not serve himself) and reports the Duchess' conduct to her brothers. They take immediate revenge, banishing both the Duchess and Antonio from Malfi; they later seize the Duchess and her two youngest children, returning her to Malfi under house arrest. The Cardinal leaves the issue there, but the Duke is incestuously obsessed with his sister. He tries to drive her mad; that failing, he orders her execution, which Bosola oversees. The Duke then repents his order, and Bosola, who was never keen on the murder to begin with, takes his revenge on his perfidious employers (they haven't paid him). He kills the Duke and the Cardinal. A number of other people, including Antonio, die along the way.

It is a macabre play and on paper (and, unfortunately, occasionally on stage), it appears melodramatic in the extreme. One scene of The Duchess contains three dead bodies onstage with three (newly killed) offstage. To hear the play read gives a better sense of its grandeur. The poetry rumbles. The action builds in tension, becoming darker and more disturbing as the Duke descends into madness and the Duchess' life disintegrates. Webster ably weaves together disparate characters, themes and outcomes. There are a tad too many deus machinas, and Webster's vision of humanity is depressing. The play is full of bitter comment over the corrupt nature of the Church and governments. Bosola, however Iago in appearance, is more honorable than Shakespeare's villain; he is the only character in the play who faces the reality of himself. Even the Duchess--noble, defiant--reacts more than confronts.

The play was performed in England throughout the seventeenth century. Samuel Pepys saw it twice.(Footnote 1) Webster was never as popular as Shakespeare or Ben Jonson, but The Duchess underwent three printings, and poets and critics praised Webster's talent. However, unlike Shakespeare, none of Webster's works entered America during the colonial era, either in print or performance.(Footnote 2) In England, The Duchess underwent expurgation and revisions (the unflagging pastime of eighteenth and nineteenth century sentimentalists) in order to emphasize the romantic subplot. It was revived spasmodically. A cut version was finally produced on Broadway in 1858.(Footnote 3)

Published versions of the play were available to Americans in the late nineteenth century. The Dramatic Works of John Webster, edited by William Hazlitt, was published in 1857 and a Temple Dramatists edition of The Duchess in 1896. Both were published in London and surfaced in America. California's Overland Monthly magazine referred to the Temple Dramatist edition (a small, pocket size book) in 1897 with the aside that Webster's plays would be "marvels of dramatic art" if it wasn't for the inevitable comparison to Shakespeare.(Footnote 4) The play itself was referenced in several articles between 1871 and 1889. All articles highlighted the Duchess' dignity and courage in the face of impending doom.(Footnote 5)

It is difficult to gauge The Duchess' prevalence in America in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1919, a theater correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, reviewing a London revival of The Duchess, felt it necessary to outline the plot for his American readers. (He also compared Webster to Shakespeare.)(Footnote 6) The Mercury Theatre in New York considered The Duchess for its 1938 season before changing its mind in favor of Heartbreak House. The play was performed by a college group in 1945 and a repertory theater in early 1946.(Footnote 7) It may yet have remained an obscure footnote, one of those many annotations necessary to textual exegesis, had not the play been revived on Broadway in 1946. It had been produced recently in London, starring John Gielgud as the Duke, to great acclaim. Bertolt Brecht and W.H. Auden wrote an adaptation for the Broadway production (again, it was cut), although a prior adaptation was eventually used instead (Auden's name remained in advertisements for the play).(Footnote 8) Elisabeth Bergner played the Duchess. Her husband, producer/director Paul Czinner, hired British director George Rylands (he had directed Gielgud's production) as well as British composer, Benjamin Britten for the overture and incidental music.(Footnote 9)

The play premiered in Providence, Rhode Island in late September 1946, moving to Boston and on to the Barrymore Theatre in New York where it lasted for approximately a month, thirty-eight performances in all. During the same time period, 1946 playgoers could have attended State of the Union (1946 Pulitzer Prize play), Denes Psychodramatic Theatre's 6 Dramatized Case Histories and the unending Life with Father (the season's hit at 4,066 performances).(Footnote 10) Despite The Duchess' low number of performances, the production does not seem to have hurt the careers of any of the actors, although Bergner never did make the break into Hollywood.(Footnote 11)

The next major production occurred in 1957 when The Duchess ran for three weeks at the Phoenix Theatre. In the last fifty years, the play has appeared on radio and television, in novel form, and in off-Broadway productions.(Footnote 12) Since the 1990's, productions have been darker, more psychological and less likely to leave out the incest; Bosola (the Iago character) moves definitely center stage. The play is rarely read, although the Norton Anthology included it in editions, after Norton's 1962 debut volume, to represent Jacobean Playwrights. (A bell-tolling indication, if one was needed, of The Duchess' waning popularity.) More recently, the play appeared as the sub-plot of the arty horror film Hotel, in which a largely American cast strives to film The Duchess (cut to make it more "accessible") in Venice. They spend their evenings at a hotel of psychotic wait staff; the staff is managed by an ironic maitre d' who, like the misogynistic Bosola, considers the Duchess "a whore."(Footnote 13)

Treatments

Treatments of the play have varied over time, although there are consistencies between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The twentieth century shared with the nineteenth an appreciation of Webster's connection to Shakespeare, a belief that the Duchess was the central character of the play, and a proclivity for cut scripts. For its first production on Broadway in 1858, the play was advertised as a Shakespeare clone--"upon the whole [Webster's White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi] come the nearest to Shakespeare of anything we have upon record," stated the advertisement. "Startling situations" were promised as well as a "Dancing Barber" after the show.(Footnote 14) It sounds preferable fare to the 1946 production which was advertised blandly as "Elisabeth Bergner in The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster/ Adapted by W.H. Auden with John Carradine and Canada Lee."(Footnote 15) John Gielgud had recently made the play a sensation in London (as Ferdinand the Duke), and reviewers assumed Czinner chose The Duchess as a promotional tool for his wife Bergner's talents. At the time, Broadway was the center of the entertainment industry, and doubtless it was hoped that a stunning performance (by Bergner) would translate into a Hollywood contract.

Overall, the reviewers disliked Czinner's production. The actors were praised individually, but the play failed to live up to the reviewers' expectations. Most were familiar with Webster's drama and had anticipated "bombast and fustian" (as one reviewer described it) or, at least, some blood-thirsty horror.(footnote 16) The play does, after all, contain multiple murders, a severed hand and strangulation. Czinner's production didn't deliver. Edwin F. Melvin of the Christian Science Monitor compared the Boston opening to a prior stage version, noting, "It telescopes the remaining events and disposes of [the Duchess'] villainous brothers Ferdinand and the Cardinal and their henchman, Bosola, more rapidly than even Webster contemplated." He then praised Bergner for a "quality of emotion lacking through much of the evening," a rather backhanded compliment.(Footnote 17) Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times was also disappointed, calling the production "conventional," "tepid" and "too genteel." Nine years later, he still wasn't happy. The 1957 production of The Duchess at The Phoenix Theatre was advertised as an "Elizabethan thriller by John Webster" but the production struck Atkinson as "studied," "elaborate, formal and contrived." "If Webster is not sensational," he explained in his review, "he is nothing."(Footnote 18)

Yet it is Webster's sensations that evidently bothered the play's producers. Preceding the 1957 production, a discussion took place at The Phoenix entitled "'The Duchess of Malfi.' Penny Dreadful or Poetic Tragedy?" a topic that reflected the middlebrow concerns of the day. (The Duchess and Antonio attended; since the murderer, Bosola, wasn't included, the discussion was likely weighted towards "poetic tragedy.")(Footnote 19) The question was evidently still a concern in 1962 when the McCarter Theatre Company presented The Duchess as part of their "Shakespeare And His Contemporaries" season. The positive review praised the play's lack of "excess" which did not "turn [the deaths] into condescending sport."(Footnote 20) The impression is one of slight tedium. Where, Brooks Atkinson would have asked, are the "startling spectacles"?

For "startling spectacles" abound in The Duchess. The play contains a mistress-ridden Cardinal; an incest-ridden brother; a secret lower-class lover; three secret pregnancies; an ambiguous, murdering thug who has all the best lines and lives longer than the heroine; the aforementioned severed hand; seemingly dead bodies made out of wax; plus, "real" dead bodies littering the stage. The Duchess has always tipped on the edge of melodrama and with so many bewildering possibilities, the safest interpretation may be a specific one. The favored interpretation in 1946 and previously was the Duchess' courage in the face of her own death. Sure, she snuffs it, but she does it with style. (Bette Davis accomplished this, without the severed hand, in the 1939 film Dark Victory.) It is the Duchess who tells Bosola, "I know death hath ten thousand several doors/For men to take their exits, and 'tis found/They on such strange geometrical hinges/You may open them both ways.--Anyway, for heaven sake/So I were out of your whispering," which translated means, "So I'm going to die; stop going on about it already."(Footnote 21)

This interpretation of nobility in the face of death, common also in the nineteenth century, was perpetuated in the early twentieth century by the promotion of middlebrow culture: what Lawrence Levine, among others, calls the "sacralization" of culture and Joan Shelley Rubin, more temperately, calls an agenda to "[mediate] between realms of 'high' art and popular sensibility."(Footnote 22) The middlebrow approach owes it emergence to disillusioned "highbrows," professors and reviewers, in the 1920's who considered the elite "genteel" aspirations of the past century undemocratic, yet disdained mass/lowbrow culture for its populism and supposed bad taste. Over the next three decades, middlebrow adherents promoted the growth of book clubs--in particular, the Book-of-the-Month club--literary reviews in newspapers, lectures on art, education-based discussions on television and radio. Articles such as "What Makes Great Books Great" were average reporting fare.(Footnote 23) At work was the belief that ordinary (that is, "middleclass") people could understand the classics, not because they belonged to elite, specially trained literary circles but because (1) they educated themselves using available tools (newspapers, radio, etc.) and (2) they applied their own experiences to great literature. In a 1957 book review, Vincent Starrett assured readers that an "enjoyable, rewarding, and significant library can be formed at relatively small cost by a man of taste and intelligence." It is noteworthy that Starrett dismissed "a First Quarto of The Duchess of Malfi" as too expensive for this library. The Duchess of Malfi might interest a middlebrow reader but not a first Quarto. Starrett's advice is meant for the Everyman, not the wealthy dilettante.(Footnote 24)

The Duchess fit well into the peaking of the middlebrow movement in the 1940's and 50's. Revivals of classics, especially Shakespeare's "contemporaries," were popular. When Thomas Caldecot Chubb reviewed the 1951 publication The England of Elizabeth, he placed the Duchess alongside other classic Elizabethan characters (Volpone, Falstaff), stating boldly, "[T]here are certain brief periods of concentration in which achievements are many and outstanding . . . We all know about [the Elizabethan Age's] mighty drama . . . Certainly it was the most versatile."(Footnote 25) The Duchess became the object of a discussion group; it was debated on radio and television. A gift book of the play--illustrations by Michael Ayrton; forward by director George Rylands--was listed on Gimbels' 1948 full-page Christmas display ad with the tag line: "limited editions signed by the artist."(Footnote 26)

The prevalent interpretation of the play (courage in the face of death) also fit middlebrow requirements, being both classical and applicable. As late as 1961, a televised Catholic Hour addressed "Man's dignity in the face of death described in scenes from 'The Duchess of Malfi' by John Webster."(Footnote 27) For nineteenth and twentieth century critics (except, possibly, Brooks Atkinson), the Duchess was the main character (her grandiloquent yet crazed brother served as counterpoint), her increasing trials the central point of interest.

Such a specific interpretation, promoted as it was by the advancement of American middlebrow culture, undermined rather than aided The Duchess' popularity. It is possible, of course, that without middlebrow culture, The Duchess never would have been produced (as a Shakespeare clone) in America at all. Nevertheless, the safe but too strict interpretation of courage in the face of death curtailed the audience's creative involvement.

Application of Votary Theory

We have established context for The Duchess, both its history in America and its treatment in 1946. Let us now imagine an audience member for the play: a young, white woman in her mid-twenties. She has a college degree, unusual for a woman in the mid-1940's but not unheard of. She teaches in a local high school. This will change when she gets married; she will become a housewife and move out of the city into a bungalow in upstate New York. Her soldier fiancé is currently still abroad, but she expects him home shortly. World War II has ended; America is experiencing enormous euphoria. Our spectator's expectations of the future are positive.

Our audience member knows The Duchess is coming to New York. She has followed the reviews. Despite the reviewer's criticisms, she means to attend. Perhaps, she is a fan of Bergner. Perhaps, she is an early proponent of civil liberties. She is pleased that the black actor, Canada Lee, plays the part of Bosola, even though it is a "white man's" role. During the war, her boyfriend served with Negroes; their letters to each other describe the changes they expect to see in American life for blacks and Jews. Consequently, like the actor himself, the spectator considers the casting choice an advance for race relations.(Footnote 28)

Our audience member is also a proponent of middlebrow culture. The purpose of education, she believes, is to familiarize students with great literature. They may not be able to learn everything there is to learn about a work of art, but at least they can be exposed to the canon. Perhaps, she even considers it her duty to attend The Duchess so she can describe it to her students. However, she also enjoys Shakespeare and is aware of the contextual link between Shakespeare and John Webster. The Duchess should be a treat.(Footnote 29)

She attends a matinee on a Saturday, buying a ticket for $2.00; this will place her in the middle stalls. What, we now ask, did she experience? Was it positive? Negative? Was she able to enter the play, find a place from which to enjoy the action? What did she tell her students the next school day?

It is likely, first of all, that she had difficulty entering the play although she may have approved of it. The Duchess in 1946 had been cut to a safe formula--dignity in the face of death--a formula which would resonant with our audience member. Death has been an inescapable topic for her over the last few years; she did not know what would happen to her, her family members or her fiancé. She is sympathetic to the toughness and determination exhibited by the Duchess, who also faces an uncertain future.

Yet, at the same time, The Duchess' formula seems rather inflexible and a trifle dull. Our audience member has read the play. Furthermore, she is an Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers fan. She grew up listening to The Shadow with her siblings. Her boyfriend has a penchant for monster films, although she never cared for them. She does admire Humphrey Bogart whom she saw that summer in The Big Sleep, one of the new popular film noir.(Footnote 30) In attending The Duchess, she expected a bit more, well, gore, to be honest. Excitement. She knows the world is a dark place; she knows what her fiancé has seen in Europe. They don't need to tidy up this play for her. Good grief, she won't be offended or astonished by dead hands and incestuous brothers.

But the dying Duchess never leaves her gaze, never reveals the darkness, subtlety and phantasms behind the producer's interpretation. Any attempt to clamber inside the production is thwarted by the forceful interpretation. Creativity is balked. Our spectator feels as if she were plunked into a Gothic thriller and commanded only to watch the still-life. She is impressed by the sumptuous Elizabethan costumes. But costumes aren't enough. Something more is needed.

Votary theory argues that although context (middlebrow culture, WWII) affects experience, the search for a creative baptism is super-contextual. Alongside defenders of reception theory, votary theory agrees that gaze--looking for creative possibilities--belongs within the individual purview of the reader/spectator. We respond to visual and lingual signs which are grounded in culture and arise from specific contexts; however, our reactions stem not only from historical and cultural attitudes/teachings, they are also deliberate, physiological and creative. Hence, I can enjoy Shakespeare even though I am not an Elizabethan. I can enjoy books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez although I am not Latino. My interpretation, my understanding may change with my context, but my enjoyment, my enthrallment, my desire to enter the play, the text, unbalked, will not.

The audience member brings creative desires to a performance. Once there, creative engagement is encouraged or stultified by the performance. Ellen Esrock of The Reader's Eye discusses various factors that affect the likelihood of visual (or creative) engagement. She quotes from a reader:

For me the text was too exact and definite a description to encourage visualization; one felt as if one is too forcibly being asked to see the [text] as the author wants.

It is possible of course that my reaction was psychological; the imagery was too negative for me to willingly take it in with lunch.(Footnote 31)

Esrock dismisses the first possibility and focuses on the second. Votary theory, however, claims the first as equally if not more valid. The reader is exhibiting a creative desire. Balked from exercising that desire, the reader feels that the text has failed her. Likewise, votary theory argues that spectators (readers) desire creative participation in a performance (text). If thwarted, they lose interest, refusing to take the work in "with lunch" or at any other time.

According to votary theory, creative satisfaction is one reason 1946 New Yorkers attended The Duchess. Their classical and applicable needs fulfilled, spectators would still welcome, still seek, entrance into another world. After all, if classical and applicable lessons are all one requires, Cliff Notes and platitudes will do the job. Czinner's production of The Duchess appears, unfortunately, to have fallen even in the category of platitudinous Cliff Notes.

Rather, our 1946 spectator languished with a too "exact and definite" text. The production confounded her ability to enter the world of the creator, stabilize her perceptions alongside those of the director. Interpretation was a barrier, not an aid. A too fluid interpretation, on the other hand, would have given our spectator nothing to work with, nowhere to sit like entering a house empty of furniture. Furniture abounds in Webster's script; it resembles a Victorian cottage awash with side tables, bureaus and hard little chairs. Paradoxically, an earnestly strict interpretation may be the only way to clear the room. It is likely this dilemma that provoked a 1946 reviewer to describe any production of The Duchess as "an impossible task" due to the "two-dimensional characters moving with obscure motivation in a world filled with violence, lust and brutality and devoid of sense, poetry or tragedy."(Footnote 32)

It is possible, of course, that some spectators did muscle their way into the 1946 production, making themselves part of Czinner's version of Webster's vision. Readers/spectators are individuals with individual tastes; they will find certain worlds more appealing than others; lacking other options, they often take whatever comes to hand. However, considering the play's short run, the votary theorist must ask, Is there any way our 1946 spectator could have been satisfied (or, more satisfied) creatively?

In 1964, John Russell Brown wrote of The Duchess, "The tragedy cannot be said to have had a fair chance in the theatre." Thirty years later, Don Moore, who studied The Duchess' performance from its inception up to 1964, concurred: "But intelligent, sensitive productions of Webster are generally rare in the modern theatre."(Footnote 33) A sensitive production, however, may not have been the answer in 1946. The play has creative possibilities both of horror and ambiguity; both could have satisfied a post-World War II audience member in America.

As Stephen King has proved, horror is an accessible medium for creative needs.(Footnote 34) In fact, horror relies on a reader/spectator who is willing to approach the monster's closet, not alongside the protagonist, perhaps, but certainly behind his or her shoulder. Horror was an available option when The Duchess arrived in New York in 1946; Dracula had opened on Broadway in the fall of 1927 and become an instant and rampaging success, spawning an industry that is still strong today. Shorn of its middlebrow and genteel associations, The Duchess is a kind of Diabolique meets Psycho extravaganza with Freddy Krueger thrown in just for fun. Reviewers before and after The Duchess' 1946 opening described the play (rather than the production) as "blood thirsty," "dark and violent melodrama."(Footnote 35) Advertisements desperately proclaimed the play's sensations; the reporters and marketers knew, if the producers did not, what the audience would look for. As a horror show, rather than a Shakespeare clone, The Duchess may even have morphed its way onto screen á la Dracula--The Aunt of Bosola, Frankenstein and the Duchess. After all, the play offers graveyards, madness, betrayal, abuse, corpses, werewolves, conspiracies, not to mention multiple murders.

The play also offers ambiguities. In her book Dead Hands: Fictions of Agency, Katherine Rowe successfully demonstrates that The Duchess deals thematically with the problems of contractual relationships. The dead hand in the play is a symbol of the connection between intention and act. It ratifies a contract at the same time it binds the wielder to that contract. The issue of free will is continually under examination. Is Bosola, servant to the Duke, an independent agent or an extension of his master, executing stated orders?(Footnote 36) Such problematic relationships, as distilled in the play, could have provided a complex, yet intricately woven world for the 1946 spectator to explore.

The problem of contractual relationships rises out of its time period; The Duchess is a Jacobean play replete with Jacobean themes. Yet issues of self-interest, contractual ties, intent, consequences and freedom exist in our own culture. Nor would these issues have appeared strange to a 1946 spectator. As Americans turned from war to the business of getting on with jobs, marriages and domestic affairs, issues of identity (personal, national, familial) arose. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman appeared on the American landscape in 1949. Tennessee Williams was producing works at the same time as well as Faulkner and Hemingway, all writers who tackled issues of self-identity and the particular "contracts" that influence that identity.

If our 1946 spectator had been allowed inside The Duchess, she might, like the student of history, have found a place from which to watch the various, complicated connections (between the Duchess, her brothers, Antonio and Bosola) tangle and untangle themselves. In fact, recent productions have stressed contractual issues of class and psychology. Of a 1995 production, a New York Times reviewer stated, "[It's] a sort of Freudian soap opera, a thinking person's 'Dynasty'."(Footnote 37) Perhaps now, more than in the last two centuries, we can explore the tensions between the Duchess--who chooses a lover she never acknowledges--and her brothers--who sacrifice their sister for the sake of money and revenge--and Bosola, who struggles over his agency in a seemingly relentless hierarchy.

By studying The Duchess' reception in America from the perspective of votary theory, we can gain an appreciation of the emotions and pleasures (and disappointments) of a 1946 audience member and possibly, even, a sense of the times in which Webster himself thrived, times filled with uncertainty, aristocratic patronage and a taste for dark, sensational stories. The Duchess (1946) could have utilized the creative options of both horror and ambiguity; instead, the play relied on a strict middlebrow interpretation which held its audience at arms' length, thwarting creative involvement.

This returns us to the main argument of votary theory: people are not motivated principally by socially or politically powered wants. The Duchess in 1946 offered a socially acceptable interpretation; the producers stretched audience acceptance by casting a black man in a supposedly white man's role but, then, the audience, or at least the critics, appeared disposed to be racially tolerant. The Duchess starred a well-known actress, well-known director, well-known composer. The play itself had recently received great acclaim in England. It satisfied certain ideological tendencies in American culture. None of this was enough. The 1946 audience wanted creative access. Without it, they lost interest.

The audience may have been more satisfied with an interpretation encouraging horror and ambiguity. It is possible to link a desire for horror and ambiguity to the abrupt social changes and devastating wars of the mid-twentieth century, although such explanations run the risk of creating obsessively tidy schematics. After all, it is also possible that the horror genre of the twentieth century anticipated a need that goes back to Homer and the flesh-eating crocodiles of Egyptian mythology. In any case, that feeling or need existed in American life; The Duchess of Malfi (1946) failed to provide or access it in a creative fashion.

The Duchess of Malfi still lurks in our culture. Occasionally, I encounter fellow devotees. It is hard to give it up as a lost cause. Possibilities abound. The ambiguous villainy of Bosola would find its popular complement in Spike from Buffy, Anikan Skywalker from Star Wars, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom, Smallville's Lex Luther, the lawyers of Boston Legal. Perhaps, another production will arise which will give us the sensations, the prose, even the dignity, but also allow us entry so we may pleasurably, actively, wander at will.

1. Pepys approved of the first version that he saw; he disliked the second and never attended another showing. Don Moore, John Webster and His Critics, 1617-1964 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), 10.

2. Productions of Shakespeare are well-documented: Romeo & Juliet in 1730, Richard III in 1750; Othello in 1751, The Merchant of Venice in 1752. All played in New York with the exception of the last which played in Williamsburg. The Restoration comedies were also performed in America in the eighteenth century: William Congreve's Love for Love in New York in 1750; John Gay's Beggar's Opera the same year, also in New York.

3. Moore, John Webster and His Critics, 11, 15.

4. "Brief Notice," Overland Monthly & Out West Magazine 30 (1897): 94.

5. The articles include "Disease and Death on the Stage" (1893) by the Health Commissioner of New York, in which the Commissioner explains that death does not occur in the dramatic way it does on stage; "Three Dream Heroines" (1889) in which a writer for Scribner's Magazine romantically compares the character of the Duchess to Viola (Twelfth Night) and Elizabeth (Pride & Prejudice). In 1871, Reverend Francis Jacox used a quote from the play to illuminate Proverbs 3:24 for his book Scripture texts illustrated by great literature; that same year, Olive Logan praised the Duchess as "queenly, lovely, accepting death" in her book on the moral effects of playgoing. All articles located at Cornell University and the University of Michigan's Making of America, http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp.

6. "'The Duchess of Malfi' Revived," Christian Science Monitor, December 30, 1919, 14.

7. Performances prior to Broadway are referred to in Edwin Melvin's "Elizabeth Bergner Starring in Revival of Webster Drama," Christian Science Monitor, September 24, 1946, 5; and Louis Calta's "'Duchess of Malfi' Due at Barrymore," New York Times, October 15, 1946, 39. The Mercury Theatre's change of plans: "Max Gordon Play Will Open Tonight," New York Times, March 21, 1938, 18.

8. Reportedly the two writers did not get along. Bertolt Brecht began the adaptation; Auden was brought in later. Brecht removed all the gory scenes, including the severed hand, stressed the incest and streamlined the plot. It is said that director, George Rylands, upon seeing Brecht's adaptation, was appalled at his removal of all the good bits. Discussed in Bertolt Brecht, Collected Plays, vol. 7, eds. Ralph Manheim and John Willett (New York: Random House, 1974); and, Ian Samson's article, "Malfi mish-mash," Times Literary Supplement, June 4, 1993, 19.

9. Sam Zolotow's articles: "British Director Signed by Czinner," New York Times, August 22, 1946, 40; and "Britten is Writing Overture for Play," New York Times, August 28, 1946, 39.

10. Louis Calta, "The Curtain Falls on the 1946-47 Campaign," New York Times, June 1, 1947, X1.

11. Whitfield Connor, who played Antonio, later signed with Universal. John Carradine, who played the Duke, was already a well-known figure on Broadway and in Hollywood.

12. The Brecht/Auden adaptation was finally put to use in 1998 at the Chelsea Centre Theatre in London.

13. Hotel, DVD, directed by Mike Figgis (2002, United States: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment, 2005).

14. "Classified Ad 9," New York Times, April 5, 1858, 8.

15. "Display Ad 114," New York Times, August 8, 1946, 20.

16. L.A.S., "Canada Lee Takes Role of Bosola In 'Duchess of Malfi,'" Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 1946, 5.; and, Brooks Atkinson, "The Play," New York Times, October 16, 1946, 35.

17. Melvin, "Elisabeth Bergner Starring In Revival of Webster Drama," 5.

18. Brooks Atkinson, "The Play," 35, and Atkinson, "Theatre: Horror Play," New York Times, March 20, 1957, 33.

19. "'Duchess of Malfi' Discussion," New York Times, February 28, 1957, 25.

20. Howard Taubman, "Theatre: A Drama Series," New York Times, March 5, 1962, 27.

21. John Webster, "The Duchess of Malfi," in the Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1, ed. M.H. Abrams (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003), lines 200-204.

22. Information on middlebrow culture drawn from Lawrence Levine's Highbrow/Lowbrow (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); and, Joan Shelley Rubin's "Between Culture and Consumption: The Mediations of the Middlebrow," in Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History, eds. Richard Wightmann Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993); and Rubin's The Making of Middlebrow Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

23. Arthur Mizener, "What Makes Great Books Great," New York Times, March 9, 1952, BR1.

24. Vincent Starrett, "Books Alive," New York Times, February 10, 1957, B11.

25. Thomas Caldecot Chubb, "These Made It Great," New York Times, July 8, 1951, 148.

26. "Display Ad 46," New York Times, December 5, 1948, 47.

27. "Television Programs," New York Times, March 14, 1961, X14.

28. Canada Lee performed the role "white face." To modern sensibilities, this seems shockingly racist, yet to Lee, and many reviewers, it was a progressive choice: a black man had been selected to play a (white man's) role for his ability, not his skin color. An image of Lee being made up as Bosola can be found in Monica Z. Smith's Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee (New York: Faber & Faber, 2004), photograph insert.

29. I may seem to be stacking the deck here in my image of a 1940's audience member, but in fact, this individual closely resembles my mother and my aunt. My aunt Eleanor attended New York University before World War II. During the war, she was in the WAC. She returned to NYC in 1946 to get her Ph.D. My mother lived with Eleanor in NYC in 1954. My mother later taught grade school in upstate New York (her degree is in art) before and immediately after her marriage; her "boyfriend" was a nuclear engineer, not a returning soldier. My imaginary spectator's politics and opinions regarding literature and race closely resemble opinions expressed by my aunt and my mother.

30. Middle class Americans of the era were not only interested in self-betterment through the classics, they were also fascinated by mysteries and monsters. The popular horror film industry was "profitable cinema entertainment," as a New York Times writer called it in 1936. "Vampires, Monsters, Horrors," New York Times, March 1, 1936, X4. American spectators not only frequented horror films but the more prestigious film noir: Double Indemnity in 1944, Murder, My Sweet in 1945 and The Big Sleep in 1946. Perry Mason, The Maltese Falcon, and The Shadow all aired on radio in the same time period. It was the age of mystery fiction from Nancy Drew to Raymond Chandler. Agatha Christie was a steady British import.

31. Ellen Esrock, The Reader's Eye: Visual Imaging as Reader Response (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994), 185. This quote also illustrates that despite my reservations over the use of surveys, it is possible to elicit discussions of creative engagement from readers/spectators. I will explore this possibility more in the fourth chapter.

32. L.A.S., "Canada Lee Takes Role of Bosola in 'Duchess of Malfi,'" 5. Regarding the Brecht/Auden script, a recent reviewer commented, "Webster's chaos may be impossible to re-direct." Ian Sansom, "Malfi mish-mash," 19.

33. John Russell Brown, ed., The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1964), lix; and Moore, John Webster and His Critics, 1617-1964, 152.

34. In 1999, I attended a Brown Bag lecture by Stephen King with a friend (a fan of King). I was surprised and impressed by the number of attendees (the talk was moved from the Portland Public Library to the Holiday Inn on Spring Street in Portland), by the variety (young/old/men/women), yet solidly conservative character of the audience.

35. Brooks Atkinson, "The Play" 35; and Edwin Melvin, "Elisabeth Bergner Starring in Revival of Webster Drama," 5.

36. Katherine Rowe, Dead Hands: Fictions of Agency, Renaissance to Modern (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 101.

37. Ben Brantley, "A 'Duchess' Returns, Engulfed by Depravity," New York Times, December 11, 1995, C11.

Chapter 3

2006-09-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is the chapter about cryonics. I was getting a bit punchy by the time I wrote it. I hadn't yet reached the point of wanting to climb on a rooftop and scream, but I was more or less sick of the whole thing. The first version of the chapter, which I toned down considerably, was very flip. Despite my advisor's bemusement, I went ahead and kept the (very flip) interior dialogue towards the end.

I need to thank my brother, Dan, for footnote 27. His comment, which I've paraphrased and which he may not remember making, arose over a discussion of the sitcom Roseanne.

***************************************

Late for Dinner

Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends,
and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled
him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and
of matters which he could not understand . . . he had no
courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in
despair, "Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"
"Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving

Votary theory can be applied across time and place: to Homer and Shakespeare, to Tennessee Williams and Faulkner, to New York Times bestsellers and academic tomes, to obscure works and well-known ones. Votary theory is not meant to explain why, or why not, a work has lasted, although that issue may be addressed. Rather, it is meant to provide an approach that places the creative desire forefront in the scholar's mind. With that in mind, I have chosen a popular culture work for this chapter. Too often, the products of Hollywood are dismissed by scholars as market-produced phenomenons, "bread and circuses" dispersed to mollify jaded, unresponsive, uncreative audiences. The humanities scholar should avoid such assumptions. Every work should be examined with the creative desire in mind. In this way, a broader appreciation of artistic works and creative desire may be fostered.

The film Late for Dinner debuted in American theaters in September 1991. Reviewers gave it a lukewarm reception, and it was gone from New York movie houses in less than a month. It is too early, perhaps, to consign Late for Dinner to the well of forgotten and unmissed productions; however, the movie is currently difficult to track down. It does not appear in video catalogs, rental stores or even on-line rental sites, such as Netflix.(Footnote 1)

I have purposefully chosen an obscure popular work since popular works are, to an extent, more than adequately discussed, analyzed and contextualized by their proponents. I do not intend to dismiss or undermine the work of such fans--as, unfortunately, so many popular culture studies end up doing--but rather to defend and underscore the fan approach from an academic angle.(Footnote 2)

Late for Dinner is the story of a 1960's man, William Husband, who, through a series of odd but not unrelated coincidences, ends up with a bullet wound. His well-meaning but somewhat backward brother-in-law, Frank, gives him into the care of an equally well-meaning doctor. Both young men are frozen. When they wake up, through yet another series of coincidences, they find themselves in 1991. The bullet wound has healed, the outside world has changed, and Willy is in the unenviable position of wanting to reunite with his wife, now thirty years older, and his daughter, now grown with children of her own.

The film is sweet and unpretentious. Despite its current lack of popularity, it is not unimaginable that a later generation will rediscover Late for Dinner. At that time, a humanities scholar, using votary theory, might examine how the film was received in the 1990's and whether it was susceptible to creative involvement. We will proceed as that future scholar would. Votary theory should operate in any time and for any work; by examining a contemporary popular work as if through future eyes, we can gauge the theory's effectiveness. Such an approach can also warn us of the pitfalls, the dangers, of any critical theory. We know that we live in complicated times. Will future generations understand this? Or will they be so flummoxed by the extant evidence, they will be tempted to reduce and streamline information in order to make sense of seemingly paradoxical material? If they are tempted, how much more likely are we to suffer from the same tendencies? Consequently, we should be careful in our examination of artistic works, alive to the possibilities, contradictions, aura of any time period. We must use our discernment as scholars, readers and human beings as we probe a work's context and content.

The History Surrounding Late for Dinner

The future humanities scholar would learn that the decade in which Late for Dinner appeared contained many films about time travel: Back to Future's time travel trilogy (1985-1990), Forever Young (1992), Demolition Man (1993). The last two films use the same plot device as Late for Dinner: cryonics, where a character is frozen and then revived many years later. A determined humanities scholar would discover an earlier film utilizing cryonics, Sleeper (1973). A very determined humanities scholar would discover cryonics in 1990 television shows, Star Trek: Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.(Footnote 3) Why was the cryonics device so common at this time? Why, since it was so common, was Late for Dinner not more of a hit?

Cryonics made its appearance in the mid-1960's after refrigeration became a widespread and cheap option. Cryonics is, specifically, the freezing of human bodies/heads, rather than the cooling of metal, fuels and food (cryogenics) or the freezing of living tissue (cryobiology). In 1964, Robert C. Ettinger, a Michigan physics teacher, published The Prospect of Immortality, which promoted cryonics as a solution to world problems. Ettinger believed the future would be a Golden Age in which genetic engineering, human intelligence, strength and health would be enhanced, so enhanced that frozen individuals would have to be "improved" (altered genetically) before they woke: "we shall be immediately equal to our descendants," Ettinger assured the reader.(Footnote 4) Due to Prospect, Ettinger is referred to as the father of cryonics in several sources from the late twentieth century.(Footnote 5) While Ettinger may not have formed the scientific underpinnings of later cryonics programs, he definitely formed the underlying psychological justification for it.

After the debut of Prospect of Immortality, societies arose to promote "life extension," among them the American Cryonics Society, Cryonics Society of New York (an outgrowth of the Life Extension Society) and Ettinger's own Cryonics Institute. The best known of these organizations has been the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, started in 1972. Alcor made many media appearances between 1985 and 2000: on Oprah, Donahue, Good Morning America.(Footnote 6) A fervent, almost religious, self-promotion was at work. A 1985 Alcor newsletter stated:

Will all this media hype do us any good? One of us (Mike Darwin) has long been opposed to media exposure of this kind and has been keeping a close eye on the benefits as well as the liabilities of our PR campaign. So far the media work has netted us two suspension members (fully signed up with funding) and put several strong candidates for suspension membership in the pipe. Frankly, this isn't bad for starts. We know that it will take "repeated hits" with our message before anyone seriously considers signing up. We also are beginning to believe that there may be some advantages to "consciousness raising" among members of the public as a result of these stories. Nevertheless, it is hard to do these things. It is hard to be treated like a circus animal and to invest the tremendous amounts of time required -- with so little to show for it in the way of immediate benefits.(Footnote 7)

An excerpt which sounds like nothing less than a thoughtful but serious call for missionary work.(Footnote 8)

At first glance, Late for Dinner and similar films appear to function as "consciousness raising" tools for cryonics. However, cryonics was not largely popular in the late twentieth century. The total number of frozen cryopatients in America in 1998 was approximately 100.(Footnote 9) The cost was prohibitive--$50,000 at Alcor per literal head(Footnote 10)--provoking the relatives of a twentieth-century sports star to go to court over his frozen head and the attached bill.(Footnote 11) And if one is searching for evidence of ideological warfare practiced by a dominant group through the use of mass media, it should come as no surprise that the most likely proponent of cryonics in 1998 was a single, white, middle class, agnostic male.(Footnote 12)

Despite the classist, patriarchal, even racist implications embedded in cryonics, it is likely that the appearance of cryonics in movies like Forever Young and Late for Dinner was neither a tribute to nor, as in Sleeper, a satire of the cryonics industry. Cryonics merely provided a modernized "scientific" version of time travel. Time travel itself has a respectable history in film and literature; in American literature, it extends back to Rip Van Winkle.(Footnote 13) Yet, although a subgenre of time travel, the cryonics device was surprisingly short-lived. Time travel without any accompanying sleep or death remains far more popular.(Footnote 14) The cryonics device possesses an intrinsically negative aura as well as a creative deficiency that is reflected in arguments pro-cryonics. When, in Prospect, Ettinger quotes from a doctor of psychiatry that "death can be faced more readily if there is little to lose by leaving life than if there is a great deal to lose," he misses the implications of the good doctor's analysis.(Footnote 15) When we die, we lose the things that enhance our lives, make it familiar, dear, mine. "To die, to sleep," Hamlet groaned. "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub/For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/When we have shuffled off this mortal coil/Must give us pause." Any sensible person, that is. Ettinger needed to read more Shakespeare.(Footnote 16)

With cryonics, Ettinger and his supporters simply substituted one unknown for another. Ettinger's "sell" of an enhanced, perfected future engendered just as much doubt as any theology of the twentieth century (as cryonics’ status as talk show fodder indicates). Likewise, rather than providing the perfect time travel plot, cryonics proved instead a problematic device, invoking more questions than solutions. This can be seen when we turn to the device as it was received by Late for Dinner's reviewers and as it was handled in the film itself.

Treatments

"Best part of 'Late for Dinner' comes too little, too late," wrote Janet Maslin for her September 1991 review; other reviewers agreed. Although some liked the film, reviewers across the country considered it only a partial success. "'Late for Dinner' isn't Filling Until the End," proclaimed Susan Stark of the Detroit News while Jeff Bahr of Omaha World Herald, more positively, wrote, "2nd Hour Makes 'Late for Dinner' Worth the Wait" and the reviewer for the Orlando Sentinel, while labeling the film "oddly clunky" finished with a snort of praise: "There's a Rip Van Winkle poignancy to [the end] of Late for Dinner that Back to the Future, for all its glossy brilliance, didn't approach."(Footnote 17)

Interestingly, another cryonics-device film, Forever Young (1992) earned similar kinds of reviews: "'Forever Young' Ending is Only Half Thawed Out," Brett Whitlow from the Orlando Sentinel wrote. "After Car Accident, 'Forever' Goes Down in Heap" also appeared in the Orlando Sentinel and Roger Ebert wrote, "'Forever' Flawed--Time Traveling Love Story Suffers from Split Personality."(Footnote 18) Forever Young did better than Late for Dinner (almost $40,000,000 worth). Forever Young's success may be attributed to name stars, Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis, but the success is relative. Time traveling movie Back to Future made almost four times what Forever Young earned, in the United States alone.(Footnote 19)

Like Forever Young, Late for Dinner was promoted as a romance. "Sometimes you can be gone forever and still make it back in time," the film poster proclaimed (see Fig. 6). The passage of time, due to the cryonics device, enhanced romantic tension. At the end of the film, Willy must convince his wife, now twenty plus years his senior, that their love is eternal. Age doesn't matter. The jacket for the video, released in 1992, declared, "They had a once-in-a-lifetime romance . . . Twice!" while the movie's preview lilted, "All that ever matters are the things that never change."(Footnote 20)

The comparison of Late for Dinner to Forever Young and Back to the Future merits closer scrutiny. Both Late for Dinner and Forever Young, despite their romantic themes (love conquers all) address the issue of loss in a way that Back to the Future does not. Part of this is simply the requirements of the genre: Late for Dinner and Forever Young, romantic dramas, deal with the heroes' separations from their great loves; Back to the Future, a comedy, deals with the hero's separation from his proper time. The subsequent problem--he has single-handedly caused his parents to never meet, therefore causing his own demise--is entirely of his own making. But in Late for Dinner and Forever Young, loss has been forced onto the heroes through the central plot device, cryonics. Neither Willy (Brian Wimmer) or Daniel (Mel Gibson) wants to leave his wife/fianceé. Both suffer from hideous misfortunes that compel them to seek safety in being frozen. In viewer terms, the freezing only lasts a few minutes. In "real" time, Willy is frozen thirty years; Daniel nearly fifty. Their story lines are temporarily abandoned as the viewer speculates who on earth is going to wake these men up and how they will rebuild their lives when they do.

Contrawise, the hero of Back to the Future is never abandoned by the story line; the audience stays with Marty (the hero) as he travels back in time, disrupts his parents' meeting, brings his parents back together and returns to the present. The boy must sleep at some point, but the audience never experiences that event with him (except in the opening and closing scenes). In general, time travel (as used in Back to the Future, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Navigator and even the outrageous Time Bandits) is more internally consistent than the cryonics device, less prone to break the film's viewpoint, evoking from the audience member outrage and a sense of loss.(Footnote 21)

Like many cryonics-device films, Late for Dinner attempts to solve the problem of the broken story line, broken perspective (however temporary) with humor. After reawakening, Willy and Frank (Late for Dinner) must adjust to modern life. Novelty abounds: ATMs, new music on the radio, medical advances. Likewise, Daniel (Forever Young) contends with answering machines, sippy cartons, and microfiche. Even the satiric film, Sleeper portrays an annoyed Woody Allen giving "historic" (and inaccurate) information to his doctors as he transitions into his new future. In exchange, he learns that sugar and tobacco are now healthy. Later, he encounters incompetent and bored security personnel, silly technological fads, McDonalds, a self-aggrandizing New York arty clique: in Allen's future, not much has changed.(Footnote 22)

In all three films, love fortifies the hero through the transition but unlike the heroes of Late for Dinner and Sleeper, the hero of Forever Young adjusts physically as well as emotionally to his lost years. Over a period of a week, he ages rapidly. When he discovers his fiancée is still alive, he tracks her down. By the time he reaches her, he is a 70-year-old man, the age he would have been in the ordinary course of time. In this case, the cryonics device has a thematic logic that time travel would not. Time travel would not explain why Daniel needs to age before the reunion can occur. His (unnatural) death has placed him, as it did Rip Van Winkle, in a foreign and unfamiliar world. In order to regain balance, he must grow old.

In comparison, Willy (Late for Dinner) adjusts rather easily to the time change. The cryonics device supplies no tension until the end when his wife resists the possibility of reunion. She is too old, she complains. "I wish," Willy replies, "I was to blame for every laugh line on your face." His arguments succeed. The lost years are overcome. Remarriage occurs. The cryonics device is not really necessary; any device (time travel, de-aging pills) could have created the same
problem of an older woman wooed by a younger man.

Forever Young, so different from Late for Dinner thematically, was probably not intended as a discourse on the merits of aging. It is more likely the hero's aging was an attempt to conquer the intrinsic problem of the cryonics device. For the device contains so many problems, both thematic and plot-related. In a 1999 Star Trek episode, for instance, the ship's crew revives a group of aliens who entered stasis during a war which they partly began; 900 years later, they are still violent, paranoid and angry due to their out-of-date technology (which leaves them vulnerable). Eventually, Voyager's captain refuses to help them, explaining, "I can't ignore history."(Footnote 23) Rather than obliterating the problems of the past--wake up a new and improved individual!--the cryonics device makes the past all too present and problematic. It must still be dealt with; without the intervening years to build on, the task of living (like the audience's involvement) appears a futile one.

Votary Theory Applied to Late for Dinner

Votary theory can be applied to a variety of works. In all cases, the votary theorist must place a work within its historical context and investigate how it was treated without losing sight of the individual's creative desire and, for that matter, the scholar's own creative instincts. The last stage of votary theory is, in itself, an imaginative act. The scholar must hypothesize a spectator/reader. The scholar can, as with The Duchess, develop a likely candidate based on biographical information; the scholar can, as will be attempted in this chapter, create an imaginative inner dialog; the scholar can also, as will be attempted in the next chapter, analyze multiple reader comments in order to reach the likely conclusions of a single reader.(Footnote 24)

Who might have seen Late for Dinner when it appeared in theaters or on VHS? Women of the twentieth century reputedly watched romance films more than men. However, cryonics was favored by men more than women.(Footnote 25) Let us imagine a male spectator; he is thirty-six years old, a computer programmer, married, currently childless. He and his wife watch Late for Dinner on video in 1993. Does he enjoy it? Does he try to enter the film? Once inside, how might the realization of his creative desire sound? (Footnote 26)

The story is not difficult to enter. Much of the plot employs a single point of view, that of Willy who has a great wife (Joy), a great best friend (Frank) and a cute kid. Willy's home is under attack by an unscrupulous developer. The film's somewhat slow beginning introduces the viewer to Willy's friendly home environment; the recognizable threat (big, bad business guy) gives the spectator time to settle inside the story. He tags along as Willy and Frank drive off to confront the corporate bully and shakes his head over Willy's multiple responsibilities. Man, life can be a drag sometimes. At least, Frank is having fun, but Frank is a handful as well as being a bit not there developmentally-speaking. Here's Willy--trying to do the right thing, trying to take care of people--the spectator rather respects him and doesn't mind hanging out with him at all. He sticks with Willy even after Willy is shot; he stays with him all the way from Sante Fe to Pomona. Personally, he, the spectator, would go home right now; he thinks Willy is stupid to be running away since Willy didn't do anything wrong. But Willy is a stand-up guy, a good guy, so the spectator won't ditch him yet.

Cryonics enters the story. The wife sighs and whispers, "Oh, that is so unlikely," but hey, cryonics can happen. Still, it's a good thing Willy is unconscious because a stand-up guy wouldn't abandon his family like that. It's Frank's decision and Frank is, well, a bit slow. At least in that gushy, chick film the wife dragged you to in December--Forever Young--Mel Gibson thought his fiancée was dead before he agreed to be frozen. Besides, it was Mel Gibson--Mad Max, Lethal Weapon--and he wouldn't run away from life.

Anyway, Willy and Frank are wrapped in tinfoil, stuck in tubes and stored away. Everything goes dark. And suddenly, you're on your own. The next scene is some guy in a tractor trailer, but you don't know this guy, and you're not going to hang out with him, which is a good thing because his only job is to crash into the lab, knocking over the tubes and bringing Willy and Frank back to life. Okay, now things are back on track, but what the hell, first you're one place, then you're nowhere. The guy you actually identify with is dead. Yeah, okay, you've got a sentimental side, you'd like to see Willy get back to his wife so you'll give the rest of this movie a chance. Still, that scene change was just weird.

After that, it's a hundred jokes you've seen before about time travel. Yeah, yeah, Michael J. Fox did all that in Back to the Future. Some of the jokes are funny. But what you really want to know is what this guy is going to do when he gets home. Is the jerk who shot him still around? Are his kid and wife still in Sante Fe? Willy and Frank are back in the car now. You're concerned because Willy doesn't know where his family is and frankly, yeah, that would stink. You keep watching the road because in every other movie you've seen, the bad guy drives up about now and starts unloading both barrels. But this isn't really that kind of movie. Remember, the wife chose it.

"I bet the wife is dead," you tell the wife.

"Oh, no, she's not," the wife says.

But she could be. Everything could be different. You don't think anyone will be waiting for this guy, not really, not after thirty years. Maybe, he should just keep driving, skip Sante Fe and head for Houston or turn around and go to Vegas. But there's Frank to worry about, what with his kidney trouble and all, and maybe it's best for Willy to find out what's happened to his family so he can move on.

Turns out Willy's wife is still around. And currently unmarried. And Willy still loves her--"That's so romantic," the wife sighs; you point out that Willy's wife is pretty hot, even at fifty-five, and the wife punches you. But you're starting to worry about Willy, like whether or not this guy is going to be able to get a job. It's great that the wife has kept the family business and gotten rid of the bad guy, but where does that leave Willy? What's he got to say for himself after all these years? He was a milk man at the beginning of the movie, and now his wife collects art. Does he end up working for her? Does he go back to college? The wife is well off as is the daughter, so money shouldn’t be a problem. But Willy isn’t the type of guy to sponge off someone else. He’d want to get a job pretty quickly.

"It's not very realistic," you point out to the wife, who replies that movies don't have to be realistic. ET wasn't realistic. The cryonics stuff didn't make sense, but that was just a way of moving the movie forward.

You point out for the twenty-billionth time that people used to think heart transplants were impossible; science will figure out cryonics sooner or later. Besides, that isn't what you mean. The beginning and end of the movie should go together. So if there's a guy with a gun at the beginning, there should be a guy with a gun at the end.

"Well, it should make sense internally," the wife agrees, "like magic in fantasy stories is supposed to work by certain rules and if it doesn't, the story fails." The wife reads a lot of Tolkien and is apt to make comments like this; you happen to agree this time so you don't roll your eyes. What you're thinking, though, is that Willy died, but usually when people die in movies, they come back to something totally different. Take 2001 for example--

But the wife doesn’t want to talk about 2001 which she thinks is the most boring movie of all time. And anyway, she thinks it is possible for people to get back things that they have lost. But then the wife goes to church.

In any case, what matters to you is that the story should make sense, have closure. Like Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox returned to where he started. Things had changed because of what he did in the past, which made sense--the beginning and end fit together. That's what a movie is supposed to be like. And it has to be entertaining. You really don't see the point in watching a movie that makes you worry about all the things in life that can get you down. There's enough of that in real life.(Footnote 27)

Still, Willy did get his family back. And it isn't like he doesn't have a social security number. As long as nobody looks too closely at his birth date--besides, he could always tell people that he got plastic surgery. So you don't mind Late for Dinner's happy ending, even if it didn't match up to the beginning. You might watch it again on a cheap rental night.

From this scenario of an imaginary spectator, we can achieve some understanding of the creativity of the (male) spectator in twentieth-century America. Although a common point of reference in the twentieth century, cryonics' social relevance did not translate into viewer popularity. Viewers showed a very human--but extremely irrelevant--preference for older narrative techniques, such as time travel.

There are strong creative explanations for this preference. Unlike time travel, cryonics forces a moment of disengagement. The spectator is abandoned by the main character to an unfamiliar environment. The device also raises too many uneasy speculations: What has been lost in the intervening years? Can the losses be regained? Should they be regained? How much change is too much change? Isn't it always better to stay and sort things out?

Postmodernists insist that contemporary audiences revel in unanswerable speculations. Unlike a simply ambiguous work, which can be faced and dealt with, a postmodern work becomes a multiplicity of voices, a pastiche of signals that cannot be faced or grasped. Rather than relying on the traditional narrative structure, audiences turn to non-closure.(Footnote 28) There is a political side-effect to postmodernism. By preferring non-narratives to closed narratives, audience members indicate their appreciation for the subversive; they have successfully resisted the forms of the dominant culture.(Footnote 29)

Like so many critical theories, postmodernism seems to be based mostly on academic wishful thinking, a desire that "transgression" be as "important a value" to artists and audiences "as it is for many theorists."(Footnote 30) Even if every work could be deconstructed, reduced to a pattern of symbols and systems, that doesn't mean audiences will like it. When the cryonics device disrupts a film's flow, it scatters the narrative. The uncertain success of both Forever Young and Late for Dinner, as well as the critical reception of both films, indicates a traditional, even orthodox demand by twentieth-century audiences that a story be a complete story, not a collection of bits to be endured. Creative involvement is encouraged, rather than subordinated, by the wholeness of a work's structure, or shape.(Footnote 31)

Through studying Late for Dinner in its context, particularly the treatment of cryonics in the late twentieth century, yet keeping our eye on the possibilities of creative involvement, we can learn something about the issues surrounding not only the film but creativity itself--what it means to be creative, how creativity is satisfied, what creativity involves as well as its importance to spectators/readers. Votary theory hopes to promote such questions in the humanities, to encourage a scholarly and human understanding of artistic works which includes creative excitement and appreciation. The issue, for us in the humanities, is not how much resistance a work may or may not encourage but, rather, in what ways, if at all, creative desires are gratified. Issues of sociological and cultural significance--Is cryonics gendered? Has Hollywood overtaken American culture?--should be left to other disciplines.

Late for Dinner is a respectable, sweet film that won a certain level of acclaim but has since drifted into obscurity. Perhaps, a future generation will rediscover the film and ponder its significance in the context of cryonics, religion, Woody Allen, and postmodernism. They will, hopefully, discover that twentieth-century spectators enjoyed fantastic films as well as films with seamless narratives. Like spectators of all generations, they enjoyed films that provided generous room for creativity and fun. Should future scholars pry further, however, they will discover something much odder than freezing (just dead) people or hurtling DeLorians through time. Within the culture of the twenty and twenty-first centuries, they will discover a fear of creativity, a fear, even, of fun, a fear that not only is mass/popular culture dangerous but that all art is fundamentally unreliable. Theorists attempt to control artistic works with jargon and theory. They ultimately fail. Why, future generations will wonder, were our ancestors so scared?

1. Netflix, http://www.netflix.com. About eight years ago, I was able to obtain a VHS copy at a local video store sale for $5.

2. I will attempt to combine scholarly and fan responses in Chapter 4.

3. Cryonics shows up in a number of Star Trek episodes, including the famous episode "Space Seed" that led to the equally famous movie Wrath of Khan.

4. Robert C. Ettinger, The Prospect of Immortality (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1964), 149, 156. Ettinger believed that future generations would be so advanced, they, unlike us, would consider Shakespeare's language puny and obsolete.

5. Alcor, http://www.alcor.org; American Cryonics Society, http://home.jps.net/~cryonics/; The Cryonics Society, http://www.cryonicssociety.org/.

6. Alcor, http://www.alcor.org.

7. Ibid.

8. Resonating with this missionary/marketing zeal, The Cryonics Society's web site lists "Six Reasons to Join The Cryonics Society Today" while the American Cryonics Society's web site promotes "13 reasons to join."

9. W. Scott Badger, Ph.D. "An Exploratory Survey Examining the Familiarity With and Attitudes Toward Cryonic Preservation," Journal of Evolution and Technology, December 1998, http://www.jetpress.org/volume3/badger.html. See note 12 below.

10. Philip J. Hilts, "With Cryonics, Hope Runs Ahead of Reality," New York Times, July 9, 2002, D4.

11. Tom Verducci and Lester Munson, "What Really Happened to Ted Williams?" Sports Illustrated 99 (2003): 68.

12. In 1998, Dr. W. Scott Badger, an advocate for cryonics, performed a survey to discover why cryonics hasn't had the success its supporters think it merits. He discovered that "[m]en . . . had, for the most part, more positive attitudes towards cryonics than women." He adds that cryonics is favored by "male agnostics and atheists" who tend to be "fairly well-educated" and "between 35 and 64 years of age." In a delightful piece of guilelessness, Dr. Badger goes on to quote from a fellow advocate that "consumers are not attracted to cryonic services for the simple reason that there is no convincing evidence that cryonics will work." From "An Exploratory Survey Examining the Familiarity With and Attitudes Toward Cryonic Preservation."

13. The story of Rip Van Winkle bears a marked similarity to the cryonics plot: a man sleeps and wakes, disoriented, to a different time period.

14. Frequency (2000); Kate & Leopold (2001), Dr. Who and Quantum Leap (TV).

15. Ettinger, Prospect of Immortality, 145.

16. This lack of imagination extends to Ettinger's picture of unbroken social and economic structures between the present (1960) and the future (2200+). Even Star Trek, that ever optimistic science fiction drama, postulates a third World War, mass destruction of all major countries and a generation of feudalism before star travel creates the perfect future.

17. Janet Maslin, "Best part of 'Late for Dinner' comes too little, too late," Minneapolis' Star Tribune, September 23, 1991, 8; Susan Stark, "'Late for Dinner' isn't Filling Until the End," Detroit News, September 20, 1991, F2; Jeff Bahr, "2nd Hour Makes 'Late for Dinner' Worth the Wait," Omaha World-Herald, September 23, 1991, 29; "What's New Movies," Orlando Sentinel, May 1, 1992, 29.

18. Ebert, Roger, "'Forever' Flawed Time-Traveling Love Story Suffers from Split Personality," Chicago Sun-Times, December 16, 1992, 47; Brett Whitlow, "'Forever Young' Ending is Only Half Thawed Out," Orlando Sentinel, December 18, 1992, 30; Andrea Passalacqua, "After Car Accident, 'Forever' Goes Down in Heap," Orlando Sentinel, January 8, 1993, 24.

19. Internet Movie Database, box office and business data for each movie, http://www.imdb.com.

20. "Late for Dinner," preview at Video Detective, http://www.videodetective.com.

21. The broken story line is a bigger problem than it might appear on paper. Many of the stories I write include two perspectives. If I jump too often between perspectives, editors tend to get upset, informing me, for example, that "the only real problem . . . was that the viewpoint flitted about so much that it was hard to get attached to a character and their situation before it changed" (Leading Edge's response to "The Weight of Light").

22. Sleeper, dir. Woody Allen, VHS (United Artists, 1973).

23. "Dragon's Teeth," Star Trek Voyager, DVD (Paramount Studios, 1999).

24. This is similar to the survey option I criticized in Chapter 1. I consider it a problematic approach. In the case of The Last Promise (next chapter), however, the comments are unsolicited, in non-survey form.

25. Dr. W. Scott Badger, "An Exploratory Survey Examining the Familiarity With and Attitudes Toward Cryonic Preservation."

26. Again, surprisingly enough, I'm not loading the deck. On Amazon.com, out of 20 customer reviews, three very positive reviews of Late for Dinner were written by men.

27. I borrowed this sentiment from one of my brothers.

28. This type of postmodern response is described in Susan Bennett's Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception (New York: Routledge Press, 1990), 77-78; also, Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, eds. Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspective in Cultural Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 47-48; and, Tania Modleski, "The Terror Pleasure: The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory," in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1986), 161.

29. "At the extreme [of critical theory]," Dana Polan explains, "narrative becomes [for postmodernists] not one of the forms through which ideology works but the only form that ideology ever assumes." Consequently, resisting narratives from the dominant culture becomes the ultimate sign of resistance. Dana Polan, "Brief Encounters: Mass Culture and the Evacuation of Sense" in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 170, emphasis in text.

30. Modleski, "The Terror Pleasure: The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory," 164.

31. In her commentary on an Angel episode, script writer Jane Espenson remarks that the writers don't need to worry too much when they make mistakes regarding internal consistency since the fan base will do the extra work of figuring out how the "mistake" fits into the whole. ("Rm w/ a Vu," Angel, DVD, Paramount, 1999, commentary.) Rather than indicating an ease with discrepancies, this behavior illustrates a desire to create complete, consistent imaginative universes.

Chapter 4

2006-09-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is the Mormon chapter (a suitably American topic!). I wrote several papers on Mormonism during my Master's program; my advisor expected that I would do the same for my thesis. However, Mormon studies has been thoroughly, and responsibly, addressed within the scholarly community. My forays have been meager in comparison and usually more personal than not (see the folklore papers below). I also wanted to produce an English-related thesis, a decision that, for an English-teaching adjunct, turned out to be a wise one.

That being said, I enjoyed writing this chapter; with Mormonism, I am on home ground, talking about the culture in which I live. In some ways, being an insider, as compared to an outsider, while it may call into question one's objectivity, brings with it a wealth of experiential knowledge. (Consequently, I have often found the ponderances of thoughtful, intelligent insiders more perceptive than the skepticism of outsiders, whatever the topic.) In any case, as the last major hurdle, I found Chapter 4 a relief to write.

I would like to thank my brothers, Joe and Eugene for exchanging e-mails with me concerning whether or not language changes people. That exchange helped me put my thoughts in order and to attack the subject from a decisive (sort of) position. Also, thanks to Eugene for his insightful and very funny review of The Last Promise. It is well worth reading in its entirety. See footnote #3 for its location.

*************************************

The Last Promise

The Van der Veghels broke into excited comment. Grant, they warmly
informed him, had based the whole complex of imagery in his book
upon [the well]. "As the deeper reaches of Simon's personality
were explored--" on and on they went, explaining the work
to its author. Alleyn, who admired the book, thought they
were probably right but laid far too much insistence on an
essentially delicate process of thought.
When In Rome by Ngaoi Marsh

Votary theory brings together the context of an artistic work, its treatment in that context and, most importantly, the creative desire which any work attempts to satisfy. Votary theory is a tool for humanities scholars; I have introduced it with that specific group in mind. Votary theory encourages students of artistic works to focus less on the sociopolitical uses of artistic works and more on the creative, lingual, even transcendental nature of artistic works. Before this can be effected, however, an underlying problem within critical theory generally must be addressed. At the back of our current treatment of artistic works--all the theories, all the arguments over power--lies a fear of those works, specifically, a fear of language and its possible impact on audiences.

To exemplify this problem, I will end the application portion of this thesis with an analysis of the novel The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans. Events surrounding The Last Promise portray our uneasiness over artistic works. Through examining The Last Promise, I will show how a humanities scholar, armed with votary theory, should respond to that uneasiness.

Controversy and The Last Promise

The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans is a passably well-written, unsurprising book of the romantic variety. If one insists on hierarchical placement, it would be found alongside The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller and Nicholas Sparks' oeuvre. The author, Richard Paul Evans, rose to national notice in 1992 with the gift book, The Christmas Box (it appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and was later made into a Hallmark movie). Since 1992, Evans has published eight novels; The Last Promise is simply one amongst many. Yet it sparked a short-lived controversy in Utah when it was removed (or never purchased) for sale in LDS-owned Deseret Book. The pattern of rejection followed by accusations of censorship is a well-worn path in Western culture. Behind both the rejection and the accusations lies a suspicion of language, a fear that language will overwhelm those who imbibe artistic works. In the case of The Last Promise, the objection is to the adulterous, or semi-adulterous, relationship that underscores the novel's plot.

In The Last Promise, a woman, Eliana, has married an Italian, Maurizio. The marriage is going badly. Maurizio sleeps around, doesn't show any interest in the couple's child, Alessio, and treats Eliana with belittling chauvinism. Eliana cannot leave Italy since her child has asthma. And such asthma! Such convenient asthma, Eliana cannot even put Alessio on a plane. She is forced to stay in her unhappy marriage, allowing the story's rather vapid plot to unwind. A handsome American appears on the scene and naturally sweeps Eliana off her feet. The two do not, in the course of the book, indulge in copulation, an instance pointed to by defenders, including the author, of The Last Promise's virtue.(Footnote 1) But it is hard to justify this view. The book is replete with romantic meetings typical to many novels of this type (meetings that usually culminate in a sexual union). Ross is instantly captured by Eliana's beauty. He likes her art, which gives him great (and immediate) insight into her deep character. He rushes her child to the hospital in a time of need. In thanks, Eliana prepares dinner for him, during which time "[Ross] moved next to [Eliana], lightly pressing against her. She could feel the warmth of his body beneath his shirt and she didn’t move back. She liked the feel of him close to her."(Footnote 2) Later, Ross and Eliana spend a night together on a hillside. The purity of their motives and behavior are reduced to the adolescent claim: We didn't go that far. "Yes," wrote one reviewer, "and Bill Clinton did not have 'sex' with that woman and didn't inhale either."(Footnote 3)

At the time of The Last Promise's publication, the CEO of Deseret Book was Sheri Dew. Dew had recently served in the general presidency of the LDS (Mormon) women's organization (she was the second counselor). In Fall 2002, Dew announced that Deseret Book would not stock The Last Promise. "Our concern," Dew informed reporters, "is if a book makes immorality sympathetic."(Footnote 4) Deseret shoppers wouldn't be interested, she stated, despite their penchant for The Christmas Box and other Evans' novels, due to The Last Promise's theme. Reporters responded to Dew's announcement with glee. "Is Bible Next on Banned Books List?" headed the title of Robert Kirby's bemused article. He continued, "Some truly great authors may also get the toss, including Shakespeare, Steinbeck and Bronte."(Footnote 5) Other journalists cited the problem of tossing the proverbial baby (classics) out with the proverbial bath water (romance novels with immoral themes). Even sympathetic reporters--after all, a business can stock whatever it wants--questioned the seeming self-righteous smugness of Dew's decision: "a bunch of sanctimonious, neo-Victorian fussbudgets trying to micromanage our moral and aesthetic lives."(Footnote 6)

However, the issue cannot be reduced simply to censorship versus intellectual freedom. Intellectually, The Last Promise hardly falls into the same category as Dostoevsky. Furthermore, in an age of supposed alienation--businesses that care only for the bottom line, authors who care only for sales--it seems odd, if not hypocritical, to criticize a business that does worry about the possible long-term consequences of promoting an unhealthy product. Although reporters took issue with Dew's decision, few questioned her underlying assumption: "Literature/language can change us." No one said, "But people don't commit adultery because of books!" Rather they argued, "But other books talk about heavy subjects. Why should this be the exception?"

If, in fact, literature begets behavior, then Dew's decision showed a conscientious desire to prevent harm to her community. The Mormon Church promotes traditions of chastity, including no sex before marriage and sex confined to marriage between a man and woman. In an editorial to The Salt Lake Tribune, a "former lay LDS Church leader" (probably a bishop, the leader of a congregation) wrote, "I have seen firsthand the challenges of extramarital relationships, no matter how innocent they are . . . To glamorize or rationalize such infidelity, with or without physical intimacy, is to simply not understand or not respect the sacredness of the marriage commitment . . . [T]he end of the story is never as nice as Richard Paul Evans or others might ask you to believe."(Footnote 7) This attitude reflects concerns amongst Mormon leaders regarding marriage, specifically LDS marriages. Between 1990-2005, the LDS magazine Ensign published over twenty articles about marriage, addressing issues as far-ranging as intimacy, finances, communication, and date nights.(Footnote 8)

Sheri Dew, coming out of a leadership position within the LDS church, no doubt felt strongly on a subject that continues to worry her associates. From this perspective, as the CEO of a LDS bookstore, she would be morally culpable had she promoted a book which encouraged extra-marital fun and games. Doing so would imply tacit approval of the book's message. Also, unlike Danielle Steele, whose books could be found in Deseret Book at the time of Dew's decision, Richard Paul Evans is a Mormon, lending further tacit approval to the book's message: This is okay. The Church doesn't mind, and anyway, the author is one of us.(Footnote 9)

I have chosen to use The Last Promise for this chapter since I have more sympathy for Dew and LDS leaders than I do for feminists who want to censor Taming of the Shrew or fundamentalist Christians who want to censor Harry Potter. The "censoring" of The Last Promise (Dew never said other people shouldn't read it, only that the bookstore wouldn't carry it for its patrons) was localized and, from my perspective, entirely understandable. I have sympathy with Dew's position, with the problems faced by Mormon leaders who wish to promote a particular ideal in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet Dew's assumption, however bound to a specific cultural need, lies at the heart of both left-wing and right-wing theorists. Before we can understand and welcome the creative experience as readers and theorists, we must lose our fear of language, especially our fear of how people might use, or misuse, a work.

Fear of Language

How much power does language have? Would Mormons, encountering The Last Promise in a LDS bookstore, actually imagine both the book and the church had given them permission to indulge in infidelity (so long as the clothes stayed on)? It seems ridiculous, yet this fear of language's power lies at the back of much critical theory. Dew has, at least, the merit of honesty. Much critical theory performs similar (and far more sanctimonious) "censorship" through careful labeling: this is what these words mean, this is what these words imply, here is the baggage these words carry. Labeled language loses its sting, its possible influence. We have dissected and diagnosed the work; we have risen above the crafty designs of the author!

Jargon, labels of class, race and gender, designations such as "ideological," "patriarchal," and "imperialistic" attempt to confine the creative use and thrust of language to passive (and often overly broad) constructions. The scholar is given a metalanguage that supposedly renders the text (written or performed) innocuous, instantly intelligible. So long as it can be labeled, it can be safely stowed away. If Taming is the Shrew is a patriarchal and hegemonic work filled with Elizabethan witticisms and certain iconic images, we should be able to catalog all its parts. The play's language is dissected and diagnosed; the whole, anatomized. Unlike Frankenstein's monster, it does not live, and therefore, cannot harm.

Tied into this treatment of language as a fearful monster is the belief that language is hiding something. Clayton Koelb refers to this belief as "alethetic" in his book The Incredulous Reader. Alethetic reading, as opposed to lethetic reading (the terms are Koelb's own borrowed from the Greek), is the approach most supported by academic institutions. It involves searching for the truth behind or encoded in a text, uncovering another actuality.(Footnote 10) At the core of alethetic reading is the view of texts as possible threats; their language could change the world, alter reality. Texts must be figured out, defanged, before they do any damage. The alethetic reaction is so strong, Koelb argues, that it is common to "treat a text that has no apparent intention of telling the truth as if it were a revelation of the deepest secrets of the universe."(Footnote 11) Likewise, popular culture scholars often make the mistake of searching for deep profundities where there are none to be found. Agatha Christie is really preaching Marxist, feminist theory; romance novels are subversive; westerns promote resistant ideologies. Popular productions become cryptograms, masking secret messages and cloaked agendas; popular culture students are the decoders. Even postmodernism employs a similar type of anti-text, in which meaning is deliberately excluded in order to render language innocuous, successfully accounted for.

Lethetic readers, on the other hand, are not threatened by a text's language since that language is tied into a purely fictional world. The reader does not so much exercise disbelief as forget about the problem of disbelief versus belief; through "submission to the sovereignty of the word," the reader undergoes a liberating experience, escapes not from the world but into an object of desire.(Footnote 12) Language is allowed to create worlds, invite sympathy, satisfy creative desires without being subordinated to real-life, relevant applications. "Language severed from the obligation to reflect some form of reality is free to reflect itself honestly," Koelb writes, "to do all things that language can do, to affect readers however it can and will."(Footnote 13) Lethetic readers create "new texts" for themselves but, unlike with alethetic readers, the new text is not a gloss to the original. It is the result of the creative experience, not of suspicious questioning.

Votary theory looks at the lethetic experience. The alethetic experience exists. It would be useless to deny it and just as useless to despise those who take it seriously. Dew was being neither naïve nor imperceptive when she made her decision regarding The Last Promise. Whether or not language changes us is a problem for the philosophers. Votary theory encourages only a shift in focus. It is not the business of the humanities to control texts, to pigeonhole them, wrap them in neat packages or hang them on the drying racks of critical theory. Rather, it is our job in the humanities to understand and appreciate the creative, lethetic response in which both author and reader participate. The alethetic insistence on tracking down meaning/purpose/relevance for every word and phrase must be set aside for the sake of the creative experience which is not so easily categorized. Without losing our sense of context, we must ignore our anxieties over language. We must allow Katarina's final thundering speech, its honey words and enlarged spirit, however sixteenth century in origin, to touch us without fussing over our endangered feminist viewpoints.

We must, as scholars, lose our self-interest. Votary theory postulates that spectators/readers worm their way inside whole works, exposing themselves entirely to another world. Those works--texts, poems, plays--carry within them creative possibilities. We come to them with creative urges and desires. Our desires are satisfied once we enter the author's world, become captive to the author's language. Even The Last Promise, so controversial in its inception, can be understood from a creative perspective. It is the responsibility of the humanities scholar to chase after that understanding.

Votary Theory and The Last Promise

Votary theory looks first at context and treatment. This is the glass within which the more elusive qualities of creative thought and enthrallment are contained. Not every context produces an Anne Bradstreet but then Bradstreets are not simply produced by context. As we turn to the contents of the glass, we must employ our imaginations, do our best to comprehend the emotions--love, fear, anger, jealousy, lust, creativity, joy, happiness--which the context contains and which are not reducible to jargon or power hierarchies. As we do this, our understanding of artistic works, both past works and contemporary ones, will grow. We will become masters of our field.

The Last Promise, for instance, should be examined first in its context: the times in which it was produced, the individual who produced it. Evans was inspired to write the book after a stay in Italy where he met a woman very like Eliana. During his visit, he was "especially intrigued by the temple of Vesta and the Vestal Virgins [who died for love.]"(Footnote 14) The Last Promise is advertised on Evans' web site alongside a suggested study guide and a slide show of Italy. Whatever Evans may have felt about Deseret Books' decision (it is not mentioned on his web site), his career has not been hurt by official LDS disapproval. Like The Christmas Box, his 2005 novel The Sunflower showed up on the New York Times bestseller list.(Footnote 15)

Next we turn to the treatment of the book, examining not only the controversy generated by Deseret Book's decision but the reaction of book reviewers. Joanne McCarthy at MacGill Book Review called The Last Promise a "commercial love story, predictable as the script of a B movie, and like a B movie, not for everyone" while Booklist called it "gooey." Kirkus Reviews stated emphatically, "[T]his shameless wallow is begging to be mocked" while Publishers Weekly more kindly promised, "Those who enjoyed The Christmas Box are in for another treat."(Footnote 16) The book has been reviewed by fifty-five readers on Amazon.com, of which only eleven gave it a low rating (whether one is more or less likely to write a review about a book one detests as compared to a book one really likes is a matter of debate).(Footnote 17)

In the final stage of votary theory, we need to come to terms with the book's readers. While it may be true that Evans is "climbing on his best-seller soapbox to preach a medieval theme . . . that of the great wheel of fate," and that the book's tone bears resemblance to a "loquacious, self-important guy who's got you cornered on a five-hour bus trip and is convinced that you are dying to hear his profoundly superficial life story,"(Footnote 18) nevertheless, our primary consideration as scholars is to understand the work from the creative standpoint of its readers/spectators. "The prima facie probability," C.S. Lewis stated in Experiment in Criticism, "that anything which has ever been truly read and obstinately loved by any reader has some virtue in it is overwhelming. To condemn such a book is therefore . . . a very serious matter."(Footnote 19)

In promoting the individual experience, I am not advocating the abandonment of standards. It is not wrong for scholars to argue that one book is better than another creatively, aesthetically. Throughout this thesis, I have taken issue with two performances that failed, in my view, to achieve complete creative accessibility and satisfaction. But we should never forget that people look for creative experiences in many different venues; it is our duty to comprehend that search and all the uneasiness and uncertainty which accompanies it. We need to turn away from the obsession with power--the ability of a work to promote or denigrate a class, race, religion, faction, culture, party, agenda--and turn instead to a work's lingual, creative enthrallment, no matter how frightening or dangerous that enthrallment may seem. Is the work good? Fun? Dreadful? Would I read it again? Would I throw it in the fireplace? Did I cry? Laugh? Get involved? Rewrite the ending? Did I believe? Would I go back? Did it let me in? Keep me out?

Did I enjoy my stay? I personally found The Last Promise an unbearable read, but again, the issue here is not my own satisfaction or even my placement of The Last Promise in a creative hierarchy. It is likely that some works encourage creative participation better than others. It is also likely that some works operate better with particular readers. My object as a votary theorist is the greater issue of creativity and audience. In what way does The Last Promise satisfy its advocates?

Of the fifty-five "customer" reviewers on Amazon.com (you don't have to buy a book in order to review it), most have read the book more than once (one as many as four times) while others intend to read it again. Evans' descriptions of the Italian countryside are praised (although a few reviewers point out various mistakes): "[The book] took me away to another world," writes one reviewer. Another concurs: "I was often shocked to glance up from reading and not see Italy outside my window."(Footnote 20) The Last Promise is even recommended, tongue in cheek, as an alternative to an expensive vacation.(Footnote 21)

Practical uses of the book crop up in other ways: the teaching aspect of Evans' writing whereby "how little we know about the social convention[s] of those in other countries and . . . the necessity we all have to feel loved [are] lessons . . . brought to life as you journey to Italy."(Footnote 22) A reviewer identifies herself with Eliana; her life resembles the heroine's. Reviewers are pleased that they learned something about Italian history, art and wine-making.(Footnote 23)

Yet, overall, the reviews refer not to the applicable aspects of Evans' novel but to its story. "The way Eliana and Ross's love unfolds, and the way Evans describes the beautiful Italian landscape, and way of life, makes you feel like your [sic] actually sitting there, watching this story happen," writes one reviewer. "I felt close to the main characters immediately . . . I felt like I experience what the characters experienced," writes another while an early review reads, "In pure Evans [sic] fashion, you become totally absorbed in the lives of these characters."(Footnote 24)

A number of readers were reluctant for the book to end and applaud this reluctance, in their reviews, as a positive sign: "I was disappointed when it came to the end (as I always am with a good book)." "When the story ended I felt utterly bereft to no longer share [the main characters'] world." "Now I wish I hadn't finished it so soon--I miss reading this great novel already." "I wish I was back in the pages of The Last Promise."(Footnote 25) The created world became real to these readers, so real that one reader lectures Eliana in her review.(Footnote 26) Even less enthused reviewers point to the world of The Last Promise as central to their reading experience; for them, the book failed due to the world's incompleteness. "[T]his title had a rushed and rather unexplained ending and left me yearning for a better read," states a reviewer; another, summing up several complaints, writes that the plot seemed rushed "to the detriment of the reader's experience. It was one of those reads that you can't put down, yet when it's over, that feeling of satisfaction isn't QUITE there."(Footnote 27)

In perusing these reviews, a possible "perfect reader" for The Last Promise begins to emerge. This reader wants to be entertained, wants to learn things but, more than anything, wants to be absorbed into another world, to enjoy the characters and events as they unfold. The Last Promise's perfect reader also has definite opinions on what, specifically, enables creative involvement. The reviews on Amazon.com contain surprising specificity regarding what Evans did right (and wrong). Some reviews point to "the setting, the characters, the emotions" as the most important aspects of Evans' writing.(Footnote 28) Others focus on the suspense aroused by sympathy with the characters' plight. A perfect reader would likely agree most with the latter statement; characterization is a pivotal issue in the reviews, both positive and negative. A critical reviewer, for example, cites the main characters' "contrived/artificial" and ultimately "boring" personalities as the death of his creative involvement.(Footnote 29)

Reviewers, pro and con, of The Last Promise share a number of creative expectations: "buyable" characters, a believable setting, a plausible resolution figure largely in all the reviews.(Footnote 30) For some, Evans' novel fulfilled these expectations; for others, claiming that the book's descriptions "fell flat" and the novel's beginning gave away the ending, it did not. For them, lack of credibility contributed to a sense of being kept outside, unable to achieve enjoyment due to the author's lack of ability. For admirers, such as The Last Promise's perfect reader, credibility was achieved; they were able to enter the novel.

The perfect reader for The Last Promise may not be the perfect reader for another text, but the issues raised by The Last Promise's perfect reader, however non-scholarly in delivery, are issues that should concern the votary theorist. We should be debating similar points, not only concerning popular romance novels but in regards to John Webster, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Emily Dickinson, and Vergil. Issues of creativity and involvement should arise when we discuss films, from animation to claymation, romance to thriller, as well as theatrical productions from dramas to musicals. Are audiences enthralled, gripped? Why? How? Is it the characterization, dialogue, prose, descriptions? What kind of journey do individual works invite us to take? Forget social significance--how are we satisfied, if we are satisfied, at a poetic level?

In her analysis of Oprah's book club, Kathleen Rooney makes a repeated call not for an abandonment of literary hierarchies but for the thoughtful construction of hierarchies that can then be submitted to debate.(Footnote 31) Votary theory encourages the same scholarly analysis of the creative experience. Not everyone will agree on what invites or engages creativity. Many would argue, as do reviewers on Amazon.com, that books like The Last Promise fall short of a creative hallmark, being products of "mindless romance novel workshops."(Footnote 32) Others will disagree. Within the strictures of context and treatment, these are the kinds of debates the humanist should engage it. Fans are more than capable of carrying out these conversational exchanges, but it is a sorry day for the humanities when assertions, eagerness, and excitement regarding creative enthrallment are sloughed off into supposedly less critical territory.

Throughout this thesis, I have applied votary theory to three different works, two of which I enjoyed, one which I did not. In all cases, my task was not to ask, "How do my personal reflections explain this work's reception by others?" or, even, "How can this work be explained politically or socially?" Instead, I have tried to indicate how a work, produced within a certain time and place, may have impressed its audience creatively. We return, once more, to the symbol of the container. Every author creates within a context (the glass). That context determines a work's creative possibilities. Czinner was influenced in his choices for The Duchess by the advent of middlebrow culture. The possibilities open to him included horror and issues of identity. Late for Dinner utilized a device common to the 1990's, although other devices, such as time travel, were also available. The controversy over Evans' book was caused by the intersection of the author's personal experience (his trip to Italy) and the needs of the Mormon community (as perceived by its leaders).

What follows, although shaped by context, is not dependent upon it. Audiences search for creative experiences. Votary theory claims that this search is individualistic, independent of time or place. Shakespeare's audience desired it as did Homer's as did the Victorian readers of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Humans will always search for the creative experience in themselves, in each other. Specifically, votary theory claims that the search ends, momentarily, when a reader/spectator enters an artistic work, clambers inside the author's world. The reader/spectator comes away satiated, unfulfilled, or satisfied with reservations.

Furthermore, what the reader/spectator finds in the author's world, although held within the confines of context, reflects the author's own search for creativity. In this meeting between reader and author (or, rather, between the reader and the author's created world), transcendence may occur, something less concrete, more ephemeral, more liquid than the container of place and time. Votary theory hopes to address both content and context without ever losing sight of the grandeur, the fun, the creative inspiration of artistic works. Unfortunately, we live in a world where too often, it seems, we are asked to separate the liquid from the glass.

1. "Evans says anyone upset by the message doesn't get the point. 'I know I will get some criticism from some people who don't get it . . . This is a woman who has been abused, who needs some love in her life. I believe we have the right to be loved. And I have real trouble with anyone who doesn't believe that." Quoted in Christy Karras' "Evans Moves to Italy in Search of Respect, Time With Family," The Salt Lake Tribune, November 10, 2002, D7. The study guide for The Last Promise on Richard Paul Evans' web site does not bring up the sticky problem of the adulterous relationship. Instead, it sticks to assertions such as "In addition to bonds of love, the bonds of family play a crucial role in The Last Promise." The study guide does mention the story of the Vestal Virgins (women who were killed in ancient times for falling in love), but in such hazy terms it is unclear what exactly about the Vestal Virgins you are supposed to consider. Richard Paul Evans, http://www.richardpaulevans.com/LastPromiseReadGuide.pdf.

2. Richard Paul Evans, The Last Promise (New York: Signet, 2002), 93.

3. Eugene Woodbury, "A Promise Not Worth Keeping," Irreantum: Exploring Mormon Literature, Summer 2003, 76. Eugene Woodbury is my oldest brother. His review of The Last Promise was written for a magazine published by the Association for Mormon Letters. I will refer to that review several times throughout this chapter.

4. Holly Mullen, "Banned Novel at Deseret Book Could Open Floodgate: What About Classics?" The Salt Lake Tribune, November 17, 2002, B1.

5. Robert Kirby, "Is Bible Next on Banned Books List?" The Salt Lake Tribune, November 16, 2002, C1.

6. Woodbury, 76.

7. Wayne Parker, "Romanticizing Infidelity," The Salt Lake Tribune, November 25, 2002, A6.

8. Amongst them, "What Prophets and Apostles Teach about Chastity and Fidelity," Ensign, October 1998, 38; Janette K. Gibbons, "Seven Steps to Strengthen a Marriage," Ensign, March 2002, 24; "Building a Successful Marriage," Ensign, March 1998, 27; S. Brent Scharman, "For Better, for Worse, For Always," Ensign, June 1991, 25. Also, a talk by Sheri Dew herself: "It Is Not Good for Man or Woman to be Alone," Ensign, November 2001, 12.

9. In 2002, Dew declared that all books were going to be reviewed according to "new buying guidelines." Danielle Steele books are still available through Deseret Book (although some of her novels may have been culled; the rest of Richard Paul Evans' books are also available). In any case, the availability of Steele's novels lends credence to Dew's claim that "[t]his is completely a business decision. It's not a religious decision, it's not a moral decision. It's a customer decision." In any case, it is likely that Mormon customers are less bothered by the ambiguous morality of non-Mormons than by the waffling morality of fellow Mormons. Christy Karras, "Forbidden Fruit: LDS Author's Book Deemed Inappropriate," The Salt Lake Tribune, November 14, 2002, A1. Evans, who has said little on this subject to the press, can hardly complain since his popularity, in Utah at least, was probably influenced by his being Mormon in the first place. He lived in Salt Lake City for many years, gaining the sobriquet of "beloved Utah author," Mullen, B1.

10. Clayton Koelb, The Incredulous Reader: Literature and the Function of Disbelief (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 39.

11. Ibid, 225.

12. Ibid, 41, 229.

13. Ibid, 225.

14. Karras, "Evans Moves to Italy," D7.

15. Richard Paul Evans, http://www.richardpaulevans.com/index.php.

16. Joanne McCarthy, "The Last Promise (Book)," Magill Book Reviews, August 1, 2003, no page number given. Other reviews are attached to the book's page at http://www.amazon.com.

17. The only extremely negative review I have posted on Amazon.com was of Ayn Rand's Anthem, which is possibly the single stupidest book ever written.

18. Woodbury, 78.

19. C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 88-89.

20. Reviewers on Amazon.com may give their names (if they contribute often) or just sign the review "A reader." I will give the names when I have them: J. Roggrow and Maria.

21. Janet E. Spurr.

22. Paula.

23. Kris Mack, Julia Wade, Maria, "brooke."

24. Hillary Richardson, J. Noga, "Ezcowboy."

25. J. Noga, Maria, a reader, Janet E. Spurr.

26. "But what Eliana doesn't understand is that the promise has already been broken by Mauirzio [sic]," Lisa.

27. Nancy R. Katz, K. Cohan "lunch-break reader," emphasis in review.

28. "A reader." In regards to emotions, reviewer Karen wrote, "[The book] generates inside you that 'fall in love' feeling all over again."

29. Richard Parker. His entire review: "The Story [sic] story was just interesting enough to keep me reading, but I have never been so thoroughly put off by the protagonists of a story. Everything was so perfect about Eliana and Ross that I found them way too contrived/artificial, although supposedly based on a couple of bona fide homo sapiens, and certainly exceedingly boring. I have to wonder if the author didn't use the same device - the 'real life' fictional interview - that others have used to try to make the story seem more true-to-life; even with this, or even if the entire story were true, it's not much of a story. At least the studly [sic] Ross's capacity for 70+ consecutive push-ups was explained by his exhaustive physical training regimen while he...uh...had nothing else to do. Glad I bought the book at a clearance store."

30. "[I] couldn't buy the main character," writes "quiltmom Sue." Ms Dawn concurs. Also, Evans should have "desbribed [sic] the places in Tuscany with feeling and the senses, not as a Tourist guide reading a map," explains Dancing Crane.

31. Kathleen Rooney, Reading With Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America (Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2005).

32. A. Todd.

THESIS: Conclusion

2006-09-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

And here it is! I need to thank my college advisor and reader at this point: Professor Conforti and Professor Ryden. First of all, I need to thank them for reading this stuff over and over and over and over . . . Second, for telling me that the particular battle I am trying to fight is still there to be fought. (I was deathly afraid the entire time I was working on my thesis that some professor somewhere would publish a new tome making my thesis utterly obsolete.) Third, at the risk of sounding snide, I need to thank them for supplying me with opportunities to hone my opinions. Many of the arguments presented in this thesis came about during lectures, where I either vocalized my dissatisfaction with a professor or student's opinion or sat stewing in philosophical fury. I may be the last humanities student alive who actually takes academic arguments seriously, but hey, it's gotta be someone!

I need to thank Professor Conforti, especially, for being such a goal-oriented advisor. For employment reasons, I had to get the thesis done within six months or less. Professor Conforti's "let's get it over with already" attitude was a huge asset in the achievement of that goal!

I am also immensely grateful to Camille Paglia. I was reading her book about poetry when I wrote this conclusion. Her quotes came in very handy. If there is a place in this universe for a heterosexual, Mormon, Christian, non-Freudian, non-Italian version of Camille Paglia, I would happily take it.

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"I remember being young, in school, being told that our bodies would
yield enough carbon for 2,000 pencils and enough calcium for
30 sticks of chalk, as well as enough iron for one nail.
What a weird thing to tell kids. We should be
told our bodies can transmute into
diamonds and wine goblets and
teacups and balloons."
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland

Votary theory came about because I was uneasy about the treatment of literature in academia. Critical theory, in my estimation, falls consistently short in appreciating artistic works; additionally, I have been unsettled by students' tendencies to deal with literature in ways which undercut, rather than enhance, the creative side of artistic works. In my undergraduate studies, this tendency usually meant jumbling together Marx, Freud, Austen and Fielding in a valiant, if misguided, attempt to fit them all into the same philosophy.(Footnote 1) In my older years, I have perceived a tendency to label and confuse methodologies so that, for instance, history (as an empirical study) is not distinguished from history (as learned narratives), history (as rumor and hearsay) from history (as experienced realities) while all of it is proclaimed patriarchal, Westernized, racist or class-based. Since the study of literature often does not require the cultivation of other disciplines, these distinctions are not required of humanities students. Votary theory is aimed at helping those students distinguish the various factors involved in fully understanding a work.

I feel qualified to present this tool, not due to any aggressive grounding in critical theory on my part but to my belief that it is possible to maintain separate methodologies (what I will refer to as "understandings") without, on the one hand, forcing a choice between the understandings or, on the other hand, blending the separate understandings into one. The glass and its liquid must be imagined separately even as they are applauded as equally important. It is possible, for example, to believe in the Christian Nativity at the same time that one appreciates the beauty of the actual text (located in the Book of Luke) while acknowledging the lack of empirical evidence for the event (either one way or the other). At work are three different understandings (faith-based, literary and historical), none of which needs to be abandoned for the sake of the other; neither do they need to be reduced to a variable sameness in order for each to preserve its viability.

Unfortunately, we seemed obsessed, as a society, with the idea that we must select positions: God versus science; insider versus outsider; men versus women; the personal versus the objective; Christianity versus other religions; capitalism versus ethics. The world seems composed of packaged ideologies--belief systems made neat. Writing in 1986, Dana Polan summarized this position as it emerges in critical theory. Academic attitudes towards mass culture, Polan contested, vary between the position "that anything narrative in form must support the work of ideology [on the one hand] and on the other hand, that anything non-narrative must necessarily challenge the operations of ideology." Polan argued, instead, for the existence of multiple narratives. She then described a common alternative to binary positioning, an alternative which I consider equally devastating to the study of artistic works: "the new mass culture may operate by offering no models whatsoever, preferring instead a situation in which there are no stable values, in which there are no effective roles that one could follow through from beginning to end."(Footnote 2) I contend that in an attempt to overcome the binary proclivities of our society, perhaps of our biology, the humanities has grabbed hold of Polan's discussed alternative.(Footnote 3) Politics, power-oriented criticism, has filled the vacuum created by the absence of literary models. Hermeneutics, criticizing the criticism, becomes the remaining point of stability. Less abstract theorists retreat into sociological studies, the examination of an audience's social (and quantifiable) uses of cultural artifacts.(Footnote 4) In the meantime, the focus on artistic works for their own sakes is abandoned.

Votary theory is not a return to formalism. Rather, votary theory postulates that two, even three, methodologies (understandings) can be maintained at the same time; we can comprehend context at the same time that we comprehend, and appreciate, creative content. We can study historical criticism at the same time we study and appreciate an individual text or performance. However, in order to maintain all understandings in a healthy, responsible fashion, they must be accepted as intrinsically different as well as equally important.

The need for this type of response to artistic works cannot be underestimated. First, a forced choice--context over content, political meaning over creative satisfaction--is not the best defense for the study of the arts. It makes such works susceptible to the changing political climate, lending novels, stories, plays and poetry a sociopolitical purpose while undermining the belief that these works should be studied simply because they exist. If the humanities cannot defend the essence of its discipline, it will lose the ability to defend itself at all.(Footnote 5)

Second, it will not help the humanities to rely on a lack of "stable values" as a pretext for ignoring historical context, abandoning works either to detractors or to the furtherance of political agendas. It will not strengthen our scholarship if we evade evidence when it is presented to us, nor will it aid our search for, our delight in, the creative act to smother it in labels. Comprehension of an artistic work must be achieved through the maintenance of several individual understandings at the same time. The glass without the liquid would be dull and unrewarding. The liquid without the glass is an untenable proposition.(Footnote 6)

I believe that fear of language lies at the root of binary thinking in the humanities and the abandonment of definitive methodologies. We are terrified that, unlabeled, artistic works will control us, rather than the other way around. Hence, the presence, in the humanities, of the right-brained literalism I referred to in Chapter 1. Objective historical evidence is rejected for the sake of social relevance, yet the personal, internal, and creative (not to mention highly demanding) aspects of theology, faith and artistry are rejected for the sake of labels and dot-to-dot explanations. Works become power-related, exclusive, applicable. Events have minimal causes and effects and contain literal (usually power-related) definitions. And everything can be blamed on someone or something.

We need to excise our fear. We need to stop worrying about whether a text will control us. We need to stop fussing about its control over others (if that control even exists). As humanities scholars, we need to stop tidying up our universe. Votary theory is messy; it is also difficult and intellectually demanding; it addresses both the contextual understanding of a work and the creative, and less provable, understanding of that work. We do not need to choose between these understandings. Neither, I will acknowledge, do we need to choose between creative understanding and understanding a work in terms of sociopolitical relationships. But the balance of study has tipped too far in the latter direction. In true binary fashion, the study of power has shut out all else: love, transcendence, greatness of heart, magnanimity, joy, delight, appreciation, mirth, empathy, sorrow, curiosity, magnificence. A study of artistic works that annihilates artistry is quite simply not doing its job. Votary theory, combining artistry and scholarship, provides a solution.

1. This is what occurs when Mormons, who receive a certain amount of theological training in their teen years, go to college. One of the positive aspects is that the "philosophy" in which Mormon students attempt to fit Marx, Freud, Austen, Fielding is cosmic in its proportions.

2. Dana Polan, "Brief Encounters: Mass Culture and the Evacuation of Sense" in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, ed. Tania Modleski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 171, 182.

3. In 1960, C.S. Lewis wrote, "[The human mind] wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize." Unfortunately, as Lewis would agree, the removal of values entirely from the issue of artistic works isn't much of an answer. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1960), 27.

4. "It is my deep wish," wrote Joke Hermes, "that we will one day use popular culture more in public debate as a shared source of references and knowledges [sic]." Joke Hermes, Re-reading Popular Culture (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), viii. Hermes is frank that the function of popular culture is the central theme of his book. I reference Hermes not because there is no place for this type of analysis in the humanities but rather as an indication of where much popular culture/humanities scholarship has focused in recent years.

5. Camille Paglia's assessment of the situation is much more brutal: "[A] result of this triumph of ideology over art is that, on the basis of their publications, few literature professors know how to 'read' anymore--and thus can scarcely be trusted to teach that skill to their students. Cultural studies, for example, despite its auspicious name, has been undone by its programmatic Marxism and is a morass of misreadings or overreadings." Paglia is speaking as one trained in New Criticism. She argues against New Criticism's abandonment of context but applauds the proponents of New Criticism for their love of the text: "I revere the artist and the poet, who are so ruthlessly 'exposed' by the sneering poststructuralists with their political agenda. There is no 'death of the author' (that Parisian cliché) in my worldview . . . The modernist doctrine of the work's self-reflexiveness once empowered art but has ended by strangling it in gimmickry." There is not much I can add to Paglia's diatribe. I find it heartening, and revealing, that Paglia, although speaking out of a very different mindset from either C.S. Lewis or Wayne Booth (or Arnold Weinstein) is trying, like them, to free literature from the bog-like literalism of power-oriented criticism. The issue for her is also transcendence: "Yet poetry is not just about itself: it does point to something out there, however dimly we can know it." Camille Paglia, Break, Blow, Burn (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005), ix, xv, emphasis in text.

6. In his book In Defense of History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), Richard J. Evans (not Richard Paul) argues, "I remain optimistic that objective historical knowledge is both desirable and attainable. So when Patrick Joyce tells us that social history is dead, and Elizabeth Deeds Ermath declares that time is a fictional construct, and Roland Barthes announces that all the world's a text, and Frank Ankersmit swears that we can never know anything at all about the past so we might as well confine ourselves to studying other historians, and Keith Jenkins proclaims that all history is just naked ideology designed to get historians power and money in big university institutions run by the bourgeoisie, I will look humbly at the past and say, despite them all: It really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant" 220.

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4 & Conclusion

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Personal Ground: Money & Mormons

2006-05-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

"He claims to have paid his tithing and was still burnt," says one angel to another. "I'm going to lunch . . . could you handle it?"

Fig. 1

The reference is to Malachi 3 & 4 where the "proud . . . and all that do wickedly" including those who have not paid tithes "shall be stubble" in the day that shall "burn as an oven" (Malachi 4:1). The essence of Malachi 4 is repeated in LDS scripture, Doctrine & Covenants 64: 23: "Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming." The humor of the above cartoon arises from the dissonance between the scriptures' fiery language and the casual accountant-like attitude of the angel. The latter's behavior resonants with the reader; like most things concerning money, the accountant aspect of tithing never strays far from the religious principle. It is reflected especially in tithing lore.

Mormons follow the principle of tithing. They contribute 10% of their income (gross or net) to the church and are encouraged to donate extra money (called fast offerings) to welfare and humanitarian funds managed by the church (who often work through the Red Cross). Tithing money is used to build temples and church buildings, maintain genealogical libraries, fund missionary programs and church educational institutions and pay for church materials. The principle is an outgrowth of consecration, an economic system attempted by Joseph Smith and continued, for a time, by Brigham Young. In consecration all goods and belongings were pooled. They were then re-distributed by church leaders according to need. It was not, as has often been thought, a form of communism since not all goods were held in common. Rather, members became stewards over property or particular items.

As can be imagined, consecration eventually failed. Grudges arose based on who managed what; there was also a lopsided division of labor where the committed did the majority of the work while supporting the rest of the community. Even amongst the religiously sincere, this becomes difficult to take. Tithing, which had been in place and practiced intermittently since the 1830s, was re-emphasized as a "binding obligation of church membership" in 1899 by church president Lorenzo Snow (Arrington, 210, 250). Currently, tithes are expected from full-time members and the principle is addressed in member-bishop interviews.

Over the years, many stories have adhered to the principle. A three-part motif underlies many of the stories; the protagonist suffers a time of hardship; the protagonist pays tithing; the protagonist receives blessings that are material in nature. The following story, printed in 2005, contains all three elements of the motif and is characteristic of most tithing stories:

Story can be found at www.lds.org.

Sarah Westbrook's story begins, as do many tithing narratives, with hardship. She and her husband are doing all they can under trying circumstances. Faced with a "pile of bills," she is tempted not to pay tithing. She adheres to the principle without any thought of reward. She exercises faith: "Somehow things would work out." She is blessed soon afterwards with material and temporal relief. (The twice-checked miracle is also a common motif in Mormon narratives; at first glance, the problem is irreparable; at second glance, it has disappeared.) The presence of these motifs in Westbrook's account in no way negate the truth of the events. The story is not meant to be fiction. What they do indicate is a common narrative structure.

The story appears in the "Latter-Day Saint Voices" section of the Ensign, a monthly church magazine. The location of the tale, amongst other anecdotes submitted by members, reflects the verbal norm of the narrative. Tithing stories are usually related in church settings: testimony meetings (where members stand and relate their feelings about church teachings) and Sunday School. These stories, although they are elicited by specific contexts, are voluntarily given, often intensely personal and individualistic. Yet the three elements recur. The type of hardship varies—loss of job, illness—and the form of blessing also varies—money in the mailbox, donated groceries—but the blessing is invariably materialistic in nature. In the following story, related to me fourth-hand, the hardship is a recent divorce; the blessing, childcare, is relevant to the circumstances:

I believe it was in fast and testimony meeting that a RM [Return Missionary] told about either a convert or a less active person on his mission. I think the story was she was a single mother and had a child. She wasn't paying tithing because she had to pay for childcare and she didn't think she could do both. I think the story went that she decided she would pay the tithing, and after she gave the Bishop's [sic] her tithing, she ran into someone that offered childcare for less than she was paying now. The difference between the two places was exactly the same amount as her tithing was. Again, I make no claims about the accuracy of the story. (E-mail from Carole Snyder to author.)

This narrative, based on a verbal account, is less complex and detailed than the written account, but all three elements are present. In both cases, financial aid occurs after faith has been demonstrated and the tithing has been paid. The miracle is further emphasized in the latter story when it turns out that the tithing is equal to the amount of money saved (another common motif).

The three-part motif has appeared not only in contemporary reminiscences, it has been applied to an event in Mormon history. In 1899 Lorenzo Snow visited St. George, Utah which was experiencing "one of its periodic drougths [sic]" (Larson, 653). He preached the law of tithing, calling on the Saints to show generosity to the Lord. If they did, the drought would end. In 1963, a movie, Windows of Heaven, was made of the incident. Windows of Heaven portrays Lorenzo Snow as an old and weary man. He comes to St. George at the Lord's prompting but does not fully understand why. During his sermon, he experiences a dramatic instance of revelation; his mention of tithing occurs spontaneously and unexpectedly.

Various eyewitnesses and historians took exception to the movie. St. George resident, Will Brooks, who was present at the sermon, protested several details. "President Snow was not weak and shaky," he stated in his memoirs (written down by his wife, Juanita Brooks). "Nor was there a great dramatic moment . . . He made a good talk, a strong talk. He did pause for a while at one point, but the audience saw nothing that could be interpreted as a revelation" (64). In fact, President Snow's decision to speak about tithing was not as unplanned as Windows of Heaven dramatically depicts. In the given speech, President Snow declared, "I come here now with my brethren that you may understand what is required of you as a people under the peculiar conditions in which the Church is now placed" and went on to emphasize the law of tithing "[which] is not anything new" (Larson, 653). The "peculiar conditions" referred to was the church's immense debt at the time. President Snow went on from St. George to address other congregations throughout Utah on the subject. Drought aside—"[b]y fall the rains [in St. George] seemed to have resumed their normal cycle" (653)--his emphasis bore fruit since the church "by 1904 . . . had overcome the 1898 deficit of $1.25 million and had a net worth of $3.2 million" (Arrington, 251).

Accurate or not, the movie was cut in 1996 to become part of a church teaching video. The cut movie utilizes the three-part motif. The moment of revelation is shown followed by a scene in which members express doubt: will the drought really end? Despite their doubts, they plant their crops and pay tithing, plus extra. "The prophet of the Lord promised us rain," states one character. "It'll come." The clip ends with a thunderstorm over a field of corn. The problem (drought) is solved by material aid (rain) due to faith and commitment to the principle (Saints pay tithing, plus offerings).

The equating of tithing with material blessings is evident in this clip and in the aforementioned stories. Fig. 2 plays on the equation's prevalence amongst Mormons.

Fig. 2

The reference is also from Malachi: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse... and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10). The association of blessings with cash is so common a concept, its reduction to a literal image is easily recognized as hyperbolic exaggeration (recognition and exaggeration both being important aspects of humor). These tangible considerations possibly stem from the Protestant, middle-class and pioneer origins of the Church; few slackers made it through the first years in Utah when material considerations gained overwhelming importance. However, such worldliness can be distasteful when examined too closely as indicated by the next cartoon (fig. 3). The teenager's (very teenagery) retort alters "good" from a matter of character to a matter of money, not a desirable or appealing mental roadmap.

Fig. 3

Nevertheless, the secular side of tithing is difficult to avoid. Mormons are also instructed to sacrifice their time to visit the sick and needy but time is an elusive quality, hard to gauge in monetary terms; after all, I will spend hours doing things I like with no thought of a paycheck. Tithing, however, involves a tangible reckoning: I have this much money--I am giving up this much. As in Westbrook's narrative, it is customary to perceive tithing in terms of a service or commodity: "The amount I’m going to pay won’t even pay the electric bill for the stake center," Westbrook writes, "but it would make a huge difference to me." Such assessments are common. Soon after my parents married, my mother, while waiting for the church service to begin, glanced down at her and my father's tithing receipt. Shocked, she realized that the amount of money in her hand could purchase wall-to-wall carpeting in their new living room (something that meant a great deal to her, a new bride).

This secular, accountant-like response is further emphasized by the church's use of tithing and other monetary contributions. Records of humanitarian aid (funded by fast offerings) appear frequently in the Church News, a weekly LDS newspaper. Regarding Hurricane Katrina, the September 1, 2005 Church News reported that "14 semi-trucks with Church supplies—including water, food, hygiene kits, tarps, generators and chain saws—reached the disaster zone within a matter of hours . . . Also, supplies from bishops' storehouses in [the Gulf area] were delivered . . . Twelve more semitrailer loads of supplies left the Salt Lake City Bishops' Storehouse the week of the disaster" (3). Although in many ways this is simply good PR, such reports also indicate the Church's desire to steer clear of suspicions regarding financial chicanery. Churches and money scandals have an unfortunate history in America.

Not only do the central church offices practice fiscal responsibility, the individual congregations (Wards and Stakes) encourage it as well. An individual hands her tithing, in an envelope, to one of the bishopric (the bishop or his two counselors). Tithing is never handed directly to the ward finance clerk. Every Sunday, a member of the bishopric and the finance clerk open and count the money together. The money is then deposited (it is never kept in the building overnight) in the local bank. On Monday morning, the money is electronically transferred to Salt Lake. Fast offerings remain in the ward, although any surplus--unused amounts--are sent on to the stake level. This hearkens back to the early practice of tithing where goods were distributed according to need, rather than according to equality (everyone gets the same) or hierarchy (the rich, or poor, deserve the most). Of course, such a system relies on fair-minded people to carry it out. Procedures arise to enforce fair-mindedness. A yearly audit is performed on the church's accounts; the results of the audit are reported in the first of the biannual church-wide conferences. Members who spend their own money on church events are reimbursed based on receipts. Members who apply for church welfare are kept within strict budgets (in theory, at least).

This orderly approach and the practical use of tithing are addressed in another cartoon (fig. 4) in which the businesslike Melchizedek applauds Abraham's intentions but adds, "We also need about 6,500 camels for a building project."

Fig. 4

Abraham is cited in Mormon teachings as the first tithee. In Genesis 14: 20, Abraham "gave [Melchizedek king of Salem] tithes of all." Possibly, the three-part motif began with this story of origin: in Genesis 14, Abraham has just rescued his brother Lot from a war. Shortly after paying tithes, Abraham rejects--with that lovely scorn reserved for Old Testament prophets--bribes from another king: "I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich" (14:23). Shortly afterwards (scripture-wise), Abraham is given a promise of great posterity and land (Genesis 15: 5, 18). As the cartoonist reminds us, even in Abraham's day, money wasn't always spiritual.

However, the principle of tithing does have revelatory origins (according to Joseph Smith) and is considered a spiritual law by Mormons. In an effort to counteract tithing's intrinsically secular side, recent church sermons have attempted to focus on those spiritual aspects. In a 2002 General Conference talk, Elder Robert D. Hales referred to tithing as a "test of faith with eternal blessings." "Like the outward physical ordinances of baptism and the sacrament," he stated, "the commandment to pay tithing requires temporal sacrifice, which ultimately yields great spiritual blessings." He then gave the following story:

I know of a couple who lived thousands of miles from the nearest temple. Although they earned little, they faithfully paid their tithing and saved all that they could to journey to the house of the Lord. After a year, the husband’s brother—not a member of the Church—unexpectedly came forward and offered them two airplane tickets. This temporal blessing made possible the spiritual blessings of their temple endowments and sealing. An additional spiritual blessing came later as the brother, touched by the couple’s humble faithfulness, joined the Church. (Hale, 27).

The story contains the traditional narrative: the couple "earned little," yet they paid their tithing; a relation then provided them with the worldly means to accomplish their goal. However, the importance of the "temporal blessing" is its spiritual qualifications: the couple is able to attend the temple; later the relation joins the church. A 2003 Ensign article strikes a similar note; while reaffirming that tithing can lead one to "prosper," the article goes on to state "[t]his prosperity consists of more than material goods . . . [i]t includes family solidarity and spiritual increase" ("Visiting Teaching Message," 52). Paying tithing is not just another form of playing the lottery: What prizes will God hand out this time?

In the tension between the spiritual principle--it is a "standing law unto my [Saints] forever, for my holy priesthood," Joseph Smith declared (D&C 119:4)—and the accountant-like handling of that principle, tithing lore (the three-part motif; the two-part miracle; the personal nature of the blessing) forms a kind of buffer zone. Money can cause unhappiness, as any family counselor will attest. There seems to be a fundamental, if disturbing, link between self-esteem and money; personal security and money; relationships and money. Anxiety over money (or resources) is a constant refrain in the human experience (and not, contrary to current academic attitudes, reserved for capitalistic countries). To approach the source of anxiety too closely (part with 10% of your income) is to give rise to passionate, and possibly negative, feelings. Rather than associate such feelings with the religious, faith-based principle, and hence with the church, members create narratives which operate as coping mechanisms. Tithing lore is a way of lessening or lightening financial quandaries (it is not unlikely that people play the lottery for the same reason: to form a buffer between one's day-to-day financial survival and the feelings associated with one's paycheck, job, boss, rent, grocery bill, etc.).

In his book about George Magoon, Edward D. Ives postulates that stories about Magoon carry out a similar function to that of tithing lore; the storytellers (and listeners) applaud Magoon's rejection of authority, yet by making Magoon into a folk hero, they also distance themselves from his troublesome law-breaking behavior. To Ives, these stories are "more potent as forces of accommodation than as charters for resistance" (301), helping the tellers and listeners to survive a difficult transition in their communities. Likewise, tithing stories address the troublesome aspects of tithing without undermining the religious principle. The lore reaffirms the hardships associated with the sacrifice of money without negating the rightness of the sacrifice.

Hardship is, after all, a common subject in religious circles (as it is elsewhere). "[Jesus] never said it would be easy; he only said it would be worth it," is a common refrain in Mormon circles (I believe it is actually a general Christian quote and probably originated outside of Mormonism). The quote is a reminder that the hardships of life don't disappear just because one goes to church. The quote also provides comfort: it's okay if you're overwhelmed, everybody is. Likewise, tithing stories provide comfort through their acknowledgement of the trials of life. Religious faith does not (any more than any other system) automatically produce passive or myopic believers, gazing on life through rose-colored glasses. The Pollyanna quality of many religious tales is often pounced on by outsiders who fail to spot the substance of the "lessons." Religious people, it would seem, talk about everything, from death, marriage and sexuality to political issues, from uncertainties over theology to religious conflicts and loss of faith.

And, of course, money. Tithing lore amongst Mormons indicates an ongoing interest in money, the problems of money, the long term effects of having it, not having it. A 2002 Ensign article about marriage emphasized the importance of proper financial management in order to avoid stress between couples (Cleveland, 38) while a 2003 message from the women's organization of the church stressed the practice of "provident living . . . the wise planning of financial matters" which includes obedience to the law of tithing ("Visiting Teaching Message," 52). There is a strong practical side to these articles and to the more personal discussions amongst members: an awareness of problems that should be combated through both spiritual and temporal means.

As well as offering practical advice and comfort, tithing lore also forms a communication bridge regarding a difficult, and often private, subject. Tithing stories parallel other discussions about money. "What would you do if you won the lottery?" my friends and I say to each other. I don't play the lottery, and my friends rarely do. The question isn't literal, at least not in the "Have you balanced your checkbook lately?" sense. It involves fantasizing ("I would travel." "I would move into a nicer apartment.") as well as a type of confessional, a recognition of the monetary hardships we all experience. I don't tell my friends my tax bracket or ask them about their school loans ("So how much money do you owe the government?") but I can sympathize and request sympathy nonetheless.

Tithing lore creates a similar bridge between private and public worlds. When my mother tells the story of the tithing receipt (she has never mentioned the exact amount), she goes on to assert the positive nature of her experience; despite her shock, it was right for her to know how much tithing she and my father were paying; she needed to understand the details of their sacrifice. The story has significance not only in terms of faith but gender. Since my father handles the family finances, my mother's knowledge of their tithing contribution leapt a gendered zone; tithing isn't something men do while women watch; it is something men and women do together.

Considering its weighty, business-like relevance, it should come as no surprise that many tithing cartoons and stories failed to interest me as a child. I didn't understand what it meant to be subtle (see fig. 2) or why it mattered or why it was funny. I received an allowance but unlike my next oldest brother, never saved a penny of it. I was rather notoriously clueless on the subject of budgeting. Only as I grew older, and took on financial responsibilities of my own (paying taxes, rent) did I begin to comprehend both the need for tithing lore and the humor surrounding it.

The stories echo a particular and very real aspect of adulthood. For this reason, the folkloric nature of tithing stories, their common three-part motif, should not be seen as discrediting the truthfulness of the stories. Some tales, like the fourth-hand account above, may be debatable from a purely historical point of view. Others, like the printed account (first-hand, delivered through a published medium), may have more historical feasibility, especially since the author gives her name and her ward. The use of a similar narrative structure means only that the structure is familiar to the individuals telling the story. However, the issue, in neither case, is empirical accuracy and the stories do not belong in the realm of historical research. They are not told to convince the listener/reader, "Yes, really, this happened to me;" rather, the stories are told to convince the listener/reader, "Yes, really, you can pay tithing and survive." Tithing lore, as Kathy Neustadt argues regarding the Allen's Neck clambake, is an affirmation of a practice already in place, a rally around a commitment already made: Yeah, I know it's tough, but it's still the right thing to do. Neustadt argues that the stories told at the clambake and about the clambake are "recognition and appreciation of challenges overcome, of the achievement of difficult tasks" (173). The lore of tithing—practical, spiritual, materialistic, otherworldly--fills a similar purpose.

Bibliography

Arrington, Leonard J. and Davis Bitton. The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-Day Saints. 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Brooks, Juanita. Uncle Will Tells His Story. Taggart & Company, Inc.: Salt Lake City, 1970.

"Church Providing Relief to Hurricane Katrina Victims." LDS Church News. 1 September 2005. < http://www.lds.org/news/article/0,5422,116-22086,00.html>

Cleveland, Annette. "An Eternal Marriage—One Day at a Time." Ensign. July 2002: 36-39.

The Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1990.

Grondahl, Calvin Raymond. Cartoons. Sunstone Foundation, 1980.

Hales, Robert D. "Tithing: A Test of Faith with Eternal Blessings." Ensign. November 2002: 26-29.

The Holy Bible. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1979.

Ives, Edward D. George Magoon and the Down East Game War. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Larson, Andrew Karl. "I Was Called to Dixie." The Virgin River Basin: Unique Experience in Mormon Pioneering. Andrew Karl Larson: Deseret New Press, 1961.

Neustadt, Kathy. Clambake: A History & Celebration of an American Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992.

"Ramping Up for Rita and Cleaning Up From Katrina." Church News. 22 September 2005

Snyder, Carole. "Re: Hey!" E-mail to author. 14 March 2006.

"Visiting Teacher Message: Prepare by Living Providently and Paying Tithes and Offerings," Ensign. December 2003: 52.

Westbrook, Sarah. "My Tithing Tire." Ensign. June 2005: 44.

"Windows of Heaven." Doctrine and Covenants and Church History. VHS. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1996.

Filling the Gap

2006-02-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

My family has no particular dish that expresses ethnic identity, other, I suppose, than Jello containing nuts, apples and miscellany. We do have many food preferences regarding dessert: root beer floats, chocolate spice cake, pie. As children, two of my brothers would opt for pie, instead of cake, on their birthdays, and my brother Henry and his wife had pies--chocolate, fruit, cream, mince—at their wedding rather than the traditional three-tiered extravaganza.

Other than dessert fetishes and the occasional favorite dish (chicken cacciatore), no specific foods mark my family. However, we do have a number of food (or rather, drink) practices connected to being Mormon. These stem from the Word of Wisdom, a health code based on scripture. The Word of Wisdom is located in section 89 of the Doctrine & Covenants, claimed revelations by LDS prophets. The Word of Wisdom instructs members to cut down on meat and alcohol, avoid tobacco and "hot drinks" (D&C 89:9) and to eat plenty of grains. In consequence, members will "receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones . . . shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge . . . shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint." (D&C 89:18-20)

The physical body is an essential element to Mormon doctrine, and continual progression is a theological principle. Also, as Richard Bushman points out in his book Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, the Word of Wisdom "came at a time [1833] when temperance and food reforms were flourishing" (212). Initially, the Word of Wisdom was perceived less as a set of commands and more a series of recommendations—more proscriptive than restrictive. Members adopted it as a lifestyle, a desire to lead a godly life that would improve the body.

The Word of Wisdom was already recognized as part of Mormon culture when it was codified by church leaders in the 1920s. The codified version clarifies "hot drinks" as specifically no tea or coffee. Members are instructed to avoid illegal drugs as well as alcohol and tobacco. Members are also encouraged to eat right and get plenty of rest but the restrictions (negatives) are usually recalled, in and out of the church, quicker than the positives.

Although the Word of Wisdom has an institutionalized (and written) origin, it has gained attendant lore. Stories affirming the Word of Wisdom's beneficial qualities abound in Mormon culture, which certainly doesn't negate the Word's healthy possibilities. In the attached cartoon, the Mormon's clean cut appearance is emphasized by the pipe and cigarette smoking of his comrades. The cartoon is both a tribute to the ideal of living the Word of Wisdom and a whimsical satire of Mormon self-perception.

As well as stories about the benefits of following the Word of Wisdom, people have also created explanations for the restrictions. The injunction against tea and coffee has been explained by some members and church leaders as due to caffeine. In the twentieth century, many Mormons consequently expanded their practice of "no tea or coffee" to no caffeinated drinks, including soda and, for real gung ho types, hot chocolate.

I was raised in a house without caffeinated soda. Oddly enough, I was also raised to understand that the theology (the codified law) referred only to tea and coffee; the avoidance of caffeinated soda was, as they say, an optional extra. Abstinence from Coke, Pepsi and such was, in my case at least, an entirely cultural rather than religious performance.

How did this come about? I asked my parents why they decided to rear me and my siblings without caffeinated soft drinks. Both my parents remember their families making homemade root beer, but neither family drank much manufactured soda. In my mother's case, the practice of no-caffeinated drinks became a defining element of family membership. She remembers one of her teachers sending a student out for a Coke every lunch hour. My mother accepted this custom without question, but during the same time period, she was shocked when a brother-in-law ordered a Coke at a restaurant. What was acceptable for the culture at large was not acceptable within the family circle, although she could not remember when the practice was adopted by her parents (a true instance of anonymous folklore!).

My father's adoption of no-caffeinated soda was more conscious and deliberate. To him, the practice was tied to a broader cultural movement throughout the church—the desire to improve oneself spiritually, physically and mentally. Rather than keep to "the letter of the law," members were encouraged to obey the "spirit of the law." My father perceived abstinence from manufactured soft drinks (the presence of phosphoric acid actually bothered him more than the caffeine) as part of that commitment. He compared the practice of no-caffeinated drinks to not swimming on Sunday. The question in his mind was not, "What does the rule say?" but "How do we keep the Sabbath Day holy?" or, "How do we eat well?"

His decision, and my mother's experience, probably explains the no-sweet-cereal rule of my childhood as well as the dearth of chips, Doritos, Twinkies and candy bars in our cupboards. A large part of this family practice, however, is the result of personal taste. My parents do not care for snack foods. Neither, thankfully, did they invest themselves in the health-food explosion of the 1970s. I never had to eat green pasta, carob cookies or 30-grain bread. We ate traditional American, middleclass fare, and we always, always, always had dessert (especially chocolate).

Many Mormons do become involved in buying, growing, cooking health food, especially since Mormons are encouraged to plant vegetable gardens and keep food storage (which often results in buying bulk or storing wheat). We had several vegetable gardens when I was a child, and my parents maintain a small one on Peaks Island. (I keep trying to grow tomato plants on my fire-escape—the poor things; I am so notoriously un-green-thumbed, my green-thumbed mother bought me a plastic hanging plant when I killed a live one. The fake plant was a gift, but it was also an act of mercy to living things in general.)

In recent years, as part of its encouragement of healthy living, the church has also stressed abstinence from any addictive substance, including the use of non-prescribed, over-the-counter drugs. However, to retain full fellowship, members are only required to avoid tea, coffee, alcohol, illegal drugs and tobacco. Yet every church lesson on the Word of Wisdom inevitably results in the "it's the caffeine!" explanation (followed sometimes by high-spirited comparisons of various diets).

I personally believe that, like many practices in a religious community, the Word of Wisdom is a signal of commitment. It is a way of life, a practice, that, as Susan Kalčik explains in her article "Ethnic Foodways in America: Symbol and the Performance of Identity," helps to maintain a group relationship (45). Kalčik focuses on the exclusionary aspect of avoiding certain foods (49), but in many cases abstinence, as in times of fasting, can promote mutual identity or understanding. In the second attached cartoon, the missionary's explanation, "We're fasting . . . " excuses his companion's behavior. It also reinforces their identity as a pair; they are in this together. The one missionary will literally pull the other missionary back from temptation.

"If foodways communicate about people," Kalčik writes, "then people may use foodways to communicate about themselves" (54). In many ways, the Mormon practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century carried exactly the same function as the Word of Wisdom today; it was a practice that defined, beyond any doubts, membership in a religious community.

Thus, in Mormon life, the Word of Wisdom functions both as an institutional command (and measure of obedience) and a cultural foodway. It also provides opportunity for lore. Possibly, a great deal of lore arises from the need to explain, rationalize, "okay" or excuse a cultural practice to the world at large. Mormons will often stress the modern health benefits of the Word of Wisdom, illustrating through story and statistics that Mormons have always been at the forefront of science. In the search for explanations, the once-simple law gets expanded. Hence, "no tea or coffee" becomes "no caffeine" (the scientific explanation) which becomes "no Dr. Pepper" (the expanded application).

It is common to human nature to demand underlying consistency, either in self-defense (I'm right to do this!) or in an effort at comprehension (now, I understand!). Natural disasters are connected to a single source (God or pollution), violence is linked to one cultural explanation (television or disintegrating families). For many people, our national president seems to provide an unending source of blame. The search for causation is not always negative. Einstein spent years trying to connect the laws of gravity with the laws of relativity (and now, through string theory, it seems that connection will be made). If no connection exists between disparate elements, humans rush to fill the gap--provide stories, theories, explanations, superstitions.

In the case of the Word of Wisdom, I have always been aware of the gap, in my own life, between the scriptural commandment, the codified law and the cultural practice. It would not be necessary for me to abstain from Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew or the all powerful Jolt (is that still around?) in order to remain a faithful member. In fact, once a year I drive a fellow church member to the grocery store to pick up five large crates of cherry Mountain Dew. However, I see no good reason to change the practice I was raised with. Think of the money I save! And I always have A&W root beer to fall back on for those ice cream floats.

Cartoons 1 & 2

"Are We There Yet?"

2005-12-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote this paper for my graduate class "Domestic Architecture and American Culture." It involved two sets of surveys--one sent to my six siblings and one sent to friends--and an interview with my parents. I would like to thank everyone who participated. I would especially like to thank my siblings who are not, by any stretch of the imagination, survey/questionnaire kinds of people. Thank you all again!
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The 1995 show Star Trek: Voyager places a starship in the Delta Quadrant, 75 years from its home planet, Earth. Four years into the crew's journey home, the ship is able to contact Earth. The contact generates excitement throughout the crew—with exceptions. To the Captain's query, a female crewmember replies, "[Returning] has no emotional resonance for me—I've never even been to Earth." The Captain mentions the possibility of waiting family members. The crewmember is disconcerted. "It might have more emotional resonance after all," the Captain tells her.

In a later scene, a male crewmember also expresses reservations about "going home." On Earth, he was something of a black sheep: he dropped out of the Academy, entered a dangerous radical group, ended up in jail. He also, more importantly, had a poor relationship with his father. "What I have here is so much better than anything I had there," he tells his lover. For the first crewmember, who grew up on a small starship before joining the Voyager crew, "home" involves memory: where you are, where you've been. The possibility of a literal connection—through blood—to an unknown place confuses her precise definitions. On the other hand, the second crewmember associates home with experience: home is where his best relationships have occurred.

These incidents, drawn from one episode, illustrate the juggling perception of home that is at work in our contemporary culture. As we turn from Star Trek to its audience, we can trace the same adjustments of "home" and "place" within the products of the suburban baby boomer generation. As the central case study to this paper, I will be using the experiences of myself and my six siblings (born 1956 to 1971) in a ranch-style suburban house in upstate New York.

The notions of "home" and "place" are fundamental aspects of the human psyche. "Home," for the purposes of this paper, refers to the feelings of attachment and security that surround a particular location: our memories, our love for others--while "place" refers to a specific location or house. For contemporary suburban products, what is home is juggled amongst many environments, adjusted and graded to fit various living areas (most "home-like," least "home-like"). The idea of "home" becomes more and more abstracted. This is a coping mechanism, a way of dealing with the modern/suburban expectations of attachment (necessary for stability) followed by, at the appropriate juncture, severance (necessary for growth and independence). "Home" (the feeling) becomes a usable, portable security. Yet the specter of "home" as a specific location is also at work in today's culture. The abstract sentiment must rework itself in terms of place. Within this sometimes tense juggling process lies the suburban child's experience of the late twentieth century (now adults in their thirties and forties).

Historically, "home" in America was linked to a specific place. The philosophies surrounding the Colonial Revival promoted the concept of a single family house in which feelings of belonging, and stability could be centered. In 1889, Charles Eliot Norton wrote, "Attachment to the native soil, affection for the home of one's youth, the claims of kindred, the bonds of social duty, have not proved strong enough to resist the allurements of hope, the fair promise of bettering fortune." For Norton, affection, claims, bonds are inseparable from "native soil" and "the home of one's youth"; they cannot be detached and taken elsewhere, or, at least, not easily. (See Note 1.) Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe also promoted the link between home-like sensations and a specific family residence. By creating a Christian, well-ventilated, well-decorated house, the housekeeper (wife/mother) would create a happy, efficient family life. Even Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who wished to move women out of such domestic roles, linked comfort to the house. However, Gilman displayed a modern attitude in her willingness to abstract the household. "What is, in truth, required to make a home?" she asks in her book The Home: Its Work and Influence. "First, mother and child, then father; this is the family, and the place where they live is the home." After all, as my brother Eugene wrote on his house survey, quoting Buckaroo Banzai, "Wherever you go, there you are."

The connection between stable home and sense of place was a much rarer ideal historically in America than, perhaps, even Gilman would have liked to admit. My ancestors uprooted themselves from England and journeyed west to Utah. Once there, they moved many times at Brigham Young's direction, from Salt Lake City to St. George, from Salt Lake to Orderville, to Provo. This may account for my family's almost aggressive unsentimentality regarding their places of residence. But other, less mobile families, also experienced the dissonance of new countries, states and residences. Yet the desire to link a specific location with "home-like" feelings pervades the history of the American house. The creation of suburbia reveals that desire at full force, illustrated in the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life.

The hero of It's a Wonderful Life (1946),George Bailey (played by Everyman actor Jimmy Stewart), promotes Bailey Park, a suburb of ranch houses. George Bailey runs the Bailey Building & Loan; he operates in opposition to the (corporate) bank, run by the greedy Mr. Potter. As Potter's accountant informs him, the Bailey Park houses "are 90% owned by suckers who used to pay rent to you." When George wishes himself out of existence, Mr. Potter takes over the town. The ice cream shop and other stores on Main Street are replaced by pawnbrokers, dance clubs, brothels and flashing neon signs--all the worst aspects of capitalism. The people themselves are bad-tempered and depressed. Their marriages are either broken or have never occurred. In a thundering piece of symbolism, Bailey Park has been replaced by a graveyard. "Where are the houses?" George gasps to which his angel replies, "You weren't here to build them." The inference is clear: suburban homes (not just houses) will save individuals and their families and through the families, their neighbors; suburbia will help create a self-sacrificing town where people care for one another like family.

In the suburban context, the house itself should also be a place of stability, safety. This image of a protected sanctuary pervades the nineteenth and twentieth century concept of the single family residence and appears in the early literature about suburbia. In his book The American Family Home 1800-1960, Clifford Clark summarizes architect Joseph Hudnut, (writing for the Architectural Record in 1945) when Clark writes, "[T]he family home . . . ought to be a refuge against modern society." The ideal suburbia builds houses where family togetherness can take place and children will thrive. In 1977, comparing a suburban community in Sweden with that of Levittown, David Popenoe wrote that both were "designed with the child in mind." He cited safety, limited traffic, nearby schools and same age companions as examples. The Swedish suburbia had more public spaces, including playgrounds but these too were "safe" and provided a variety of social interactions for the child.

It is important to note that although an ideal, the suburban environment often did live up to its promises of stability and neighborhood togetherness. A suburban product myself, I had a remarkably happy childhood. In the survey I took of my siblings, most commented positively on the environment of our suburb: the neighbors, the nearby church, friends. As both Clark and John Archer (Architecture and Suburbia) inform us, the suburb did not always cause the problems prophesied by sociologists--conformity on the outside did not always denote conformity on the inside. Neither did the suburb automatically entail—despite movies like American Beauty and Edward Scissorhands—angst over appearance and what the neighbors might think.

The tension of the suburban experience is more subtle. The environment is designed, ideally, for children: a stable place in which children can flourish physically and emotionally. "Place" and "home" are successfully linked. Yet, the psychology and economic culture behind the suburban experience demands that the child depart that place, transfer his feelings of home elsewhere. This conundrum is evident in modern parenting manuals, in the phenomenon of the "boomerang generation" and in the surveys I collected; the answer to the conundrum can also be found in the surveys' responses.

Parenting advice manuals from the Stowes to modern mentors have emphasized the child as product. In her book, Raising America, Ann Hulbert illustrates the transition of parenting advice from management experts (ministers and ministers' daughters) in the nineteenth century to scientists, including home economists, in the twentieth century. Parenting advice became progressively more intrusive, absolute and specific. However, the scientists/economists recognized that their knowledge often discouraged rather than bolstered parents, who were concerned that the slightest mistake would send their child awry. Dr. Spock stepped into the breach, reassuring parents that their love, their instincts were enough. The last fifty years have seen a combination of three approaches as scientists, ministers, and parent advocates vie for attention. "Amid the clamor to build better brains," Hulbert writes, "the call has also gone out to shore up children's characters" while other mentors are concerned that parents are overworked, overburdened and pressured. Despite their differences, parenting advisors still emphasize results over process. Children are described as products of genetic inheritance, neglect, cognitive input, other siblings, the parent-child relationship, moral teachings, poor discipline, too much religion, lack of religion. The list continually grows.

Amongst all this confusion, the family house has remained a symbol of safety for the child, a place which shores up the child's confidence, prepares the child for future hardships. Any abuse is terrible but abuse inside the home (or the daycare, that home away from home) carries more than usual abhorrence. A current television show Close to Home explores dangerous and hidden secrets that occur right next door to the heroine lawyer. The horror of crimes committed within a neighborhood heightens the show's drama. Place and behavior are linked. This should not happen here.

For here, no matter how abstract the parenting advice, must be addressed. Parenting manuals often suggest the use of house rules—functions surrounding place--to create feelings of home for the child. Rules, or chores, will not only attach the child to the house but will also, paradoxically, prepare the child for detachment. This will solve the problem of the "boomerang generation," young adult children who return home to stay. A 2005 Dr. Phil episode addressed this supposedly recent phenomenon with the commercial hook, "In transition or moochers in training?" His three guests (a brother and two sisters, ages 30, 24 and 21) argued that their unconditionally loving parents made it easy for them to return home again and again. They are more comfortable in their parent's house since their emotional and social needs are met there. Dr. Phil argued that the adult children were draining their parents' resources as well as taking advantage of their generosity.

In the end, the "moochers" were offered free rent at a large apartment complex (away from the parents) for a month. The month would serve as a transition period for the adult children to find their own places and new sources of income. It was not fair, Dr. Phil determined, to simply kick the moochers out, since their behavior had been enabled by their upbringing. "Loving them means preparing them," he informed the audience. The parents had failed to teach their children, through structured house rules, how to carry the abstract notions of unconditional love away from a specific location.

The siblings were not pleased by Dr. Phil's offer. It was clear that life at home meant more to them than free groceries and no chores. "If they don't want us..." the eldest began and then shrugged while the middle daughter struggled against tears. The issue, for the siblings, was not mooching but belonging versus abandonment. And curiously, the validity of their reactions was re-enforced by Dr. Phil; he referred to the family's four younger children who are "entitled to be there [at home]." The older children were expected to detach themselves; the younger siblings were not. In the end, how they were raised would determine their ability to move from one set of expectations to another. (See Note 2.)

How do suburban children handle this tension between the place of unconditional/forgiving love ("you can always come home again") and the place of limited resources? How do they negotiate between the houses of childhood and adulthood, the desire to return home (to safety) and the expectation of detachment? I attempted to answer these questions through surveys to my siblings and parents. I sent a survey to my six siblings and filled it out myself. I then requested random acquaintances and friends to fill out an adapted survey. I then interviewed my parents regarding their childhood homes and the three houses they have shared during their marriage: Hoover Road; Tecumseh Way and Peaks Island.

My parents, Hugh Woodbury and Joyce Nicholes Woodbury, married in 1955. Their first house was a five-room Cape Cod. They bought it as an "equity" house and sold it nine years later at a profit. At the time, Schenectady, New York--home to General Electric--was a flourishing area. My parents' second house (the house I grew up in) was part of a new suburb called Indian Hills. My parents bought lot #79 on Tecumseh Way, a cul-de-sac. They worked with the developer's architect to make changes to the house plans and checked on the house's construction every day. Ten years ago, my parents moved to a salt box style house on Peaks Island, Maine.

My survey questions focused mostly on the Tecumseh Way house, the family home for thirty-two years. That house is a ranch with an open basement. Through the front door you enter a small foyer which fans out in three directions: around the corner into the kitchen (at the front of the house) and dining room; down the hall to the living room and upstairs bedrooms; down the stairs to the playroom, basement, laundry and another three bedrooms. Since the house is built on a hill, the playroom has full windows, including a sliding glass door. My parents later redesigned the kitchen-dining area, moving the connecting door, adding atrium doors to the dining room and a larger window to the kitchen.

My parents chose the Tecumseh Way lot based on its closeness to our church (which was in the process of being built when they moved in). They wanted to live within walking distance of either our church or my father's work. "Walking distance" is something of an understatement; our back gate let out onto the church's parking lot. The church bordered undeveloped land, covered by woods. During the course of my childhood, several contractors tried to get permission to clear the land. They never succeeded, much to the neighborhood's collective relief. My siblings and I spent hours in the woods, which contained walking trails, a swamp, an unfinished cabin and lots and lots of field mice.

As entertainment, we not only had the woods, but the church parking lot (for roller-skating), the cul-de-sac (for four square and baseball), and a third of an acre yard. Our lot had originally belonged to an orchard. We had five of the original apple trees on our yard, one of which became a tree house. My father pruned and sprayed the trees, and we harvested the apples for applesauce and apple juice. In fact, my parents are great gardeners. During their thirty-two years in the Tecumseh Way house, they added an espaliered apple tree, plum trees, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and expanded my mother's front and backyard flower gardens. They also built a lower and upper patio onto the side of the house behind the garage.

There is a running joke amongst my brothers that my father was always ordering them to dig holes, either for my mom's flower beds or for the vegetable gardens. Several of my brothers (in mock revenge) have put my father to work on their own yards when my parents visit. Yard work was not a gendered activity, however (I often wished that it was) since we all had to weed, pick up branches, collect berries, apples and vegetables. I was spared the hole-digging, thankfully, but I still had to mow the grass.

In fact, some of the strongest memories shared by my siblings, of the Tecumseh Way house, are of the yard. Of the interior, the kitchen and playroom are remembered best (the former, the center of family activity; the latter, the center of sibling activity). Overall, our present reactions to the Tecumseh Way house are mostly nostalgic; a few of us have expressed interest in "cloning" the basement or upstairs bathroom, but the house itself excites no feelings of covetousness. On the other hand, most of us have driven by the house since it was sold in 1997, which evinces some lingering connection; the house, today, appears "smaller," "overgrown," not "as nice [a landscape]" and older. I was surprised by how little it had changed, which may had added, rather than detracted, from the aura of neglect.

In general, the Tecumseh Way house performed more of an utilitarian function for our family than a emotional one. It was a remarkably easy house to move around in. The kitchen could be accessed from the garage, the dining room and the front hall. From the dining room, you could access the living room, the study and the hall to the upstairs bedrooms. The playroom was in easy reach but at the same time, separate; children could play games away from visiting adults without feeling exiled to Siberia. From the playroom, you could reach the laundry room, the downstairs bedrooms, the basement, and the backyard. There was a laundry chute between the floors and a storage cellar in the basement.

The house's utilitarianism does not mean that it did not also feel like a home. The open kitchen/eating area generated a relaxed atmosphere; we ate together there almost every night. This room later gained a small sofa and a stereo system. There were bookcases in every room, both the public rooms (which included my father's study) and the bedrooms. We could borrow books from any of the public rooms. As well as a bookcase, rocking horse and ping-pong table, the downstairs playroom gained a rug and a wood stove in my pre-teen years. The more formal pieces, such as the piano, could be found upstairs in the living room. Although we were not supposed to eat or play in the living room when I was younger, that rule had been relaxed by the time I was a teen; many of my youthful memories are of people lounging about the living room, reading, listening to the radio, playing instruments or working on puzzles. We did not own a television set—technically; my brother Eugene reportedly salvaged and hid televisions in his bedroom for years. Absent a television, we had a microwave and a computer.

My home-like feelings towards this practical and unsentimental structure are explained by Hazel Easthope in her article "A Place Called Home." "Home," Hazel states, involves constancy, day-to-day routines, privacy and a "base around which identities are constructed." According to E.S. Casey, cited in the same article, a 'habitus' is "being at home in a particular place in an unselfconscious way." I tackled this latter issue in the survey to my siblings when I asked, "Did you, as child, feel a right to/in the Hoover or Tecumseh Way house? That it was your home (in a literal and figurative sense) as much as our parents'?" In general, my siblings replied in the affirmative although a few balked at my use of the phrase "right to." My sister Beth reported, "I always felt each house was my home, but my parents were in charge." "[I felt that way] as a child," my brother Dan answered, although "those feelings vanished when I married." My brother Henry did not feel "a right to" the house in general, but did think of the "downstairs . . . as the 'boys' part of the house, that as a group, we boys owned that part of the house." More tellingly, nearly all of my siblings referred to our parents' current house on Peaks Island as specifically "Mom and Dad's," although interest has been expressed in keeping that particular house in the family.

In many ways, my siblings' interest in the Peaks Island house resembles their descriptions of our grandmother Woodbury's house in Pasadena, California (now sold). Beth wrote, "[L]ong road trips to California probably made that house seem more interesting. It was a 'destination'!" while Henry "threw away [pictures of the Pasadena house]" since "they didn't really mean anything compared to my memories of visiting there." Likewise, interest in the Peaks Island house focuses on my parents' residency there, the destination (Maine), the uniqueness (an island) and the view (the ocean). A trip and its attendant memories are valued over a specific structure. (See Note 3.)

This detachment of memories and feelings from place runs throughout my siblings' surveys. Despite affirming a "right to" the Tecumseh Way house, my siblings all described 'home' (a later question) abstractly. Home, my sister Ann wrote, is "where I feel comfortable." "[It is] definitely a feeling, not a place," Beth stated; both my sisters pointed to relationships as a defining element of a home. Dan agreed, stating that "home is where the family is." "The place doesn't need to physically exist," Henry asserted, going on to mention that a home's identity is specific to the individual. My brother Joe agreed: it is a "state of being" and changes with age, while Eugene, in a follow up to the survey, wrote, "The same lack of sentiment that makes us much less inclined to start range wars over the 'family home,' also makes us less inclined to care that much about the house we grew up in." He argued that while human beings attach more sentimentality to land (as any Jeffersonian would agree), it is easier to deal with property since property rights "can be passed on, over and over, and to complete strangers." He postulated that the human proclivity for sentiment can account for attachments to summer homes, high schools and particular towns rather than houses and yards (he cited Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories as an example).

Yet place is always, must always, be at work in the harvesting of home-like emotions. "Everyone needs at least one place," Ann wrote. We are, after all, inhabiting a spot, location, point of longitude and latitude at all times. What we attach to that inhabitation, however, is variable, age-dependent, memory-induced, culturally promoted as well as individual and idiosyncratic. My siblings and I are, perhaps, more sanguine in our dissociation of "home" and "place" than many people, but the tendency to abstract appeared also in the non-sibling surveys. To the question, "Which of [your childhood] houses felt most like home? Why?" most (middleclass) participants gave relationship-oriented answers: "that's where my family was all together"; "[it was] peaceful, full of the spirit, unconditional love"; "I did a lot of growing up there"; "good neighbors. All felt a "right" either to their childhood houses or to their personal rooms in those houses, but few felt an overwhelming desire to return to a particular location. The opposing reactions of (necessary) attachment and (still more necessary) departure from the family house are at work.

How do we, as suburban products, manage these linked, if conflicting sensations? The answer lies in the surveys. Most of the responses could be summed up by the cliché, "That was then, this is now." Eugene referred to "home" as a "temporary staging area." Dan, as cited earlier, thought of the Tecumseh Way house as "his" until he was married. Beth wrote, "I quit feeling Tecumseh Way was my home when I was a sophomore or junior in college. Emotionally or biologically or both—I was ready to establish a home of my own." Joe "considered 'home' to be where Mom and Dad were" until he "left BYU to [go to] California." When I asked my siblings if they felt sad when my parents sold the Tecumseh Way house, Ann--who had been living there with her family at the time--replied, "I didn't realize how much I had missed not having 'our own' house until we moved . . . I knew we wouldn't be [at the Tecumseh Way house] permanently."

The common thread is that change in one's personal life naturally, rather than forcibly, alters one's identification of "home". The other survey participants expressed similar feelings: "as I got older and in my teens when I became very concerned with my own privacy I became more aware that I was living in my parents' home and that it wasn't my home" (emphasis in answer). A young, married woman wrote, "I will have to find my own place--start over new--make my own home." In this context, the moochers on Dr. Phil failed not so much to detach themselves from Mom and Dad's house but to mature, to, in Dr. Norton's words, "better their fortunes." In contrast to Dr. Norton, contemporary middleclass America perceives home and change as connected. A proper, normal sense of home will be achieved when we undergo a life-altering experience.

This is in line with parenting advice that burgeoned in the twentieth century. The end of the nineteenth century saw a growing fascination in humans as developing, evolving beings. In 1950, Erik Erikson revealed his "8-stage theory of personality development," which was to affect generations of parenting advisors up to the current day. We are individuals who yet share certain behaviors and a collective process of maturation. The language/concept of development was at work well before 1950. About his childhood home in Pasadena, my father remarked, "[After completing college] I was ready to move, not only out of the home, but out to explore the world. I did not have any problems moving about as far away as I could." My mother, despite detailed and fond memories of her childhood home, wrote, "I never expected to live there as an adult...I can recall vividly that one day, as I walked to the Upper Campus [of BYU], I thought, 'I have lived in Provo for 20 years and that is long enough.'" Both my parents come from mobile pioneer stock; neither felt a tugging "attachment to the native soil" when they moved more than a 3,000 miles from their families. They lived in upstate New York until ten years ago when they solidified their movement eastward by retiring to Maine. To a large extent, their church involvement in each new location has provided them with a continuing "home base."

The concept of the changing yet stable home life is capsulated in Christiane Northrup's recent book Mother-Daughter Wisdom. Dr. Northrup presents a metaphor of life in the shape of a house. Parts of the house represent different points of one's life. With birth, menopause and death, we move between floors (the book is directed towards women but can also be applied to men). Within each floor, we move between rooms. In each room, we face and conquer challenges. The result is a whole life, a complete building, but the experiences within depend upon movement and change. One does not return to the basement.

Dr. Northrup's conception of life as a house is directly in line with our contemporary attitude towards house and home. It is not only natural but necessary and good to re-apply our feelings of home to new places (floors). Only by doing so, can we grow and mature. Likewise, a changing sense of "home" is a natural phenomenon amongst middleclass suburbanites that should be reinforced.

Will "home" continue to be abstracted to the point where it has no relevance to "place"—is it healthy to maintain such an abstracted concept? Is it possible, human nature being what it is? In her article "The Meaning of Home to Five Elderly Women," Melinda Swenson argues that "attachment to place" provides these older women with "links . . . to intimacy, safety, emotional responses," and that such attachment is necessary to their continual health. If we divest ourselves too absolutely of attachment to place, will our physical beings suffer? On the other hand, to re-invoke Star Trek, is it necessary for us to become more detached in order to handle a growing, changing world and universe? A star-faring generation would need to detach itself emotionally not only from a location determined by latitude and longitude but from an actual planet. This smacks of science-fiction, but our television indicates that these thoughts exist in our culture. How far do we go before we no longer are home?

Possibly, the trend of detachment from location is moving in the opposite direction. In her 2004 book Home by Design, Sarah Susanka argues that a sense of "home" can be created physically. It is not just the feelings we bring into it. In a very Beecher Stowe-like presentation, she lists space, light and order as the three design factors which "makes us want to settle in [a specific house] and stay awhile." This is due to "physiological instincts"--geometrical forms and patterns to which humans naturally respond. Through listening to those instincts and consulting good architects, we can "create the experiences of home that we crave."

Like so many cultural issues, only time will show whether "home" and "place" will remained linked or whether they will sever completely. It is most likely, of course, that they will vary from individual to individual, family to family. "There's no place like home," Dorothy said, but whether a future Dorothy would still end up back in Kansas cannot yet be determined.

Notes

1. Charles Eliot Norton, "The Lack of Old Homes in America," Scribner's Magazine 5, no. 5 (1889), 636; I first encountered this article in David Schuyler's article, "Old Dwellings, Traditional Landscapes: Impressionist Artists and the Rediscovery of American Places."

2. "The Boomerang Generation," Dr. Phil (ABC, November 9, 2005). Other advice writers agree with Dr. Phil's solution, although not all of them can offer a month's free rent. In her book Parents Forever, Sidney Callahan recommends letting adult children return home "as a temporary measure" but only with an end goal in sight while Kathy Peel goes so far as to suggest that the "boomerang syndrome" can be a positive experience--the adult child is retreating home temporarily in order to find balance before moving on to the next stage of her life. Peel believes that the key to a good relationship between parents and adult children hinges on the parents' house. In a very Stowe-like approach, she recommends that parents make their house cozy and inviting, even to the point of "provid[ing] interesting books, magazines, and catalogs . . . a bedside reading lamp with a three-way bulb . . . a special place for mail." With so much encouragement, no wonder suburban children get confused! (Callahan, 37; and Peel, Family for Life, 96.)

3. Additionally, nearly all of us expressed squeamishness at the idea of caring for a family home (a characteristic that mitigates against the possibility of a shared summer residence). Henry wrote that he had no "desire to have a house, with its nooks and crannies and dust-covered furniture, be preserved," and Beth forthrightly proclaimed, "What a pain in the neck [to have to care for a generational home]!"

Indian Hills in Glenville, New York

"Upstairs" of Tecumseh Way house, drawn by Joyce Woodbury

"Downstairs" of Tecumseh Way house, drawn by Joyce Woodbury

Bibliography

Archer, John. Architecture and Suburbia From English Villa to American Dream House, 1690-2000. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Balfe, Judith Huggins. "Passing It On: The Inheritance of Summer Houses and Cultural Identity." The American Sociologist 26, no. 4 (1995): 29-40.

"The Boomerang Generation." Dr. Phil. ABC, November 9, 2005.

Callahan, Sidney. Parents Forever: You and Your Adult Children. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992.

Clark, Clifford Edward Jr. The American Family Home 1800-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Conrad, Pam. Our House: The Stories of Levittown. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1995.

Easthope, Hazel. "A Place Called Home." Housing, Theory and Society 21, no. 3 (2004): 128-138.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Home: It's Work and Influence. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903.

Gram-Hanssen, Kirsten and Claus Bech-Danielsen. "House, Home and Identity from a Consumption Perspective." Housing, Theory and Society 21, no. 1 (2004): 17-26.

Hulbert, Ann. Raising America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

"Hunters." Star Trek: Voyager. February 11, 1998. DVD. Paramount Home Entertainment, 2004.

It's a Wonderful Life. VHS. Directed by Frank Capra. 1946; Republic Pictures, 1998.

Northrup, Christiane, M.D. Mother-Daughter Wisdom. New York: Bantam Books, 2005.

Norton, Charles Eliot. "The Lack of Old Homes in America." Scribner's Magazine 5, no.5 (1889): 636-642.

Peel, Kathy. Family for Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.

Popenoe, David. The Suburban Environment: Sweden and the United States. Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Ricci, Isolina, Ph.D. Mom's House, Dad's House. 1980. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher and Catharine E. Beecher. The American Woman's Home. Edited by Nicole Tonkovich. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2004.

Susanka, Sarah. Home by Design. Newton: The Taunton Press, 2004.

Swenson, Melinda M. "The Meaning of Home to Five Elderly Women." Health Care for Women International 10, no. 2 (March 2000): 381-393.

Tyson, James L. "Family values bolstered by summer homes." Christian Science Monitor. 87, no. 210 (1995): 15.

Van Herck, ed. "Second interlude: on the house from all sorts of angles." The Journal of Architecture 7 (2002): 281-285.

Rebellion and the User Manual

2005-12-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

An episode of Monk introduces us to the detective's older brother, Ambrose: Mycroft to Monk's Holmes. Ambrose is as brilliant as his brother; he is also agoraphobic. He supports himself by writing technical manuals. Monk's assistant, Sharona, is impressed.

"I have this answering machine," she tells Ambrose, holding up a glossy book. "This is a very good manual. All the steps are very clear."

"I'm sure you noticed the typo," Ambrose replies. "It's on page 42." He then recites a string of German words, repeating them with slight variation. As obsessive as his brother, Ambrose is clearly bothered by the equivalent of writing, "Put the phone to charge on the cradle," as opposed to writing, "Put the phone on the cradle to charge."

"Ambrose," Monk informs Sharona, "can speak seven languages."

The joke is implicit and therefore difficult to explicate. The existence of a good manual arouses Sharona's interest. A man who cares about a mistake in a manual denotes an eccentric; that he worries about the foreign language section (which he also wrote) denotes an eccentric genius. The invisibility of this author (Ambrose is literally unable to show himself to the world) plays into the sui generis aspect of manuals, yet their "out of nothing" existence underwrites Ambrose's godlike authority. He is later able to pinpoint the killer's weapon because, naturally, he wrote the manual for it!

The episode's joke is tied to a wider cultural experience: humor aimed at or engendered by user manuals. Humor is often a form of subversion, a topsy-turvy vision of the world created to underscore a person's ambivalence about social or cultural institutions/authorities. Subversion is a common way of dealing with the reading experience— a way of wresting control from the implied author. Through humor, the reader resists the author's authority. Often this humor is personal, unacknowledged by the community at large (a high school student resisting an assigned classic, for example), but with user manuals, the resistance breaks out because the authority of the author is so explicit and, consequently, less ignorable. The manual exists to instruct a supposedly ignorant reader. Often the reader is ignorant (hence the need for instruction) but resents, consciously or unconsciously, the position of subservience into which the text has placed him.

Dislike of manuals has become so notorious that manufacturers have countered by claiming that the consumer, rather than the manual, is at fault. Manuals cannot be responsible for so much angst, they assert, since no one reads them. There is the truth to such assertions. In his article, "Attack of the Gizmos," Richard Cabot states, "I know several individuals who have never opened an owner's manual in their lives," and points to the increasing production of "quick-start guides and similar micromanuals" as alternate solutions (80). The increase of cautions in manuals over the past thirty years suggests that manuals may serve more as protection for the company than service to the consumer.

Why don't people read manuals? Is it a gendered reaction? Comedians tell us that men never ask for directions. Is the same mentality at work with technology, which historically has been gendered male? The argument sounds better than it reasons. It is more likely that people don't read manuals because (1) they dislike change, personified by technology; (2) they don't like the style of the manuals. In his book, Blaming Technology, Samuel Florman argues that fear of technology is caused by a displacement of anxieties over change and complexity. He cites the most common myths about technology—the "living" machine (think Hal from 2001) and the technocratic elite (think genetic engineers)—and argues against "abject pessimism" as well as "foolish optimism" in regards to technology and technological advances (186). Edward Tenner's book Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences indicates why "abject pessimism" may be so rampant. We fear what we think we cannot control. The cover of Tenner's book shows an appliance cord in snake-like coils; the head of the cord, the end with the plug rears upright, pointing aggressively to the left of the reader. The cord is a cobra prepared to strike. Symbolically, technology has moved beyond our control. It will attack us when we least expect it.

Technology has always been with us, from the first wheel to longbows and irrigation ditches. Possibly, dislike of technology has also always existed (just ask the French at Agincourt). However, Tenner could find no evidence of the concept of the "malevolent machine" (that epitome of scary technology) prior to 1800. The nineteenth century, of course, saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. At this time, systems replaced instruments (Tenner, 16); for example, harvesting a field, anciently at least, would have been carried out by several pieces of technology (scythe, plow) working in harness. Together, those instruments created a complex system. A clock, on the other hand, is a single piece of technology which contains, internally, a complex system. As the production of systems increased and technology was marketed to non-experts, the systems were hidden for the sake of the consumer. Hidden systems explain why my three-year old nephew can turn on a television and the DVD/VCR/sound system combination without a pause or a huh-what? Ideally, hidden systems should require less training; you should be able to just hit a button. Less ideally, hidden systems can break down and their existence appears to increase rather than decrease uneasiness. "It [is] impossible," writes Tenner, "for anyone to understand how the system might act" (16). Like the curled appliance cord, the system might lash out at any moment.

Humor is a natural reaction to this type of uncertainty; such humor includes satire and hyperbole. Twain satirized both the telephone and the "first writing-machine" (dictaphone), devices located in his own home. Of the latter, he wrote that he tried a dictation machine and finally pawned it off on "Howells" (probably William Dean Howells): "I got him to believe things about the machine that I did not believe myself. He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered" (170).

Hyperbole appears in the expanded use of Murphy's law. In 1949, Captain Edward Aloysius Murphy investigated the failure of G-measuring devices in rocket sled tests. Murphy discovered that the trouble was due to faulty installation of the devices. He stated, "If there's more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody will do it that way" (Waggoner, 82). Murphy's law was instantly co-opted by the public, which gave it a slightly different and much more negative twist: "If something can go wrong, it will." When Dianna Waggoner tracked down Captain Murphy in 1983, he explained that his original law was never meant as pessimistic prophecy but simply as a reminder to engineers and testers. In a fitting piece of irony, Waggoner discovered that Murphy had never made any money off the "books, calendars and posters" spawned by his misquoted law (82).

In these books, calendars and posters, Murphy's law has been taken far beyond its original context. Arthur Bloch's book Murphy's Law: wrong reasons why things go more! includes such trinkets as "As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold" (57) and "When there are sufficient funds in the checking account, checks take two weeks to clear. When there are insufficient funds, checks clear overnight" (64). A law about complex machines has been picked up and transformed into a law regarding the complex uncertainties of human nature and modern life...which includes machines. Bloch does tackle technology. He proclaims, "If a programmer's modifications of an existing program works, it's probably not what the users want," and comments wryly, "If you take something apart and put it back together enough times, eventually you will have two of them." (42-43). At the root of Bloch's proclamations lies the exaggerated fear of complexity and, more importantly, its application in one's life.

Application of technology in one's life explains the existence of manuals. As complex technologies became more available to the consumer, manufacturers worked to allay misgivings about private usage. As early as 1858, an advertisement for a sewing machine boasted, "A child can manage it," with the (unintentionally) ironic rider, "Parties purchasing will receive full instructions." A 1869 advertisement promoted The Elementary Principles of Sewing Machine Mechanism and Sewing Machine Stitches, with a glance at the history of the Sewing Machine by Mr. J. Battey; an ad from the same year quoted a satisfied customer who "learned the use of [the] Wheeler & Wilson machine without personal instruction" (5, my emphasis). Ease of use became synonymous with ease of learning.

As well as sewing machines, phonographs and watches also included manuals. Currently, manuals come with televisions, VCRs, DVDs, phones, radios, stereos, vacuum cleaners, television sets, weed whackers. Like Murphy's Law, it is their ubiquity that makes manuals both powerful and susceptible to subversion. Unfortunately, such ubiquity obscures the underbelly of user manual readership—those readers who read and laugh and roll their eyes. It is possible to generalize, however, what readers laugh at by examining trends of manual humor. Most manual humor subverts three aspects of manuals: (1) obvious instructions or "hints"; (2) unhelpful or confusing directions; (3) the manual's inevitable obsolesce.

Before examining these three aspects, I will compare a 1960s appliance manual to one from 1994. By studying the changes and consistencies between them, we can develop an appreciation of what readers have encountered in manuals over the last thirty years and possibly beforehand. The 1960s manual is for an electric slicing knife. The 1994 manual is for an electric skillet. Both manuals are stapled, paper booklets; both open with a description of the appliance's parts. The 1994 manual is heftier than the 1960s manual; it includes instructions in Spanish as well as recipes. It also has substantially more warnings. "Important Safeguards" comprises the entire first page of the 1994 manual; additionally, there are boxed and highlighted "Cautions" on pages 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

The 1960s manual also contains cautions, but they are woven into the text rather than individually highlighted: "Be sure that the electric slicing knife is not plugged into outlet before removing or replacing blades" carries a different tone from "CAUTION: To reduce the risk of electric shock, always remove automatic heat control before immersing this product in water," although the message is the same. The 1960s manual does have nearly triple the number of pictures, mostly in the "How to Slice" section in which disembodied hands carve up pineapples, party sandwiches, vegetables, ham, and lamb. In both manuals, sketched pictures are used rather than photographs.

The 1994 manual is black and white whereas the 1960s manual uses some background color. Nevertheless, the 1960s manual appears more muted since the 1994 manual uses larger type (12 point compared to 11 point), more bold words, more caps, more boxes emphasizing parts of instruction. Both manuals advertise other products: the 1960s manual advertises a Deluxe Toast-R-Oven and an All Stainless Steel Peek-A-Brew Coffee Maker on the back page. The 1994 manual advertises various products, such as a Scotch-Brite Cookware Scrub 'n Sponge, within the text itself. Both manuals provide a one-year warranty: the 1960s warranty on half a page; the 1994 warranty on a full page. Both manuals give instructions for obtaining replacement parts; the 1960s manual provides a half page of service centers by state with addresses; the 1994 manual provides one address with a non-toll-free contact phone number. Both manuals recommend the user go to the phone book for more information.

In general, the differences are largely organizational (although both manuals do use numbered steps). The 1960s manual begins with "How to Install Slicing Knife Storage Rack" and "How to Use Your Electric Slicing Knife" before bringing up "Care" of the knife while the 1994 manual begins with warnings, cautions and explanations. These are repeated in the Spanish section. Of the two, the 1960s manual appears easier to use, but it is hard to know whether the 1960s manual covers all the bases since its instructions are so minimalistic. Compare, for example, directions on washing between the two manuals: the 1960s manual advises, "Wash carving fork in sudsy water, rinse and dry" while the 1994 manual advises, "After washing, always rinse the skillet, cover and rack thoroughly with clear hot water. Any detergent left on the skillet or cover after cleaning can cause staining when the appliance is reheated." Are skillets more complicated to wash or is the 1994 company simply more concerned than the 1960s company at covering any user queries? (Or protecting itself?)

I chose two written texts, but nowadays, many appliances, such as bread makers, come with video manuals. The process of instruction is similar: a description of parts, a guide to various functions, an examination of troubleshooting possibilities (even the insouciant 1960s manual provides "Hints"). All in all, the matter, if not the presentation, seems to have remained the same over the last thirty years. I postulate that manual content, in general, has probably not greatly changed since The Elementary Principles of Sewing Machine Mechanism and Sewing Machine Stitches, although presentation may have altered considerably.

The most noticeable consistency between the 1960s and 1994 manuals is the cleaning instructions. The instructions are probably necessary, but a reader battling fears of technology as well as inferiority in the face of an authoritative, omnipresent writer will likely see the instructions as redundant and condescending. The reader will react with mockery and exaggeration. We can get an early glimpse of this reaction in the work of Rube Goldberg. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who created whimsical satires of machinery. Mechanization, Goldberg claimed, was to take a simple action and "do it the hard way" (Goldberg, The Best of Rube Goldberg, 6). His cartoons are left to right narratives of intricate and unrelated actions, ending in a self-proclaimed result. Goldberg created most of his machine-oriented humor between World War I and World War II from the "Automatic Weight-Reducing Machine" in 1914 to the "Self-Rolling Rug" in 1929 to the "Self-Operating Napkin" in 1931. He is a transitional figure between Twain, who satirized machinery, and contemporary comedians who satirize the manuals which accompany that machinery.

In 1959, Goldberg produced How to Remove the Cotton from a Bottle of Aspirin. His text and pictures bring to mind manual sections such as "How to Use Your Electric Slicing Knife" and "Special Cleaning Instructions." In the chapter "Simple Way to Get That Stubborn Wad of Cotton Out of a Bottle of Aspirin," Goldberg postulates that first, moths devour a jacket, causing an opposing weight to descend which sets off a dynamite explosion. The explosion ousts a hermit from a new housing complex; the hermit falls into a quiz program where he wins money. He uses his money to attend a private Rockette performance. One of the Rockettes kicks a football which flies into space, through a modern art museum and into a hippopotamus' mouth. The hippo punctures the football. The escaping air powers a wheel which crushes grapes. Wine from the crushed grapes drips into a bottle, which activates a lever, which moves a large hand; the hand thumbs over a passing helicopter. The helicopter has a boll weevil on board, the boll weevil seizes the cotton--for which fiber it has a natural inclination--lifting it out of the bottle. Voila!

In a contemporary satire of similar ilk, Steve Martin complicates the use a simple tool (a sledgehammer). He first defines terms (a section found in any instruction manual):

Thunk: This is the sound that the "clanker" (street term for the heavy-weighted slug) makes when wielded against the "stuff" (see next).
Stuff: Things that are to be wanged (see next).
Wang: The impact of the clanker and stuff.
Smithereens: The result of being wanged. (80)

"Many people," Martin informs us, "are surprised to find out that the sledgehammer has only one moving part." He then postulates the possible development of a new sledgehammer "currently being beta-tested," which will be called "below normal." Any problem with the sledgehammer, he explains, "afflicts only—to use the researcher's lingo—'really dumb people,'" and he refers to a user whose sledgehammer went out of control and "destroyed his living-room wall, even though he never let go of its handle" (80).

Feeling stupid or just being stupid comprises a substantial part of the relationship between readers and manuals. In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Douglas Adams mentions the (improbable) instructions for use on a package of toothpicks as one of the lowest points of human intelligence. When I bought a cardboard sunguard for my windshield, I generated easy laughs by telling people about the guard's stupid instruction: Do not drive with this in place. In his article "Operating Instructions," Paul Tullis echoes such obviousness when he writes, "Instruction #2: Plug the [microwave] into an electrical outlet. It has a three-foot cord with a grounded prong for such a purpose" (16).

In "Operating Instructions," Tullis mimics the numbered steps used by many manuals, including the 1960s and 1994 manuals. Imitation is a common approach in manual mockery; numbered steps in particular are used to indicated the manual's lack of clarity. Tullis' mock instructions climax with "Instruction #3: Discover that not only are there no instructions [in the booklet] for recourse . . . neither is there an address, phone number, or Web site listed as means of contacting the manufacturer about your problem." The numbered instructions, Tullis suggests, are mostly aimed at convincing the user how great the machine is, rather than actually giving any useful tips. It is not the user's fault if they can't understand (and carry out) the process.

Steve Martin builds on Tullis' approach in his article "Side Effects," a satire of the instructions received with medication. (This article was read at the 2005 Mark Twain awards honoring Steve Martin.) The large list of side-effects--which includes "This drug may shorten your intestines by twenty-one feet" and "Discontinue use immediately if you feel that your teeth are receiving radio broadcasts"—precludes the effectiveness of the drug. Martin finishes the article by advising:

You should also be out of reach of any weapon-like utensil with which you could threaten friends or family, who should also be briefed to not give you the pills, no matter how much you sweet-talk them. (84)

The conclusion of the instructions is that the product shouldn't be used at all, making the instructions themselves rather pointless.

The uselessness of a manual's instructions is only increased by the manual's eventual obsolesce. In the British comedy As Time Goes By (regularly shown on PBS), Jean asks her husband to look through her manuals when the vacuum cleaner fails to start. To Judith's daughter, Lionel states, "I'm looking at your mother's collection of instruction manuals for domestic appliances. Half of them should be in a museum." Later, he informs Jean, "Some of these old ones are quite fascinating. This one was written by James Watt." He continues:

"There's another one—we don't have a toasted sandwich maker."
"We used to," Jean replies. "It got all [gunky] and we had to throw it away."
"It wouldn't have gotten [gunky]," Lionel tells her smugly, "if you'd consulted your instruction manual."

In the end, it turns out that the manual is unnecessary; Jean simply forgot to turn the vacuum on "at the plug."

The obsolesce of manuals—which should be in museums, which become purposeless after new appliances are bought, which don't help anyway—occurs rapidly with products that regularly add improvements, such as computers. Computer manuals, unlike appliance manuals, have changed substantially in the last thirty years. The large, index-heavy manuals of the 1980s have slowly been replaced by on-line help, CDs and electronic manuals (begging the question of what to do if you can't turn on the computer to begin with). Consumers complain. In 1997, the magazine InfoWorld gave a Dumpy Award (Documentation User's MalPractice Award), based on write-ins, to the worse written manual. In general, the voters deplored the lack of "serious documentation," the "programmer work style" and the organization of the material (Foster, 100, my emphasis). In the title to his tongue-in-check article "The Last Manual You'll Ever Need!" Stephen Manes emphasizes the ephemeral nature of computer manuals. After all, with computers, there is no such thing as a "last manual." Manes ends his article: "If this [article] has mocked and ridiculed the uselessly generic documentation that comes with so many electronics products, it is about to reach its end, which will spare you a tirade about the other reasons why today's documentation generally stinks" (182, my emphasis). In an effort to remain of practical value, the manuals have become too standardized. This increases, rather than decreases, their uselessness, lack of relevance to the user who wants precise, specific instructions.

The ephemera of manuals explains, to an extent, both their authority and their vulnerability to satirists. The unnamed author cannot be attack directly. Furthermore, the manual's parental style--directive, commanding, caution-heavy—increases the reader's feelings of childishness. Readers rebel. Without a definitive target, however, the manuals themselves, rather than the technical writers or the product are attacked. This occurs despite the fact that manuals often exist in the first place to soothe fears of the appliance/product. Elizabeth Slatkin's book How to Write a Manual promotes the effectiveness of manuals, adding, "Good user manuals take a human factors approach, and often must compensate for the lack of such an approach in the product itself" (1). The need for simple instructions grows rather than decreases as products become more complex. William Wong, a writer for Electronic Design, urges this aspect of manual writing when he uses the acronym K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple Stupid. The object of manual instructions is to calm the user. Yet this object often backfires; the manual's small text and multiplicity of pictures stress, rather than soft-pedal, the product's complexity. Often, the very existence of a manual is enough to turn the user off the product.

Quandaries over manual use arise because user manuals are junctures of materiality and control. When instructed verbally, as in a training session, users can ask questions, joke with the expert, ignore him/her and otherwise make their personal authority felt. A manuals' materiality, on the other hand, lends it a much more assertive, less obvious power. Objects are defined in a single way. Steps are given and expected to be followed. Questions are answered before they are asked. The reader's ability to reason without the manual is questioned, as when the manual provides explanations and hints and gives cautions. The reader counters by mocking or exaggerating the manual's stupid explanations, satirizing the manual's steps, questioning the manual's usefulness and pointing to the manual's obsolesce.

Understanding the humorous, aggressive quality of readership in regards to manuals is important to the history of books. Through readers' reactions to manuals, we can examine readers' responses to other types of writing. Writers of print culture have long acknowledged the problem of tracking down the "demand" side of readership. Just because it is out there doesn't mean it is being read or received as the author intended; reader-response theorists like Norman Holland, Elizabeth Long and Janice Radway have long postulated readerly involvement in the text. Holland put forward the concept of "white spaces" out of which the reader creates his or her own interpretation. Readers' reactions to manuals give credence to these otherwise elusive theoretical and sociological conjectures. Manual mockery is prevalent in our culture; people ridicule manuals, ignore them, throw them away; how might readers react to other kinds of material? May we postulate an equal degree of rebelliousness, a deliberate misuse of texts in other reading experiences? As Lane Stiles suggests in "Packaging Literature for the High Schools: From the Riverside Literature Series to Literature and Life," High School students have long formed their own opinions over assigned reading. In her article, "Sense and Sensibility: A Case Study of Women's Reading in Late-Victorian America," Barbara Sicherman successfully illustrates not only the various uses to which the Hamilton women put their reading but the versatility of their choices. "All reading," Richard Brodhead writes, "it may be, plays into the drive to appropriate experience vicariously" (133). Elizabeth Long seconds that idea: a book's meaning alters whenever it is read, by the same reader (who changes and therefore reads differently) or by other readers.

This image of readership is both aggressive and self-serving. These are not orderly, passive and submissive readers whose characters are shaped by an assigned canon. Such aggressive readers do not surrender to the authority of texts, whether user manuals or otherwise. Although aggressive readership is often remarked on in passing, too often it is subsumed by scholars in their search for the "dominant" culture. The heterodoxy, uniqueness, strangeness and humor of individuals is lost in a broad picture of historical occurrence. Although the broad picture is valuable, without the individual experiences, choices and actions, the historical occurrence loses its flavor and meaning, not only to us but to the people who experienced it. However difficult to trace and decipher, researchers of print culture should always keep in mind the probability of reader rebellion.

Bibliography

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As Time Goes By. "Episode 52." VHS. 1995. BBC Video: Distributed by Warner House Video, 2002.

"Ad." New York Times. December 15, 1869, 5.

Bloch, Arthur. Murphy's Law: Book Three. Los Angeles: Price/Stern/Sloan, 1982.

Cabot, Richard. "Attack of the Gizmos." Sound and Video Contractor 22, no. 2 (2004): 80.

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Davidson, Cathy N., ed. Reading in America: Literature & Social History. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Electric Slicing Knife. General Electric, 33-6383-1.

Florman, Samuel C. Blaming Technology: Fear of Irrational for Scapegoats. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.

Foster, Ed. "Readers vote clearly on which vendor, product has the worst documentation." InfoWorld 17, no. 45: 100.

Goldberg, Rube. The Best of Rube Goldberg. Edited by Charles Keller. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1944.

Goldberg, Rube. How to Remove the Cotton from a Bottle of Aspirin. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959.

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Manes, Stephen. "'Read the Manual!' What Manual?" PC World 19, no. 6 (2001), 214.

Martin, Steve. "Designer of Audio CD, Packaging Enters Hell." New Yorker 75, no. 8 (1999),53.

Martin, Steve. "Side Effects." New Yorker 74, no. 8 (1998), 84.

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The Mystery of The Great and Terrible Quest

2005-11-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

The jacket is brownish-red. A golden lute stretches along its length. The title The Great and Terrible Quest (all in caps) is centered above "by Margaret Lovett" (also in caps). The text is reminiscent of many 1960s children's books: Arial-type letters with a touch of Garamond. A medieval crown occupies the space above the title. At the bottom of the jacket, slightly off-center, is a hand. Shorn of its jacket, the book is a solid blue hardcover, bearing an embossed golden crown with swords.

The Quest's appearance is not as pretentious as, perhaps, it sounds: golden lute, crown, capital letters. If anything, the effect is one of understatement. Except for that hand. I loved the book as a child, but the hand gave me shivers. It seemed to push the book over the edge of adventure/suspense into something worse: horror or Grimm (which terrified me when young).

The hand belongs to Huon, a seemingly old man with young man's hands. Huon is the adult protagonist at the center of this tale which is, in some ways, like every adventure tale--a lost prince, wicked nobles, ambiguous villains—and, in some ways, unlike any of them. Huon finds the prince, Trad, early in the book. The quest is his effort to bring Trad to the capital before sunrise on a certain date. The suspense is enhanced by Trad's ignorance. Like all good princes, he cares more for Huon's fate than his own, but the care is not at all sanctimonious. Trad believes Huon to be the rightful heir; he is reacting like a true king, placing the kingdom's needs before his own safety.

The Quest is not a well-known book. In fact, it is out-of-print. My personal history with it involves a number of odd twists as well as a number of non-definitive answers, especially those concerning the book's readership. I will explore the book's history and then its readership in turn.

The edition I grew up with appears to have been bought by someone in our family (probably my mother), used, for $1. My edition was printed in 1969 (the first edition was printed in 1967) by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in America (Lovett is a British citizen). My mother read the book to me as child, and when my parents moved from upstate New York to Maine, I managed to snag it. Most of the other books from my childhood ended up with my sister, Ann, who is a librarian. But I wanted The Great and Terrible Quest just as I wanted the 60s hardcover editions of C.S. Lewis' Narnia series. (Those I didn't manage to snag.)

My desire for The Quest wasn't precisely nostalgia or, perhaps, it was a specific type of nostalgia. I remember my mother reading the story to me, although I can't recall the year or season. It was one of the most exciting books of my childhood. I clamored for her to read more and more. One of the nice things about my mother was that she would get as caught up in the story as I and agree to chapter after chapter well past my bedtime.

I read The Quest myself a few years later. I haven't read it since, but it became, like so many books from my childhood, a talisman, an indication to me of what is worthwhile. I approve of this. This object is one of the commendable things about the world. I retained a similar attitude through college. I would save up to buy hardcovers of C.J. Cherryh, Archibald MacLeish, Conall Ryan's House of Cards, Faulkner (I got The Bear used). Now, age, money worries (ah, those college days) and moving have defeated that particular hobby. Hardcovers are just so darn heavy.

The Great and Terrible Quest has survived several moves; it is tucked away in my crate of fantasy/medieval books amongst Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Douglas Adams) and Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. I didn't remember, for sure, that I owned it until the book was brought to my notice by a strange series of events.

I had remembered The Great and Terrible Quest enough to place it on my Amazon.com list "Fantasy No Matter What Your Age," which also includes Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip and J.R.R, Tolkien (naturally). In July 2003, I received an e-mail from a writer at the Economist's London office, asking me what I knew about the book. He was doing an article about a facsimile edition of The Quest printed by a company, Sonlight Curriculum. He was having trouble locating any information about the book's background. I was one of the few readers he had come across.

I was unable to help him. I did some research of my own and learned that the book was rare, selling somewhere in the $200 range. I contacted my family. My mother had read Lovett's other book Jonathan but couldn't remember much about it. We were at a collective loss. However, the writer collected enough material to print an article in the August 30, 2003 Economist.

To me, the writer, Edward, had written,

There are several puzzling things about this book. One is that although it is, as you say, a very good book, the original publishers (Holt) never reprinted it. Second is that it _has_ been reprinted by a small Christian home-schooling publishing house in Colorado, called Sonlight, in 2001 but without their managing to track down Margaret Lovett (who is, I found out without too much difficulty, still alive). Thirdly it is not clear whether they obtained permission from Holts (the flyleaf just says that they "sought" permission). Fourth, Holts won't comment on this. Fifth, the book does not appear on Amazon as a new issue (only as out-of-print). Sixth (and less strange) Margaret Lovett (now aged 88) doesn't reply to my letters. (E-mail from Edward to Katherine Woodbury, July 2, 2003)

He continued, "[It is puzzling also] because she is rather harsh on the church, and it is a Christian publishing house that has reprinted it. And also stealing money from old ladies isn't nice in any sort of moral universe."

I agreed but differed from his assessment of the book as "harsh on the church." Lovett's book pits a lost prince and knight against corrupt nobles and clerics, par for the course stuff for anyone who has grown up on medieval fantasy (including C.S. Lewis). I was also surprised at his failure to recognize that the corrupt "church" of Lovett's book would be associated, rightly or wrongly, with Catholicism by a company like Sonlight, not with Protestantism. Since Protestants in England were referring to the Catholic Church as the "scarlet whore of Babylon" as late as the 1900s, I thought his bemusement a trifle obtuse. And I said so, only much nicer, of course.

However, the Economist was not interested in the literary analysis of English majors. They were, as befits the Economist, more interested in copyright laws.

As the comprehensive yet succinct article attests, Sonlight had not obtained permission (really) but ended up paying Miss Lovett her royalties (once the Economist pressured them about it). Miss Lovett was thrilled but surprised that her book had been republished, a book "she had believed long gone and quite forgotten" (Economist article).

What I took away from the article was not Sonlight's poor understanding of copyright law. Most people, including law professors, are downright equivocal on the subject. What impressed me about the Economist article was that Sonlight was using the book for the same reason, the 1969 flyleaf attests, that Lovett wrote it in the first place. "She continues writing," states the flyleaf, "partly, she admits, to have something to read to a class of twelve-year-olds," and informs us that Ms. Lovett teaches "disabled boys of high intelligence," a job she finds "totally satisfying and absorbing." The Economist tells us that Sonlight "specialises in providing teaching materials [to home schooleds] . . . by providing them with cheap editions of improving works of literature."

How, I wondered, did Sonlight decide that The Great and Terrible Quest was an improving work of literature? Or rather when? Did someone like myself keep the book as a souvenir of a good reading experience and then pull it out for a discussion on reading needs? Did someone remember the book from years earlier and pay the $200 to obtain it from an on-line dealer? Did they come across it in a library, the last copy of the second printing? Did a child read it and pass it on to another child or to a parent? For that matter, how did the Economist writer come across it?

Perhaps those are the wrong questions. Perhaps the real question is the one posed by the Economist (in passing): Why did it go out-of-print at all? It is excellently written, and was published in the same time period as Tolkien's fantasies, books which engaged students on both sides of the Atlantic. The Quest is a rollicking adventure story that my mother enjoyed reading to me as much as I enjoyed hearing it. Was it too much like other fiction at the time? Yet J.K. Rowlings' success has rolled over into successful reprints of British authors like Eva Ibbotson. Why did the same not hold true for Tolkien and Lovett? Perhaps, the age group was wrong. College students were reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, not youngsters. Dark children's literature has been much more prevalent in recent years (e.g. Lemony Snicket) than in the past. Perhaps, twenty years later, Lovett would have found she had a best seller on her hands.

I am not one to believe that book sales are manipulated entirely by marketing. I believe that popular books and movies become popular, more or less, due to word of mouth. Yes, dead white Western men promoted Shakespeare, but why Shakespeare and not, say, John Webster? (A question I'm hoping to answer in my thesis.) A work's survival appears to hinge on a congruence of market, culture, need and the problematic arena of reader-response. The history of many works can be explained by tracing these various elements, yet the unpopularity of The Great and Terrible Quest remains a puzzlement.

What is clearer, if disconcerting, is the book's readership: myself, a London writer from the Economist, Protestant home schooleds in Colorado, "disabled boys of high intelligence" (flyleaf). It is an oddly assorted community, to say the least. And perhaps it explains the book's elusiveness. The community is too scattered, too disparate. To read The Quest is like proclaiming, "I'm a C.J. Cherryh fan" to a Maeve Binchy book club. Every now and again, I meet a Cherryh fan. It's an awesome and unusual occasion. Everybody knows about Asimov; what about the less aggressively prolific sci-fi writers?

Since she is a sci-fi writer, Cherryh belongs to a large subculture and, consequently, has many more readers than Lovett. But perhaps if I and the London writer and the home schooleds and the disabled boys (older now) could find the right door, the right portal, the correct club, we would find the other four or five people in the world who have also read The Great and Terrible Quest. And perhaps, once we found each other, we would discover some thread of similarity: a proclivity, perhaps, for honor and romance, which, despite the Economist's reservations, even Protestants can share. "Stealing from old ladies isn't nice," the Economist writer told me and Lovett and the Protestants would agree.

At the end of the book, Trad (held in Huon's arms) feels that he and Huon (also called Lord Hilarion) will lose the race to the capital:

Tears were pouring down Trad's face . . . how, after all that, could any man do this even if it must be done?

"For the Kingdom," said a ghost of a sound above his head . . .

So it was that as, by the ancient tradition, the waiting trumpets were raised to signal the first glimpse of the sun's rim above the horizon and the hushed crowd . . . pressed forward in almost unbearable tension, the Lord Hilarion stumbled through the Gate of the City with his King in his arms. (The Great and Terrible Quest, 186, Lovett's italics)

Even now, it can bring me near tears. The slim volume, with its brown, off-key jacket, ends on a note of high, religious heroism. Like the imaginary chivalric knights of old (oh, surely, there were some), we Quest readers can feel part of a private group, seekers after chivalry, even in a 1969 forgotten novel.

Old Sakai and New Portland

2005-06-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

"Are there lighthouses in Japan?" my niece asked me.

We stood beside Portland Headlight. My oldest sister and her family plus my youngest brother and his family were visiting my parents. As part of our Sunday excursion, we had hauled the entire menagerie out to Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth.

"There must be," I said, and we contemplated the thought for a few moments. Japan is 2,300 miles of coast. Surely lighthouses have played as important a role in that country as they have in Maine.

"France too," my niece said.

"Even California," I said.

This, we decided, merited research.

I have discovered that Japan has 3,212 working lighthouses. California has 39 lighthouses while Michigan, of all places, has 124 (for the Great Lakes). Maine has 68. Why, then, I pondered, did I consider lighthouses to be an exclusively New England product? I wasn't the only one. I have elicited similar reactions from friends.

"I'm doing a paper on Japanese lighthouses," say I.

"Japanese lighthouses?" they respond. "Does Japan have lighthouses?" followed by the instant self-effacement, "Well, of course, they do!"

Of course they do. But finding information on specific Japanese lighthouses became an exercise in exasperation. Lighthouses are not indexed in most Japan travel guides (produced by U.S. publishers), and most books about lighthouses refer to European and U.S. lighthouses, not East Asian ones.

Ah, thought I, this explains all: the lighthouse as a New England icon is a result of Western ethnocentric thinking. Problem solved.

However, I found a similar lack of information on lighthouses in New England and Maine travel guides. And I must admit that before I came to Maine, I had never heard of Portland Headlight. Lighthouse research appears to belong to the same esoteric and profoundly gripping subculture as stamp-collecting.

And yet, the lighthouse in New England is definitely an icon, if not as prevalent as one might imagine. The City of Portland is spotted with variously painted lighthouse-shaped statues. I collected three brochures on lighthouses from the Portland Public Market. Out of forty-eight postcards in the gift shop, seven were of lighthouses, and I found lighthouse graphics on tourist websites for Newport, Rhode Island; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and New Haven, Connecticut, not to mention Portland, Maine. Annie Shibata, who lived in Japan for fourteen years, wrote, "I know nothing about J. [sic] lighthouses, never saw one myself that I can recall—I associate Maine with lighthouses!"

In order to solve why the lighthouse is an icon of New England, I decided to compare two lighthouses—Portland Headlight in Portland, Maine and Old Sakai in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. I will examine the history of each lighthouse, its contemporary setting and its presentation to the visitor. From these contexts, I hope to illustrate first, how both lighthouses satisfy a general iconic image and second, how both lighthouses satisfy the symbolic needs of their regions. From this, I hope to establish why the lighthouse has become a New England icon.

Lighthouses have been in operation since the dawn of time or at least since the dawn of fishing. Setting aside the awesome Alexandria Lighthouse which reportedly could be seen thirty miles out to sea, the majority of ancient lighthouses were coal or wood-burning fires on top of piles of rock, later to be made into towers. In China, lighthouses took the form of pagodas. In Japan, stone-huts were built to hold wooden lanterns. The unending problem, naturally, was the source of light and the strength of the beam.

As the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance and then, to the Age of Enlightenment, two developments propelled lighthouse technology forward. First, the invention of Fresnel lenses strengthened the beam. Secondly, strong centralized governments began to invest in the building and maintenance of lighthouses. The importance of this last factor cannot be overemphasized.

The current lighthouses in Japan (both used and unused) were built in the last half of the 19th century after the 1866 treaty between Japan and the Western World. They were built or designed by the top lighthouse engineers of the time, such as the Stevensons of Scotland and François Verny of France. They were modern inventions for a modern era. The designs were adopted by Japanese engineers and, all texts agree, rapidly improved upon.

It is their utilitarian and ultimately modern purpose that distinguishes Japanese lighthouses. "I have never thought of lighthouses as cute historical objects," Yuko Ishibe wrote in response to my query. She lives on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, the northernmost island. Yuko extolled the beauty of lighthouses but continued, "So if there is a lighthouse near I maybe go to see it. But it is not because of historical interest."

One might has well get excited about the Casco Bay Bridge (and people do). But the lighthouse has no more significance than that. You want old? In Japan? Lighthouses are recent newcomers to the landscape and uneventful ones.

Portland Headlight, on the other hand, is in the eyes of American citizenry, definitely historical. It was started in 1787 and finished in 1791. General Lafayette attended the dedication. It is often referred to as the first federal project of the new United States although John Marcus of Lighthouses of New England is correct to call it, "Both the last colonial light and first federal one."

Lighthouse building and maintenance was one of the first undertakings of the new U.S. government. The colonies, now States, were more than willing to hand over the financial responsibility of their lighthouses to someone else (with the exception of Rhode Island which agreed but with reservations). Bridging two eras, Portland Headlight gains significance both as a colonial project and as a symbol for a new nation.

A Japanese equivalent can be found not in the historical (i.e. 19th century) lighthouses but in a more recent venture, when the Japan Youth Federation attempted to lay claim to uninhabited islands between Japan and China. They built lighthouses (or said they were going to build lighthouses), inciting international tension. (The argument is ongoing.) Here, the lighthouse is less a marker of history than one of colonization, a territorial marker.

When it comes to history, I found only two Japanese lighthouses with advertised historical claims: Kannonsaki on the Miura Peninsula and Old Sakai in Sakai City. Old Sakai (see picture below) is the oldest Western-style wooden lighthouse in Japan. It stands at 11.3 meters. It is no longer in use, ending its protection of Sakai Port in 1968 due to land reclamation. It stands, a bright, white tower, on the edge of a pier. It is a historic landmark (as of 1972) and is referenced often and fondly in websites about Sakai City. The interior is not open to the public.

Old Sakai overlooks Sakai Port, once a major power in the business of international trade. Sakai Port, like Sakai itself, has been subsumed by its surroundings, the large and bustling Osaka Metropolis. Sakai City is a city of 700,000 people. A population of 700,000 is not a large number for Japan, and Sakai City is eclipsed by Osaka City (2,600,000 strong). The entire Osaka Metropolis contains 7 million people.

Sakai City, despite its relative insignificance (I had trouble finding it in tour guides) looks ahead. The Sakai City website commends Sakai's "modern industrial development, large population growth, expansion of its boundaries, infrastructure growth and more." The site goes on, "The rapid modernization continues to move forward with its robust development accelerating even today." This is perceived as a positive. In this context, Old Sakai lighthouse, built with contributions from Sakai citizens at the beginning of a new era, represents trade and advancement, a time when Sakai City was known as "the Venice of the East."

Portland Headlight has a very different setting. It stands at the head of Portland Harbor at the furthest end of a broad park and the park is visited as much if not more often than the lighthouse. People fly kites, go kayaking, hike, have picnics, play tag football and soccer and visit the crumbling Goddard Mansion.

The park, Fort Williams, is not part of any "city," at least not at first glance. It caters to the "natural" experience, rather than the technological one. It is "home to the oldest lighthouse in Maine." The emphasis is on the historic value and preservation of the lighthouse rather than on its modern purpose (although unlike Old Sakai, Portland Headlight is still functioning). Fort Williams is the historic theme park of the Greater Portland Area, and it is a very Maine-like theme park. Less rides, more rocks.

Consequently, the presentation of Portland Headlight is more visitor-friendly than at Old Sakai. Unlike Old Sakai, Portland Headlight has a gift shop and a museum. It has smooth walkways with a notable view of the sea. There is a painted rock telling you where a ship sank. Portland Headlight is a working lighthouse and various signs warn visitors away from the fog horns.

Portland Headlight's photogenic quality is stressed. Our family spent more time locating a place from which to take pictures than in viewing the lighthouse (though a number of us had been there before and knew the history). There have been many artistic accolades to Portland Headlight from Longfellow's poem to Hopper's painting to that of local artists whose art is featured on the Headlight website. The Headlight as art is so well-known, at least in Portland, that its intrinsic beauty is sometimes grumpily belittled. One sees without looking.

Despite all this attention and care, Portland Headlight, paradoxically, has an aura of isolation. It stands on the edge of the headland, cut off from the park by a fence (no gate) and a large hill. Photographs of Portland Headlight magnify this isolation, despite the fact that the park, on most days, is jammed with people. I have been to Portland Headlight in winter and still encountered visitors.

Like Portland Headlight, Old Sakai has been photographed as a lonely tower. Compare the photograph below to the prior photograph of Old Sakai. The photograph below, taken from a different angle, excises the ships and busy port. Old Sakai lighthouse becomes a forlorn object.

The effect is of a lone beacon, shining in all weather. This is the lure of the lighthouse. It is a lure that crosses culture. The Japan Coast Guard site unabashedly remarks, "There is something romantic and nostalgic feeling about such lighthouses."

The lighthouse is noble. "Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same," Longfellow eulogizes. "Year after year, through all the silent night/Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame/Shines on that inextinguishable light!" He compares the lighthouse to Prometheus, the Greek hero (or villain) who stole fire from the gods and was sentenced to be chained to a barren rock. Prometheus had only rare visitors.

The Sakai Hometown Homepage likewise refers to Old Sakai as "quietly standing," not words normally associated with busy ports, and the Japan Coast Guard calls lighthouses, "Navigational Aids Gentle to the Earth," a lovely, not to say remarkable, tribute to something that is, to all intents and purposes, a big flashlight.

But that is a landlubber's point of view. It is only in our modern age of automation, radio, radar and alternate transportation that the lighthouse has lost the overwhelming importance it had in prior centuries. As lighthouses lose importance or are replaced by other technologies, the image of the lighthouse (the painted tower) becomes a relic. We realize, only as its function passes, how important it was, how right our ancestors were to create such a thing. "Now, we understand," we say. "Now, we can appreciate your efforts to keep our seas safe."

As the recipients of this appreciation, Portland Headlight and Old Sakai share an iconic status. They are heroic symbols, a heroism that can be read and understood across cultural and geographic barriers.

For their specific regions, however, the two lighthouses hold different meaning. As icons, they author their landscapes in opposite ways.

Old Sakai has powerful symbolic value for Sakai City. The train line near the harbor is "adorned with street lights in the shape of the lighthouse." A statue of a European in 17th century dress overlooks the port. The lighthouse symbolizes the influence Sakai City once had (as an international port) and what it could still become. Thus, Old Sakai—not open to the public, non-adaptive to visitors, is a relic invested with modern significance. Its value lies less in what it is than it what it could (and once did) produce: trade, progress. It looks to the future—non-history.

The symbolic value of Portland Headlight lies squarely in itself. Its accessibility, its setting makes it an excursion, a place to take family or visitors. You can go to the museum. You can walk inside the lighthouse. The historic can be understood, adopted for personal use. This approach is intrinsically American. A recurring theme in texts on U.S. tourism and museum building is the concept of what Conforti calls the "noble and useable past." In the same way that 19th Century scene-seekers needed to experience the sublime in nature for themselves, the modern tourist negotiates and responds to the historic monument out of personal, and cultural, needs. To touch, to “get inside” is vital. Another lighthouse in the Greater Portland Area-—Spring Point in South Portland-—boasts that the visitor has "easy access to a close-up view of Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse . . . one of the very few caisson lighthouses which can be reached on foot" (my emphasis).

This, then, explains the importance of the lighthouse to New England. Unlike the Japanese lighthouse, the New England lighthouse provides a historical, rather than modern or utilitarian, meaning. A functioning part of the contemporary landscape, the New England lighthouse brings history close and makes it palpable. It does not symbolize something beyond itself. It carries its symbolic, iconic, nature within itself. As with the antiquarians of the 19th Century, who saved old houses simply because they were old, lighthouses matter to New England simply because they are (old) lighthouses, and especially because they can be experienced personally.
And perhaps in Japan, interest in the lighthouse as something old is beginning to occur. Yuko Ishibe (referenced above) who considers lighthouses unhistorical, continued, "She [my teenage daughter] said she didn't think [lighthouses were still in] use actually, and she felt something old [about them] . . . her feelings about lighthouse [sic] was different from mine and surprised me a little. I asked my colleagues. They said almost [the] same as what I thought about." With a new generation comes a change in perception.

Lighthouses, then, hold a remarkable place in the landscape. Just as their creation and construction is the result of various factors—historical, economic, technological—their positioning in the landscape takes on various meanings. They are modern miracles and passing relics. They are symbols of civic pride as well as symbols of isolated heroism. They overlook parks and harbors. They are versatile: invested with modern purpose and with historical relevance. Due to Portland Headlight, Fort Williams is more than a park, it is a historic area. Yet, even as it "authors" Fort Williams, Portland Headlight is self-contained, removed. Old Sakai gives its fairly mundane port a more historic and noble image at the same time that Old Sakai is isolated, inaccessible to visitors. This tension between the civic-minded landscape and the isolated monument is what gives lighthouses in Japan and in New England their romantic aura.

WORKS CITED

"Aids to Navigation in Japan." Lighthouse Association Home Page. September 27, 2004. www.mmjp.or.jp/tokokai/je_aids/e_aids2.htm

Conforti, Joseph. "Old New England: Nostalgia, Reaction and Reform in the Colonial Revival,1870-1910." Imagining New England. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,2001.

Hometown Homepage, Sakai, Osaki Prefecture. 2003-2004. September 27, 2004. www.infocreate.co.jp/hometown/sakai/midoko-e.html

Intercultural Exchange. Kansai International Public Relations. Office. 2002. Sept. 27, 2004. www.kansai.gr.jp/culture_e/ibunka/monuments/osaka/

Japan Coast Guard. September 27, 2004. www.kaiho.mlit.go.jp/e/index_e.htm

Jones, Ray. The Lighthouse Encyclopedia. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2004.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "The Lighthouse." The Lighthouses of Maine. Wally Welch.
1985.

Marcus, John and Susan Cole Kelly. Lighthouses of New England. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 2001.

Osaka City. Osaka City Hall. Oct. 1, 2004. www.city.osaka.jp/english/

Portland Harbor Museum at Spring Point Pamphlet

Portland Headlight. Town of Cape Elizabeth. September 27, 2004. www.portlandheadlight.com/

Sakai City. Sakai City Government. 1997. September 27, 2004. www.city.sakai.osaka.jp/index_e.html

Shelton, Ann. "United States Lighthouses." October 22, 2004. www.angelfire.com/va3/keepthelightsshining

Shibata, Annie. "Re: hi." E-mail. 20 Oct. 2004.

Talbot, Frederick A. Lightships and Lighthouses. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1913.

Yuko Ishibe. "Re: Lighthouses." E-mail. 3 Oct. 2004.

"You say Senkaku, I say Diaoyu," Economist. 7 Sept. 1996: 4.

Lucy Mack Smith: New England Housewife and Prophetess

2005-05-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Histories of Joseph Smith and the beginnings of Mormonism often place Joseph Smith squarely in the New England environment. The Church History text for LDS Religion classes describes the Smith family qualities of "hard work, patriotism, and personal legacy" (15) as being peculiar to New England. While occasional scholarly works question the promotion of Mormonism as a New England product--Bushman warning, "The shortcoming of this form of analysis [historical forces acting upon a person] is that it exaggerates similarities and suppresses differences" (7) and Brooke propounding, "I must dissent . . . Rather than running from the Puritanism brought to New England . . . Mormonism springs from the Radical Reformation [in Europe]" (xv)--nevertheless, most historians agree that the Smith family carried out of New England beliefs and habits which influenced ideas and actions within the growth of Mormonism. What is less definite is whether the Smiths saw themselves as New Englanders.

We can examine the Smith family attitude towards their New England heritage through the voice of Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith, Jr.'s mother. From 1844-45, Lucy Mack Smith dictated a series of reminisces to a young convert, Martha Jane Knowlton Coray. Coray then prepared two finished manuscripts, one of which was taken to England by Apostle Orson Pratt and printed in 1853. My quotes come from the dictated rough draft. Some adjustment of punctuation has been made.

What transpires from reading "Mother Smith's" original transcript is that the Smiths, while not claiming such labels as "New Englander" or "Yankee," did self-consciously possess certain New England traits: pride in the Revolutionary War, Yankee ambition, and respect for Republican motherhood. The strength of these traits in the Smith family can be traced to Lucy's influence. As a "Mack," Lucy saw herself steeped in New England patriotism. At the end of her memoir, she cries out in anguish over the deaths of her sons (Hyrum and Joseph had been murdered six months before). She testifies that the country has "become so corrupt that there are none to defend and maintain the sacredness of the Law" (747) and deplores that her family has been "imprisoned and murdered . . . although I am . . . a Native of the united states [sic] and although My Father and my brothers Fought hard and struggled manfully to establish a government of liberty and eaquel [sic] rights" (747). Lucy was familiar with Revolutionary rhetoric. When Joseph Smith, Sr. attended a Methodist meeting with Lucy, his father "thr[e]w Tom Pains [sic] age of reason into the house and angrily bade him read" (291). In this case, Age of Reason is being used in a religious argument, but it is clear the family was familiar with the more intemperate words of one of the America's "rebels."

After all, Solomon Mack, Lucy's father marched under Colonel Whiting to Fort Edwards and fought in a battle at "Half-way Brook" (222). Her brothers Jason and Stephen Mack also fought in the War. With such connections, Lucy would have felt every right to appeal as a citizen to "lawyers, judges, governors and President," and mourn that "[l]aws were trampled upon and . . . states were tarnished and despite was done to the statutes." (746). The Smiths believed thoroughly in the Revolutionary War's idealistic purposes. Although Lucy never uses the term, the Smiths were "Yankee-Doddles," who, as Joseph Conforti writes, "represented the republican virtue and attachment to liberty of New England common folk" (154). A negative term to many, the Smiths would have approved the association of themselves with the Yankee-Doodle persona: "the New England commoner's increasingly bold assertions of the rights, native ability, and distrust of deference and hierarchy" (154).

The Smiths may not even have minded the negative capitalistic associations with "Yankee"—that ambitious, cunning peddler who so disturbed Washington Irving and Timothy Dwight—although they may have resisted it on principle. One of the most common themes in Lucy's memoir is the family's continual struggle for a living. Within six years of marriage, Lucy was forced to use her impressive dowry of $1,000 to pay her husband's debts, accumulated in connection with a failed ginseng business. Lucy does not reproach her husband in her memoir, but it is clear that she respected successful "merchandising." She boasts that her brother Stephen "left his family with legsy [sic]," describing him as a "Moral man/a man of business" (251). She also mentions her younger brother, Jason, who has "gathered to himself in that rocky Region [New Hampshire] Fields Flocks and herds that multiply and increase upon the Mountains" (254). Her detailed explanation of her husband's business failings speak of a need to defend herself as a Mack; Macks are usually more financially astute. It was likely Lucy's influence that encouraged the family, in New York, to invest in "a Piece of land" despite the family's "destitute circumstances" (318). She proudly reports, "In one years time we made nearly all of the first payment" (319), although to do so the family had to labor out. They eventually fell behind and were forced to foreclose.

This is pure New England ambition, the rung-climbing, insatiable, capitalistic yearnings of the Yankee lower class. But Lucy was not all capitalistic Yankee. She was also a Republican mother, ascribing to herself those traits of sufficiency, frugality and family devotion eventually encapsulated in Lydia Child's American Frugal Housewife. In one of the most delightful passages in her memoir, Lucy describes a meeting in Palmyra where she defends her reduced circumstances to another woman. "I have never prayed for riches," Lucy tells her well-meaning detractor. "I now find myself very comfortably situated to what any of you are/what we have has not been obtained at the comfort of any human being/we owe no man" (322). In the very next paragraph, Lucy mentions that their farm makes 1000 pounds of "Mapel sugar" per year (322).

Despite her money concerns, Lucy is less concerned with her impact on her family as a frugal manager and more concerned with the Smith family's religious feelings and education. Lucy begins her dictation with quotes from her father's writings about her mother. Solomon wrote, "[My wife] was not only pleasant and agreeable by reason of the polish of Eeducation [sic] but she also possesed [sic] that inestimable jewel which in a wife and Mother of a family is truly a pearl of great price/namily a pious and devotional Character" (227). Her mother was a source of inspiration to Lucy throughout her life.

This image of women as spiritual guides and civilizers swept beyond New England Republicanism. It grew into the 19th century "cult of domesticity." Julie Roy Jeffrey in her book Frontier Women ensamples Catharine Beecher as one who promoted the idea "that women had significant cultural and social responsibilities" (13-14). These responsibilities emanated specifically from a woman's sex, her innate morality, her ability to influence husbands and children. Beecher was primarily interested in moving the cult of domesticity West; she wrote and worked several years after the events Lucy speaks of, but both women were coming out of a similar philosophy: the woman as mediator of the family's spiritual/ethical education, a role that stretches back to Puritan times (see Laura Ulrich's Good Wives) and forward into conservative Christianity.

Lydia Child also promoted this image of women as a spiritual influence. She would likely have approved Solomon Mack's later exposition, "[T]heir mother's percepts [sic] and example tooke deeper root in their infant minds and had a more lasting influence . . . than all the flowery eloquence of the pulpit" (228). However, Child's Unitarian/Episcopalian soul may have balked at Lucy's next examples of Republican womanly influence. Concerning her sisters Lovisa and Lovina, Lucy relates stories regarding their "peculiar faith" (235), their connection to God and their words of advice to family members before they both, separately, died. Lucy later rehearses her own spiritual journey: her "miraculous" recovery from sickness and her spiritual vision (292). She follows this immediately with a description of her husband's dreams; it is evident that Lucy saw herself as the religious mainstay of the Smith family, bringing purpose to her husband's otherwise chaotic agnosticism. She is willing to pass this burden of religious inspiration on to her son, Joseph; she extols "the sweetest union and happiness" in the family circle when Joseph, still sixteen, teaches the family. What matters is the family's collective spiritual welfare and, in particular the family's new construction of its religious identity.

Identification with the American Revolution; Yankee ambition and frugality and Republican womanhood were all transmitted by the Smith family, in particular Lucy Mack Smith, into Mormonism. Mormonism came into being in upstate New York. The Smiths moved to New York in 1816 to the area near Rochester known as the Burnt Over District. There they participated in the Second Great Awakening, Lucy, her sons Hyrum and Samuel and her daughter Sophronia joining the Presbyterian faith while her husband and other children stayed aloof. At the age of fourteen, Joseph Smith, Jr. experienced the First Vision in which Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ instructed him not to join any of the available sects. Three years later, Joseph Smith received a visit from a resurrected prophet, Moroni. Moroni instructed Joseph Smith on the location of ancient golden plates.

America at this time was awash with folktales and magical practices, an atmosphere beautifully captured in Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series. Joseph Smith was himself involved in treasure-hunting in his early working life. His retrieval of the golden plates--and the resulting rumors--elicited curiosity and greed (understandable considering the depressed times) from his neighbors; they were convinced that Joseph had found a treasure by magic.

Joseph Smith translated the plates between 1827 and 1829. The translation, known as The Book of Mormon, was published in 1829, eight months before Joseph Jr. formed the Church of Saints (1830). That same year, Joseph moved the small church and his family to Kirtland, Ohio. A second church center was set up in Missouri. Independence was revealed as the location of the latter-day Jerusalem or Zion. Intense persecution altered the Church's plans. Kicked out of Missouri, Mormons gathered instead at Nauvoo, Illinois.

The Smith family loyally followed their son and sibling to each new location: Kirtland, Far West (Missouri), Nauvoo. Joseph Sr. died in Nauvoo on September 14, 1840. His two sons, Joseph and Hyrum were killed four years later in Carthage, Illinois. Lucy Mack Smith lived to see Brigham Young confirmed as the new prophet and the Saints' exodus West. She stayed in Nauvoo with Emma, Joseph Jr.'s widow, dying May 14, 1856.

Throughout these early years of Mormonism, Lucy Mack Smith exercised a vital and sustaining influence in her new church. She saw Mormonism through the prism of her family, embued as they were with New England ideas, habits and self-respect. When a "large company of men" visited the Smith home in New York, hoping to see the plates, Lucy reports proudly that her son, Joseph, used a "stratagem of his Grandfather Mack." Joseph called out, pretending to have a "legion at hand." (391). The men scattered. No doubt Lucy had passed on this tale of Revolutionary cleverness to her children.

Her pride in her Revolutionary War connections sprinkles Lucy's narrative of Mormonism. Desiring to see her brother's family, Lucy accompanied several Mormon elders to Detroit (the elders went on to Missouri). She relays, triumphantly, that despite many set-backs the name of her brother, General Mack, evoked only respect: "[The elders] applied for the Methodist Church to preach in but [were] refused. The minister . . . said that if he had known it to be the request of Gen. Mack's sister they should have preached in his church" (550). Lucy, ever forthright, informed the minister she was sure he would get another chance.

Not only her ties to the Revolutionary War but Lucy's sense of American citizenship recurs throughout her memoir. She gives a full summary of a speech by Joseph Jr. in which he assures law officers that Mormons "were a people who had never broken the Laws to his knowledge but if they had they stood ready to be tried by the Law" (632). Lucy and her family perceived themselves as holding all the "priviledges [sic] of franchise" (630); that is, a say in their local and national governments.

In fact, unlike other reform and utopian experimental religions of the time, Mormonism was not initially devoted to pacifism or reclusion. Mormons often fought back against their persecutors, confident that good citizens had a right to defend themselves. This militant self-confidence would be found later in the brash Utah War and, with devastating irony, warped into mob paranoia at the root of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Lucy displays this confidence in her reaction to U.S. President Van Buren's statement to a delegation of Mormons: "Gentlemen, your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you" (708); in response, Lucy invokes the founding fathers: "You that at the peril of your lives your fortunes and your sacred honor . . . nobly stood targets for vengeance of the oppressor/ willing to sacrafice [sic] your own lives to save your children—Spirit of our departed Washington . . . we are your children/we love the constitution and the law . . . we love the hands that fought for us in our infant years/we have your brethren in our midst/some who battled by your side" (709). For Lucy, Mormons have become the true inheritors of the Revolutionary purpose.

Lucy also believed Mormons were, or should be, the epitome of industry and frugality, traits associated with Yankee New Englanders. Such qualities would make personal sacrifice "for the sake of Christ and salvation" (437) easier to effect. One of the first sacrifices the Smith family made, vicariously through Joseph Jr., was the monetary wealth of the golden plates. Lucy reports that when Joseph first uncovered the plates, "the thought flashed across his mind that there might be a benefit to him in a pecuniary point of view" (346). This desire for money has to be overcome before Joseph Jr. can receive the plates from Moroni.

The second sacrifice is more personal to Lucy. When the Smith family loses the Palmyra property due to the loan being called, Lucy reports, "I looked upon the proceeds of our industry . . . with a yearning attachment that I had never felt before" (371-372). The rewards of Yankee ambition are fully felt and appreciated. Yet once appreciated, Lucy can state unequivocally, "I will not cast one longing look upon anything which I leave behind me" (437). She is later rather acerbic about those Mormons who "murmur at the trifling troubles/ inconveiniences [sic] which they have to encounter in living in a little less stylish establishment than they have been accostomed [sic] to . . . All like the purchase/few the price to pay" (584). Lucy would have agreed with Mrs. Child's advice, "True wisdom lies in finding out all the advantages of a situation in which we are placed, instead of imagining the enjoyments of one in which we are not placed" (Child, 106).

Industry, sacrifice and one's proper place—the essence of good Yankee living—are all extolled by Lucy. They find their expression in the Mormon Law of Consecration. In a revelation received in Kirtland in 1831, Joseph Smith detailed a plan whereby goods and properties would be consecrated to the church and then parceled out to each male church member "as is sufficient for himself and family" (Doctrine & Covenants 42:32). The head of each family became "accountable . . . a steward" (42:32). The same revelation instructed the Saints "not to be idle" (42:42). Later revelations advised, "Neither shalt thou bury thy talents" (60:13), "labor in the church" (75:28) and "be diligent in all things" (75:29). Yankee ambition, frugality and sacrifice are combined to form an utopian economic system, similar to those practiced by transcendentalists like Bronson Alcott.

This ability to sacrifice as an aspect of Yankee industry is illustrated through one of the most dramatic events in early Church history. Martin Harris, one of Joseph Jr.'s supporters in New York, borrowed transcribed pages to show his family and friends. The pages were lost, possibly taken by Harris' wife. Lucy devotes nearly one-fourth of the New York years to a discussion of this one incident. In Lucy's memoirs, Mrs. Harris takes on all the negative attributes of Yankee ambition. Like her husband, Mrs. Harris became interested in Joseph Jr. Unlike her husband, who Lucy paints as generous and selfless, Mrs. Harris is described by Lucy as "jealous" and "suspicious" (394); she is continually offering money to the Smiths to catch a glimpse of the plates. It is likely that Mrs. Harris simply wanted some kind of material guarantee for the money spent by Mr. Harris. She later complained about her husband's loans to Joseph Jr., asserting, "I know how to take care of my property & I'll let them see that pretty shortly" (407). To Lucy, however, Mrs. Harris' overconcern with property makes her incapable of true sacrifice.

Mrs. Harris' money concerns also disqualify her as a good Republican housewife. Not only is she "a woman who piqued herself upon her superiority to her husband," she also has a "private purse which her husband permited [sic] her to keep to satisfy her peculiar disposition" (395). On one occasion when Mrs. Harris pestered Lucy for information, Lucy replied "that the business of the House which were the natural cares of a woman were all that I atempted [sic] to dictate or interfere with unless by my Husbands or sons request" (403). Coming from Lucy, a definitive power in her husband's and sons' lives, this statement is fraught with irony. But Lucy was speaking from the perspective of a frugal Republican mother who eschews wastefulness and embraces domestic duties.

Lucy would have backed Mrs. Child's belief that "true, hearty, well principled service" (Child, 108) should be a woman's goal, and to pass on a "thorough, religious useful education" (111) the best gift a mother can offer her family. Lucy was proud of her domestic role. She quotes her husband's parting words to her: "You are the mother of the greatest family that ever lived upon the earth . . . You have brought up my children for me by the fireside" (715, 722). Yet Lucy's religious influence extended beyond the usual bounds of Republican motherhood. She not only trained her children in their religious education, she participated in her son Joseph's religious quest. In her memoirs, Lucy refers to her own prophecies concerning the growing church: she prophesied regarding the conversion of a Presbyterian deacon; she prophesied that her sons Joseph and Hyrum would not die in Liberty Jail, and she had a vision in which she saw her sons "on the prarie [sic] in Misouri" (697) before the family has learned of their release from Liberty.

Her religious influence extended to direct intervention. On their first trip to Missouri, her sons fell sick with cholera. On their return, Hyrum relates the experience to Lucy, reporting that he received comfort when he saw a vision of "Mother on her knees under an apple tree praying for us" (578). Joseph Jr. then interposes, saying to Lucy, "Oh my Mother . . . how often have your prayers been a means of assisting us when the shadows of death encompassed us" (578).

Lucy's role as spiritual guide and agent impacted the early Mormon experience. For many women, including Joseph Smith's plural wife Eliza R. Snow, Lucy became "Mother Smith." Eliza wrote a poetic tribute to Lucy in 1845. Lucy is described, rather fervidly, as a survivor who has "suffer'd much and much she has Enjoy'd" (782). Eliza depicts Lucy as one who has seen it all—from the church's foundations to the martyrdom and beyond. In Eliza's poem, Lucy is always standing--"beside the death bed of her noble lord;" "beside the bleeding forms of those Great brother-martyrs" (783). Respect for Mother Smith extended beyond women to the men of the church. Many men visited Mother Smith on their journeys back and forth to Utah. Wilford Woodruff (later a president of the church) referred to Mother Smith as a "Prophetess" (779) and gave her a blessing shortly after the martyrdom in which he called her "the greatest Mother in Israel" (780).

Such strength and purpose, admired and related by both men and women, gives credence to Julie Roy Jeffrey's image of pioneer Mormon women as independent, economically powerful and self-sufficient even within polygamy. Well before the Mormons moved West, the church's first women's organization--the Relief Society--was formed on March 17, 1842. Similar organizations were attracting women throughout the nation at the time. The Mormon Relief Society, headed by Emma Smith, reached a membership of 1,142 by September 1842 (200). Lucy had become a member earlier that year on March 24th. After all, a woman who would leave bread baking to attend a religious service (568) knew where her real interests and priorities lay. In this respect, Lucy departs from Child and Child's philosophy. Rather than submerging her energies into her domestic sphere, Lucy's idea of Republican womanhood entailed pushing beyond the home's boundaries, into the community, even to the door of heaven.

Hence Mormonism, for Lucy, was not so much the personal vision of Joseph Jr. but a family triumph. This is possibly why the Church removed the 1853 published rendition of Lucy's memoir (called Biographical Sketches) from sale. The Church was then established in the West and needed to secure itself internally. It was no longer a family achievement. Although Brigham Young and the quorum continued to write and visit Lucy during treks to the east and Brigham Young offered many times to help Lucy take the journey West, the Church in Utah was rapidly evolving into an delimited empire stressing economic, political and doctrinal independence from the east.

At the beginning of the 20th century, under the direction of Joseph F. Smith, the Church began to look once more to its eastern, New England roots. Joseph F. Smith, and the presidents after him, wished to move Mormonism into a position of acceptance within American culture. They drew upon Mormonism's New England beginnings to gain that acceptance. In 1905, Joseph F. Smith traveled to Vermont to dedicate a monument at Joseph Smith's birthplace. In her book The Politics of American Religious Identity, Kathleen Flake writes that at this time "the Latter-day Saints were encouraged to manifest Yankee virtues and Progressive Era values" (132). Lucy Mack Smith would have approved. For her, the spirit of the Revolutionary War, Yankee industry and frugality and Republican womanhood were virtues the Church could ill-lose. Her belief in their use, their instrumentality, is telling. She saw their effect in her life and in her family. Through her, they infused the beginnings of Mormonism: Mormon beliefs in self-government, Mormon economic experiments and Mormonism's attitudes towards women. Whatever other backgrounds Mormonism emerged from, for Lucy it was a Smith/Mack family achievement and therefore, a New England achievement.

Lucy Mack' Smith's memoir, with its sincere, even aggressive religiosity, in many ways supplies an alternate narrative to the better educated, wealthier, more Protestant narratives of New England (Child, Hawthorne), but it is important to recognize that she would not have seen herself as an alternate. Like William Apess, who laid claim to true Christianity at the expense of his white counterparts, Lucy laid claim to the authentic New England character for herself and Mormonism. I'm sure that in her typical forthright manner, she would have informed any skeptics, "[W]e love those hearts from whose pure depths that constitution emmanated" (709) and considered that proof enough.

Bibliography

Apess, William. On Our Own Ground. Edited by Barry O'Connell. University of Massachusetts Press: Amherst, 1992.

Brooke, John L. The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1994.

Bushman, Richard L. Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. University of Illinois Press: Chicago, 1984.

Child, Lydia Maria. 1833. The American Frugal Housewife. Applewood Books: Bedford.

Conforti, Joseph. Imagining New England. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2001.

Church History in the Fulness of Times. Prepared by the Church Education System. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1989.

The Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1990.

Flake, Kathleen. The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of the Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2004.

Hymns. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1985.

Jeffrey, Julie Roy. Frontier Women. Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 1979.

Smith, Lucy Mack. Lucy's Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir. Edited by Lavina Fielding Anderson. Signature Books: SLC, 2001.

Arthur Parker: Mormon Folklore and the Stabilization of the West

2005-05-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

On July 2, 1856, Arthur Parker got lost from his family. The Parkers were Mormon pioneers. After conversion to the Mormon Church, they sailed from England on the "Enoch Train". In America, they joined the Daniel D. McArthur handcart company. Twenty-two days into the journey, Arthur Parker lay down beside the trail and fell asleep. His parents, further up the train, did not realize he was missing until nightfall. His father went back to search for Arthur, discovering him eventually at a woodsman's home.

The loss and search for Arthur Parker is recorded in two separate journals: the journal of fellow pioneer Archer Walters and the official Company journal. Archer Walters wrote:

July 2nd. Brother Parker's little boy, age six, was lost. The father went back to hunt him.

July 5th. Brother Parker brings into camp his little boy that had been lost. Great joy through the camp. The mother's joy I can not describe (Hafen, 61).

The official journal reads:

July 2nd. We remained in camp untill [sic] fifty past three p.m. owing to Brother McArthur's company having lost a boy by the way . . . (Hafen, 203).

Over the past hundred years, this small tale of family worry has expanded to include: an explanation of how the boy was lost; instructions from the mother, Ann, to her husband; the use of a bright red shawl as a signal; descriptions of the weather; the location of Arthur when found and the reunion. Many of these details have been passed down through the family; others have been added through retellings. Arthur's Parker's adventure has entered Mormon culture to become one of their many folktales of pioneer trials.

Folk history, says William A. Wilson, is "generated by the folk . . . constantly re-created . . . in response to their current needs and concerns, reflective of what is most important to them" ("Mormon Americana," 440). Arthur Parker's tale has been re-created as a family history; a religious principle, a source of ancestral faith, and a symbol of "pioneering" in our modern day. It is truly Western; it grows out of not just Western history but out of a journey through the Western landscape. In Arthur Parker's tale, Mormon ideas and ideals are inscribed upon the West, ideas and ideals that also transcend it.

The tale has at least three major forms: the initial journal entries, the family version and a mixture of the two. The journal entries are by necessity sparse. There is no story, simply a record of events. It is notable that the company entry does not even mention the boy's successful return. The emotional impact of the rescue is reserved for the individual diarist--Archer Walters--rather than the more businesslike company recorder.

In the 1950s, Camilla Woodbury Judd, daughter of Arthur Parker's sister, Martha Alice, wrote an expanded version of the tale which appeared in Angus Cannon Woodbury's book History of the Jeremiah Woodbury Family. Camilla, reputed in the family to have been a soulful and dramatic person, also wrote a poem of the event. Camilla's narrative of Arthur Parker's loss includes howling wolves, a "bright, wool shawl" (which appears in every subsequent version), a hardhearted company captain, and a fainting mother. A slightly different rendering of Camilla's narrative was also printed in Treasures of Pioneer History; Treasures comprised thirty-two volumes published over a five year period by the Daughters of the American Pioneers.

The publications of History and Treasures coincided with two separate events: the work of folklorists Alma and Austin Fife and the nationwide growth of regional pride. Alma and Austin Fife are pinpointed as the founders of research into Mormon folklore, a discipline that has expanded greatly over the past fifty years. Although scholars before and at the time had done work in this area, the Fifes expanded the field, both through their collection (now known as the Fife Folklore Archive) and their ground-breaking book Saints of Sage and Saddle. The Fifes also brought a serious, scholarly and humanist attitude to their research. Nowadays, the Fifes' writings comes across as too aggressively "enlightened." The Fifes had been raised as Utah Mormons but were no longer active when they began their work. Their insistence that this made them automatically objective comes across as special pleading to current scholars. Nevertheless, their work proved invaluable to the discipline.

At the same time, and interrelated, regions through the United States were experiencing a boost of regional pride. Beginning in the Jazz Era, regionalists explored "what they perceived to be in the bedrock of America, its civic traditions, its folk cultures, its very landscapes" (Dorman, 24). For many people, this bedrock included family stories. Mormonism, which stresses genealogical ties as part of its theology, has always encouraged the preservation of such stories, leading to the publication of family histories like Angus Woodbury's.

Family stories place the writers, and their kin, in time and in place. They stabilize the family network which to Mormons is all-important. They give significance, sometimes special significance, to family accomplishments. They create a heritage, an inheritance: I am the person I am because of my ancestors; I can be proud of (or, if one prefers the Jerry Springer approach, disgusted by) my forebears. Whatever I feel in response, these stories help me make sense of my life.

Consequently, families have photos, reunions, traditions, stories, anecdotes, place and time-centered tales that give order to the past. They are not lies. A better word might be "myth," not in the common use of the word ("a false tale" or "a story found in a book") but in the literary sense of the word. J.R.R. Tolkien compares myth and fairytales to a soup in which events are boiled "for a long time, together with many other older figures and devices, of mythology and Faërie, and even some other stray bones as history" (28-29). Myth often captures the psychological and emotional impact of an incident; because of this, myth can be truer than a simple notation: "Dog died on this day." By re-invoking and creating spiritual, emotional or intellectual responses, it can define the past and thus stabilize one's current experience. This process of stabilization moves outwards from the family to society at large. To a degree, history is an exercise in popular culture; society collectively agrees (or collectively disagrees) on the roadmap of its local, regional, national, even international past. As individual stories gain credence, society gains ballast.

Camilla Judd's narrative of Arthur Parker's adventure has followed this movement from family story to communal memory. In his 1974 speech "Where Much Is Given, Much Is Required," Apostle Boyd K. Packer quotes from Archer Walters' diary, then somewhat disingenuously from "one of the diaries." "One of the diaries" is Camilla's rendition as found in Treasures. However disingenuous, Camilla's narrative is crucial since it supplies the essential part of the story:

Ann Parker pinned a bright wool shawl about the thin shoulders of her beloved husband and sent him back on the trail to search again for their child. Should he find him dead, he could wrap him in the shawl; if he was found alive, the shawl could be a flag to signal her (77).

It is likely that this exchange between husband and wife actually did occur. Camilla would have heard the story from her mother, Mary Alice Parker, sister of Arthur Parker. In fact, it is only in recent years that the term "one of the diaries" has been replaced by the less contestable "historical sources" when speakers and writers relay Arthur Parker's tale. Over the past ten years, President Hinckley, head of the Mormon church, has promoted more factual approaches to Church history. In the 1980s, the Church was embarrassed by the Mark Hoffman forgeries, letters purporting to tie Joseph Smith more closely to magical practices; the letters were purchased by the Church out of self-protection. Mormon historians such as Richard Bushman and Leonard Arrington as well as non-LDS scholars of Mormonism encouraged the Church to let its history speak for itself. Under Hinckley's leadership, the Church historical sites have been updated historically and corrected (when wrong). In Palmyra, New York, for instance, the Smith farmhouse has been restored to its true 1825 appearance, and a log cabin, in which the Smith family lived for nine years before the farmhouse, has been constructed.

Subsequently, the tale of Arthur Parker in recent publications has appeared as a straight-forward narrative with no supernatural motifs. Yet, the incident of the bright shawl (which may, after all, be true) remains. The Church is not after all interested only in factual accuracy but in the religious, emotional and moral meaning of its history. In 1992, Merrill J. Bateman, a member of the Seventy, gave a speech at General Conference entitled "Coming Unto Christ by Searching the Scriptures." Elder Bateman used the story of Arthur Parker to encourage diligent reading of holy writ: "We need to search the scriptures with the same vigor that Robert hunted for his son and with the consistency of the mother searching the horizon if we expect to hear his voice and know his words." As well as scripture reading, Arthur Parker's story has been used to promote personal sacrifice, gratitude, missionary work and courage: religious principles which pertain to the Mormon culture at large, not just a specific family or group within Mormonism.

This is, according to William Wilson, the purpose of folklore. Wilson, the current pre-eminent Mormon folklorist, is considered to be the Fifes' successor in the field. In his article "Folklore, a Mirror for What? Reflections of a Mormon Folklorist," Wilson sets forth the differing approaches as to what comprises folklore: "[F]olklorists generally have considered [what is] memorable in religious folklore--that is . . . dramatic tales of the supernatural –rather than . . . the quiet lives of committed service that I knew really lay at the heart of the Mormon experience" (16). Wilson argues that "experiences are socially constructed and . . . it might therefore be a mistake to exclude [individual, everyday events] from folkloristic analysis" (18).

Wilson is proscribing a new approach to folklore. In his thesis Representing Culture: Reflexivity and Mormon Folklore Scholarship, David Allred calls this approach "pragmatic reflexivity." He defines pragmatic reflexivity as:

[A] rhetoric of ethnography [which] would allow folklorists and anthropologists to study, write about, and represent a culture without objectifying, marginalizing, and totalizing the people who become ethnographic subjects . . . and give a voice to everyone involved in the project, the researcher and the researched (16).

In applying pragmatic reflexivity, a folklorist would examine not just the stories that involve Mormons or Mormon theology, but the stories Mormons themselves "choose to talk about" (Wilson, 19).

And what Mormons choose to talk about is pioneer courage. Over the past thirty years, church magazines have printed over 400 articles about pioneers, their courage and sacrifice. The historical pioneer journey has become a symbolic act of faith, "faith that [God] would once again lead His people to the promised land, faith that they would not falter or fall" ("Faith in Every Footstep: The Epic Pioneer Journey"), a faith that can be transcribed onto the entire Mormon experience, from conversion to day-to-day living. Member of the First Presidency, James E. Faust, captured this approach in his 1997 speech "Pioneers of the Future":

We are concluding a marvelous year celebrating the struggles and heroism of the pioneers who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley 150 years ago . . . Now [President Gordon B. Hinckley] is directing us to become pioneers of the future with all its exciting opportunities. Faith in every future footstep will fulfill [his] prophetic vision concerning the glorious destiny of this Church.

The pioneer story of Arthur Parker tenders a successful combination of struggles, heroism and faith. It satisfies both forms of folktale, containing a dramatic center and an intimate family setting. Arthur Parker and his parents encapsulate the endurance of the ordinary pioneer, an aspect of Western emigration that is promoted by the Church in an effort to reach its members and stabilize its history.

The American West poses an especially challenging job of stabilization. The West's history is a complicated mass of events: emigration, mining, the Gold Rush, women's movements and the cult of domesticity, the saloon, violence, Catholicism, the treatment of Native Americans, separate Native American groups and their dealings with the U.S. Government, the growth of National Parks, Custer, Buffalo Bill, the border areas, immigration laws, Western films, artists such as Frederick Remington and Georgia O'Keefe, the ideologies of National Progress and environmentalism--multiple events and individuals and beliefs occurring consecutively and concurrently. Each may be interrelated to others or stand lone and distinct. In order to make sense of what took place in the West, participants and onlookers impress story onto the landscape. When religious stories are involved, the region becomes, as Richard C. Poulsen describes it, "the landscape of belief" (106).

This "landscape of belief" is captured effectively in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. For Father Latour, the Southwestern landscape of New Mexico becomes a mirror of his faith. His cathedral is constructed to meld with the environment. A mystical feeling pervades the descriptions of red earth, caverns, antediluvian rock, canyons and ravines. At the end of his life, Father Latour returns to New Mexico, rather than remain in the "society of learned men" in Europe, because only in New Mexico can he breath air "soft and wild and free, something that whispered to the ear on the pillow, lightened the heart, softly, softly picked the lock, slid the bolts, and released the prisoned spirit of man into the wind, into the blue and gold, into the morning, into the morning!" (273). Belief and region are linked.

Likewise, for Mormons, the journey over a particular landscape to a particular area inculcated that landscape and area with religious significance. The West was for Mormons, "Deseret," a Book of Mormon word meaning "honey bee." The symbol for Utah is still the beehive. A hymn penned by Eliza R. Snow, wife of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, describes "our lovely Deseret" as a place where "the Saints of God have met" and where children will be instructed to "be beautiful and strong" as well as "affable and kind" and loving of God. (Hymns, "In Our Lovely Deseret"). Deseret, like any Promised Land, can only be reached through a stint in the wilderness. Troubles and tribulations must be endured. "We came here," Brigham Young proclaimed, "I often say, though to the ears of some the expression may sound rather rude, naked and barefoot, and comparatively this is true" (Teachings of Brigham Young, 106). "It was impossible for any person to live here," he stated, no doubt from grim experience, "unless he labored hard and battled and fought against the elements " (107).

Arthur Parker's story illustrates this labor "against the elements," specifically Western elements. "All night," Camilla wrote, "they heard the wolves howling through the forest" (77). Later, these wolves will not attack little Arthur since "God had heard the prayers of His people" (77). In his 1974 speech, Boyd K. Packer related, "The company made camp in the face of a sudden thunderstorm," and Merrill Bateman spoke of Robert Parker searching every "thicket, every clump of trees and gully or wash" while Susan Easton Black gives us the quintessential Western image: "Ann saw the bright red shawl whirling as a flag in the sunset." The landscape provides the hardships that tested and proved these latter-day Children of Israel. By strengthening and sanctifying the Saints, the landscape of the West became holy, much as it did for Father Latour.

Although the most important landscape in the Mormon story is the West, at the end of the 19th century President Joseph F. Smith turned to New England and New York as a new source of Mormon "peculiarism" after the abandonment of polygamy. In New England could be found Joseph Smith's birthplace; in New York, the Sacred Grove (supposed location of the First Vision) and the Smith family homestead. The Book of Mormon Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, New York began in 1917. In her book The Politics of American Religious Identity, Kathleen Flake comments on such Church sites, explaining "the collective memorials . . . continue to anchor it during the current period of explosive international growth" (169).

In more recent years, the Church has reanchored itself to the places of its persecution—Nauvoo and Missouri—and to the pioneer movement. Such refocusing, at the end of the 20th century, could be carried out in relative calm. The places have become spiritual markers, rather than historical memories, invoking thoughts of sacrifice and sorrow rather than anger and offense. In a similar hopeful vein, the Mountain Meadows Association, comprising members from both sides of the massacre, collaborated with the Church in 1999 to erect a new marker in Southern Utah.

Currently, the Church has a string of sites across the United States starting at Joseph Smith's birthplace in Royalton, Vermont. In a westward moving pilgrimage, the latter-day member can visit Church sites at Palmyra, New York; Kirtland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; Winter Quarters in Iowa and the Mormon Handcart Visitors Center in Alcova, Wyoming. The history of Western Mormon emigration has been stabilized into a Turnerian-like journey of faith-inspiring stories. It has become a metaphor than can be translated across time and cultures.

Since Mormonism is now an international religion, a metaphor of this type has tremendous importance. The Mormon pioneers must be examples to a people far removed not only from 19th century America but from America itself. The success of Arthur Parker's tale is that it can be easily understood even outside its historical context. It contains almost mythical elements: the lost child, the parents' worries, the search, the transcendent signal of the child's return. "One suspects," Merrill Bateman said of Robert Parker, "that he did not just casually look behind a few trees or leisurely walk along the trail" while Boyd K. Packer queried, "How would you, in Ann Parker's place, feel towards the [initial rescuer] had he saved your little son?" The tale is so accessible on a human emotional level that it remains usable as a piece of Mormon folk history.

In the transformation of Arthur Parker's tale from journal entry to family story to Mormon folklore and its continual use within the Mormon Church, the West, as an area, is stabilized. In return, it aids in stabilizing human relationships. Not just Mormons have used the Western landscape in this way. The 19th century concept of National Progress became inscribed upon the landscape through the National Parks. Eastern concepts of democracy and domestication were carried into Western mining towns. Beliefs in the "noble savage" influenced emigrants' attitudes towards the Native Americans. Turner's depiction of the West as a refinery for democracy shaped a generation of Western histories, paintings, films and musicals while the New Western history demands still different depictions, producing a variety of reactions. Debates and concerns over environmentalism color how many see the landscape while political issues draw attention to Western cities and monuments. Say, "West," and you may hear, "Waco, Texas," "Winter Olympics," "water supply," "strip mining," "buffalo," "gambling," "Navajo," "skiing" or "Back to The Future III." The Western landscape becomes a slate upon which concepts, feelings, hopes and perceptions can be written, stories of identity can be created.

Stabilization through story enables humans to cope with life. The experience of history as it is lived (as opposed to how it is retrospectively examined) involves a continual absorption of sensations. We process smells, sights, speech, personal feelings, other people's actions and reactions. On a moment by moment basis, we amass an enormous amount of information. We filter it through our memories, our choices, our genetic and physical environments, our culture and character. We create roadmaps in the self, ways of remembering and explaining ourselves to our families, our neighborhoods and our society. To create this roadmap, we employ our own desires, other stories, the landscape itself.

But the landscape is not passive. Its power on the imagination, and through the imagination on our interior roadmaps, is illustrated by Arthur Parker's tale. The rescue of the little pioneer boy is emphasized by the area through which he and his family passed. Although the story can be told in many cultures, it is hard to imagine it thriving as it did without the Western images it invokes. The Western landscape has provoked many such stories. In his book Lasso the Wind, Timothy Egan uses his sojourn in various Western locations to pull Western history together. The idea is that the landscape will provide a common theme, something recognizable to all.

Arthur Parker's loss and rescue, arising out of the desolation of Nebraska and encapsulating Mormon hopes, enters the Western narrative with a similar goal: to provide an arc of cohesion. Yet it and Egan's experiences are only a few that cry out, and often conflict, for our attention. As Egan says, "It may be easier to lasso the wind than to find a sustaining story for the American West. Still, as storytellers it is our obligation to keep trying" (10). Confronted with so many possibilities, we choose the stories that strike a visceral chord, the ones that satisfy a personal or communal agenda. We pass them on. We start the process again. As Wilson says, "[W]e ignore such stories at our peril" (440). Listen and they will give us stability.

Bibliography

Allred, David A. Representing Culture: Reflexivity and Mormon Folklore Scholarship. Thesis. Brigham Young University, March 2000.

Bateman, Merrill J. "Coming Unto Christ by Searching the Scriptures." Ensign. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nov. 1992, 27.

Black, Susan Easton. "Courage-the Unfailing Beacon." Ensign. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. March, 1997, 51.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 4 April 2005.

Dorman, Robert L. Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920-1945. University of North Carolina Hill: Chapel Hill, 1993.

Egan, Timothy. Lasso the Wind. Vintage Books: New York, 1998.

"Faith in Every Footstep: The Epic Pioneer Journey." Ensign.. May 1997, 62.

Faust, James E. "Pioneers of the Future. 'Be Not Afraid, Only Believe.'" Ensign.. Nov. 1997, 42.

Flake, Kathleen. The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of the Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2004.

Hafen, LeRoy R. and Ann W. Handcarts to Zion. Arthur H. Clark Company: Glendale, California, 1960.

Hartley, William G. "Where's Arthur?" Friend. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. May 2004, 5.

Hymns. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: SLC, 1985.

Judd, Susan Camilla Woodbury. "Martha Alice Parker Woodbury." History of the Jeremiah Woodbury Family. Publisher Angus Cannon Woodbury. Reminder Press: Idaho, 1958, 76-80.

Packer, Boyd K. "Where Much is Given, Much Is Required." Ensign. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nov. 1974, 87.

Poulsen, Richard C. Landscape of the Mind: Cultural Transformations of the American West: Cultural Transformations of the American West. American Literature, vol. 23. Peter Lang: New York, 1992.

Teachings of Brigham Young. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: 1997.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Tolkien Reader. Ballantine Books, Inc.: New York, 1966.

Wilson, William A. "Folklore, a Mirror for What? Reflections of a Mormon Folklorist." Western Folklore. Vol. 54. January 1995, 13-21.

Wilson, William A. "Mormon Folklore. Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the US." BYU Studies. Mormon American. 1995, 437-454.

Woodbury, Ann. History of the H. Hugh and Joyce Nicholes Woodbury Family and Their Mormon Ancestors. November 1980.

The Killing of Jud: Violence & Society in Western Film

2005-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

In the 1955 film version of Oklahoma, Jud Fry, the seemingly ubiquitous villain, returns to Aunt Eller's for Curly and Laurey's wedding. He first sets fire to the haystacks, then threatens the married couple. Before Curly and Jud come to blows, Jud falls on his knife and kills himself. The marriage that he threatened to destroy is preserved; its idyllic union and the society it represents continue unscathed.

Forty years later, in Trevor Nunn's 1999 Oklahoma, Jud Fry confronts Curly once again. Curly, angered at the constant harassment, engages him. During the fight, Jud appears to stab himself. The event is tinged with ambiguity; even Curly is unsure of the facts. Curly, who certainly had no ill intent, is declared innocent by the community and continues on with his marriage, but the ambiguity remains. Society, rather than being preserved unmarked, is threaded through with violence.

Two views of society are being depicted. In one, violence occurs outside the social order. Once conquered, society continues to progress, heroic and uncontaminated. In the second view, violence is intertwined with society; it is part of its makeup. John Lenihan refers to these two views in his article "Westbound: Feature Films and the American West." Of Western dramas, Lenihan writes, "[O]ne [type] highlighted heroic pioneers of national progress, whereas the other showcased the decent man driven to outlawry by social and political unrest" (118): a heroic and pure society is contrasted against a troubled ambiguous society.

The character of Jud stands at the center of these two views of society. Jud is the outlaw, killer, "disillusioned . . . estranged from or threatening to the larger society" (121). He represents destructive violence. He threatens social order. He is, by necessity, fought and killed. He appears, symbolically, in other Western films and the issue surrounding him is always the same: what place does violence have in society? Can society survive untouched or will society inevitably be entwined with violence?

A contrast between the two Juds provides a clearer delineation of these two views. The 1955 Jud, played by Rod Steiger, is a reserved, self-collected villain. He stands aloof from the burgeoning society by choice. He is intelligent. He plans. It is notable that he lights the haystacks on fire before he attacks Curly. His aggressive distaste for Curly extends to the reconciliation Curly has achieved: "the farmer and the cowboy can be friends." Even Jud's overtures to Laurey have a pro forma feel to them. She is simply a stepping stone towards a larger goal: to undermine the society that the farmer and cowboy together represent.

The 1999 Jud, on the other hand, is an emotional and economic outcast. He is bitter to the point of pathology. He buys the knife, The Little Wonder, as a thrill. He comes to the wedding drunk. His overtures to Laurey carry the threat of rape. Her fear of him is real; he has been stalking her. He is self-interested, self-pitying and dangerously depressed. His anger at Curly is both more personal—he hardly cares what Curly represents—and more diffuse; it is Laurey's rejection of him for Curly that he resents, not Curly himself.

The differences between the two Juds sharpen in the scene between Curly and Jud at the close of Act 1. Curly has come to see Jud, possibly to remonstrate with him. A vague quarrel ensues. Jud tells Curly of an incident where a hired hand murdered an entire family. The 1955 Jud evinces a cool cynicism over this story. He is not precisely threatening Curly; he is warning him. Like a one-man Mafioso, one almost expects him to add, "And I'll put a horse head in your bed if you don't listen up."

The 1999 Jud also tells the story, but he tells it with psychotic glee. He seems to be bolstering up his esteem as he giggles over the idea of a hired man escaping punishment for murder. Curly is frightened and grows more and more frightened as the scene continues. While the 1955 Curly and Jud can communicate, hero to villain, the 1999 Curly and Jud are left staring at each other in bewilderment. To the 1999 Curly, Jud is not just the villain; he is insane.

The two Juds can be explained by looking at the times in which they were produced. In 1955, the end of World War II was only ten years away. Despite the disturbing stories of atrocities emerging from Europe, the Germans represented an acknowledged, and defeated, villain. They had been an enemy of calculation: shrewd and self-possessed. They had tried to force their social order onto the world and been stopped. The threat to democratic society had been contained and successfully destroyed. Society could continue as a united entity. This unrealistic, if idealistic, attitude was being extended in the 1950s--through McCarthyism and the Korean War--towards the threat of communism. (By the time the United States reached the Vietnam War, disenchantment had entered the mix.)

In 1999, to a generation that has seen 9/11 and Columbine, the enemy is less calculable. The outlaw, who is trying to destroy social order for gain, has been replaced by the anarchist (or conspiracist) who is simply unimpressed by social discipline. "Jud" must be engaged or at least dealt with, but uncertainty has crept into the problem and with uncertainty, an infectious ambiguity. Rather than being preserved untouched, society itself becomes an abettor of violence. All government is a "parliament of whores," P.J. O'Rourke wryly explains, and in a democracy, "the whores are us."

These differing interpretations of Jud—and with Jud, the differing views of society and violence—are reflected in how other Western films treat their "Juds." In both Stagecoach (1930) and Shane (1953), the final shootout takes place outside the regular rules of society. In Stagecoach, the shootout is condoned by the sheriff and the doctor (those pillars of the established community) but as soon as possible, they send The Ringo Kid and his new bride away from town. In Shane, Shane beats up his homesteader friend rather than let him participate in the shootout which would contaminate him, his family and ultimately, his society.

This is not to say that the violence in Stagecoach and Shane is accepted wholesale. The scenes at the end of Stagecoach alternate between the saloon, where The Kid's nemesis waits and The Kid, walking his girl home. All are patently worried. The nemesis has none of the c'est la vie bravado of Jack Wilson from Shane. He is nervous and unhappy. (See Endnote 1.) Wilson is more remorseless, but Shane, a "good Jud," is concerned about his contamination of society's youth. The little boy, who starts out with an imaginary gun, becomes more and more aggressive throughout the movie. The only solution, from Shane's point of view, is to leave so that society can remain intact and unbesmirched.

William Munney from Unforgiven (1992) also leaves, but the effect on society is more ambiguous. Not only is William Munney the outlaw (a "bad Jud"), society itself is riddled with violence. Little Bill, the sheriff, takes severe, sadistic measures to preserve his town. William Munney's solution is the solution of 1999 Jud: wipe it all out, throw it all away. He kills the saloon keeper (the town's host) as well as the inept law officers. He kills Little Bill despite Little Bill's fierce protest, "I was building a house." Leaving only the women and the non-fighting men alive, Munney rides off in a rainstorm that will purge the town of its wickedness. It is a matter of debate whether anything better will arise or whether the price of the purge has been too high.

Munney, acting ostensibly on behalf on the town's prostitutes, encapsulates "Jud's" uneasy relationship with women. In Westerns, women are a partial solution to the problem of violence and society. Lenihan describes the Western heroine as "[an] ideal woman . . . a domesticating influence on the hero and, accordingly, a symbol of civilization's triumph over the wilderness" (126). William Munney's wife exercised such an influence on him when she was alive. Once she is gone, he yields-- with very little pressure--to the proposition of violence.

Women can be violent, but in Westerns they are never as violent or threatening as men. Through marriage, they dilute male anti-social behavior. Curly and Laurey's marriage in Oklahoma is the ultimate symbol of the "brand, new State." The point is, interestingly enough, made more strongly in the 1999 Oklahoma. Marriage to Curley will not just keep Laurey safe from Jud, it will keep Curly (the male) from turning into Jud (a rapist/murderer). In the song "It's a Scandal" (not in the 1955 film), the peddler complains that he has been forced into marriage but the song also reinforces the necessity of "shotgun weddings." Without marriage, male predatoriness cannot be controlled. Marriage is not simply a byproduct of an organized society; it is its safeguard.

This attitude is reflected in Stagecoach where The Kid's incipient gentleness is brought out by the fallen (but still domestic) Dallas. Dallas' antithesis can be found in the furious prostitutes of Unforgiven who scrap up money to buy a killer. Their rumors (the victim's injuries grow as the story is retold) bring outlaws to a town which, however corrupt, is stable. Yet, the women are not punished for their verbal violence. The implication is that society carries some of their guilt. Munney, Shane-like, takes all the guilt upon himself. He becomes a figurative scapegoat, carrying society's sins into the wilderness. The biographer's story is the only thing that will remain.

Like the prostitutes in Unforgiven, the women in Shane do not tame or civilize the outlaw. The married homesteaders are less wild than the single cowboys, but it is doubtful whether they could discipline the destructive elements of the town without Shane's help. Yet, Shane is also a danger to them; he could break up the home internally: specifically, the Starrett home. This emphasizes Shane's outsider status. The male who cannot be controlled must either die (like Jud) or leave.

Society then is either saved from violence, making marriage possible or is preserved, despite violence, through marriage and other social institutions. 1955 Jud, crafty and self-possessed, is removed largely by accident. The married couple then ride off in their buggy "with the fringe on top" through a glowing, pastoral setting. Violence has been stopped, society is still whole. 1999 Jud—drunk, crazy and pathetic—kills himself during a fight. The married couple, protected from legal ramifications--if not emotional ones--by their community, leave in a modern automobile: a symbol of a changing society which cannot be slowed even for the sake of innocence. (See Endnote 2.)

A discussion of society and violence is apropos to the West, an arena that saw violence against Native Americans, reciprocal violence against white settlers, competition for resources and various forms of outlawry. Violence occurs in every civilization, but the West was settled by contemporaneous Americans at the beginning of the media era. The ensuing violence has been captured in books, articles, films, family histories. It is closer to us. From the Donner party to the Mountain Meadows Massacre to the Trail of Tears--an outrage that involves Oklahoma directly—the West's violence is palpable: easily and continually invoked. Any view of the West must therefore contend with the implications of a violent history—can the violence be purged or will violence continue so long as humans have violent tendencies? The question continues to be asked.

At the end of WWII, it was hoped that violence, once conquered, would leave society pure, able to carry on its noble purposes. Towards the end of the 20th century, violence and society came to be seen as intertwined. Violence, whether in men or in women, has to be addressed, even combated, but the process—often involving violence itself--is fraught with ambiguity and no one is sure, once the problem is addressed, whether anyone will remain untouched. Trevor Nunn's vision in the 1999 Oklahoma seems to embrace the inevitability of violence. Human nature being what it is, violence will occur. Society cannot prevent it coming nor can society shirk facing it; however, violence will not cripple society so long as people have courage. Aunt Eller's speech to Laurey in 1999 gains a resonance it lacks in the pristine 1955 version. "You got to be used to all kinds of things happening to you, "Aunt Eller instructs Laurey, "sickness . . . death . . . you got to be hearty. You gotta be."

ENDNOTES

1. I was reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book A Death Foretold in which an entire community stands by while an assassination is planned by brothers who do not, in fact, want to kill.

2. The differing perceptions of violence are reflected in the two portrayals of Oklahoma society. The 1955 setting is cultivated and established. Aunt Eller lives in a large farm house. She works in a pastoral setting. The scenery is stunningly beautiful, including both majestic mountains (background) and green lawn (foreground). Turner-like, the settlers have created a fully functional society in a short amount of time. The wedding of Curly and Laurey—at which the title song "Oklahoma" is sung--will seal the success of the pioneer community.

The 1999 setting, on the other hand, is primitive. The curtain opens on a small shack; the yard is filled with farm tools. In the background, brown earth sweeps to meet a relentless blue sky. Society is still in the making. The outcome of the show's relationships will shape the future. Curly and Laurey's marriage is the first step. When a death occurs on their wedding day, the inference is clear: society will go on; it will change and progress, but it will be troubled. Survival will be difficult. There is no Golden Age to fall back on.

Contractual Dialog

2005-04-12T16:19:00.000-07:00

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin defends the dialectical imperatives of the written text. He cites several instances in which contractual relationships are centered around a written document. He credits his commercial advancement to the "articles," which set forth "every thing to be done by or expected from each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute" (104). In this declaration, Benjamin Franklin glorifies the imperialism of Western print, a process that culminates in the United States Constitution and American Nationalism. The ideological underpinnings of Franklin's perspective derive from the Puritan tradition in New England and the re-Anglicization of the colonies in the mid-18th century.

New England was a print culture from its inception. Alongside disease and Westernized creeds, the Puritans carried with them to "New Israel" an overwhelming conviction in the written word. Puritans objected to the non-scholarly preaching style of the Anglican Church. In their insistence upon an educated clergy, Puritans established the ideological framework for a wealth-based power structure (only the educated could afford schooling) from which marginalized groups would be excluded. Puritans were thus able to defend their imperialistic "errand into the wilderness" in part due to their proficiency at the written, and printed, word. Even as Puritans commodified the goods of the "New World," they commodified language; language became a tool for cultural, economic and religious conquest. White, Western reality was superimposed textually onto a lexically unpolluted landscape.

This Puritanical confidence in the written, printed, text can be detected in such documents as Mary Rowlandson's The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682) Jonathan Edwards' Personal Narrative and Anne Bradstreet's Letter to Her Children. Mary Rowlandson's account of captivity is preceded by a male-written forward which frames the narrative and inculcates it with purpose: "It will doubtless be a very acceptable thing to see the way of God with this Gentlewoman . . . thus laid out and portrayed before [the readers'] eyes" (A3). The narrative has instructional and moral value: "Read therefore, Peruse, Ponder, and from hence lay up something from the experience of another" (A4). The narrative is meant to be read, either privately or aloud, with the catechizing effect of religious conformity.

Edwards likewise supports the improving qualities of a written text when he cites Timothy 1:17 as "the first instance that I remember of that sort of inward, sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived much in since" (59). Only books that "treat" of God are "delightful" to him (60); his reliance on "delightful" texts is only matched by his teleological reaction to nature's beauties. Moreover, Edwards' famous, or perhaps infamous, sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" was printed immediately upon its presentation in Enfield, Connecticut. Of greater significance, Edwards delivered his sermon from a hand-held text. The written word transcended its medium to become the voice of God: it embodied the imperialistic religious justification of Puritan colonization.

Lastly, Anne Bradstreet, more privately, utilized the textual form to persuade her children of their Christian responsibilities. Speaking out of a liminal Chthonian experience—she is nearing death—she exhorts her children "in this you read . . . pick benefits out of it" (240, 245). She has chosen to "compose" since she doubts whether on her death bed she "shall have opportunity to speak" (240). By writing, rather than speaking (although both functions may have been performed), she binds language to a cultural tradition that promotes an aggressive, concrete dialectic as opposed to an aural, fluid one.

This tradition influenced Franklin whose choice of occupation—printer—emulates the societal value placed on written texts in the early Republic, a value that traversed regions, indicating a non-Puritan authority at work. Anglicization impacted the growth of print culture in the colonies. Benjamin Franklin was encouraged, while in his youth, to travel to England to collect "press and types, paper" (46) in order to establish his own printing business. Although the venture fell through, Franklin found work at a "famous printing-house," where he printed the occasional document and involved himself in office politics. He profited by his experience when he later manufactured English forms of type in Philadelphia. As Benjamin Franklin's development as a printer indicates, the colonies looked to England for their aesthetic education, whether in the arts or sciences; thereby they aligned themselves with British imperialistic culture; specifically, the imperialism of British "textualization," that is, the dogma that written communication can adequately reproduce reality

British textualization derives from a tradition that extends back to the Magna Carta. In the continued mythification of Western history, the Magna Carta occupies a central role. In 1215, self-interested barons forced King John to sign a document guaranteeing them certain rights; the term "magna carta" subsequently gained denotation as any document which confers civil liberties. An analogous mythification occurred in America over the Mayflower Compact, its promoters emphasizing its contractual nature while de-emphasizing its English one. What matters is that the thing was written down. While the British judicial system came to be built also upon common law--the development of legal responses through casuistry--the "American Experiment" was to institutionalize a nation under a single written text: the Constitution of the United States.

The paradigmic processes that resulted in the composition of the U.S. Constitution can be traced through the colonial years preceding 1787. Both the Puritan experience and Anglo culture impacted this codification of new and of prevailing laws. Underlying both these traditions is the ontological assumption that a written text signifies reality. Texts are perceived as exact mirrors of human relationships; the interchange of philosophical debates extends to the contractual character of "articles." Texts become covalent participants in an ongoing construction of reality.

Franklin involved himself in such transfers early in his life when he engaged in a written debate with a friend over the education of women: "three or four letters of a side had passed" (25). In this same passage, Franklin relates his father's reproof that Franklin "fell short in elegance of expression" (25) which Franklin then, Alger-like, labored to rectify. Communication through "method" and "perspicacity" are as necessary to the rhetorician as "correct spelling" (25). Concerning his commercial ventures, Franklin credits the explicitness of the "articles" with his success. According to Franklin, forthright and veracious language produces a corresponding reality: amicableness between partners and the avoidance, unwelcome to an incipient capitalist, of "lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences" (105).

This aggrandizement of textual reality culminates in the United States Constitution. American Nationalism is infected from its commencement with the belief in textualization. Transcribed definitions are promoted in opposition to the unwritten experience. As competition between vocalized realities propagates, texts abandon their positivism. Rather than suffer the indignities of a relativistic approach, textual authors take refuge in theory, whereby philosophical and sociological labels are superimposed onto textualized facts. Experienced reality is subrogated to the tautological reality of the written word. As such labeling gains credence, the texts themselves become more and more emblematic until even the symbolic becomes symbolized, resulting in textual "white noise." Texts enter a state of Pauli Repulsion in which meaning can no longer share space with language.

Benjamin Franklin may have anticipated this crisis of lingual recidivism and prototyped a solution that appeared later in the progressive doctrine of reflexivity. Reflexivity demands the continual adaptation of text against experienced reality. The innate formalism of words is undercut by dialoging, a process in which participants are engaged, through questions, in identifying their experiential reactions as insiders. In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin advances the experiential testimonials of Mr. Abel James and Mr. Benjamin Vaughan as justification for further textual renderings. Throughout his self-exploration, Franklin recommends certain interpersonal skills dependent upon a give-and-take modality. He praises eloquent speechifying, even at the expense of authorial recognition. Lastly, he emphasizes writing as a contract, not only between parties but between the author and consumer, whether the latter is a newspaper reader or a family member.

Imperialistic, Western, patriarchal, Puritan, Anglicized, Christian print culture becomes, for Franklin, a Lorentz transformation, where language, like light, is no longer a barrier between disparate theories of reality. In Franklin's hands, definitive print undergoes syncretism with abstract thought. Franklin argues, "So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything thing one has a mind to do" (43). Whether taken as wit or as serious reflection, Franklin's postulation is clear: in his hands, language is a tool to be wielded at his discretion.

Likewise, under the aegis of reflexivity, the U.S. Constitution, whilst ostensibly classist, racist, Anglo and wedded to the constrictions of written language, can be viewed through the lens of political dialoging. "In the 200 and more years since the US Constitution was drawn up, the text itself has been studied (often superficially)," states historian Paul Johnson in History of the American People, "but the all-important manner in which the thing was done has been neglected" (189). The merit of the text lies in the reflexivity of its creation.

Reflexivity was not absent from the early American experience. The print culture of Antebellum New England, for example, reflects a three-way dialog between a desire for civic improvement, authorial imagination and the printed page—a search for reality, rather than reality itself. Jedidiah Morse and Timothy Dwight, as demonstrated by Joseph Conforti, were searching for one national identity (Imagining New England). Lydia Maria Child, of The American Frugal Housewife, was searching for retrenchment and thrift; she recommends that women "preserve the backs of old letters to write upon" (15). In a literal act of alchemy, the material world and the world of print synergistically merge.

Benjamin Franklin foresaw the use of dialoging and brought it to bear on productions of print, as when he encouraged the growth of clubs to scrutinize and comment on written texts. In the latter-day constructs of deconstructionalism and Post-Modernism, with their banshee-like pillaging of all lingual meaning inter alios, Franklin's mild call for dialoging can be traced. Unlike his ideological progeny, however, Franklin emerges as a man able to handle both the troubled world of semantical relationships and, evidenced by his unfinished Autobiography, resist his own textualization of self. He is a true model for the 21st century, a time when our understanding of the physical realm is rapidly expanding. As we leap-frog from the absolutism of Newtonian laws and the clever disorder of quantum mechanics into the multi-dimensionality of string theory, textualization becomes but one factor in a complex universe of continually enlarging truth. Worlds without end.