Wollstonecraft: A Second Look

In American culture we are taught that sex sales and women should be proud of what G-d gave them. The cultural norm is to promote the  sexual explorative nature of the female while, at the same time, striking down the "slut shaming" of the past. If anything, this seems to be the path to true feminism. Men have always been pushed towards sowing their wild oats so why can not women do the same? It feels empowering to have the equivalent standards of the opposite sex.  However, Wollstonecraft had a slightly different view on this topic. In her essay "A Vindication of The Rights of Women," she speaks about how women over use their sexual nature to seduce men, playing a role into their own subjugation. In modern times, the pornographic industry is booming. The vast majority of the consumers of this industry are males with the highest paid performers being female. Many of these women have post-secondary degrees, yet chose to have the profession out of enjoyment. So, is she correct in her statement?

During the political climate in which this essay was written, women were to truly be seen and not heard. Women being other than the sexual receptacle for their husbands was truly unheard of. In the past, when a woman was diagnosed with hysteria, she was manually stimulated by her doctor in order to “cure” the disorder. The reason the doctor had to do this is it was believed that a woman could not achieve orgaism without the touch of a man. So, perhaps it was not Wollstonecraft stating women should not be sexual, but rather they should not be sexualized by the cultural norms of her day and time.

When this idea is taken into account, it is easy to see that she really is fighting for the equal sexual rights of women just as much as the modern woman of today. Through her proposed education, women can learn that their bodies are their own and no other, male or female, is needed to justify them.

Let Them Eat Babies

If someone were to propose to solve the hunger issue with the killing and consumption of young human flesh, the world would be in an uproar. Media outlets would be covering it, various celebrities would be creating charities to destroy the thought, and musicians would write a loving ballad in solidarity to stop it. Yet, before such a terrible thing was said, not a thing was done. The starving child left by its mother in the gutter was simply ignored because it was just too sad or not fitting into one’s day. What was the difference? The solidarity of a scapegoat, which is exactly what Swift did in his essay “A Modest Proposal.”

Swift’s essay is written in a very matter-of-fact tone, explaining all of the wonderful ways in which the Irish people could solve all their issues by simply eating the youth. He even goes at great lengths to describe how the children could be procured, butchered, cooked and served. Nothing about this proposal is ethical or even possible. So why even write it? Swift gave the people a common enemy to hate. No longer would the wealthy blame the poor for not doing their part or vice versa, but rather everyone would look to him as a deplorable man who wants to eat babies. By giving the people a common enemy, they now have a common ground on which to solve their issues with others pooling in for support.

The outlandish rhetoric and satire has been a device well used for some time, especially within politics, in order to bring about a change to the current system. Many politicians use this tactic to this day, though not perhaps to this degree. Swift in no way felt the need to consume human flesh but did feel rather exhausted by the Irish state of affairs and the total lack of progress to change things, whether from the masses or the government. This modest proposal was simply a modest way to open eyes to absurdities that were truly relevant and give the common spring board that was need to make the change.

Faded Time: Walker Brothers Cowboy

If you take the time to look into the eyes of the elderly as they speak of their past, you can almost see how the world spun around them as they begged it all to slow down. A grandfather will walk his granddaughter around an old southern town explaining that his childhood home once stood where that old dried clump of hard clay now displays a "For Sale" sign, promising great development possibilities between the newest BB&T and Starbucks. It is hard to imagine that his time got away from him at 85, yet his shaking hand finds it hard to fall as he points to that lifeless plot. His memories within the clay are all he has to prove his worth, an evident theme in the story "Walker Brothers Cowboy,"

The attempt to prove self worth in the mark left in clay is when the father walks his son down to the old lake. Here, he begins the grand tale of how the Great Lakes were formed. As he is telling this story, he places his hand upon the earth and pushes to emphasize how the glaciers tore through to creation. When he pulls back, he has made little to no mark at all, only to remark that the glaciers had much more force than he could.

Though this may seem like the simple retelling of a story to pass along, it hold a much deeper meaning to the story teller. Earlier within the story, it is revealed that he is a failed farmer with a wife that is none to pleased with their new position in life. His life, just as his hand, had little to no strength and has made no impression in the clay, making this a metaphor for his situation. However, he takes his child to the lake frequently and speaks to him about silly stories. It is these memories in which he will build his worth for he has lost it everywhere else.

So, as the clay remains unmoved, the impression is leaves upon those who try so hard to impress upon it will remain. Those who try to find their worth will continue to push their hands deep into the earth to make their mark. The elderly will point at old plots of clay nothingness to note what was. But all that will ever remain in the unmoving clay.

Nature vs. Nurture: This Be The Verse

As soon as you have the joys of taking a basic college level psychology class, you have the privilege of being introduced to the concept of nature vs. nurture. There has long been the debate that one outweighs the other in emotional and psychological development, with nature being inborn and nurture being environmental factors. However, during the 1960’s, many psychological articles began to surface that genetics did in fact have a lot to do with a persons psychological makeup. It is very possible that Philip Larkin’s poem “This Be the Verse” was reflecting these newly backed findings that we are not a product of just our environment but our genetics, as well.

The attention grabbing poem is written in the words of the every man, with no fluff or filler. The first two lines explain in simple terms how your parents will “fuck you up,” by no fault of their own with continuing to say they pass along their faults as well as a bit a extras. This perfectly demonstrates nature and nurture combined. The faults that are passed along “just for you” are genetic, as they can not be passed along to anyone else within the family unit. However, as proven through much psychological evidence, we are molded by our environment, so we are inevitably “fucked up,” by our parents in a nurture sense, as well. The second stanza is very indicative to the time, as the 70’s saw a great change in ideals and a generation that fought back against their parent’s beliefs, though this is hardly a new sentiment, which is captured in those lines. The closing stanza opens perfectly with “Man hands on misery to man” which can both mean genetic disorders and being stuck in the same environmental issues and beliefs one was raised in, only to continue the chain. The last line of “…don’t have any kids yourself” is the overkill meant to bring about a change in the cycle that seems to leave no hope for anyone.

Nature vs. nurture has been a battle of the ages since Plato and Descartes. Through time we have come to the conclusion that both play some sort of role in developing minds, but there is still an argument as to what part of the mind it shapes and how much of a role. In the end, though, does it even matter? Perhaps, what matters is breaking the change of misery as Larkin suggest.

The Intellectuals Fear of Inadequacy: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

It is very true that the dullest of minds are incredibly boastful. Imagine the many clicks of keyboards at coffee shops as the “next big author” is publicly writing, just waiting for eye contact so they can loudly explain in well thought out terms their master piece. Seldom does anyone ever pay mind to the disjointed and shy mutterings of intellectual, sitting in the corner, sipping on his plain black coffee. This is due to the fact that many intellectuals suffer from such crippling self doubt that they become just like the character of T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Intelligence is a hell few will ever know, as shown in the opening of this poem. Just under the title, a small snippet of Dante’s Inferno can be read. The lines, in the original Italian, are meant to express that someone can tell their story and it never be passed along, as if the story being told is not worth it. The poem then begins with Alfred telling of many surreal cityscapes, all of which are seedy yet real. The people that are there are of a different intellect; they are street smart and sure of themselves. These are the places he wishes to go but also the things he wishes to be, only to be interrupted by what his reality is, which is the beauty he can not obtain is. This is shown through the women passing by in small parlor rooms making small talk of Michelangelo. He continues on in a disjointed pattern of making excuses for not changing as he is too old, too ugly, and counting on time always being there. He ends with beating himself down as a nothing and simply drifts away in silence.

Many with the most brilliant minds are too fearful to speak up. They are crushed by their own insecurities and left to their own hells. Instead, they waste away and watch women gather in tiny rooms talking of Michelangelo or boastful hipsters talk about how they are the next great playwright in their local coffee shop. 

Imagination Stimulation: A Spot of Woolf

How many times has it come down to starting a task, perhaps one you could really care less to do, and you find yourself focusing on something so small and minuscule you are not really sure why your eye landed there? You begin to wonder what it is, how it came to be, and why you stomach is rumbling if you ate no more than an hour ago. Suddenly, you realize you are thinking about how you are going to cure cancer but isolating one cell and realize it was all traced back to the thought of one tiny spot. It is amazing how these thoughts trail away to beautiful places and Virginia Woolf captures this in “The Mark on the Wall.” Within her short story, Woolf is able to show how stream on conscious breeds imagination and reflection all through the focus on the minuscule.  

Woolf’s story takes her readers on a journey to discovery, paragraph by paragraph as she tries her best to determine in her boredom what the spot on the wall is. The spot really is of little importance, for knowing what it is or how it got there would change nothing about the here and now. However, what the spot does for her imagination is amazing. She is taken on a ride to the old owners, the ignorance of humanity, things that have come and gone, and so on until finally her task has come to an end and she determines the spot was in fact a snail.

The truly amazing thing about this story is the journey through imagination while sitting within the mundane. Woolf was able to breathe a new life within the everyday we all experience which is true art. It is now time to pause and look out beyond at the spot on the wall and see where imagination takes you.

Not Alone in Our Hate: R Browning

Many of those who still cleave to religious trapping like to believe that there are those who remain pious and pure. Within the Catholic faith, we have the nuns, the priest, and so on, which have sworn their oaths to G-d in order to live a most poised life. These people swear upon the holiest of text to abstain from the worldly sins which the general population finds themselves too human to try and scurry away from. Yet, in the poem “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” by Robert Browning, the people are reminded through the inner most thoughts of a Spanish monk that no one is above sin no matter their rank within the church.

As the poem begins, the Spanish monk is literally growling at the simple fact of his hatred for Brother Lawrence. One can almost see his eyes rolling and a scoff leaving his mouth, barely audible, as he watches as a smiling and humming Lawrence water and trim his plants completely oblivious to the hate the boils inside his “friend.”  As the poem continues, the narrator ironically notes the ways in which Brother Lawrence fails in his Christian ways. The narrator then begins to plan his demise, only to be interrupted by him.

Though this poem is broken into nine parts, its meaning is meant to be taken as a whole. Many times, the common people of everyday life look towards religion and hold those of a higher rank above themselves. These people or peoples that are places on these high horses are seen to be above human emotion. Even within their own circle they are supposed to be without greed, lust, envy, and so forth. Yet here, Browning shows that these people are still human and can feel just as strongly as anyone else. While this may be painful for others to see, it is meant to be refreshing in that we are all equal and not alone in these feelings.