Further “Reading”

If you go to claudiarankine.com and select Situations and click on 2, you will begin to watch something that is quite complex.  It begins with images and short video of people asleep on airplane rides with images of clouds moving outside the windows.   Rankine’s voice begins to talk in a voice over while we watch the images. A little while into her audio, I began to pick up the sound of something else. At first I thought it was sounds simulating announcements on an airplane until I heard the panic voice of a girl speaking to someone else. Then I realized what was happening.  The recordings playing underneath Rankine’s narration were emergency phone calls made during the tragic events of 9/11.

After watching the video again, I attempted to listen only to the words Rankine was speaking. I began to infer that she was talking about the process in which we surrender ourselves to our subconscious while we sleep and give all sense of trust to what surrounds us. She compares this to the concept of taking a flight on an airplane.  We trust that flying is the safest way to travel and that our lives are in good hands with the pilot at the helm.  Yet on that particular day, that feeling of trust and safety was completely shattered on four specific planes which then became weapons of destruction.  I also sense that she relates this concept of sleeping and “drifting into nothing” to dying. In her work Don’t Let Me Be Lonely she tells of a boy who watches his father being taken off life support and expects only to hear a gasp of air and it be as though he was falling asleep.  That is not the case.  The man’s death is jerky and he convulses, a very different death than the son had pictured.  I feel like it was the same for the people on those flights.  They didn’t expect to die that day, nor in that way.  A jerky, convulsing, destructive death.

My questions for conversation would be why do you think she would put the two opposites of a peaceful sleep on an airplane ride to the tragic events of 9/11 together into one video?  What purpose do they serve working together? Do they work together?

Writing Assignment 1: Defining Freedom

Dictionary definitions describe freedom as liberty, autonomy, and independence; the power of unlimited action.  Freedom in texts carry different weights based on their interpretations, therefore freedom can mean something beyond the dictionary portrayals.  William Andrews identified in his argument that freedom existed outside of the plot and inside the writing itself.  I am inclined to agree with him and find great significance of freedom’s existence as something more than a physical sense. With reading the autobiographies of Tobias Wolff and Frederick Douglass, I am able to see their interpretation of freedom existing not only in a physical sense, but in a spiritual and mental sense as well.

            As a former slave, Frederick Douglass had every reason to write about freedom because most of his life was restricted by the shackles of slavery.  Douglass and freedom correspond in different ways throughout his narrative. The obvious relation is when Douglass obtains his freedom when he escapes to the north. This type of freedom is the element of the plot that Andrews sees as the unmistakable theme of freedom, rather than the narrative performance of freedom. Douglass exemplifies the performance of freedom after his altercation with Mr. Covey and he remarks, “My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact” (Andrews/Douglass, pg.290). Even if he appeared a slave on the exterior, he was no longer a slave in his heart.  In his mind’s eye, he took the form of free man. He gained his spiritual freedom.  Douglass’ “pathway from slavery to freedom” was more than his escape to the north (Andrews/Douglass pg. 263).  It was freeing himself from his own slave-like hold on himself, which he makes evident throughout his entire narrative.

Tobias Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, paints a picture of his childhood in which freedom presents itself in both obvious and complicated aspects.  As a typical trouble-making boy, he finds himself in many situations where he wishes for freedom from his oppressive stepfather.  For instance, when Dwight hits Toby when he said the mustard jar was empty is a point when Toby reacts with a desire to escape and calls his brother.  This exemplifies the physical freedom that Toby wants from Dwight, which Andrews describes as just part of the plot.  The performance of freedom that Andrews and I see is more than the plot it is the spiritual and mental freedom that Toby attempts to attain.  Spiritual freedom, as expressed in Wolff’s memoir, was that Toby’s heart longed to get away from Dwight and every other unpleasant element of his life.  This longing of freedom would cause Toby to create fantasies and falsehoods whenever he was close to getting away.  With the opportunity to enroll in prep school in his sight, Toby forged recommendation letters that were not exactly factual, but they were accurate to how he perceived himself.  Upon concluding the letters, Toby notices that “on the boy who lived in their letters, the splendid phantom who carried all my hopes, it seemed to me [he] saw, at last, my [his] face” (Wolff pg. 214).  Toby’s interpretation of what he thought of himself freed elements of his true identity for his own viewing.  Toby gained his spiritual freedom from his craft in writing.

Although Toby eventually escapes Dwight’s tyrannical reign with his acceptance to Hill, Toby’s future remains unclear.  Toby, as the man remarks in his narration of how ignorant the boy was of what lay in store for him: “If he had seen the fissures in my character he might have know what he was in for. He might have known that he was headed for all kinds of trouble, and, knowing this, he might have lost heart before the game even got started” (Wolff pg. 276).  Toby as the boy sees no faults in the figure he observes in the mirror.  He only sees hope for a better life and his nonchalance reflects in the mirror when “he stuck his hands in his pockets, threw back his shoulders and cocked his head…[with] a dash of swagger in his pose” (Wolff pg.276).  Once again, Toby’s desire for freedom and imagination perform a false portrayal of what reality has in store. Toby gains his freedom from Dwight, as he desired throughout most of the narrative, but he never truly gains that spiritual freedom he saw contained in his reflection in the mirror.

Both Douglass and Wolff leave the ending of their autobiographies with the readers questioning the exclusion of certain details.  Wolff gave us a vague view of his future at Hill, his life in the war, and of his future family, but he didn’t include those thorough details for a reason.  What held him down and kept him captive in his childhood were the memories he put into his autobiography.  He included only his restrictions because they are what he wanted freedom from. In a sense, he acquired mental freedom from transcribing his memories into his memoir.  Similarly, I see that Douglass’ final act of freeing himself was relinquishing the memories he possessed into his narrative: “It was a severe cross, and I took it up reluctantly. The truth was, I felt myself a slave, and the idea of speaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom, and said what I desired with considerable ease” (Andrews/Douglass, pg.321).  Once he told what he desired, he felt free. What he desired. He was finally able to say whatever he wanted, and his desires were portrayed in this narrative. His control to say what he wanted freed him in more ways than before.  This is the mental freedom that allowed both Wolff and Douglass to move beyond their past experiences and share their lives to all who listened.  They possessed the power to do and say what they wanted, the power which they lacked much of their lives.  They did not need to include the extensive details to their future because it was not the freedom that was intended to be displayed in their work; the intent was to show so much more.

Douglass and Wolff exposed some of their most precious, distorted and tantalizing memories in their writings.  They revealed the true nature of their adversaries and gave harsh truths about the lives they endured.  Douglass suffered in agony from physical and mental brutality from his slave owners.  Wolff was subjected to the malicious actions of his unreasonable stepfather.  Both authors persisted through hardships and did not necessarily emerge victorious.  Instead, they found themselves in situations that warranted more liberty than their previous circumstances had.  Their freedom allowed them possibilities they might not have considered ever possible until that time.  Douglass and Wolff defined their freedom through their lives and the lessons they learned, rather than defining freedom through the plot in their autobiographies.

 

Works Cited

Andrews, William. Classic American Autobiographies.New York: Signet Classic, 1992.

Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life. Grove Press,New York, 1989.

Freedom

Freedom. The word itself inspires a certain excitement and thrill of a hope outside the norm. When I think of freedom, sometimes I think of Hollywood interpretations on it. For instance, I think of Braveheart starring Mel Gibson. That epic tale of William Wallace and his leadership in the battles of Scottish independence gives me goose bumps every time I watch the ending and Wallace’s last word is the cry, “Freedom!” But it came with a cost, his life. I never truly looked at freedom as something that wasn’t so cut and dry. I always thought, if you have it, you have it; if you don’t, then you don’t.  But it’s really not that simple. At least for Douglass it wasn’t. And I now, am beginning to understand “the pathway from slavery to freedom”(page263) as Douglass began to understand it.

What I hear in this narrative is different than the usual story of a slave seeking freedom. Douglass does not dwell on the means of his escape, rather than the life he endured as a piece of property. He tells not only his story, but other’s as well. He told us of other slaves and the cruelty that the faced for the slightest of wrongs. He also told us of the harshness his owners bestowed on him and onto other slaves.  He seemed to focus on this more, as if to show how much they tried to break apart any sense of hope and spirit that the slaves possessed, so that they may have utter control and absolute power over them. When he describes his kind mistress, Sophia Auld, and how she was consumed by the power that slavery yields after her husband told her of the dangers of teaching a slave to read, it became more obvious of the influence that slavery had on everyone at that time.

“Under its influence, the tender heart became stone and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness” (page266).

Freedom to Douglass was sometimes torturous. Once he learned to read, he also learned more about slavery from documents he found lying around his master’s house. He began to hate everything that slavery was about and envied his fellow slaves for their ignorance to the matter. He did not want to understand it anymore, but it writhed in him, tortured his heart with the freedom that he longed for and saw little hope for.  Yet he still aspired to learn, and after a long time, he learned how to write as well. He taught himself certain liberties and gain senses of freedom, which proved useful and important to his future.

Another point in the narrative that I find a particular importance in when Douglass stands up against Mr. Covey and gains a new sense of power in himself.

“The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself. He only can understand the deep satisfaction which I experienced, who has himself repelled by force the bloody arm of slavery” (page 290).

He fought for what he wanted and I think gained it right there. He knew that from that moment on that he may appear as a slave on his exterior, but in his heart, he knew he was free.

I notice that Douglass does not focus on the details of his escape, but rather everything else. He tells of the differing lifestyles for slaves (city life vs. plantation life) and he tells of the hardships that he and others faced in their lives. This all makes me wonder what kind of writing this is then. Is he giving us historical accounts of slavery, or is he giving us something else? I can’t help but wonder what the true reasoning behind his writing his life down, without the escape information; what was the purpose of this? What did he have to gain from this? The only answer I have for understanding his publishing this information was that it helped free him from his own shackles. He was freed from slavery’s chains, but what about his own? The very ending sentences of the narrative tell us how he still felt:

“The truth was, I felt myself a slave, and the idea of speaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom, and said what I desired with considerable ease” (page 321).

So much was said in those small sentences. He clearly still struggled with the ideas of freedom years after his captivity ended.  The only freedom he felt was relinquishing all that weighed him down. Once he told what he  desired, he felt free. That says so much to me. What he desired. He finally was able to say whatever he wanted, and he told us in this narrative. His control to say what he wanted freed him in more ways than before. This may not be a ground breaking discovery, but it said so much to me. Freedom is something that is different for everyone. Douglass’ freedom came from his ability to tell. His purpose of writing was to free himself, and thus he did.

I do however wonder if Douglass had included a detailed account of his escape in the original version of the narrative, how it would have affected my interpreted meaning of his freedom. Or how it would alter his purpose for writing the narrative. I also wonder what similar definitions of freedom exist in This Boy’s Life that are shared in Douglass’ narrative. How do they compare or differ in their achieving freedom? This also gets me thinking on what was Toby’s true idea of freedom? Did he ever obtain freedom like Douglass had?

Finale

What I hear: 

“Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end.  Before we get it we live in continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present.  Happiness is endless, innocent of its own sure passing.  Pain is endless pain. ” (page 230)

The ending of the novel leaves us wondering more about Toby and where he is headed for the future.  We get a brief description of his life at Hill, but barely enough to understand him anymore.  The book ends almost the same as it had started, on the road with someplace behind him that he is leaving and will not be returning the same.

Toby obviously had desires doing good and making his mother proud, however, he never truly did such.  In his struggle to find his identity, he never allowed a consistency to show us his true nature.  He only leaves us wondering more about him in the finale of the memoir.   This work of art seems incomplete, yet fulfilled in the very last sentence:

“It was a good night to sing and we sang for all we were worth, as if we’d been saved.” (page 288)

Toby and Chuck had been saved.  They both escaped the problems they faced.  Chuck not having to marry Tina and Toby getting away from Dwight and going to Hill after the summer was done.  Toby had the chance to prove himself, leave all that was behind him with Dwight, and change things for a better future with Hill.  In a small glimpse, we find out that Toby has done no better.  Yet, I still find myself wanting more out of Toby, wanting to know more about what happened at Hill.  Wanting to know what life was like during the war, how he met his wife, all of that.  But he leaves us with the moment in his life when things seem just right all around with potential in the headlights.  But as the first quote posted above states, “happiness is endless, innocent of its own sure passing.”  He knew it would not last, but he still sang with the hope it would.

What I Notice:

I have begun to see that Wolff writes about himself, at times, with a desire for difference.  For instance, when Mr. Howard takes him to the tailor to get all the clothes for him and he puts him in the final suit with the overcoat and scarf, this is what Wolff sees:

“The elegant stranger in the glass regarded me with a doubtful, almost haunted expression. Now that he had been called into existence, he seemed to be looking for some sign of what lay in store for him. He studied me as if I held the answer.” (page276)

Toby sees the boy he created so that he would get in to one of the prep schools.  He does not see himself, but for that time, he took the role of that boy and struck a pose as if he were him.  Then Wolff speaks and wishes he had known what he was getting into and chosen another route.  Seeing where Toby was at that time, wishing for things to work out perfectly with everything, I would have done the same as he did.  There was not room for other options; he found a way out and took it.

In contemplating my own autobiography, I find myself in Toby’s shoes with a desire to escape a family-life that is not so perfect.  Having many arguments and fights with my own family, I have conjured up many plans to leave my home and live away from them. Only until college came did I find true freedom, yet pure sadness upon the thoughts of having to keep going back to my home.  I feel like I am a game piece that keeps landing on the spot on the board that reads “go back to start, do not pass go, do not collect $200.  Only one day I hope that I will be driving away with it all in the review mirror being able to sing with a freedom that I have never yet felt.

I Wonder: 

Where am I going at the end of the novel as the reader?  I am left wondering what will happen next, only to see that throughout the novel, Wolff has told me that things will be alright for him.  He will have a family, children, a wife, write novels.  I am left to put the puzzle pieces together, but I am wanting to know more.  I suppose I wonder why he leaves us with so much left to discover about him, just as he was left to discover so much about himself.

A Cinderella Story…sort of

During my reading of This Boy’s Life, I found myself intrigued in many different ways.  I have some knowledge of step-father and step-son relationships from what my own father has told me and from movies, but Dwight and Toby’s relationship is not one I expected.  Toby is a trouble maker, which is expected of every ten year old boy, but Dwight never lets him forget it, even if he hasn’t done anything wrong.  His methods of punishing Toby are harsh and at times, ineffective.  Toby’s mother doesn’t believe in punishing her child physically because of how her father reprimanded her no matter what happened.

When Toby wrote to his uncle inPariswithout his mother knowing was probably one of the most interesting parts of the book so far to me.  It was a comical letter that was taken quite seriously by his uncle and his family.  Their offer of aid provided for interesting decisions on Toby’s part that surprised me.

I could never imagine leaving my family and life in this country to live with a family I hardly know inParisfor 5 years.  Sounds like an adventure, but it also sounds horrifying.  Toby’s uncle will only allow him to come live him on the condition that they be able to legally adopt him, so that at a legal standpoint he has to obey them (since he is a troublemaker).  But Toby eventually denies on the reasoning that he does not want to change his name.  This is a symbolic element since he wanted to change his name in the beginning of the book, but now he does not want a different last name.  I guess he wants to keep the name that belonged to his own father, instead of taking the name of another man he barely knows.

With Dwight and Toby’s relationship, I would find myself becoming upset and angered in my reading.  I hated the way he treated Toby and wondered how anyone can treat a child like that.  It was like he was toying with him just to get to his mother, like the other men did before him.  Only this time, Dwight actually got married to Toby’s mother and was stuck with him.  I think that is what frustrated him most and what caused problems in the house more than anything.  The only time Dwight was happy for Toby was when he got into a fight (something I suspect that his own son, Skipper, was not likely to ever do).  Then the excitement dulled and things went back to “normal,” whatever that was for them.  It seemed like they had a Cinderella type relation, except in the male sense.  Dwight made Toby do all the work and chores, pointed out anything he did incorrectly, and instead of being covered in cinder soot, Toby was covered in horse chestnut juice.  The fairy god mother of a sort came in the form of his mother, for she protected him and made things more tolerable when she finally moved to the house.  The prince charming, or in this case, the “princess charming” was Nora.  Though hardly mentioned, Toby had a fascination with her, and once her realized what she and her boyfriend, Bobby, were up to, he was crushed and his vision of her tainted.  “I sat rigid and mute, punching her, slapping her, calling her names. I took away the blue convertible I was going to give her, the furs and filmy clothes” (pg. 130).  This quote was making me laugh at how much he was attracted to her, even though she became his step-sister.

I am interested in continuing to relate his life to that of a Cinderella story.  I am wondering what “happy ending” I will discover at the end of the novel for Toby.  I guess the only questions I have are related to Toby’s mother.  I am curious as to her issues with men.  She never tells Toby what happened withRoy, with the man that promised him a bike.  But she keeps running, until she finds Dwight, which in my opinion isn’t much better than her previous choices.