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1992
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Southern
Academic
Review
A Student Journal of Scholarship
No. 6
Spring 1992
John Mark Allen
Molly Brewer
Amy Dingier
Wesley Edwards
Amorak Huey
Natalie Meyer
Stephen Nickson
Michael Peacock
Chip Trimmier
Dr. Roger N. Casey
BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE
5 0553 01026458 5
Southern
Academic
Review
A Student Journal of Scholarship
No.6
Spring 1992
Southern Academic Review is published annually m. the
spring by students of Birmingham-Southern CoUege^ it is
funded by the Student Government Association and
operates under the supervision of the Student Publication
Board. It seeks to publish material of scholarly interest to
students and faculty at Birmingham-Southern, and its
editorial scope encompasses all academic disciplines. Fully
annotated research papers and shorter essays alike are
considered for publication. It accepts submissions from
any currently enrolled student at Birmingham-Southern or
any alumnus of the College (although no submission may
be considered if it has previously been submitted as
academic credit at an educational institution other than
Birmingham-Southern College). Although most of the
Review's content is to consist of student work, submissions
from Birmingham-Southern College faculty and guest
lecturers will also be considered for publication.
Manuscripts (preferably a graded copy, if class work)
should be sent to the Editor, Southern Academic Review,
P.O. Box A-46, Birmingham-Southern College,
Birmingham, Alabama 35254.
(c)Copyright 1992
by Southern Academic Review and
Birmingham-Southern College
Printed by Ebsco, Birmingham, Alabama
Editor-in-Chief
Ellen Schendel
1
.fbSL.
Field Editors
56/
Michelle Andrews
Leslie McFall
^ ' c:^
Russell Rice
Faculty Advisor
)r. Ronald J. Rindo
111
Contents
Articles
"The Birthmark":
An Allegory of Scientific Endeavor
and Spiritual Conflict
John Mark Allen
Castles of England and Wales
in the Middle Ages:
A Unique Combination of Home, Fortress,
and Administrative Center
Amy Dingier
Straightening a Turn:
A Response to V.S. Naipaul's
A Turn in the South
Wesley Edwards 32
The Sacred Hoop: Four in One
Stephen Nickson 48
Habermas and Lyotard as a Means
of Reading the Cultural Conflict
in Momaday's House Made of Dawn
Michael Peacock 62
IV
The Debt Crisis
and Development in Latin America:
Are Debt for Nature Swaps an Answer?
Chip Trimmier 74
Gender Issues Section
The Varying Characterizations of Women
in A Doll 's House
and Death of a Salesman
Molly Brewer 100
Wolves and Women:
The Sexual Fears
of the Male Protagonists
in Bram Stoker's Dracula
Amorak Huey 112
The Incompatability
of Marxism and Feminism
Natalie Meyer 131
African-Americans
and Automobiles in Fiction
Dr. Roger N. Casey 148
Notes on Contributors 161
"The Birthmark":
An Allegory of Scientific Endeavor
and Spiritual Conflict
John Mark Allen
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" is a tragedy.
Hawthorne narrates a tale that describes what originally
seems to be an idyllic marriage. A famous eighteenth-
century scientist of lofty spirit and intellect fmds a noble
and beautiful wife. But, as Hawthorne states early on, his
devotion to science will make their relationship difficult.
As he says, "His love for his young wife might prove the
stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining
itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of
the latter to his own" (268). This is, indeed, what occurs
in the story. Aylmer, the husband, becomes evermore
obsessed with the singular mark of imperfection on his
wife's cheek. He sees this birthmark, a "tiny hand" (269)
of discoloration so small as to be covered "with the tips of
two small fmgers" (270), as a badge of Georgiana's
mortality and her liability to sin and death. He begins to
think of applying his scientific genius toward removing the
mark. In this way, the story proceeds allegorically along
the path of a scientific endeavor. In keeping with this
logic, the plot progression parallels the scientific method
used in such endeavors (at least as it was thought of then).
2 Southern Academic Review
The points of the scientific method, as delineated by
Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum and other works, are
observation, measurement, hypothesis, experiment, and
verification. All of these points are present within "The
Birthmark. "
The significance of this scientific underpinning is the
insight that it gives of Aylmer's motivation. Why should
this highly intelligent man risk the life of his loving wife
for a small blemish? How does his scientific train of mind
factor in his philosophy and actions? The vein of the
scientific method in the story leads to the very heart of
these matters. The final destination is the mind/soul of
Aylmer, wherein there lies unconscious spiritual confusion.
Even "very soon after their marriage" (268), Aylmer
begins to observe Georgiana's blemish. To him, her
exceptional beauty makes the mark all the more
unbearable. In his opinion, the mark stands out as a stamp
of her human finitude, and it causes "...him more trouble
and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul
or sense, had given him delight" (269). As the narrator
relates, other people have seen the mark differently, both
positively and negatively. To her male admirers, it was a
romantic adornment. To her female competitors, it
rendered her ugly. In the story proper, however, only
Aylmer's observations dictate the action. These
observations represent the first stage of the scientific
method, and, as such, the beginning of the scientific
endeavor. Once Aylmer has focused on this fault,
Georgiana is reduced to the place of a machine that is
working at ninety-nine percent efficiency. The one percent
becomes the focus of attention. For instance, most of us
have had some little something wrong with our cars. The
noise that the slightly-leaking "piffle valve" makes may be
unnoticeable to others (i.e. mechanics), but the
Allen 3
owner/observer can pick it out in a few seconds and,
henceforth, hear none of the proper workings around it. In
a similar fashion, Aylmer becomes focused on the blemish
till he can see little else of Georgiana.
Observation quickly leads to measurement. Aylmer
sizes up the mark for shape and intensity. In this case, the
reader can safely assume that Aylmer has noted all the
points of the external description provided by the narrator:
"The mark wore a tint of deeper crimson.... When she
blushed it gradually became more indistinct.... Its shape
bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the
smallest pygmy size" (268-69). Given the grasp that this
mark holds on Aylmer, it is remarkable to note that "he
[had] thought little or nothing of the matter before" (269).
It is as if he saw a diamond without a microscope, and
later, upon seeing it under such, he found a tiny but
devaluating flaw. To Aylmer, the flaw seems to increase
with every passing day. That which requires only the
smallest caliper for its measurement is subjected to the
scrutiny of the electron microscope that is Aylmer' s mind's
eye.
As the story progresses, it becomes more and more
obvious to both Georgiana and Aylmer that something
needs to be done about the mark. For he thinks of nothing
else, and she is tormented by the knowledge of his
obsession. By this point, Aylmer is "convinced of the
perfect practicability of its removal" (270). Aylmer has
thought deeply on the subject. [In fact, he claims that he
might now possess enough knowledge to even create a
"being less perfect" than Georgiana (271)]. His
hypothesis, then, is complete. He believes he understands
the chemical nature of the blemish and how he can erase it.
Although Georgiana is able to voice feelings (unlike an
object!) her unequivocal assent to have the mark removed
Southern Academic Review
does nothing to change her position in the story. For
sake of the scientific endeavor, her reality as the noble,
loving wife or the stable and yet pliable object is
immaterial. Unfortunately for both of them, Aylmer does
not possess the necessary knowledge to accomplish its
removal. What is more, he is unwilling or unable to
recognize this truth. The narrator, possessing an
understanding that Aylmer does not, reveals to the reader
the nature of the story's enigma. In essence, Mother Nature
"permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like
a jealous patentee, on no account to make" (271).
The next section of the story is analogous to the long
period of experimentation and reevaluation that is the
mainstay of science. The experiments carried out by
Aylmer are unusually discrete. The perfumed vial may or
may not be one of these. The gold-colored
poison/cosmetic is one that he does not wish to use. Both
Georgiana and the reader are unsure as to which of
Aylmer' s tricks are actually experiments. Nevertheless,
she conjectures from his inquiries that the air she breathes
and food she eats may indeed be a part of his scheme. By
whatever means, the presence of experimentation is
confirmed by her sensation of a "stirring up of her system"
(274).
The setting and events of this section are as important
as the experiments themselves. First, the setting holds a
special significance for the couple's relationship. The
redecorating of the laboratory and words such as
"threshold" indicate that the consummation of the scientific
endeavor will be the consummation of their marriage (271).
Second, his laboratory assistant Aminadab functions as a
counterpart to Aylmer. Hawthorne quite bluntly states that
he represents man's "physical nature" while Aylmer is the
spiritual (272). Third, the event with the quick flower.
Allen 5
dying at Georgiana's touch, carries the continuing theme of
Nature's beauty and secrecy. The flower, like humanity,
is finite. It should not be plucked and examined lest it
wilt. It will neither reveal all its secrets nor blossom long.
Lastly, it is ironic what he says of alchemy, because he has
cdready "attain[ed] too lofty a wisdom," such that he cannot
stoop to reality (273). More will be said on this last point
shortly.
The last part of the story is, in method, the point of
verification. Here, as in many actual scientific endeavors,
success or failure rests upon the results of a final
experiment. After Georgiana demonstrates her unswerving
faith to him, Aylmer reveals that the mark does indeed
have a strong grasp on her. There is, in fact, only one
thing left to be tried. He and Aminadab meticulously
distill this ultimate concoction, and then he takes it to her.
Aylmer says (famous last words), "Unless all my science
have deceived me, it cannot fail" (277). Georgiana,
despite the fact that she has read his experiment folio and
knows that "his most splendid successes were almost
invariably failures" (275), drinks the liquid without
apprehension. She, both nobly and naively, wants nothing
more than to please her husband. Ironically, she perceives
herself, not Aylmer, to be at a moral impasse. Having
drunk the liquid, she quickly passes into a deep sleep.
Thereafter, a scientific and physical reversal occurs.
Aylmer is, once again, in observation, but this time it is to
watch the mark disappear. Tragically, the other reversal
is a physical one affecting Georgiana. As the birthmark
fades into nothing, so too her overall pallor becomes that
of death. Before she passes into the ether world, however,
she makes a remark that partially redeems her for wisdom:
"'Do not repent,' she says, 'that with so high and pure a
feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer'"
6 Southern Academic Review
(278).
As a scientific endeavor, therefore, Aylmer's work is
a failure. According to the scientific method, it has failed
at the point of verification. But what then is within the
mind/soul of Aylmer to drive him to and through all this?
It is confusion, but not of a small or everyday sort. His
confusion is between the spiritual and scientific. Georgiana
had noticed that he had a "strong and eager aspiration
toward the infinite" (275). Yet, as the narrator states at the
end:
Had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need
not thus have flung away the happiness which would
have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture
with the celestial. (278)
Quite unrealistically, he was trying to "find the perfect
future in the present" (278).
Even more specifically toward matters at hand, Aylmer
has violated modern scientific methodology. His
philosophical problem is, then, among other things, rooted
amidst a scientific error. The error is to set up a purpose
or final cause as a target for science. Both Francis Bacon
and Renes Descartes, two founders of modern science,
were in firm disapproval of this error. This teleological
method, more or less a deductive one, was popular among
both ancient and medieval scientists. To make a long
method brief, they decided the way they thought things
should be and managed to reason their way to like
conclusions. (In all fairness, deductive reasoning has been
and still is an important philosophical and scientific tool.
In fact, deductive reasoning without a predetermined target
was Descartes' modus operandi). This method brought two
problems: it created incorrect conclusions by amassing
assertions, and it prompted scientists to think about things
that were only known to God (Baillie 16-17). As John
Allen 7
Baillie states, "This did not mean, however, that there are
no final causes, but only that natural science has no
business with them" (17). In other words, these are things
that theologians should ponder, and not scientists.
Aylmer then, has created within his mind notions of
perfection and beauty that do not apply to the very nature
that he is to study. Thus, all his experiments are grand
efforts in futility that produce only the tiniest gems of what
he is after. Unfortunately for Georgiana, Nature is not
something with which to be trifled. When Aylmer applies
his odd brand of science to her person, there are "truly
remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral"
(268). The mystery of God's work is left intact. Aylmer
would have done well to have read one of Bacon's
aphorisms:
The subtilty (sic) of nature is far beyond that of sense
or of the understanding: so that the specious
meditations, speculations, and theories of mankind
are... but a kind of insanity, only there is no one to
stand by and observe it [—or perhaps there is!]
(Bacon 12).
8 Southern Academic Review
Works Cited
Bacon, Francis. Novum Organum. Ed. Joseph Devey.
New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1902.
Baillie, John. "Natural Science and the Spiritual Life."
British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Edinburgh, 12 August 1951.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark." The Bedford
Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 2nd
ed. New York: Bedford-St. Martin's, 1990. 268-278.
Castles of England and Wales
in the Middle Ages:
A Unique Combination of Home, Fortress,
and Administrative Center
Amy Dingier
"...and they filled the land full of castles..."
-The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1132
(qtd. in Muir 93)
Perhaps the most fascinating and compelling legacy we
have from Medieval England is the castle. Our curiosity
about this edifice is not idly provoked, for the castle was
the focal point for medieval British society. Castles were
crucial to lords of the middle ages, for they served as
home, fortress, and administrative center all in one— a
unique combination that has not been duplicated since. For
this reason, it is only appropriate that these massive
structures and the life that revolved around them should be
carefully studied.
William Duke of Normandy invaded England in 1066
from Saint Valery, just to the north of Normandy, France,
and immediately began constructing castles. However,
William was not the first to fortify England. Sometimes
his castles were built on the ruins of earlier fortifications,
such as Roman fortresses, which themselves may have been
10 Southern Academic Review
built on old Iron Age ruins, as those at Dover were (Brown
11). The Anglo-Saxons, after the Romans, built "burhs,"
which were fortified towns, but not true castles combining
home and fortress. The idea for William the Conqueror's
castles came from Byzantine Greece, where the "eastern
Romans" (Brown 12) built poliginal walls with comer
towers, one of which was the ultimate refuge of the
garrison.
When William the Conqueror invaded in 1066, he
brought the castle with him to England, where it would be
developed from the original crude motte and baileys to
perfection in the sophistocated concentric castles of Edward
I in Wales. William's early fortresses of wood and timber
as well as their stone descendants served as the "primary
means by which a new and alien military aristocracy
established themselves in England and Wales" (Brown
217). Then, once the Normans had securely ensconced
themselves over their subjugated people, castles served to
protect them from successive foreign waves of would-be
conquerors, and, within the country, to guard one lord
against the schemes of another.
However, each and every castle was meant to be a
residence as well as a fortress, and when we speak of
castles we refer to only those buildings that combine the
two functions with defensive fortifications given
predominance over domestic aspects of the structure. The
earliest such structures were the simple motte and baileys
consisting of a mound of earth, the motte, surrounded by
one or more baileys, or courtyards. The bailey as well as
the motte was protected by a deep ditch and an inner
wooden palisade wall, then atop the motte within its
palisade was a wooden tower which was the strongest point
of this castle. Occasionally, however, in the simpler
"ringwork" castle, the motte was ommitted from the
Dingier 1 1
enclosure (Davison 35).
The wood and earth materials necessary for
construction of motte and baileys were easily come by and
no special skills were necessary for labor. Therefore, this
type of castle was the most plentiful of all types because it
was the quickest, easiest, and cheapest to construct.
However, timber was weak, and susceptible to attack,
especially by fire. So, motte and baileys were useful
against surprise attacks, but not in longer sieges. Also,
timber decayed quickly and had to be replaced continually
in motte and bailey castles to keep them strong.
For this reason builders began to use stone, when it
was available, in castle construction as soon as possible
after the invasion. Stone, like wood, had its advantages
and disadvantages. It was longer lasting than wood and
stronger as well—therefore better able to withstand sieges.
However, stone was difficult to transport, and took more
time to quarry, as well as more time to build with. Stone
also required skilled labor for construction, and was
therefore a more expensive building material than wood.
Construction of stone castles required greater
investments of time and money than motte and baileys, and
stone castles were more permanent once completed. For
this reason, they were not as randomly constructed as motte
and baileys. Since the castle's first consideration was
defense, lords chose building sites as naturally secure as
were available. Castles were generally built on the highest
and rockiest ground possible to guard against an enemy
being able to tunnel under (undermine) the castle. Water
surroundings like a lake, river, or moat also precluded
undermining. Further, some sort of internal fresh water
supply was essential for internal use in every castle,
especially during times of siege. So a good underground
water supply was necessary to tap into with the one or
12 Southern Academic Review
more castle wells.
Castle architecture was developed and changed much
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, always with the
main purpose of strengthening defense. Often changes in
stone construction developed in direct response to new
siege tactics. However, those studying castle development
should also remember that its history is not a
straightforward progression from timber to stone, or from
one stone characteristic to the next. In fact, timber
constructions persisted alongside stone even into the
fourteenth century, and many stone innovations of the
various centuries could be seen in a single castle as it was
modernized and expanded over the years.
In the twelfth century, one of the first changes to be
made in castles was the replacement of the wooden palisade
atop the motte with stone to form what is known as a shell
keep. Also, the wooden palisade surrounding many
castles' baileys began to be replaced with stone to form a
curtain wall just inside the outer ditch of the castle. When
wooden keeps began to be built in stone, they had to be
removed from the motte and located in the bailey, or have
the motte leveled off to accommodate them. Without this
change, the packed earth of the motte would settle and shift
beneath the concentrated weight of a stone keep, causing
the keeps walls to crack and crumble. Clifford's Tower in
York suffered from this fate. The keep atop its motte
began to crack even before construction was finished. For
this reason, a planned third story was left off the tower,
and even today the remaining structure requires
underground supports to keep it from falling.
Stone keeps dating from the late eleventh century
onward were the inner core of all successive fortifications.
These "donjons," such as the White Tower of London,
combined the fortified stronghold and residence of the lord
Dingier 13
in one structure. Early stone keeps were rectangular, and
their thick walls were crowned with battlements having the
early addition of crenelations— tooth-like projections
designed to afford some cover to defending archers. The
base of the walls might have a sloping or splayed plinth
which had a double function of making attack using
battering rams more difficult, while causing rocks and
other missiles dropped from the battlements to ricochet out
among the attackers.
Almost all castles since the first motte and baileys had
surrounding ditches to make attack more difficult. In stone
keeps, the ditch outside the surrounding curtain wall served
to prevent attackers from bringing siege towers up to the
side of the castle. If not a ditch, castles would have a
moat, which might be made by diverting a nearby stream.
At least one castle, Kennilworth, was surrounded by a lake
that had been enlarged for the purpose of defense. In any
case, water defenses, like ditches, prevented the approach
of siege towers and also made undermining almost
impossible.
In the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, lords
began to intersperse rectangular towers, called mural
towers, along the curtain walls of their castles. Then, in
the mid-thirteenth centuries, lords discovered that the
comers of rectangular towers made them more susceptible
to undermining, and gave "dead ground" for cover to
attackers, so they began to make mural towers round or
polygonal instead of rectangular. Furthermore, stone
overhangings called machicolations were extended out from
the battlements so that defenders could drop rocks or shoot
down to the base of the wall into attackers without
exposing themselves to fire.
Another defensive innovation was the gatehouse, which
reached its apex in the latter thirteenth and fourteenth
14 Southern Academic Review
century Welsh castles of Edward I. Experiments in
fortifying the entrance to castles began by the end of the
twelfth century, according to Davison (132). The purpose
was to transform the castle's entrance from the weakest
part of its defenses to the strongest. Gatehouses might
consist of huge gate towers flanking the opening, which
itself had numerous layers to penetrate for entry. These
layers included heavy doors and another new type of gate
called a portcullis, which differed from an ordinary gate in
that it did not open in or out, but lowered from above
possibly impaling attackers on its bottom spikes on the way
down. Leading up to the gate there might be a walled
passage or barbican, which functioned to limit the attackers
approach to the gate. And finally, there were murder holes
and arrow loops lining the interior walls of the gateway, so
that each series of passageways and guard chambers
became separate death traps for the attackers slowly
penetrating within.
Castles reached the apex of their strength with the
concentric castle, of which the best example is probably
one of Edward Fs castles, Beaumaris, in Wales.
Concentric castles consisted of the buildings of the castle
protected by two closely spaced curtain walls. The inner
curtain was the taller of the two so that archers atop it
could fire beyond the outer curtain wall, or even onto it, if
it fell to the enemy. Concentric castles also had
surrounding water defenses, and tons of masonry in the
form of mural towers overlooked by even larger and more
formidable inner towers.
Though we generally consider castles for the military
functions mentioned above, they also served as homes to
the great lords. To neglect this aspect of their use would
be to ignore how the inhabitants of castles passed most of
their time-in peace, rather than in war. R. Allen Brown
Dingier 15
comments that
at no period in its history was the castle filled only
or always with the tramp and clatter of armed men:
the sound of revelry in the hall, the rustle of ladies'
dresses in the chambers of the queen, even the
laughter of children in the garden, are as authentic
a distant note for our ears to strain after as the
shouts of battle and the clash of arms. (210)
It is, therefore, important to consider the domestic
arrangements of the castle in order to be able to visualize
the setting in which lords, ladies and their retinues passed
their days of peace.
Without a doubt, the great hall was central to castle
life. It was the largest room of the castle, and thus the
logical site for carrying out daily business, eating meals,
gathering to celebrate and entertain, and even to sleep. In
the earliest motte and bailey castles, the great hall might
have been contained in a donjon atop the motte. Or, if
there was not enough room there, the great hall could be a
building within the bailey. In the stone keeps of the
twelfth century, the great hall often occupied an entire
floor, usually the first (as opposed to the ground level,
which might be used for storage of food or livestock, or as
another hall, perhaps for the servants). By the thirteenth
century, with many baileys secure behind curtain walls,
more apartments, including the great hall, could be located
in the bailey.
These great halls would not be considered very great or
comfortable by modem standards. Cleanliness was
minimal. Carpets were not generally used on the floor
before the fourteenth century. Instead it was strewn with
rushes and sometimes herbs. Apparently these were
supposed to be changed often, but instead were usually
simply covered with new layers. Underneath these layers
16 Southern Academic Review
"lay an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments of
bone, spittle, excrement of dogs and cats, and everything
that is nasty" (Erasmus qtd. in Gies 60).
Lighting and heat were also scarce. For defensive
reasons, castle windows had to be long, narrow, and few
between. Sources differ regarding how often windows
were "glazed" after the appearance of glass in the thirteenth
century. Norman Pounds holds that glazing was relatively
expensive, and was not commonly found in secular
buildings before the sixteenth century, except occasionally
in the halls of the greatest royal and baronial castles (188).
However Joseph and Frances Gies and Margaret Labarge
propose that glazed windows were common by the
fourteenth century (Gies 59; Labarge 22).
In any case, if not done in glass, windows from the
eleventh century onward were covered with wooden grills
or shutters secured by an iron bar, or by oiled linen
coverings. Unfortunately, these methods of shutting out
the cold shut out most of the light as well. So, castle
rooms might have warmth or natural light, but not both at
the same time.
Alternately, there were several types of artificial light
available to castle occupants when the shutters were closed
in winter or after the sun had gone down. They could light
their halls with candles, rush lights, oil lamps in the form
of bowls, or fires on the hearth— this last choice having the
added advantage of heat. Yet, all of these methods of
artificial light had drawbacks. Wax candles were expensive
and therefore could not be used in profusion, while rush
lights, which were made using grease or tallow (animal
fat), were inefficient and probably smelled bad.
Fires, as always, smoked, but this was a greater
nuisance in medieval halls where most fires were built on
open hearths. Smoke from these fires sometimes simply
Dingier 17
rose and drifted around the room, producing a sooty mess
and stains such as the ones that can still be seen in the hall
at Stokesay manor. However, sometimes castle buildings
had louvers in the roofs or walls to facilitate the escape of
smoke (Davison 82). In the late twelfth century, fireplaces
built into the walls began to replace central hearths in
castles such as Rochester and Hedingham (Pounds 189).
But even then, as Burke points out, the chimney as such
was not thought of until the latter thirteenth century;
inhabitants had only flues piercing the walls for the smoke
to exit through (33). So, with all the inconveniences and
difficulties of heating and lighting a great hall, it often
remained dark and cold, sometimes damp, and generally
cheerless. It is little wonder that people of this age went
to bed so soon after nightfall.
All these inconveniences aside, lords in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries made their halls as comfortable and rich
by contemporary standards as they were able. This
included the best furnishings and decorations they could
afford. Probably they could not afford to furnish each
individual castle, since so much of their possible
expenditures were devoted to defense. For this reason,
lords carried their furnishings with them from one holding
to the next. Since furnishings had to travel well, they were
usually as light and sparse as possible. Furnishings for a
typical household might include a bed or two, a few trestle
tables, benches, stools, a couple of chairs, and a few sturdy
chests for the transport of linens and any cooking and
eating utensils. Later, probably around the end of the
thirteenth century when lords began to emphasize a castle's
domestic amenities over defense, furniture such as beds and
tables became more permanent and increasingly large and
ornate (Labarge 34).
Decorations may have alleviated much of castles'
18 Southern Academic Review
inherent gloom. Doors, windows, and fireplaces could
have attractive arches and moldings. Walls were plastered
and whitewashed inside and out, and often painted further
or hung with strips of brightly colored cloth, tapestries.
Eastern embroideries, or cheerfully painted cloths. These
rich wall hangings all depicted scenes of battle, biblical
history, romances, or legends, and so were flamboyant and
bold. For example, Davison's Observer's Book of Castles
tells us that Henry Ill's favorite design for wall paintings
was gold stars on a green background (89), no doubt a
striking combination. Further decorations for especially
wealthy lords might include cupboards in which to display
any gold and silver cups and platters they possessed.
Then, after the introduction of carpet to England, it, too,
might be found covering the walls, benches, or chairs.
Not all castle activities were carried out in the great
hall. Fairly early in castle development the kitchen was
given its own building apart from the great hall— probably
because of the smell and potential fire hazard. And larger
castles might have a bakehouse and brewery in buildings
separate from the kitchen. Castles also had a buttery,
where drinks were kept, and a pantry, for the storage of
dry goods. Wardrobes, for tailoring and storage of cloth,
spices, jewels, etc., were generally inside the main donjon,
while the grange for hay storage, the granary, the stable,
the dairy, the larder, and the forge were all scattered in the
bailey, as were miscellaneous lodgings for clerks,
chaplains, and constables. Then, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the houses of the castle came to be
more consolidated within the inner defensive shell itself,
which was, by that time, the strong inner curtain wall of a
concentric castle.
Castles sometimes had a jail/gaol for the keeping of
prisoners, as did the Tower of London, where a great many
Dingier 19
royal prisoners were kept. Interestingly, its function as a
prison has contributed most toward making the castle what
Brown calls "romantically notorious"— thus the
transformation of the word for the lord's noble residence,
donjon, to the vile, dark, and terrible dungeon (Brown
212), of torture chambers and horror stories.
Having a rough sketch of the layout of the buildings of
castles provides a rich setting in which to picture what we
know about everyday life within castles. Daily meals were
somewhat different then. Occupants of medieval castles
rarely ate the meal we call breakfast. If they did, it
consisted of little more than a hunk of black bread and a
pot of ale. The main meal of the day was at ten or eleven
o'clock, and was usually the social event of the day.
Supper at about four or five o'clock was a lighter meal and
more intimate than dinner unless there were guests.
The meal itself began with the spreading of a tablecloth
before eating. An especially wealthy household might have
platters, cups, and spoons made out of precious materials
with which to eat. Otherwise, a thick slice of bread called
a trencher served as a sort of platter with the meal, often
a stew or paste, served on top. During the meal, two
people ate off one dish with the younger serving the older
or the man serving the lady (Labarge 124).
The actual diet of our subjects was not as limited as we
have sometimes been led to believe. It was continually
improving and becoming more varied in the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries as a greater number of
vegetables and spices came into use. Lords and ladies
generally had meat (or fish on non-meat days of
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) at both meals of the day,
and eggs and poultry as ingredients in other dishes. Meats
served included beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, and
venison, as well as poultry, geese and capons (77),
20 Southern Academic Review
starling, pigeon, gull, peacock, and heron. These meats
were sometimes served to the lord and lady in elaborate
and complicated dishes, such as larks-tongue pie, which
was quite a delicacy (Burke 39). However, since meat was
usually from wild animals, giving it a tough, stringy
consistency, it was most often boiled into a stew to soften
it.
Medieval meals consisted of more than just meat.
Thick and coarse bread was a staple of the daily diet, as
was cheese. Other fare which could be provided by the
castle's own garden included common fruits like apples and
pears as well as vegetables such as potatoes, tomatoes,
onions, peas, beans, leeks, and cabbages. All dishes of the
lords table could be seasoned with herbs like sage, parsley,
fennel, and hyssop as well as spices like pepper, ginger,
cloves, cinnamon, and sugar, which was considered a spice
because it was so dear (Labarge 96).
Salt was a commodity necessary in the middle ages for
more than flavoring. Because it was rarely known when or
for how long a castle's lord would be in residence, castles
had to stock food supplies as much as a year in advance.
Foodstuffs could not have been stored in such great
quantities for such long periods of time were it not for salt
which could be used as a preservative in the drying of
meats and fishes and in brine for pickling.
Although wine had to be imported, it was not
uncommon to fmd it accompanying the meal. According
to Burke, "wine from the barrel was poured into jugs and
served at the top table, while the lower orders contented
themselves with ale" (43). Beer and cider were also
common everyday drinks, while water was seldom drunk
due to possible pollution (102).
Because the days were so short in winter, a large
amount of people's time was spent in bed, asleep. Sleeping
Dingier 2 1
arrangements changed as castles developed throughout the
middle ages. Initially, the lord and lady as well as
attendants and certain household servants, slept in the great
hall together, with the lord and lady secluded behind a
curtain on the raised dais at the end of the hall. Later,
there were stairs leading to a private room, sometimes
called a solar, for the lord and lady above the hall, and
cooks, grooms, stable-lads, and other help slept in the
buildings where they worked. By the time of concentric
castles, a whole suite of rooms would be set aside for a
lord, and perhaps a separate one for his lady. There might
be other suites for visiting nobles and their staffs in the
castle's gatehouses and wall-towers, so that their upper
stories functioned as what Davison labels, "high-rise
apartment blocks" (78).
Few castles had large permanant garrisons because of
the expense of maintaining them on a regular basis. Even
in times of war, the defense of a castle did not usually
require a large number of men (although the number of
defenders needed varied with the size of the castle and
differing circumstances). For these reasons, there was
often no separate provision for the housing of a garrison in
the design of a castle. When present, garrison soldiers
slept in towers or basements, the hall, or "lean-to"
structures in the bailey (Gies 69).
Many castles were equipped with separate "garderobes"
or privies for use in answering the call of nature. These
latrines may have emptied into a pit which some
unfortunate servant would have to clean regularly. More
often, though, they drained into the castle's moat or other
water defenses, so were limited to rooms of the castle
where an outside vent was possible. Sources differ on
whether there were alternatives to the privy. For example,
in regard to chamber pots, Davison says they "do not seem
22 Southern Academic Review
to have been used" in the middle ages (91). However,
Labarge states that chamber pots were used in lieu of
latrines, according to purchasing accounts (25).
On the subject of other sanitation and cleanliness it
should be noted that the only soap cheap enough and
readily available to castle occupants was an unplesant
concoction made on the premises out of meat fat, wood ash
and soda (Burke 46). Considering the nature of soap and
the cold and inconvenience involved in baths, it is little
wonder how rarely full tub baths were taken. However,
certain medieval books on etiquette advised individuals to
wash at least their face, hands, and teeth in a basin of
water every day.
When the knights and lords of castles were not at
war, they and their ladies enjoyed quite a large and diverse
selection of activities and entertainments. For both lords
and ladies, the favorite outdoor pastime was the hunt,
which fulfilled the important function of providing food as
well as passing the time. In the Dialogue of the Exchequer
around 1179, Richard Fitz Neal proclaimed that in the
forest, lords "laying aside their cares... withdraw to refresh
themselves with a little hunting; there, away from the
turmoils inherent in a court, they breath the pleasure of
natural freedom" (qtd. in Poole 2:617).
However, there was not much freedom involved in
medieval hunting, which was governed by numerous
regulations of etiquette elaborated in books like Le Art de
Venerie and The Master of Game (618). Hunting was also
governed by strict laws. Lords wishing to hunt had to
apply to the king for grants of "vert and venison" (Labarge
167) which allowed them the administration of private
forests. There, the huge game preserves with their quarries
of deer, wild boars, rabbits and hares, etc. would be tended
and guarded from poachers by foresters, warreners, and
Dingier 23
even officers of forest courts. Most hunting was done
with hounds trained to scent specific prey. Indeed we are
told that Edward IV had a pack of hounds strictly for
hunting otters! Another form of hunting, falconry or
hawking, was an even more scientific and highly technical
art than hunting with hounds. Remember that there were
no guns at this time, and contrary to ground animals which
could easily be cornered or worn out, flying birds were
elusive, and almost impossible to get at with arrows. For
this reason the falcon or hawk was revered. Yet these
hunting birds were difficult to train and very delicate and
expensive to maintain. Thus, much was written on the art
of hawking, with the skilled falconer of the middle ages
being lauded as "the aristocrat of huntsmen" (Burke 46).
Other outdoor entertainment for the nobility included
the tournament, which came from France in the twelfth
century. At that time, specifically in 1194, the tournament
was imported and legalized by Richard I in order to
improve the prowess of British knights. Early tournaments
were a confused melee of knights randomly charging one
another, and were consequently often dangerous-
resembling a battle more than a game. But tournaments
evolved into more civilized events of individual competition
in jousting, tilting, and even wrestling, where ladies would
overlook the competition. These "round table" events were
great social occasions lasting several days accompanied by
spectating, feasting, drinking, and dancing.
Indoors, there were a number of board games like
tables—similar to backgammon, and merels— an elaborate
form of tic-tac-toe, and chess— a war game between two
armies on the board. Two forms of chess were known in
the middle ages. One version, like the modem game, was
dependant on skill, while the other was played by rolling
dice (Labarge 175). Other games using dice were
24 Southern Academic Review
common, and were often gambled upon to great extremes,
"whole estates being stacked on a single throw" (Salzman
104). For the entertainment of children there were games
like "hoodman blind," also known as "blind man's bluff,"
or "hot cockles," and pets like squirrels, monkeys, and, of
course, dogs.
In fact, pets of various sorts were kept by all nobility.
There were lap dogs as well as hunting dogs, and also
birds like larks, nightingales, and popinjays, in addition to
the hunting birds which were always kept on a special
perch in the lord's or lady's private chamber. Performing
bears, dogs, and monkeys were not uncommon, while
kings kept everything from lions and leopards, to camels,
porcupines, and elephants.
During and after meals, entertainment might be
provided by "joculators," which were mimes or jesters
performing acrobatics or juggling. Also, traveling actors
might perform plays in return for hospitality (food and
shelter). And always there were minstrels to play
instruments and sing, and storytellers whose repertoire
ranged from bawdy tales to epics and romances about
Arthurian legend or such notable characters as Robin
Hood. In any case, music was ubiquitous and additionally
accompanied by staged dancing or dancing by the company
itself.
Religion was very important to medieval people
because they believed their souls would be judged after
death according to their conduct during this life. Because
of this emphasis on the spiritual, every castle had at least
one private chapel for the morning mass and the several
others of the day. Some castles had separate chapels for
the lord and lady of the house, another for visiting nobles,
and yet another for servants and retainers. These castles
had a resident chaplain, and may have had more than one,
Dingier 25
although in this case, the extra chaplains may have
performed more administrative and secretarial duties than
spiritual ones.
This medieval emphasis on spirituality extended beyond
the castle chapel. Rarely could a castle be found without
an accompanying parish church to see to the spiritual needs
of the villagers. Also, the foundation of most monasteries
was due to the munificence of some castle's lord, who gave
the land on which it could be built. Monasteries served the
lord in return by furnishing a burial site for him and his
family, providing intercession for their souls, and supplying
chaplains and priests to the castle.
Yet another function of the castle besides home and
fortress was as place of business. Castles were the
administrative sites for the lord's estates, as well as for the
local town or village. With the possibility of several
holdings, a lord had a very large and scattered estate to be
managed. The castle's steward fulfilled the job of
administering and managing the estate, supplying the table
and keeping the household rolls, or accounts. There were
also auditors to travel and oversee far-flung baronial lands,
and a bailiff to collect rents, enforce owed labor, and
maintain order. Finally clerks, and perhaps even
chaplains, assisted castle correspondence and the keeping
of castle accounts.
The role of the lady of the castle needs mention here,
for she often took responsibility for administration of the
castle and its lands, including making financial and legal
decisions, in the absence of her lord. Women of the
middle ages could even inherit castles or land, and some
ladies took an active part in defending their castles in
sieges, and even led armies into battle. For example,
William the Conqueror's grandaughter Matilda led an army
in person against her cousin Stephen of Blois in England's
26 Southern Academic Review
twelfth century civil war, and Dame Nicholade la Haye
heroically defended Lincoln castle against prince Louis of
France and the rebel English barons shortly after the time
of King John's death.
Aside from trained and often highly educated retainers,
castle staff included a large number of common indoor and
outdoor servants with various functions. Inside, there was
a cook, a pantler in charge of the pantry, a butler in charge
of the buttery, a baker, a butcher, wardrobers with
seamstresses and laundresses, barbers, nurses, and chamber
lads and maids. Outside, there was the watchman and/or
gaoler, the marshal or groom, who cared for the horses,
the smith or farrier, messengers, and carters for the
transportation of goods.
The steward, in addition to running the castle, presided
over manorial court, where decisions and verdicts were
made for the townspeople by a jury. Baronial courts were
the scenes of elections and marriages, as well as exchanges
of land and registration of titles gained by succession or
sales. Boundary disputes were settled here, and village
agriculture was regulated. And equally important,
manorial courts dealt with criminal justice in regard to
petty crimes, assault, infringement on common roads, etc.
In royal castles, which were held by the crown rather
than a baron, a constable or tenant-in-chief was appointed
by the king to fulfill many of the same functions as the
steward of the baronial castle. He was to collect the king's
revenues (taxes), manage the estate including its lands,
mills, staff, and servants, and was even responsible for
entertaining guests of the crown. Royal castles also or
alternately had a sheriff to carry out those functions. In
addition, the sheriff was responsible for doling out the
king's justice at the courts of the shire, guarding any royal
prisoners, leading the local militia, and enforcing royal
Dingier 27
laws.
Officials residing within castles were, in general,
responsible for administering to towns and villages, so that
castles were the administrative centers of the land. For
example, Caemafon was built in Wales specifically to serve
as its center of government. This regulatory function of
castles is only one example of the close tie between a castle
and its surrounding countryside, village, or city. A castle
also needed the work force provided by the surrounding
inhabitants, who, in turn, needed the castle for protection
from outside attack.
Considering the castle's important connection to towns
and churches and its unique role as home, fortress, and
administrative center, it is understandable that castles
flourished during the middle ages. What may be surprising
to learn of is the gradual decline in building and
maintenance of true castles in the latter fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. However, innovations of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries made for huge, complex structures
that were massive undertakings when built from scratch.
For this reason, fewer and fewer completely new castles
were begun in successive centuries. Even undertaking
additions and renovations to already existing castles was
expensive. So, as Norman Pounds states, "the history of
most castles in England is one of gradual decay punctuated
by short periods of frantic repair and rebuilding" (Salzman
126).
Yet, there was more behind the tapering off of castle
building than the high cost in terms of time and money.
Changes in society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
were making the castle obsolete. One great change that
took place was the decline of feudalism in conjunction with
the rise of a wealthy merchant class. Remember that the
lord of the castle was the overlord of the land. So with the
28 Southern Academic Review
rise of trade, when fewer and fewer people were tied to the
land, fewer were under the shadow of castles' control.
Thus, the castle lost administrative power. Another change
in society was the strengthening of medieval kings. This
growth in royal authority meant that there was less need for
powerful strongholds to preserve internal order in the
countryside and to protect it from threats from abroad.
Finally, the nature of warfare changed. Lords discovered
that many mercenary footsoldiers could be maintained for
the price of one mounted knight. Since the use of
mercenaries supplied the larger numbers necessary for
pitched battles, sieges were used less and less, making the
castle militarily obsolete.
As castles gradually ceased to be militarily important,
lords began to devote more thought and money to
improving their residential side. At the end of the
thirteenth century, the extensive rebuilding of castles often
focused as much on interior comforts of hall, kitchen, or
sleeping apartments as on exterior defenses. Then around
the middle of the fourteenth century, domestic amenities
began to be allowed actually to limit the castles military
capabilities. Castles such as Nunney and Queenborough in
Southern England were still substantial strongholds, but
were typical of the transition in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries from true castles to the more comfortable
"fortified manor", which was "strong enough to resist a
casual raid but not built to withstand a siege" (Salzman 92).
Castles of the fourteenth and fifteenth century were
sacrificing defense to appearance as well as to comfort. To
the "nouveaux riches" who had made their money in trade
or in the wars, the castle was a status symbol of the
lordship and nobility they aspired to. These new families
built structures like that at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, and
Herstmonceaux in East Sussex that have been called "cult
Dingier 29
castles" (Thompson, Rise 164), "sham castles," and "toy
fortresses" (Muir 125). Builders duplicated the look of real
castles using decorative crenelated battlements and
machicolations, narrow moats, and tall towers. However
these devices were only to enhance appearance, so that
"their military pretensions were generally slight, but they
presented... a very bold front" (Pounds 260).
Not all castles of the fifteenth century sold out to
comfort and appearance. Personal strongholds had to be
maintained along the Scottish border region since Edward
I had failed to conquer Scotland as he had conquered
Wales. The pele towers of the northern border were scaled
down versions of twelfth century keeps. Also, some
castles continued to be inhabited and maintained in good
condition, such as John of Gaunt' s Kenil worth Castle, and
royal Windsor and Winchester.
Still, the gradual evolution of the castle in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced a complete split
of home and fortress by the early sixteenth century. At
this time Tudor costal forts, which were for defense and
not habitation, were being constructed along the southern
coastline to guard against invasion and raids from the
French. At the same time elsewhere in the country, the
elaborate and luxurious Tudor country houses of the period
were springing up. No longer was the lord's home
combined in a single structure with his fortress. Great
castles of the twelfth, thirteenth, and even fourteenth
century like Dover and the White Tower of London
continued to be used, even into the twentieth century.
However, the day of castles had passed, and there has not
existed before or since another such unique combination of
home, fortress, and administrative center contained within
the same structure.
30 Southern Academic Review
Works Cited
Bagley, J.J. Life in Medieval England. London:
B.T. Batsford, 1960.
Brown, R. Allen. English Castles. London: B.T.
Batsford, 1976.
Burke, John. Life in the Castle in Medieval England.
Essex: Anchor P, 1978.
Davison, Brian K. The Observer's Book of Castles.
London: Fredric Wame, 1979.
Gies, Joseph and Frances. Life in a Medieval Castle. New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974.
Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Baronial Household of the
Thirteenth Century. New York: Barnes and Noble,
1980.
Muir, Richard. 77?^ National Trust Guide to Dark Age and
Medieval Britain 400-1350. London: George Philip
in association with the National Trust, 1985.
Myers, A.R. England in the Late Middle Ages. Middlesex:
Penguin, 1952.
Poole, Austin Lane, ed. Medieval England. 2 vols.
London: Oxford UP, 1958.
Pounds, Norman J.G. The Medieval Castle in England and
Wales. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
Dingier 31
Renn, Derek. Norman Castles in Britain. London: John
Baker, 1973.
Rowley, Trevor. The Norman Heritage 1055-1200.
London: Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1983.
Salzman, L.F. English Life in the Middle Ages. London:
Oxford UP, 1927.
Simpson, W. Douglas. Castles in England and Wales.
New York: Hasting House, 1969.
Smith, Leslie M. The Making of Britain. London:
Macmillan, 1985.
Thompson, M.W. The Decline of the Castle. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1987.
— . The Rise of the Castle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1991.
Straightening a Turn:
A Response to V. S. Naipaul's
A Turn In the South
Wesley Edwards
Included on the reading list for one of my first classes
at Emory University was a book called The Enigma of
Arrival by the Trinidadian author V.S. Naipaul. I was
impressed by Naipaul's elegant prose and his meaningful
use of detailed observations. He writes at length in The
Enigma of Arrival of his move from his native Trinidad to
faraway England. His careful treatment of the topic of
moving and maturing was particularly profound because, as
a new college student at the time, I found his themes quite
relevant. I wrote one of my first college papers on Naipaul
and personal growth.
I have not forgotten that challenging course or that
incisive author, V.S. Naipaul. He helped me understand
my Interim in Service-Learning to Zimbabwe two years
ago through his book about the Ivory Coast (and the Third
World in general), Finding the Center. I was quite
anxious, therefore, to read one of Naipaul's latest works,
A Turn in the South. V.S. Naipaul had visited the
American South and had trained his formidable powers of
observation on a culture unique to the United States. In
Edwards 33
particular, I was interested in reading what Naipaul~a
writer who has traveled extensively in Africa and Asia and
who has written provocatively about many of their cultures-
-wrote about race relations in the modern South.
As it turns out, Naipaul offers several theses dealing
with the post-Civil Rights Movement South. However, as
with any Naipaul work, these theses are not explicitly
stated. Naipaul' s effectiveness as a writer is found in his
ability to piece together loosely a series of vignettes,
conversations, and observations that suggest common
meanings. These meanings are open to wide interpretation
and are well worth discussion. I will present what I
believe to be the three central themes of V.S. Naipaul' s A
Turn in the South, especially as contained in its chapter on
Atlanta. After I set forth these themes, I will discuss their
validity.
A Turn in the South is V.S. Naipaul's account of his
brief visit to the region. He begins his journey near
Greensboro, North Carolina, then moves on to Atlanta,
Charleston, Tallahassee, Tuskegee, Jackson, Nashville, and
Chapel Hill. Along the way, Naipaul characteristically
presents scores of conversations with politicians, writers,
lawyers, businessmen, and others. Much of the book is
their response to this visitor, their pride in showing him
their home, their ease of conversation about people and
places they love. (One eager businessman even escorts
Naipaul to Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo,
Mississippi.) Naipaul extracts from this wealth of
encounters—each carefully and lovingly presented— an
important essay on modern Southern culture.
Naipaul is at once interested in race. When he visits
a black church in Greensboro, he describes a sanctuary
painting of Christ's baptism in which "[t]he whiteness of
Christ and the Baptist was a surprise" (14). When he
34 Southern Academic Review
arrives in Atlanta, believing it to be the capital of the New
South and a place run largely by a black elite, Naipaul is
nonplussed when his first interview leads him to conclude:
I had felt that the grand new buildings of Atlanta one
had seen in so many photographs had as little to do
with blacks as the buildings of Nairobi, say, had to
do with the financial or building skills of the Africans
of Kenya. I had felt that the talk of black power and
black aristocracy was a little too pat and sudden.
(26)
After surveying Atlanta's substantial suburbanization,
Naipaul concludes that "[t]he white suburbs could get by
quite well without the black-run city center" (28).
Naipaul 's conclusion in the Atlanta chapter is that race is
badly misperceived. He notes a separation of black and
white, "a formal society, private lives, a formal view" (27)
in which the only substantial connection between races is
commerce. Inaccurate stories of a black Atlanta elite lead
to a popular misconception of the state of race relations in
the city. In fact, black- white separation in areas beyond
commerce hampers city leadership and slows progress in
what Naipaul believes to be a more pressing issue-
economic enhancement of the impoverished. Naipaul
offers an example: the 1985 Walk for Brotherhood into
all-white Forsyth County, Georgia, in which demonstrators
marched for open housing and stood against the Ku Klux
Klan.
The march is Naipaul' s cause celebre. It represents the
turns Naipaul sees the South as having taken in its recent
history. The forces that oppress black people have turned.
The focus of Atlanta leadership has turned. The
accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement
notwithstanding, blacks largely still have not fully turned
from a segregated society to a more egalitarian one. They
Edwards 35
still struggle—not against discrimination so much as against
economics. Meanwhile, community leaders try to build
commerce. [Of Atlanta's formidable convention business,
Naipaul writes, "It was hard to think that these hotels could
all be full at the same time" (38).] Naipaul seems to want
Atlanta's black community to turn fully— their leaders from
their drive for commerce to a greater understanding of real-
life issues; the black community itself from a
misunderstanding of the nature of the powers that oppress
them.
Naipaul's assertion is not quite that simple, though.
He notes that there is a divergent black leadership at work
in Atlanta: one old-style protest leadership that Hosea
Williams, a lieutenant of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
exemplifies; one modern leadership more interested in
bringing new wealth to the city (i.e., Michael Lomax,
Chairman of the Fulton County Commission; and Marvin
Arrington, President of the Atlanta City Council). The
Forsyth County incident shows the futility of the old
leadership and the difficulty of the new.
Williams interceded when he found that a small group
of protesters was planning to march in all-white Forsyth
County, northeast of Atlanta. Williams led this first group
of about fifty in a protest against segregation in housing.
Upon reaching the county seat of Cumming, Williams and
the marchers were attacked by the Ku Klux Klan. A week
later, Forsyth County drew international attention as twenty
thousand people marched against Forsyth's all-white status
and the attack on the first marchers (36). Naipaul's point
is made clear in his visit with the Forsyth County sheriff:
And though [the sheriff] didn't say so, there came
out from his talk the idea of two sets of people
looking for attention [at the march] . The civil-rights
groups, their major battles and indeed their war won
36 Southern Academic Review
long ago, now squabbling, and looking for causes;
and the white supremacists looking in almost the
same way for publicity and patronage. The great
Forsyth march, as the sheriff described it, was like a
ritual conflict, played out before the cameras, and
according to certain rules. Out of this formalizing,
the issue had died. (53)
To Naipaul, the march was a failure: "The county
remained all white" (54). He quotes Andrew Young, then
mayor of Atlanta, as saying after the Forsyth march, "What
we are dealing with in Georgia now is a problem of the
underclass—black and white.... You can march until your
feet drop, but you ain't going to change [economic
problems] that way" (qtd. 54).
Naipaul 's assertion is clear: Race relations in Atlanta
are misconstrued. Racial harmony is limited to a common
desire to make the city a profitable business community.
In the absence of the fabled black elite, progress on
economic development issues is slow. Further, within the
black community, leadership is especially difficult as some
leaders, such as Hosea Williams, cling to Movement-style
efforts such as the futile Forsyth march while others, such
as Michael Lomax and Andrew Young, struggle to make
the city and its businesses economically powerful. Thus,
there is a lack of unified black-black as well as black-white
leadership on issues of concern to the entire community-
issues of poverty, the underclass, crime, and others.
This thesis leads Naipaul into a second one— that of the
larger culture that surrounds these patterns of leadership.
Naipaul suggests that within Southern culture the debility
of community leadership as exemplified in Atlanta
heightens the importance of status groups and religion.
Throughout the book, Naipaul asserts that religion is a
source of personal and community identity. Naipaul
Edwards 37
comments after a conversation about ministerial work with
a religion scholar:
In the United States, and especially in the South,
religious faith was almost universal, and a religious
vocation was as likely as any other. It was
something a man could turn to for a number of
reasons; and what I heard from this scholar was that
some of the people he was in touch with (and he
meant white people) had turned to the religious life
in order to be confirmed in their identity: people
from poor families who felt racially threatened by the
new developments in the South, people who, in the
booming new South, had gone into business and had
then felt themselves drifting so far from the Southern
world they had known that they had given up, to
return to God and the life they felt more at ease in.
(34)
Later, a theology student reinforces the point in telling
Naipaul of her upbringing:
The way my identity was formed was by my family
and by who we were in Jackson and in Mississippi.
In the Presbyterian church we had our own pew.
And that was your identity. My aunt was shocked
one day when she went to church and found a
stranger in her pew. (47)
Naipaul' s conclusion is that "[rjeligion was like something
in the air, a store of emotion on which people could draw
according to their need" (69). To some, it is piety and
correctness, to others, emotional ventilation, but to all, a
primary molder of the culture and a solid institution that
leads when other institutions cannot.
However, Naipaul does not leave religion as the only
element to fill the vacuum of community leadership in the
South. In a near-comical tone in the latter half of the
38 Southern Academic Review
book, Naipaul becomes fascinated with "red culture," that
is, the culture of the Southern redneck. When Naipaul
talks with a liberal white matron named Ellen in Jackson,
Mississippi, he is suggesting a contextual class structure—an
awareness of class that surrounds Southern culture. Ellen
recalls an aunt telling her, "'Ellen dear, there are some
things we just don't do. ' There were some people we just
didn't go around" (qtd. 159; italics in text). The people
Ellen's aunt is referring to include Naipaul' s rednecks.
Naipaul views red culture as a sort of religion, an identity,
and thus an organization providing community leadership
of some form. For instance, in describing a poster of Elvis
Presley, the hero of redneck heroes, Naipaul notes that it
is "religious art of a kind with Christian borrowings: the
beatification of the central figure, with all his sexuality.
Graceland like a version of the New Jerusalem in a
medieval Doomsday painting" (227). Naipaul makes the
relationship even clearer in equating the Presley cult with
the "black political adulation" in the post-British West
Indies (227).
Naipaul further describes the red culture—its tendency
toward violence, its particular folk music, and so on.
Naipaul is more general in expressing the culture's
uncertain relationship with the intelligentsia. He notes in
his conversations (especially with Atlanta novelist Anne
Rivers Siddons) a discouraged role of intellect, not just by
rednecks, but by the larger Southern culture as well.
Siddons says of her grammar school, "I spent twelve years
trying to hide the fact that I was a bright child. Intellect
has had no place here" (qtd. 38). In Naipaul's mind, this
discouraged role of intellect is part of what makes
leadership difficult in the post-Civil-Rights South. Some of
those who can lead do not (not to say that intellect and
leadership are always joined). This Southern culture— with
Edwards 39
its diverse population of blacks, rednecks, religious zealots,
and other groups—is almost impossible to lead, especially
on matters of race.
Naipaul weaves this thesis of religion and culture
together with his thesis on race and community leadership
to form a third and fmal point. In simple terms, Naipaul
argues that history is a burden that cultural and political
leaders strain to lift. History— a history marked by civil
war and reconstruction and, a century later, perhaps a
second civil war and reconstruction—has turned the South.
However, to many poor Southerners, black and white,
making the turn seems to have brought the South to a more
difficult and ambiguous era. The burden of this cultural
sentiment hobbles effective leadership. Naipaul sees in the
South a glorification and romanticization of history and an
unwillingness to turn fully away from segregated days past-
-a turn the Civil Rights Movement would seem to demand.
Naipaul returns to Anne Rivers Siddons to define on a
personal level the magnitude of this stifling burden of racial
history in the South:
I deal with race in some form in every book I've
written. It's my great war, I guess. I write to find
out where I am now, what I think, to make order and
simplicity in my own world. It's an impossible task.
You can't simplify that. You can only clarify bits of
it. (qtd. 41)
Earlier, during a conversation about racial identity with a
white Atlanta lawyer, Naipaul comments:
It was there, then, as [Atlanta Constitution columnist]
Tom Teepen had told me, at the back of everything,
however unspoken: the thought of race, the little
neurosis, the legacy of slavery. (29-30)
Even though the Civil Rights era has passed, even though
the final shots of the Civil War were fired over a hundred
40 Southern Academic Review
years ago, they still capture a culture and draw attention
that might otherwise be focused on the future, on progress
away from what Naipaul calls the South 's "unmentionable
past" (18).
Naipaul 's work is both fascinating and challenging. A
Turn in the South offers some weighty arguments about the
nature of race relations in the post-Civil-Rights-Movement
South. Naipaul 's commentary presents a South struggling
for change. This change— this turn—must be understood.
How valid are Naipaul 's arguments about the turn in the
South?
First of all, any book about the South is limited by
logic. It is virtually impossible for a writer even of
Naipaul' s ability to test a sample of people or places that
is representative of the region. The South, however it is
defined, does not lend itself to easy categorization. It is
not a homogeneous place. Atlanta is obviously different
from Jackson, Charleston from Chapel Hill. However,
Naipaul— a brilliant observer— resists overgeneralization.
He presents a deep and diverse set of observations. His
trained eye and graceful pen catch astounding details of
personality, place, and time. Naipaul does not pretend that
these details are uniform across the South. For instance,
when interviewing Anne Rivers Siddons at a downtown
Atlanta hotel, Naipaul notes that fashion designer Gloria
Vanderbilt is across the street in a department store on a
promotional tour. Naipaul places this detail about Atlanta
into his larger characterization of the city and its
simultaneous affluence and poverty without generalizing
across the entire region. (His details about Tuskegee are
much different, but equally vibrant and telling.) Valid
conclusions about Southern culture come from the pattern
of details and insights Naipaul offers.
Now a brief treatment of the three specific theses
Edwards 41
outlined above. Naipaul's assertion that commerce is the
only substantial link between whites and blacks in Atlanta—
a narrow link that hampers leadership in other areas of the
community (namely, coping with the underclass)~is
certainly notable. One may ask, though, in a city that bills
itself as a city too busy to hate, a city in which commerce
is supreme, what greater measure of new racial harmony
there is than a black-white partnership at high levels of
commerce? Naipaul should develop his more reasonable
argument that, regardless of race, Atlanta's leadership is
preoccupied with making Atlanta the business hub of the
nation at the expense of serving all the city's citizens. It is
difficult to believe that a city preparing to host the Olympic
Games is unable to muster enough community leadership
to deal with matters of race in spheres other than
commerce.
In rightly pointing out the need for stronger urban
leadership to deal with the underclass, though, Naipaul is
pointing out a need not exclusive to the South, for no city
in the United States has been able to check the problem of
the underclass. In the case of Atlanta, however, former
President Jimmy Carter recently launched the Atlanta
Project— a program designed to bring together community
leaders and volunteers in an effort to develop new
partnerships to deal with Atlanta's staggering social
problems (i.e., homelessness, crime, drugs, inferior
education, etc.). Naipaul probably would applaud the
effort.
Race in Atlanta is not as misperceived as Naipaul
thinks it is; rather, the urban world is misperceived. The
problems in leadership that Naipaul says are typified in the
Forsyth County march owe more to a complex process of
suburbanization and center-city decline than to a
misunderstanding of the depth of racial cooperation in
42 Southern Academic Review
Atlanta. Of course, race does contribute to
suburbanization. Naipaul does not suggest this point. He
argues that black power in Atlanta is overestimated. What
he fails to consider is that Atlanta itself is overestimated.
Blacks have solid control of the city, an unbreakable elite
included. Meanwhile, white suburbia, which dwarfs
Atlanta in physical size and population, is beyond their
reach. Therein lies the misconception.
Naipaul 's point about a divided leadership within the
black community is well taken. Further, his point about
the failure of some in the South to turn fully from the
struggles of the decades-old Civil Rights protests to an
understanding of the new economic struggle of the
underclass is indeed the base of the divided leadership,
though Naipaul does not emphasize the point as strongly as
he might.
Finally, Naipaul almost completely discounts the
relevance of the March for Brotherhood. I disagree with
his interpretation. Even though the march was
unsuccessful in opening Forsyth County to blacks, it was
a symbolic success. To a new era of Americans who know
little of the Civil Rights Movement and even less of the
pre-Civil Rights South, the Forsyth march was a new
testament to the futility and backwardness of the group of
white supremacists that attacked the first band of marchers.
The twenty thousand who marched a week later showed
them they were anachronisms, ludicrous holdovers from an
era now dead. If Naipaul had stopped in Montgomery at
Morris Dees' s Southern Poverty Law Center to learn of
that organization's effort to stamp out hate crimes and
punish those who commit them or if he had been in
Louisiana to witness David Duke's dastardly campaigns for
statewide office, he would not have so quickly discounted
both the presence of old-fashioned racism and the necessary
Edwards 43
symbolism of the Forsyth County march, a reaction against
everything white supremacists represent. Both symbolic
measures like Forsyth County and concrete work such as
that done at the Southern Poverty Law Center are timely
and necessary.
Naipaul's second thesis is more accurate than his first.
Religion and mass culture do indeed hold influential
positions in the South. They influence the culture as agents
of socialization. Religion is powerful. Likewise, red
culture is powerful. And one has to look only as far as the
isolating gates of Birmingham-Southern College to fmd
evidence (at least symbolic evidence) of the distance
between the intelligentsia and the larger community. (Anne
Rivers Siddons seems to be as graceful an observer of the
South as the Trinidadian Naipaul.) On the whole,
Naipaul's assertions are well-founded. In the absence of
strong leadership (for whatever reason it is absent), other
cultural organizations and institutions hold a more
meaningful influence on the larger culture. At this point,
Naipaul shifts from discussing modem race to discussing
larger patterns of sociology. He conveys a fascination with
religion and with red culture; however, it is ultimately
unclear what Naipaul's underlying point is, other than the
fact that subcultures such as the redneck's and religion are
important. Unquestionably, they are.
As for the burden of Southern history, Naipaul's thesis
is well-grounded. His work is similar to the arguments in
C. Vann Woodward's collection of essays titled, oddly
enough, 77?^ Burden of Southern History. Perhaps Naipaul
toured the South as a means of proving what historians
such as Woodward have been writing for years: that the
South has a unique and captivating history. Naipaul
modernizes, personalizes, and ultimately ratifies the
Woodward thesis. Southern history remains a singularly
44 Southern Academic Review
important history. The context it sets for the modem South
is crucial. I question, though, the extent to which Naipaul
takes the point. Is the South transfixed by its history to the
point of narcissism? Does it hinder a movement into the
future, especially in terms of race? I think not.
It is not a simple love of days past that inhibits the
Southern leader. Leadership has become more difficult—
not just in the South, but across the nation—as our culture
faces more difficult and seemingly uncheckable problems,
especially in the area of race. The theme of Common
Ground, J. Anthony Lukas's brilliant, Pulitzer-winning
study of Boston's busing crisis, supports Naipaul's notions
of leadership. Culture and community do influence
leadership in striking ways, not just in terms of the tangible
results of leadership, like school busing in Boston, but in
terms of the style and measure of leadership. Judge Arthur
Garrity, a central leader in Common Ground, is insulated
by judicial robes, yet he still feels the powerful forces of
his community directing him. This point is obvious to both
Naipaul and Lukas.
However, there is more to be said. Common Ground
also exhibits the unthinkable complexity of modern societal
problems in ways A Turn in the South does not. There are
obviously community pressures at work on leaders. More
importantly, though, there are also pressures borne by a set
of problems that offer virtually no easily obtainable
solutions. In the South, these run the gamut from
agricultural subsidies to urban decomposition. Naipaul
places the blame for the failure to progress on a fascination
with a rosy, nostalgic revision of history and a popular
unwillingness to turn away from Civil Rights-era problems
and problem-solving. Perhaps, though, blame is
impossible, even unnecessary, to place. The problems that
Naipaul suggests are important—such as economic
Edwards 45
development—are simply too large to break down so easily.
As Lukas and the story of Common Ground would suggest,
some problems are too complex to offer easy answers.
In closing, perhaps in V.S. Naipaul's next book, he
will discuss Selma. There he will fmd black councilman
Ed Moss and white mayor Joe Smitherman in a productive
if often contentious coexistence. Progress like this is what
we should consider— whites and blacks in valuable
interaction; constructive conflict; meaningful, yet painful
engagement. That Selma is filled with antebellum homes
and proud statues of Confederate heroes and that it
periodically hosts a Civil War battle reenactment seem to
rebut Naipaul's point. As does Atlanta. A few miles from
the site of the Civil War Battle of Kennesaw in Georgia is
Atlanta, where in four years people from all over the world
will congregate in peaceful athletic competition in the
Olympic Games— the product of the leadership of a
sincerely devoted biracial community.
V.S. Naipaul's observations in A Turn in the South are
proof of an undeniable, ongoing struggle for community's
coexistence with equality— the same coexistence hoped for
in Common Ground. Even though I disagree with parts of
Naipaul's argument in A Turn in the South, I still admire
his writing and his ability to ask difficult questions gently—
the same ability I saw in The Enigma of Arrival several
years ago. If nothing else, A Turn in the South
constructively argues that race still affects most aspects of
the post-Civil Rights Movement South.
It also describes a monumental turn: a turn from the
narrow South of Robert E. Lee and George Wallace; even
a turn from the South of Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Hosea Williams. Wherever the turn leads, one unalterable
fact will remain for the South: race matters. Race is an
undying element in the region's future. It is important on
46 Southern Academic Review
personal as well as community levels. Thus, I return to
Anne Rivers Siddons's comment with a new emphasis: "It's
an impossible task. You can't simplify [race]. You can
only clarify bits of it" (qtd. in Naipaul 41). If Siddons and
Naipaul are correct, the issue of race must be continually
confronted and clarified. That is an honorable struggle
indeed. It is the struggle to turn the South.
Edwards 47
Works Cited
Lukas, J. Anthony. Common Ground: A Turbulent
Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. New
York: Vintage, 1986.
Naipaul, V.S. A Turn in the South. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1989.
The Sacred Hoop: Four in One
Stephen Nickson
The sacred hoop. East: daybreak-spring-red-peace pipe-
buffalo-birth. South: noon- summer-yellow-flowering stick-
elk-maturity. West: sunset-fall-black-cup and bow-
thunderbird-old age. North: darkness-winter-white-healing
herb-goose-death. The sacred hoop.
These words were the Uteral curves of the sacred hoop,
which was the holy circle of the Native American culture.
These were the symbols, both literal and metaphorical, that
dominated the culture of the American Indians. In many
respects, the sacred hoop was the culture of the American
Indians. It was the molding force of every aspect of their
society, from the way they practiced their religion and
educated their children to the way they built their lodgings
and remembered their ancestors. It was the Ojibwa way;
it was the Sioux way; it was the Native American way.
But the hoop was broken and the ways were almost lost
with the coming of the white people. We took away their
land, killed their animals, and tried to make them forget
their own culture. So the hoop was broken, but not
forgotten. It only lay dormant, waiting to be restored by
its people; ironically, this has been done with the
traditional weapon of the white imperialist society: the
written word.
Nickson 49
It has been through the written word that the hoop has
also been allowed to mend. The first major work came in
1932 with Black Elk Speaks. This spring in a vast literary
desert, which formed a weak stream, was fed by later
works such as Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions and Night
Flying Woman. Through these works, we can trace the
cycle of the sacred hoop and begin to understand the
importance of this concept to Indian society and its
survival.
The sacred hoop: East: daybreak-spring-red-peace pipe-
buffalo-birth.
The first cycle is that of birth and development. Soon
after birth, a child had to be named. Names are very
important to the Indian people:
Words, too, are symbols and convey great power,
especially names. Not Charles, Dick, and George.
There's not much power in those. But Red Cloud,
Black Elk, Whirlwind, Two Moons, Lame Deer—
these names have a relationship to the great spirit.
Each Indian name has a story behind it, a vision, a
quest for dreams. We receive great gifts from the
source of a name; it links us with nature, to the
animal nations. It gives power. You can lean on a
name, get strength from it. It is a special name for
you and you alone— not a Dick, George, Charles kind
of thing. (Lame Deer 105)
Each narrator tells the story of their names; Black Elk
received his from his father, a great medicine man; Ignita
Broker's grandmother was named Ni-bo-wi-se-gwi, which
means Night Flying Woman, because she was bom during
an eclipse. During Lame Deer's first vision he saw the
death of Tacha Ushte (which is Sioux for Lame Deer), his
50 Southern Academic Review
great-grandfather, and because of this it was interpreted
that he should take his name.
So even the names of Indians are from a cycle of their
ancestors or of nature, and such was their education. They
learned by watching and listening to their elders. Oona,
which was Night Flying Woman's nickname, "sat before
her grandparents with eyes cast down, watching them do
the many tasks of life and listening as they spoke of the
animal ways" (Broker 42-43). Black Elk speaks of a
different kind of education, one of a warrior: "We
practiced endurance, too. Our advisor would put dry
sunflower seeds on top of our wrists. They were lit at the
top, and we had to let them burn down clear to our skin"
(Neihardt 60). Lame Deer remembers that when he was
left alone to have his first vision, he was sixteen and it was
the first time he'd ever been alone in his life. All three
narrators emphasized the heavy influence of the family
during their childhoods; and no matter what the children
did, a harsh hand was never raised against them. This was
to inspire the children to interact and be part of the family.
The Indian community was not divided into "separate, neat
little families—Pa, Ma, the kids, and the hell with
everybody else. The whole damn tribe is one big family;
that's our kind of reality" (Lame Deer 34). But Lame
Deer complains that the children of today are too overrun
by white society's technology and entertainment. He fears
that they are too preoccupied with "...television and stereo
to hear a good old fashioned Indian story" (22). This is a
modem day encroachment of white culture that limits the
mending of the sacred hoop.
This encroachment of white culture began long ago and
was inspired by white greed for land. This lust for the
already limited Sioux reservation tracts led to the virtual
extinction of the most sacred animal of the Sioux, the
Nickson 51
mighty buffalo. Black Elk laments the white man's
unforgivable disregard for the life of this awesome beast:
As I told you, it was in the summer of my twentieth
year (1883) that I performed the ceremony of the elk.
That fall, they say, the last of the bison herds was
slaughtered by the Wasichus [white men]. I can
remember when the bison were so many that they
could not be counted... but the white men killed them
for the metal that makes them crazy.... sometimes
they did not even take the tongues; they just killed
and killed because they like to do that. When we
hunted bison, we killed only what we needed.
(Neihardt213)
The white man took away the only reason that the Sioux
had remained on the plains; an entire species was almost
completely destroyed for more land. Lame Deer provides
an explanation for why the white man's destruction
shattered that part of the sacred hoop forever: "We Sioux
have a close relationship to the buffalo. He is our
brother... And the Indians are built like buffalo, too— big
shoulders, narrow hips" (Lame Deer 119). The buffalo
gave the Sioux everything they needed for living: food,
shelter, and tools. No part was wasted. Their legends say
that the buffalo even gave them their most sacred object,
the peace pipe, which at the end of his narrative Lame
Deer hides from his own people to prevent its
commercialization. This was one gift of the buffalo that
the whites could not take away.
Black Elk begins his narrative with an explanation of
the peace pipe's symbols:
The four ribbons hanging here on the stem are the
four comers of the universe. The black one is for
the west where the thunder beings live to send us
rain; the white one for the north, whence comes the
52 Southern Academic Review
great white cleansing wind; the red one from the
east, whence springs the light and where the morning
star lives to give men wisdom; the yellow for the
south, whence comes the summer and the power to
grow. (Neihardt 2)
The pipe is an important part of each of the ceremonies
and dances that Black Elk later takes part in or performs.
In Lame Deer's narrative, the importance of the peace pipe
is stressed as a distinctly native American article; it is not
something to be tampered with. "At Pine Ridge they are
building a new Catholic church in the shape of a tepee with
a peace pipe next to the cross" (Lame Deer 205). This is
very confusing for him. Why try to breed the religions
into one? Lame Deer sees the peace pipe as "our [the
Native American's] most sacred possession. All our
religion flows from it. The sacred pipe is at the heart of all
of our ceremonies, no matter how different they are from
each another" (239). The central importance of the peace
pipe was most evident in Night Flying Woman. Although
the writer, Ignatia Broker, is an Ojibwa, and Black Elk and
Lame Deer are Sioux, the peace pipe still dominates every
ceremony or action in the narrative. The peace pipe is
mentioned after every ceremony or act of significance,
including her naming ceremony (14), the council of
discussion (21), gratitude for safe travel (31, 35),
celebration of the new home (41), treaty with whites (64),
celebration of new life with old (85), to communicate with
the Great Being in time of trouble (110), and to dream of
ways to make the reunion of her family possible (128). So
it is easy to see that the peace pipe was more than just a
religious tool. It was used for times of celebration and
meditation as well. For these people the smoke from the
bark of the red willow was the breath of Wakan-Tanka; it
was their way of communication with their God, for which
Nickson 53
they needed "the pipe, the earth we sit on and the open
sky" (Lame Deer 2).
The Sacred Hoop: South: noon-summer-yellow-flowering
stick-elk-maturity.
The second cycle is that of maturity, growth, and
coming of age. The coming of age was very early for the
Native American. Oona received her piece of charcoal and
went into the woods for her vision at a mere thirteen.
Black Elk had a great vision he could not understand but
that still shaped his life when he was nine. He says: "The
boys of my people began very young to learn the ways of
the men, but no one taught us; we just learned by doing
what we saw, and we were warriors at a time when boys
now are like girls" (Neihardt 20). But Lame Deer was not
ready for his vision until he was sixteen; he was bom in
the time of the Wasichus, and therefore his spiritual life
was interfered with by the white schooling and imposed
regimen. Thus, Lame Deer came of age in a white society
that rejected him; it even taught him to reject himself:
When I was a kid, those schools were really bad. I
envied my father, who never had to go through
this.... so I played the dumb Indian. They couldn't
make me into an apple, red on the outside, white on
the inside. (Lame Deer 25)
During this part of his life. Lame Deer rejected
everything that society, white or red, had to offer him. He
was, by white standards, a vagrant; he had no permanent
job, he spent time in jail, and used every spare dime to get
drunk. He was truly lost between two worlds: an Indian
world where there was a conflict of old and new ways, and
a white world which persecuted and discriminated against
the Indian, whether he acted Indian or not. So Lame Deer
54 Southern Academic Review
chose the Indian way, because he realized that in the end
the white world was just a green frog-skinned [money]
dominated world, a "bad dream, a streamlined, smog-filled
nightmare" (33).
Such a world did not exist for Oona and Black Elk, at
least not when they were growing up. But the
encroachment of the white way of life did exist, for when
Oona went to seek her vision, she could not stay the
customary ten days. Because the white woman for whom
her mother worked opposed such "heathen" customs, Oona
had a much shorter "time of meditation and the beauty of
isolation" (Broker 95). Oona's people had run from the
whites while she was growing up, but the whites had
caught up with them and were imposing on every aspect of
their lives. Like Lame Deer, she had to make choices
between white and red customs. But the difference was
that she was choosing for her people, not just for herself.
However, she was able to reach a compromise, mostly
through the efforts of her mother. She accepted those
things of the whites which were faster and easier, such as
mason jars and iron kettles. But she learned to be wary of
the white man's tongue, and often she had to rely on the
old ways, in things religious and more practical, such as
the dreaming power, her people's medicine, and their old
system of crop gathering, because the white man often did
not come through on his promises:
When the payment was over and the people received
their rations— the promised food that seldom came.
Oona looked at their portion-the salt pork, the beans,
the small amount of flower—and she said to her
mother, "It is well that we plant and harvest and hunt,
for this food given us by the White Father would not
be enough." (Broker 99)
However, it was the great vision of Black Elk which
Nickson 55
encompassed every aspect of the second arc of the sacred
hoop: "From where the giant lives (the north) to where
you always face (the south) the red road goes, the road of
good, and on it your nation shall walk" (Neihardt 29).
This was the road of maturity, the road on which the
people could prosper. It was on this road that the flowing
stick of the nation, the very center of the sacred hoop, the
blessed cotton tree, had to be planted. Black Elk
understood very little of this, but these signs made him
realize that he had come of age, and he would soon be a
great leader for his people.
The Sacred Hoop: West: sunset-fall-black-cup and bow-
thunderbird-old age.
The third cycle is that of the setting sun: the back
begins to slump, the teeth yellow, and time shows its
wrinkled passage on the face. This is the arc of the
thunderbird which comes from the west and brings rain.
The main function of the elderly in Indian society is that of
a teacher and storyteller. These narrators are true
rainbringers, for their stories quench a thirst for knowledge
in a desert of white imposed ignorance.
It is for this reason that these books were written:
The sun was near to setting when Black Elk said [to
Neihardt]: "There is so much to teach you. What I
know was given to me for men and it is true and it is
beautiful. Soon I will be under the grass and it will
be lost. You were sent to save it, and you must
come back so that I can teach you." (xix)
The cup and the bow that Black Elk then wielded were the
cup of knowledge and the bow of wisdom. Black Elk
realized that if the story of his people was not preserved,
it would be forever lost. Without his story, there would be
56 Southern Academic Review
no Indian perspective on the defeat of Custer; there would
be no massacre at Wounded Knee, just the battle. His
story is the literary ghost dance: "I thought them on the
wrong road now, but maybe they could be brought back
into the hoop again and to the good road" (239). He said
this in reference to the ghost dance, but it was the telling
of his story, his remembrance of the old ways, which
helped to accomplish the return to the good road.
Ignatia Broker's story is much the same: "My
grandchildren: I am glad that you, the young Ojibwa of
today, are seeking to learn the beliefs, the customs, and the
practices of our people, for these things have too long been
alive only in the memories of the old ones" (8). These
words, near the beginning of the narrative, are spoken in
response to the very end of the novel, as the sad Oona
believes that all of the Ojibwa young have not forgotten the
ways of their ancestors, but even worse, they have never
even bothered to learn them. But on the last page of the
narrative, a child comes seeking these ancient ways, and
through this act the book goes through the full circle.
Black Elk Speaks and Night Flying Woman are teaching
materials in that they speak of the old ways and traditions
of Native Americans and reveal how the whites stole from
them and therefore are not to be trusted. In this way, these
books explain to Indians how they came to be in the
cultural predicament they are in; Lame Deer, Seeker of
Visions tells them what to do about it. He does not want
every Indian to live their lives in a drunken state, revolt
against every aspect of white society, and eat raw deer
livers. He wants them, and the youth of other dissatisfied
races, to question the environment they live in, to join
together, and to fight for what they know is right. He feels
that they are doing this:
I guess it was not time for this to happen, but it is
Nickson 57
coming back, I feel it warming in my bones. Not the
Old Ghost dance, not the rolling up—but a new-old
spirit, not only among Indians but also among whites
and blacks, too, especially among young people. It
is like the raindrops making a tiny brook, many
brooks making a stream, many streams making one
big river bursting all the dams. Us making this book,
talking like this ~ these are some of the rain drops.''
(Lame Deer 113)
Lame Deer uses his book to dispel many of the
stereotypes and misconceptions that non-Indians have about
Indians. This book is the truth about Indians, and it is told
in modem language. Although it is bitter, it is just the
truth, and that is often bitter for whites to swallow.
The Sacred Hoop: North: darkness-winter-white-healing
herb- goose-death.
The last arc of the sacred hoop can be looked at as the
beginning of the end or the beginning of the rebirth. It is
darkness, but it is white. It is death, but its physical
symbol is the healing herb. It must be seen as both the end
of one cycle and the beginning of the next: "These years
were filled with love and laughter and this cycle was the
cycle of life of our people, the Ojibway" (Broker 17).
This cycle could not be broken as long as the trees stood.
For
the trees, as long as they stand, will give shelter to
the Anishinabe and the Animal Brothers. They are
a gift. As long as the Ojibway are beneath, the trees
will murmur with contentment. When the Ojibway
are gone, the forest will weep and this will be
reflected in the sound of the si-si-gwa-d. (33)
But it was the cycle which was broken later in the book.
58 Southern Academic Review
The white man had driven the Ojibway from the land in
order to rip down the trees for lumber. Oona's parents
were dead, and it seemed that she was losing all she had
ever known: "Oona sat and dreamed. She saw Father and
Mother smiling beside the lodges in the rainy country. The
circle was around them. When Oona awoke, she heard the
si-si-gwa-d. It had a weeping sound" (105). The
significance of this passage is twofold. First, her parents,
through death, have rejoined the circle. Ironically, in the
same passage it seems as if the circle of this world was
broken because of the destruction of the forest. But that
part of the circle is experiencing a rebirth today.
Environmental awareness is rising; we just have to hope
that it's not too late. But the cyclical nature of Ojibway
ideology that was expressed in the preceding passages is
best summarized through Oona's own words:
We believe in the circle of life. We believe all
returns to its source; that both good and bad return to
the place where they began. We believe that if we
start a deed, after the fullness of time it will return to
us, the source of the journey. If care is not used
when the circle is begun, then the hurts along the
way will be received in the end. Such is the belief of
the true Ojibway. (56)
This is the literary statement of the Ojib way's
interpretation of the sacred hoop. This passage is also a
warning to the white man, who stole the Ojibway land. If
the hurts are to be received in the end of a circle with a
bad beginning, the white race of America is in a bad way.
Black Elk saw this coming of destruction in his great
vision. But he also saw, and fully realized with the writing
of his book, the mending of the nation's hoop. But there
is circularity in more than just the symbolic language of the
great vision. The sacred hoop is a part of the Sioux
Nickson 59
language. Where whites have sterile names for months of
the year, the Sioux months are alive with the seasons:
January-Moon of Frost in the Tepee
February-Moon of the Dark Red Calf
March-Moon of the Snowblindness
April-Moon of Red Grass Appearing
May-Moon when Ponies Shed
June-Moon of Making Fat
July-Moon of the Red Cherries
August-Moon when the Cherries Turn Black
or When the Calf Grows Hair
September-Moon when the Plumbs Are
Scarlet or of the Black Calf
October-Moon of the Changing Seasons
November-Moon of the Falling leaves
December-Moon of the Popping Trees
Even the last month of the year, December, the one
that whites might associate with the north, darkness, and
even death, is one that is alive with popping trees. In this
way the circle is alive with more than just color and
symbols; the sacred hoop is alive in the language. This is
one of the reasons why the white educational methods of
the early 1900's were almost irreversibly detrimental. If
the Indians had totally forgotten their language, this would
be yet another shattering of the sacred hoop by the whites.
Unfortunately, the list of atrocities, and therefore the
struggle, goes on.
But Lame Deer shows us how he was resilient against
the white man, how he fought to retain his identity as a
Native American. Others weren't so lucky. They fought
in the useless wars of the white man. They died for him,
and for what? Freedom? No. They died for enslavement,
restriction, and reservations. But how can whites make up
for their wrongs? Will it be through mere apologies and
60 Southern Academic Review
consciousness easing financial pittances? After these are
given, do we then leave the Indians to their own problems
which were caused by our ignorance and greed?
No, it is as Lame Deer says. We must all be part of
the mending process. The whites caused this pain, so we
should be the ones who aid in putting it right again.
Perhaps the study of these books, the writing of this essay,
even the very reading of these words are all part of the
mending process, because with this knowledge we are all
responsible. We must all be a part of "the one big river
bursting all the dams." We must be the river of
information, of learning, bursting the dams of
misinformation and ignorance. Perhaps then the sacred
hoop may be whole again.
The sacred hoop: East: daybreak-spring-red-peace pipe-
bujfalo-birth. South: noon- summer-yellow-flowering stick-
elk-maturity. West: sunset-fall-black-cup and bow-
thunderbird-old age. North: darkness-winter-white-healing
herb-goose-re-birth. The sacred hoop.
Nickson 61
Works Cited
Broker, Ignatia. Night Flying Woman: An Obijay
Narrative. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society P,
1983.
Lame Deer, John (Fire), and Richard Erdoes. Lame Deer,
Seeker of Visions. New York: Washington Square P,
1972.
Neidhart, John G. Black Elk Speaks. Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 1932.
Habermas and Lyotard as a Means
of Reading the Cultural Conflict
in Momaday's House Made of Dawn
Michael Peacock
The conflict between European and Native American
culture dates back to initial contact between the inhabitants
of the two continents. While Euro-Americans have tried to
exert influence upon the Indians, they, in reaction, have
desperately struggled to preserve their way of life. In
Native American author N. Scott Momaday's novel House
Made of Dawn this familiar conflict surfaces as a young
Pueblo man returns from WWII and fmds it difficult to
relate again to his culture. As a result of this trouble, he
discovers, ironically, that he cannot communicate within
the oral tradition of his culture.
The root of this conflict rests deeper than the obvious
differences between ways of life and custom. In his book
on social theory, 777^ Theory of Communicative Action
Vol.1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Jurgen
Habermas addresses some of these issues by drawing
attention to linguistics and the fundamental understandings
of both narrative and scientific cultures. His discussion of
the theory of communicative reason offers a very plausible
explanation for the troubles of Momaday's protagonist,
Peacock 63
Abel. Jean-Francois Lyotard, a French philosopher and
writer, also addresses these issues in his works 77?^ Post-
Modem Condition, Just Gaming, and 77?^ Dijferend, but
his ideas can be seen as comments on and direct arguments
against the answers Habermas has to offer the reader of
Momaday's novel. The theories of Habermas and Lyotard,
when read in the context of House Made of Dawn and
Abel's situation, not only supply some answers to his
problems, but also serve to guide the reader through Abel's
ordeal as he comes to terms with his culture.
Habermas believes that communicative rationality is
necessary for effective communication. He says:
an assertion can be called rational only if the speaker
satisfies the conditions necessary to achieve the
illocutionary goal of reaching an understanding about
something in the world with at least one other
participant in communication. (11)
That is, people in a society must be able to argue with one
another about their interpretations of the world. In this
way people will rationally reach truths about the world that
they might not have considered before presenting them in
argument form. For one to argue, questions about the
validity of certain issues must be raised. These "validity
claims" serve as a springboard for argumentation; once
these claims have been presented, they can be determined
to be either true or false.
Habermas contends that while scientific cultures can
easily raise validity claims about their beliefs, mythic
cultures cannot. For a validity claim to be raised, one
must be able to separate and draw a distinction between
one's world view and the world, between one's
interpretation and/or understanding of the world and the
world that is interpreted and/or understood. For mythic
cultures, there is no such distinction. The inseparable
64 Southern Academic Review
nature of the mythic culture's world and worldview as
distinguishable from the separation of the world from the
worldview in the white, European, world is best illustrated
in the following example.
In light of religion. Native American spiritual beliefs
are very closely intertwined with their culture and their
understanding of the world. In European or predominately
Christian culture the social basis and understanding of the
world are not so closely related. In European culture, it is
generally accepted that a person can survive on earth and
in "this life" without religion. That is, if someone rejects
religion, they will still be able to function in the world.
This involves a recognition that the world is not identical
to any particular worldview and is open to different
interpretations. A Native American, however, is unable to
draw this distinction because, as Habermas alleges, "in
archaic societies myths fulfill the unifying function of
worldviews in an exemplary way— they permeate life
practice" (44). He continues, "mythic worldviews prevent
us from categorially uncoupling nature and culture" (51).
If a Native American picks up a rock and even for a
moment wonders if it actually does contain powerful spirits
or doubts that they are there, as a nature worshipper whose
culture and lifestyle is based on such beliefs, his/her world
will be effectively ruined. That is, if the worldview is
altered or, more importantly, questioned, then the world as
he/she understands it is wholly destroyed.
Without the ability to raise these validity claims,
according to Habermas, no step can be made toward
communicative reason. To say that narrative cultures have
no ability to raise validity is not to say that they do not
have the ability to think critically. One who lives in and
believes in a mythic culture is certainly capable of
understanding truth and falsity. They can understand
Peacock 65
honesty and lies and can be innovative technologically.
However, Habermas believes that members of such a
culture are not able to think rationally about their own
culture and that they are not capable of understanding
another interpretation of the world and of their beliefs.
Because of the inseparability of their world and of their
worldview, he says, they cannot think critically about or
deny their fundamental beliefs. This means that they are
unable to be rational about belief because they are unable
to understand it as a belief which is fallible and subject to
criticism.
Habermas' s theory may help to explain Abel's situation
in House Made of Dawn. Not only has his culture been
quite literally invaded and forced to consider the European
perspective, but Abel himself, after being exposed to white
culture during the war, fmds himself separated from his
own culture. When pushed into a culture where beliefs and
worldviews are constantly being challenged and questioned,
he fmds that his world and worldview have been separated.
This separation is dramatically symbolized as Abel
remembers a moment from the war when an enemy tank
comes over a ridge:
...he saw the machine. It rose up behind the hill,
black and massive, looming there in front of the sun.
He saw it swell, deepen, and take shape on the
skyline, as if it were some upheaval of earth, the
eruption of stone and eclipse, and all about it the
glare, the cold perimeter of light... For a moment it
seemed apart from the land; its great iron hull lay out
against the timber and the sky, and the center of its
weight hung away from the ridge. Then it came
crashing down to the grade, slow as a waterfall,
thunderous, surpassing impact, nestling almost into
the splash and boil of debris. He was shaking
66 Southern Academic Review
violently, and the machine bore down upon him,
came close, and passed him by. (Momaday 25)
This sequence in which the tank imposes itself on the
skyline, razing the landscape as it lumbers across,
symbolizes the violence of the separation of Abel's world
and worldview. Even as the tank passes Abel without
physically harming him, it has torn through his beliefs
leaving deep scars and plunderous tracks. Once he has
made the distinction between his world and his beliefs it is
very difficult for him to accept his beliefs rationally.
Abel seems to reflect Habermas's insistence that
someone in his situation cannot live in the culture of his
birth after having experienced the scientific reason of the
white world. Habermas maintains that "the
demythologization of worldviews means the desocialization
of nature and the denaturalization of society" (48). With
this realization that his world has been effectively crushed
and that he cannot accept what he has learned all of his
life, his isolation seems complete. Abel's plight is
described in House Made of Dawn as a forfeiture of his
niche. Momaday says, "He had lost his place. He had
been long ago at the center, had known where he was, had
lost his way, had wandered to the end of the earth, was
even now reeling on the edge of the void" (104). Unable
to relate to his own customs he find himself symbolically
caught in the trap set by Habermas's dichotomizing theory.
The novel, in relation to this theory presented by
Habermas, is about Abel's problems with communication
and about his struggle to come to terms with his knowledge
of both worlds and worldviews. As the rift between him
and his native culture develops Abel falls silent, "not
dumb... but inarticulate" (58). This silence and inability to
communicate represent his inability to function in the
tradition in which he was raised. His inability to function
Peacock 67
appears in the form of silence because his culture is oral in
its tradition.
Although the text of House Made of Dawn supports his
theory of communicative reason, Habermas, in concluding
that mythic cultures are ruined by the presence of scientific
or "rational" ones, is treating them with bias. The
separation of world and world view, he would say, that
exists in the latter would cause a culture based on myth and
oral tradition to fall apart if it were introduced. He means
that it would fall apart not in the sense that it would cease
to be a culture but that it could not continue as it had
before; that it would "develop." In relation to the novel,
Abel, upon exposure to white culture, is alienated from his
own. He, according to Habermas, has reached this point
from which he cannot continue in the tradition of his birth.
Also Abel is "unable" to fit into white culture. However,
Lyotard's understanding of mythic cultures may offer
particularly pertinent insight into Habermas 's theory and
explain Abel's means of escape from his predicament.
Lyotard would argue that there is no justice in trying
to judge the mythic culture in relationship to the scientific
one. There is not only a multiplicity of lifeworlds (as
Habermas did acknowledge), but also of language games,
as Lyotard calls them. He expands his description, stating
that "there are many different language games— a
heterogeneity of elements" (xxiv). Further, because these
language games are heterogeneous, not all follow the same
(or even similar) rules. In the same way that one cannot
play (or, more appropriately, referee) lacrosse by using the
rules that govern chess, one cannot expect to play the
language game of an oral tradition by the rules of a
scientific one and preserve the integrity of the former.
In The Differend, Lyotard addresses an even more
complex issue. He points out that not only is there a
68 Southern Academic Review
problem in the varying rules of separate language games
but also in the way they relate to each other. He
introduces the term "differend" to delineate this problem.
Lyotard thus begins the preface to The Differend:
As distinguished from a litigation, a differend would
be a case of conflict between (at least) two parties,
that cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule of
judgment applicable to both arguments. One side's
legitimacy does not imply the other's lack of
legitimacy. However, applying a single rule of
judgement to both in order to settle their differend as
though it were merely a litigation would wrong (at
least) one of them (and both of them if neither side
admits this rule), (xi)
This theory presents an explanation for Abel's frustration.
According to Habermas, a narrative culture cannot be
rational as it has no separation of world and worldview.
Abel's silence is forced due to the differend that separates
the Euro American and Native American cultures. This is
called a differend because there is no place for a fair
litigation. There is a fundamental difference between a
litigation and a differend. In the instance of a litigation,
two groups argue according to a set of rules to which they
both agree however, in the instance of a differend the two
groups do not share the same rules of litigation so none is
possible. In his theory of communicative reason Habermas
demands that validity claims be raised so that
communicative rationality be possible. However, neither
validity claims nor communicative reason have a place in
oral traditions. The differend is the result of Habermas' s
insistence that narrative cultures must justify themselves in
European terms. This, of course, is impossible in that its
value cannot be justified in any language game but that of
the Native American.
Peacock 69
When Abel was exposed to white culture as a WWII
soldier he saw the difficulty to which Habermas alludes.
Abel was presented with a differend and also with what
Lyotard calls, in Just Gaming, pleonexia. This occurs
"when a language game begins to regulate games that are
not the same as itself" (Loytard 99). Abel's silence occurs
when he is confronted with the separation of world and
worldview that is unavoidable in the world of science. He
is unable to justify his Native American beliefs in light of
his new experience with rationality. Not only is he unable
to justify these beliefs, but he is unable to even voice any
defense of them because to do so he would have to enter a
language game in which he could not operate and does not
understand. Lyotard says that one caught in Abel's
predicament is "divested of the means to argue and
becomes for that reason a victim" {Differend 9). Without
a voice, Abel falls silent.
Pleonexia is manifested in the novel. House Made of
Dawn, when Abel is tried for the murder of an albino.
The differend becomes evident when Father Olguin, a
white priest who knows Abel, tells the court that "in his
[Abel's] own mind it was not a man he killed. It was
something else." Abel believes the man to be an "evil
spirit" that was justly killed {Momaday 101). Olguin
continues defining the nature of the differend, saying, "I
believe that this man was moved to do what he did by an
act of imagination so compelling as to be inconceivable to
us." Here, the white lawyers and the court commit
pleonexia when they disregard the differend. "Yes, yes,
yes" they say:
But these are the facts: he killed a man—took the life
of another human being. He did this of his own
volition—he has admitted that—he was armed for no
other reason. He committed a brutal and premeditated
70 Southern Academic Review
act which we have no choice but to call by its right
name. (102)
Olguin argues, "Homicide is a legal term, but the law is
not my context; and certainly isn't his—" (102). Momaday
notes what is taking place as he describes the situation,
"when he had told his story once, simply, Abel refused to
speak. . . . Word by word by word these men were
disposing of him in a language, their language, and they
were making a bad job of it" (102). Abel is helpless in his
situation and has no defense against the white men who are
forcing him to engage in their language game.
However, in light of Lyotard's revelations that
language games are heterogeneous in nature, that rules vary
from game to game, and that pleonexia is occurring in
Habermas's theory, there appears for Abel a way out of his
plight. After being freed of the impossible task of
justifying his culture in white people's terms he can focus
on the value of the narrative tradition of which he is a part
as it relates to itself under its own rules.
Lyotard also analyzes the value of narrative in Just
Gaming and The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on
Knowledge. Lyotard insightfully points out that the
importance of narrative in such a tradition does not lie in
whether or not it is valid, that is, whether or not it is true
that the events in the story or tale really occurred and can
be proved. Instead, he realizes that the value of the
narrative is its ability to bring members in. The bringing
"in" is to initiate them in some way, to make them a part
of the tradition. By referring to the Cashinhua, a South
American Indian tribe from the upper Amazon, Lyotard
points out these qualities of narrative. He notes that, "the
narrator's only claim to competence for telling the story is
the fact that he has heard it himself. The current narratee
gains potential access to the same authority simply by
Peacock 71
listening" {Post 20). The exposure to the culture through
narrative is its value. He continues, "it [the oral tradition]
finds the raw material for its social bond not only in the
meaning of the narratives it recounts, but also in the act of
reciting them" (22). When he talks about the significance
of oral tradition not lying in its validity, Lyotard goes one
step further by recognizing, with another example from
Cashinahuan culture, that even the words of the narrative
are less important than the rhythm that permeates it. He
notes:
Narrative form follows a rhythm; it is the synthesis
of the meter beating time in regular periods and of
accent modifying the length or amplitude of certain
of those periods. This vibratory, musical property of
narrative is clearly revealed in the ritual performance
of certain Cashinahuan tales: they are handed down
in initiation ceremonies, in absolutely fixed form, in
a language whose meaning is obscured by lexical and
syntactic anomalies, and they are sung as
indeterminable monotonous chants. (21)
In light of Lyotard 's ideas and revelations about the
importance of oral tradition, Abel is not at such a loss. He
was told stories as a child that he remembers in adulthood,
and in one passage Abel's thoughts reveal a kinship to
narrative that closely parallels what Lyotard reports about
sound and rhythm. Abel remembers "the prayer, and he
knew what it meant—not the words, which he had never
really heard, but the low sound itself, rising and falling far
away in his mind, unmistakable and unbroken" (Momaday
13). Narrative has been extremely effective as a vehicle
for drawing him into the realm of the oral tradition. It is
the prayer and its "meaning," not the words of the prayer,
that bind Abel to his culture. It is the hypnotic rhythm that
he recalls so vividly and that is what is necessary for him
72 Southern Academic Review
to make a connection with his tradition.
Although Abel, throughout much of House Made of
Dawn, does seem to be alienated from his world, the rift
between him and his culture is closed by the end of the
book. The solution to his problem is to realize that the
heterogeneity of language games exists, that he is not
required to justify his culture to the white way of thinking,
and that he must re-enter his tradition by accepting it for
the value it has to his language game. When he returns to
ritual the bond to his culture is mended. Abel's re-entry
appears on the last page of House Made of Dawn when,
after dressing his grandfather's corpse for burial, he runs
the ceremonial race of the dead. After beginning the
healing process between him and his original beliefs by
engaging in ritual, he has only one more thing to do.
Momaday writes, "He was running, and under his breath
he began to sing..." (212).
Peacock 73
Works Cited
Gasch, Rodolphe. "Postmodernism and Rationality." The
Journal of Philosophy. March 1987: 62.
Habermas, Jurgen. The Theory of Communicative Action
Vol. I: Reason and the Rationalization of Society,
Boston: Beacon, 1984.
Jahner, Elaine. "A Critical Approach to American Indian
Literature." Studies in American Indian Literature.
Ed. Paula G. Allen. New York: The Modem
Language Association of America, 1983.
Lyotard, Jean Francios. The Differend. Vol. 46 of
Theory and History of Literature. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P, 1988.
. Just Gaming. Vol. 20 of Theory and History of
Literature. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1989.
. The Post-Modem Condition. Vol. 10 of Theory and
History of Literature. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P, 1989.
Momaday, N. Scott. House Made of Dawn. New York:
Harper and Row, 1968.
Woodard, Charles L. Conversations with N. Scott
Momaday. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P,
1989.
The Debt Crisis and Development
in Latin America:
Are Debt for Nature Swaps an Answer?
Chip Trimmier
Welcome to the '90s. This is a world where nothing
stays secret for long. No part of the world is so remote or
perilous that a CNN crew can't do a live broadcast
announcing to the world that "this is what is happening.
Stand up and be outraged." The public can receive easily
digestible information on their cable TV sets for as long as
they can take it. We learn about world issues; we relate
them in our discussions. We talk about "The Debt," and
a growing environmental consciousness has finally entered
mainstream thought. These problems are perceived to be
among the most pressing in our nation today.
As bad as they are here, the problems of debt and
environmental degradation are all the more pressing in the
developing countries. The U.S. national debt is measured
in the trillions of dollars. This may make a developing
country's debt accumulation seem small in comparison.
However, these states lack the economic power to absorb
and manage the huge debt that they have accumulated in
their quest for development. Because of this, short-term
profits may be seen as a necessary goal to meet payments
on the accumulating debt. Short term goals neglect long-
Trimmier 75
term planning. In the hustle for quick economic gains,
environmental resources are often destroyed in order to
maximize immediate profit. Unfortunately, the destruction
may be permanent. More environmentally sound
development seems to be far more profitable in the long
term.
This paper attempts to discuss not only the ecological
arguments of why the biospheres of Latin America should
be protected but also the economic arguments. Debt for
nature swaps and other environmental policies tied to debt
are examined as a means for achieving ecological
protection in the developing countries of Latin America.
A discussion of the effects of these arrangements and
policies on the politics of the region is mandatory for a full
understanding of the situation. Finally, an assessment of
what must be done to stabilize the future of the Latin
American rain forest will be offered.
Within the past decade, certain ecological phenomena
have become the topics of commonplace discussion.
"Global warming" and the "greenhouse effect" are in the
vocabularies even of school children in modem America.
The slow increase in average global temperature has been
predicted for some time, and some scientists have declared
that it has already begun. The global warming trend is
caused by a change in the gaseous composition of the
atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and methane are the principal
greenhouse gasses. As the percentage of greenhouse gasses
increases, the average global temperature slowly responds
as a result of the extra energy trapped by the atmosphere,
according to this theory. This is the greenhouse effect. As
the average global temperature rises, large amounts of
water now stored in the polar ice caps will be released,
raising the sea level by as much as two meters according to
some predictions. There are serious consequences of this
76 Southern Academic Review
problem, especially for coastal cities. This could flood
low-lying cities such as New Orleans and huge areas such
as the Kingdom of the Netherlands without the protection
of incredibly expensive engineering projects.
The process of deforestation makes a two-fold
contribution to the process of global warming. Large
amounts of greenhouse gasses are being released into the
atmosphere as a result of deforestation. As forests are
cleared, the timber that is not used is either burned or left
to rot. Both processes release greenhouse gas into the
atmosphere. The forests are the principle recyclers of
carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis. As the
forests decline, so does the planet's ability to extract
greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. After the trees are
gone, the soil is usually too poor to support crops.
Additionally, the added erosion clogs reservoirs and
irrigation systems downstream, causing the need for
additional capital investment.
Most of the forests are already gone from the
industrialized nations. According to the United Nations
Food and Agricultural Organization, one half of the globe's
forests have disappeared since 1950 (Hamlin 1066). The
Third World remains as the largest store of standing forest
on the planet. One third of the entire world's remaining
rain forest is in Brazil. Amazonia contains one fifth of all
the bird species in the world, and in its rivers swim eight
times as many species as in the Mississippi and its
tributaries. This rich biodiversity has led conservationists
to concentrate on protecting this tropical ecosystem in lieu
of individual species ("Costing" 19). The combination of
all of these environmental issues has pointed to one
conclusion for environmentalists: the rain forest must be
preserved.^
Another phenomenon that became painfully apparent
Tiimmier 11
during the '80s was that the debt crisis had reached
ludicrous proportions in Latin America and in the third
worid in general. The debt crisis began with the huge oil
revenues of OPEC countries being deposited in
industrialized countries' banks flooded with funds. The
banks made many large and often pooriy researched loans.
In the early eighties, the industrial nations tightened money
supplies to fight inflation. For the large debtor countries
of Latin America, the foreign currency needed to repay the
loans became more expensive, and interest rates rose. The
debt problem became almost impossible to resolve.
Because many loans were made at variable interest, debt
payments increased exponentially due to this two-fold
dilemma. By 1987, Brazil's national debt had become the
equivalent of 34% of its GNP (Burning 35). It is not
uncommon for 25% of a Latin American country's annual
budget to be allocated to debt servicing. However, even
with this sizeable share of the budget, the debt continues to
grow. This was cause for extreme concern in the interest
of world economics. A default of one or a few of these
countries could lead to the bankruptcy of some of the
world's biggest banks (Sweezy 1).
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
are two Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) that lend
money to developing countries. They are lenders of last
resort, handing out money for projects that are ideally
designed to promote economic recovery when no
commercial bank will take the risk of loan failure. These
MDBs, along with others, inserted new money into the
region and helped to reschedule debt payments. Although
helpful in the short term, the process sent the affected
countries "further down the road to debt enslavement"
(Sweezy 2). The IMF tended to view the problem as short-
term, leading it to encourage more external borrowing
78 Southern Academic Review
rather than interest relief and internal austerity measures
rather than a plan that could lead to economic growth
(Kuczynski 120).
When the IMF lends money to these debtor nations, it
engages in what is called high-conditionality lending. In
other words, there are several conditions that must be met
in order for the country to receive the money. Common
measures are cutting imports, reducing public spending,
wage indexing, and enacting strict monetary policies aimed
at combating inflation. However, the effectiveness of these
measures has been limited (Sachs 275). Also, leaders of
developing nations have charged that these conditions
"inhibit flexibility in meeting developmental aims, impede
growth, undermine stability and represent an incursion on
sovereign powers" (Carvounis 69), Many Latin American
authors are very critical of the IMF as being a North-
dominated institution that unnecessarily imposes costly
stabilization programs (Feinberg A)? However, many still
argue that the economic cost of adjustment has been
exaggerated (Lomax 125). Still, suggestions that
constitutional changes need to be made to achieve economic
reform, such as that from Jose Fajgenbaum, the former
head of the IMF negotiating team in Brazil, fuel anger
towards this institution ("Brazil's Tiff"). Upon hearing
Fajgenbaum' s comment, Brazilian President Collor de
Mello promptly requested and obtained the Argentine-bom
negotiator's recall ("IMF Bows"). The opposition of Latin
American countries to the austerity measures and failure of
the measures to produce significant results caused the
world's economists to do some rethinking.
Recently formulated plans attempt to address the
problem of obtaining real results and seem to be making
some progress. In 1988, six debtor nations obtained more
than 4% positive economic growth (Rohr 196). This is the
Trimmier 79
result of a new approach voiced by the Baker and Brady
plans. The Baker plan was unveiled by United States
Treasury Secretary James Baker in 1985. The premise of
the plan is that sustained economic growth, not IMF-
imposed austerity, offers the only hope of an improvement
in the situation (Pastor 45). The Brady plan retains this
premise and strengthens the strategy. The first point of the
plan is that debtor nations must encourage confidence in
foreign and domestic investors to stimulate the economy.
Second, the creditor community must provide sufficient and
timely support to facilitate economic growth.^
Debt-equity swaps began to be utilized as a means to
reduce the banks' loan exposure, turning unproductive
loans into equity investments. In a debt-equity swap, the
country is allowed to pay the debt in its own currency.
This payment is then invested in national industry.
However, there are several problems with this exchange.
First, it is an inflationary practice. Since hard currency is
not demanded, the country does not need to devote any
actual income to debt servicing. The payment can be made
with cash hot off the press, increasing the money supply
and causing inflation. The loss of the value of the money
as it is reinvested in the country is taken as a loss by the
bank. Secondly, the investment typically is made in the
best capital resources of the country. Therefore, the best
resources of the country for further economic progress are
bought off by foreign investors. This "capital flight" can
slow the country's already treacherous climb out of a debt
emergency.
An aberration of the debt-equity swap was first
proposed by Dr. Tom Lovejoy in an October 1984 A^^vv
York Times article. The idea came to him while he was
participating in congressional hearings discussing the
relationship between the debt crisis and environmental
80 Southern Academic Review
decline (Sun 1175). The idea led to what has been called
the debt-for-nature swap. The mechanics of a debt-nature
swap are similar to those of debt-equity. The debt of a
country with sizeable commercial debt is likely to be
partially for sale on the secondary market. A private,
international conservation agency purchases this debt at a
steep discount. After obtaining the debt, the organization
approaches the debtor country with a proposal to set aside
some area of land for protection. The agreements
eventually negotiated are unique to the circumstances of the
country but usually have some common elements. The
international organization is made a formal part of the
administration agency as technical advisor. Local
environmental groups are brought into the process as well
and may take the leading role as administrators and
overseers. A fund is established to cover the expenses of
the implementation and operation of the project.
Conservation International (CI) reached an agreement
of this sort with the government of Bolivia on July 13,
1987. CI purchased $650,000 of Bolivian debt at a rate of
15 cents on the dollar from a single Swiss bank.'* The
right to repayment of the debt was waived in return for the
promise to preserve 3.7 million acres in the Bolivian llano,
or lowland plain, adjacent to the already-existing 1/3-
million-acre Beni Biosphere Reserve. CI was made a party
to the administration of all protected lands, and a $250,000
fund was set aside for administrative costs, with $150,000
coming from the U.S. Agency for International
Development (US- AID). This agreement created a four-
million acre "buffer zone" around an already existing
preserve. The buffer zone could be utilized for economic
purposes under a policy of sustainable development. The
increased area under protection is important in light of
discoveries arising from the ongoing Minimum Critical
Trimmier 81
Size of Ecosystems (MCSE) project in progress in the
Brazilian Amazon basin near Manaus.^ Fragments of rain
forest undergo changes at their perimeter: trees die, and
bird and butterfly populations decline. What this "edge
effect" shows is that the acreage necessary to preserve an
area's biodiversity may be larger than previously thought
(Sun 1175).
The Bolivian agreement broke the ground for a similar
agreement with Ecuador. On December 14, 1987, the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) finalized a one million-dollar
debt-nature swap with a slightly more complex procedure.
The WWF purchased $1 million in debt from a group of
commercial banks. The debt was exchanged for
Ecuadorian bonds repayable in Ecuadorian sucres. The
bonds were donated to a local environmental group,
Fundacion Natura. WWF and the government of Ecuador
agreed to allow Fundacion Natura to use payment on these
bonds to preserve undeveloped land. In April, WWF and
The Nature Conservancy announced that another $9 million
swap had been arranged under the same terms. The
Ecuadorian debt-nature swap differs from Bolivia's in that
the emphasis is on complete undevelopment rather than
sustainable development. This plan, as the name implies,
provides for reserving the land in its natural state to be
protected from any development. Certainly, a plot of land
is ecologically more valuable if it is free from human
encroachment. The value of sustainable development is
that it allows for use of the raw materials extractable from
a plot of land while preserving a great degree of its
biodiversity.
The CI and WWF debt-nature swaps have several very
beneficial outcomes. The swaps both reduce the debt of
the debtor country and provide assistance in the long-term
management of resources. However, as a proportion of the
82 Southern Academic Review
overall debt, the swaps are fairly insignificant.
Nonetheless, they enable the conservation organizations to
receive the maximum return for their investment, assuming
the agreements are not violated. The agreements
strengthen the influence and expertise of local
environmental groups by including them in the
implementation and policy-making processes and by
channeling funds through them (Hamlin 1071). In the
WWF agreements, the local agencies are signatory parties.
This is more than a symbolic relationship; creating this
formal linkage between government and local
environmental groups may well be the most significant
accomplishment to come out of the process (1072).
The debt-nature swaps have been criticized for being
weakly enforced or even for having negative outcomes, as
well. Some criticize that the Bolivian "buffer zone" is
being developed too much and that the 500 indigenous
peoples living in the area were not taken care of. The
same author complains that participation in the swap means
legitimizing the system in which Western banks and
governments control the resources and set the terms while
third world elites "are rewarded by the North for pillaging
their countries and repressing their people" (Rohr 247).
Financiers have dim views of the swaps as part of a real
solution because they take a loss on the deal. Still, some
repayment is better than none, and the secondary debt
market does exist, even though the banks would be
reluctant to swap a substantial part of their debt holdings
for such steeply discounted rates.
In order to provide the countries with sufficient
resources while securing the future of the rain forest and
related fauna, an approach integrating policies of complete
undevelopment and sustained development may be most
beneficial. Whether in the form of a single agreement or
Trimmier 83
in separate agreements, a combined reserve area with a
core of unencroached, undeveloped rain forest surrounded
by a periphery of land to be exploited under a policy of
sustained development seems to be the best case scenario
for all concerned. Careful administration of the protected
areas will be necessary to ensure the long term success of
the project.
Recently, the multinational development banks have
attempted to enter the environmental arena. The World
Bank has been attacked in the past for lending money for
environmentally devastating, economically negligible
projects. In order to address this problem, the World
Bank's first environmental advisor was hired in 1969 to
establish an Office of Environmental Affairs (Warford 5).
Unfortunately, this did not prevent disastrous projects such
as the Polonoroeste program of road building and
agricultural colonization in the northwest Brazilian state of
Rondonia. A 1980 World Bank survey concluded that the
region could be successfully developed as long as the
indigenous people were protected and the areas where the
soil could not support agriculture were left alone. The
funds were made available, but the project was not
managed according to the plan ("Accounting" 72). The
state of Rondonia can now be described as "completely
devastated" (Waters 40). High-yield^ projects have turned
into increased loan programs, destitute people, and useless
land (Hrynik 150). On May 5, 1987, World Bank
President Barber Conable apologized for these travesties
and promised a new outlook for the future.
Environmentally unsound projects continue to rise with
the help of World Bank funds in spite of the "new
outlook." Within the past few years, environmentalists
rallied to defeat the Second Power Sector Loan, a proposed
$500 million World Bank loan to Brazil that would
84 Southern Academic Review
resurrect a mega-dam project with 136 new dams, many in
the Amazon (Adams 47)^. Although the United States has
made sound environmental practices a necessary condition
to further funding, the World Bank has yet truly to deliver
much but paper policy ("Bank Balance").
When developing countries engaging in deforestation
were warned by industrialized nations that they should
consider the consequences of their development, their
response was an understandable one. The pervasive
attitude of the developing countries was that they were
going through the same process that the industrialized
countries did as they were developing. These countries
fmd it difficult to understand why they are forbidden to
pursue the same policies that the major economic powers
have used to develop their countries (Rendall 7). Indeed,
the development of the Brazilian Amazon has been likened
to the opening of the American West ("Brazil Walks").
Another important impetus behind the development of the
Amazon was the doctrine of National Security. National
Security arguments were extremely persuasive under the
post- 1964 military rule in Brazil. Amazonia represents
over 50% of the Brazilian territory, is sparsely populated,
and contains an unpatroled border with a history of
annexation. In 1965, the first president under the military
regime. General Castelo Branco, stated that "Amazonian
occupation would proceed as though it were a strategically
conducted war." The first post-coup body of legislation
concerning the Amazon was entitled "Operation
Amazonia," reflecting the military flavor of the project
(Hecht 668). These projects set the tone for future
attitudes about the Amazon and environmental protection.
Many critics have charged that these new
environmental protection measures are "eco-colonialism"
and no better than outright colonization. Ambassador
Trimmier 85
Paulo Tarso Flecha de Lima, as Secretary General of the
Brazilian Foreign Ministry, agrees that "this is the greatest
international pressure that Brazil has ever felt in its history"
("The World"). Placing such a degree of pressure on these
nations carries with it certain inherent risks:
To link the humiliation of debt with the case for
conservation risks a nationalist backlash against
busybody foreigners who cut down their own trees,
and then go abroad and tell poor people not to cut
down theirs. (Costing 24)
Care must be taken not to shut the door on future
negotiations by failing to recognize the dilemma of the
present Latin American administrations.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding in Latin
America about the structure of debt-nature swaps that leads
to some hostility in the debtor nation. Coming in the same
context as IMF austerity measures, many people see debt-
nature swaps as a threat to sovereignty. Brazilian Foreign
Minister Roberto Costa de Abreu Sodre told reporters that
"Brazil will not see itself turned into a nature preserve for
the rest of humanity. Our most important goal is economic
development" ("The World"). Former Brazilian President
Jose Samey condemned debt-nature swaps as foreign
interference ("Bravo"). Indeed, the problems in finalizing
the Bolivian swap were primarily political. Press reports
suggested that control of public lands had been given to an
American conservation agency (Page 278). Although no
title to the land changes hands, and there are no
enforcement provisions contained in the agreements, a
sovereignty argument still is created from the fact that a
foreign agency has a great degree of control over the policy
of the country, although in an extremely limited area. This
is the reason that the participation of the local groups is so
important.
86 Southern Academic Review
There are many Latin American people who stand to
benefit domestically from the debt-nature swaps and rain
forest conservation in general. The clearing of the Amazon
has led to the creation of a large sum of what Thayer
Scudder, an anthropologist and World Bank consultant,
terms "development refugees" (Rich 88). It is clear that
the present development policy takes little account of
indigenous peoples and leads to increased urban migration.
This neglect could lead to serious social unrest. Logging
operations often have sparked violent protest (Repetto 205).
The stakes are high in the protest battle against the cattle
ranchers and agricultural interests. Rubber tappers union
leader Chico Mendes was murdered on December 22,
1988, as a direct result of the progress he had made in
acquiring protected rain forest areas to be managed by the
rubber tappers as "extractive reserves" (Rich 88). In the
'60's, groups such as the Committee for Economic
Development advocated clearing land for agriculture and
cattle grazing because "such efforts promise high returns"
(Committee 40-41). Brazil heeded this message and
promoted this type of development with a system of tax
credits and subsidies. As a result, these interests are strong
and fighting to stay that way.
Conservation of the rain forest proves to be a much
more profitable scheme than the present development path.
The concept of "sustainable development" retains the
countries' assets over the long term rather than burning
them out in a mad race for capital.^ The heads of three of
the most prestigious scientific institutions within Amazonia-
-the Emilio Goeldi Museum, the Federal University of
Para, and the Centre for Agricultural Research in the
Humid Tropics—all agree that "rational, sustainable
development of the Amazon is the only way forward"
("Fighting"). Unfortunately, less than 0.1% of the
Trimmier 87
remaining tropical forest is being managed for sustained
productivity (Repetto 205). There are many products that
can be extracted from the rain forest without its
destruction. However, little information on the value of
standing forest reserves in Latin America is available.
Indeed, "for the world's 500m [sic] forest-dwellers, they
are a source of food, fuel, and furniture. . . [but] when forest
products other than trees are exported, statistics on their
value are rarely collated" ("Costing" 20). Some studies do
exhibit the degree to which standing rain forest is more
profitable than clearing the land. Studies of the Antimari
National Forest in the Brazilian state of Acre show the
present per hectare revenue from rubber tapping and Brazil
nut collecting to be four times as profitable as that of cattle
ranching (Repetto 205). A New York Botanical Gardens
study values the output of fruit, latex, and timber, on the
basis of their local prices, at $9000 per hectare, as
compared to less than $3000 per hectare for the production
capacity of a cow pasture. Furthermore, the timber
accounts for less than 10%, and this gain is erased if latex
or fruit trees are killed during the logging process
("Costing" 20).
When the forestland is developed, it is often developed
in an ill-conceived manner. In Brazil's process of clearing
forestland by burning after extracting little timber,
approximately $2.5 billion of resources are lost annually
(Repetto 205). Cattle ranching in the region has been
responsible for 60% of the land deforested (Leonard 113).
Most of the area converted to pasture is only ephemerally
productive, declining rapidly within a few years. Estimates
of the area of already degraded pasture range from 20-50 %
(Hecht 663). Countries must be able to fully use the
resources available without permanently destroying them in
order to insure sustained economic growth.
88 Southern Academic Review
Things are beginning to turn around for the
environmental movement, but care must be taken to
respond to the economic needs of the countries as well.
Although his predecessors rejected debt-for-nature swaps
outright, Brazilian President Collor de Mello has agreed to
allow $100 million of debt to be swapped per annum
("Bravo"). He also has abolished the tax subsidies that
make it profitable to deforest the Amazon for farming and
ranching (Brooke). Debt-for-nature is of minimal value for
debt service but could help Latin Americans toward
recovery by managing resources more efficiently. Given
the hostile attitude Latin American countries currently have
toward IMF and World Bank lending policies, it may be
infuriating to attach environmental policy requirements to
the high-conditionality loans. However, the goal of these
measures is to prepare a fractured economy for long-term
growth in order to insure repayment, and environmental
policy requirements could serve as useful guidelines for
sustainable development. It is unlikely that new policy
could be accepted with more reservation than the current
conditions. What is left to be done is the development of
markets for rain forest products. Ben & Jerry's "Rain
Forest Crunch" ice cream uses Brazil nuts gathered by
rubber tappers in the Amazon and donates a portion of the
profits to help establish a shelling cooperative to stimulate
their production.^ Jason Clay, an anthropologist with the
indigenous rights group Cultural Survival, has sent 880
pounds of rain forest samples including 45 different fruits,
nuts, oils, and flours to four different companies in the
United States and England. Projects to use these products
may help improve the economy for the poorest and most
powerless of the forest dwellers. By bypassing the local
elite who control virtually all trade in forest products, more
profit can be returned to ecologically sound projects aimed
Trimmier 89
at diversifying and increasing production while capturing
more value locally (Christensen 96). The agricultural
research station in Belem, Brazil, has worked out how to
spin-dry and powder some fruits produced exclusively by
the rain forest for long-term storage ("Fighting"). The
development of markets for these products would solidify
sustained-use options for rain forest lands. The sustainable
development of rain forest resources promises to help Latin
America break the chains of debt enslavement while
helping to preserve the fragile ecosystems so important to
the world's future.
90 Southern Academic Review
Endnotes
1 . The diversity of species must be protected for many
reasons. Genetic diversity is important for agriculture
and medicine. The genetic uniformity of cultivated plants
makes them highly susceptible to disease and parasites.
To protect the crops, plant breeders must constantly
reintroduce wild varieties into the domesticated strains.
Plants are commonly used in medications. Almost half of
all prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. contain natural
substances, and over 50% of these contain a plant-
derived active ingredient. See: Plotkin, at 211.
2. Although directly discussed on this page, this attitude
is evidenced throughout the book. The book is a
compilation of works prepared for the Working Group on
Economics of the Inter-American Dialogue by Latin
American authors. The papers were presented and
discussed in a 1986 seminar held in Santiago, Chile, at
the Corporacion de Investigaciones Economicas para
America Latina (CIEPLAN). See also: Wionczek,
Miguel. Politics and Economics of External Debt Crisis.
3. Obviously, this is an incredibly simplified summary.
For the first point, Brady calls for debtor nations to
focus on adopting policies that encourage new
investment, strengthen domestic savings, and promote the
return of flight capital. The confidence of investors is
crucial to these goals. For the second point, Brady
advocates the cooperation of commercial banks and
debtor countries "to provide a broader range of
alternatives for financial support, including greater
efforts to achieve both debt and debt service reduction
and to provide new lending." See: Rohr, at 197 and 198.
Trimmier 9 1
4. The market rates on Bolivian debt were at the time
fluctuating between 7 and 25 cents on the dollar. See
Hamlin, p. 1069.
5. The Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems (MCSE)
Project is a 20-year study that was initiated in 1980 by
Dr. Tom Lovejoy. The project aims at discovering the
conditions necessary to sustain the ecological diversity of
a piece of land. There is a debate as to the best strategy
for preserving biological diversity between the "one-
chunk" theories and the "numerous plots" theories. The
patchwork of small and large plots created by
development of the Amazon in Brazil is an excellent
situation for testing these theories.
6. "High yield" projects are designed to maximize return
on the investment. They are often poorly planned and
less sound than the other projects. They are usually short
term because the natural resources they depend on are
depleted faster than they can regenerate.
7. It is worth mentioning here that hydropower,
although a non-polluting source of energy, is not
environmentally friendly. Hydropower poses a serious
environmental threat to surrounding areas. The building
of dams and reservoirs contributes to species decline and
extinction as well as deforestation. The deforestation is
easy to see: where there used to be great expanses of
trees, there are now great expanses of water. The decline
of species, not just aquatic, occurs due to what is called
habitat fragmentation. According to the equilibrium
theory of island biogeography, the sum total of habitat
without interruption is what determines the number of
species that can live on it. In other words, a piece of
92 Southern Academic Review
land the size of Cuba in the rain forest can support an
exponentially larger number of species than can an
undeveloped island the size of Cuba. The building of a
dam and reservoir which supplies a puny amount of
electricity for a power plant of its size (one must count
the area of the reservoir as part of the plant, after all)
can separate habitats by many miles. Flighted species
may still interbreed, but certainly no land creature will
go fifty or a hundred miles around the perimeter of a
small reservoir to mingle with the others that used to be
only a mile or two away. Of course, it is obvious that
the fish upstream and downstream no longer can breed
with one another. Another problem to take into
consideration is the amount of stress put on species
downstream due to erratic flow and excessive turbidity
during the time of construction. In addition to the
outright elimination of habitat, the future continuation of
species in the area of the entire river basin is threatened
due to stresses on breeding. For more information, see
Lester R. Brown, Ed., The State of the World 1988.
8. For more information on "sustainable development,"
see: World Commission on Environment and
Development, Our Common Future. Also known as the
"Brundtland Commission" after its chairman, the Prime
Minister of Norway, the commission was established in
1983 by the United Nations.
9. For more information, write Ben & Jerry's
Homemade, P.O. Box 240, Waterbury, VT, 05676.
Trimmier 93
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Allen, John, ed. Environment 91/92. Guilford,
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Rich, Bruce. "Conservation woes at the World Bank."
The Nation. 23 January 1989. 73-91.
Repetto, Robert. "Deforestation in the Tropics." 6-12.
Rohr, Janelle, ed. The Third World: Opposing Viewpoints.
San Diego: Greenhaven, 1989.
Sachs, Jeffery D. Developing Country Debt and the World
Economy. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989.
Sun, Marjorie. "How Do Yoii Measure the Lovejoy
Effect?" Scietice. 9 March 1990. 1174-76.
96 Southern Academic Review
Sweezy, Paul M., et al. "The Two Faces of Third World
DQbt." The Nation. January 1984. 1-10.
"The World Puts the Heat on Brazil." Rpt. in Veja World
Press Review. May 1989. 38.
Warford, Jeremy and Zeinab Partow. "Evolution of the
World Bank's Environmental Policy." Finance &
Development. December 1989. 5-8.
Waters, Tom. "Fall of the Rain Forest." Discover.
January 1989. 40.
Additional Bibliography
Amin, Samir. Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global
Failure. New Jersey: Zed Books. 1990.
Beckford, George L. Persistent Poverty:
Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the
Third World. Morant Bay, Jamaica: Maroon
Publishing House, 1983.
"Brazilian Debt Plan Advances." New York Times. 19
June 1991. D2.
Goes, Donald V. "Trade, International Payments, and
Brazil's Economic Growth." Latin American Research
Review, 1991. 171-86.
Copulos, Milton R. "The Environment: A North-South
Conflict." Current. November 1989. 35.
Trimmier 97
"Environmental Rules for Development Aid." Science
News. 1 1 January. 25.
Fearnside, Philip M. "Extractive Reserves in Brazilian
Amazonia." BioScience. June 1989. 387.
Foster, Douglas. "No road to Tahuanti." Mother Jones.
July-August 1990. 36.
Harvey, Robert. "The politics of debt." The Economist.
25 April 1987. 11.
Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn. "Land. Trees,
and Justice." The Nation. 22 May 1989. 695.
Katzman, Martin T. "Ecology, Natural Resources, and
Economic Growth: Underdeveloping the Amazon."
Economic development & Cultuixil Chemise. January
1987. 425.
Kaufman, Robert R. "Democratic and authoritarian
responses to the debt issue: Argentina, Brazil,
Mexico." International Ori^anization. Summer 1985.
473-503.
Lawrence, Richard. "World Bank, IMF Propose New
Goals." Journal of Commerce and Commercial.
30 September 1987. lA.
Meadows, Donella H., et al. The Limits to Growth.
New York: Universe, 1973.
98 Southern Academic Review
Mesarovic, Mihajlo and Eduard Pestel. Mankind at the
Turning Point. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974.
"New light on Dependency and dependent development, "
Monthly Review. January, 1983. 12.
Pallemaerto, Marc. "Development, Conservation, and
Indigeonous Rights in Brazil." Human Rights
Quarterly. August 1986. 374-400.
Pasca, T. M. "The politics of tropical deforestation."
American Forests. November-December 1988. 21.
Wionczek, Miguel S., ed. Politics and Economics of
External Debt Crisis. Boulder: Westview P, 1985.
99
Gender Issues Section
Each year, Southern Academic Review receives many
outstanding submissions from a wide range of disciplines.
This year, several students submitted articles which deal
with gender issues in literature and political theory. The
staff decided to combine three of these submissions into a
separate section of the journal, as gender issues are much
a part of classroom discussion on the Birmingham-Southern
campus.
The Varying Characterizations of Women
in A Doll 's House
and Death of a Salesman
Molly Brewer
The influence that the past exerts over the present is
often overwhelming, and this type of influence is felt in
drama as in other genres. Socially conscious playwright
Henrik Ibsen affected the works of Arthur Miller, whose
plays were put into production over 30 years after Ibsen's
death. Miller himself acknowledged Ibsen's influence in an
interview with Ronald Hay man, which is recorded in
Hayman's book titled Arthur Miller. He said, "What
[Ibsen] gave me in the beginning was a sense of the past
and a sense of the rootedness of everything that happens"
(Hay man 6). David Thomas, a lecturer in drama at the
University of Bristol, acknowledges Ibsen's sphere of
influence over at least two of Miller's plays. Thomas
writes that All My Sons and Death of a Salesman "owe a
clear thematic debt to Ibsen's work" (160). Although both
A Doll's House by Ibsen and Death of a Salesman by
Miller reveal an awareness of social problems on the part
of the playwrights, their treatment of the main women
characters in the two plays varies. While Ibsen boldly
moves to make his protagonist and hero a woman, Miller
marginalizes his main female character and does not
Brewer 101
develop her through the course of the play.
Nora, the main female character of ^ Doll's House is
considered by Carolyn Heilbrun to be the premier female
hero in drama. In her book Toward a Recognition of
Androgyny, Heilbrun writes, "The birth of the woman as
hero occurred, insofar as one may date such an event, in
1880, when almost at the same moment Ibsen and James
invented her" (49). Nora's character develops throughout
A Doll's House and becomes a separate and independent
entity from her husband, Torvald, by the end of the play.
By giving up all that has been important to her and by
denouncing the role that has been defined for her in
nineteenth-century society, that of the nurturing mother and
wife, Nora is revitalized and "bom again" to be an
individual as well as a woman.
In Death of a Salesman, the sole woman characterized
by Miller is Linda, Willy Loman's wife. Linda is
characterized only by her relation to Willy, and in direct
contrast to Ibsen's Nora, she does not develop into her own
person. Critic Irving Jacobson, in his essay "Family
Dreams in Death of a Salesman," comments on Linda's
inability to change or influence her family. He writes.
She can play no significant role in her husband's
dreams; and although she proves occasionally capable
of dramatic outbursts, she lacks the imagination and
strength to hold her family together or to help Loman
define a new life without grandiose hopes for Biff.
(51)
Miller focuses only on the male characters of the play.
While Nora embodies change and moves through the
course of A Doll's House toward a recognition of herself as
a person, Linda remains static and helps to perpetuate
Willy's fantasy as reality. Both of the characters live in a
society in which the existing norms for women are
102 Southern Academic Review
inequitable when compared to those for men, but only Nora
acts to break away from her husband and from society's
expectations of her as a woman. Nora moves toward self-
actualization, a concept of which Linda does not seem to be
aware.
Despite the varying ways in which Ibsen and Miller
treat their women characters, similarities exist in the
settings of the worlds in which Nora and Linda fmd
themselves. Both are plagued with husbands who do not
realize the women's potential to be individuals. Nora's
husband, Torvald, is flawed by his egocentricity. In the
first scene of the play, the reader recognizes how little
attention Torvald pays to Nora and also how little he
respects her individual choices. Throughout the play,
Torvald seems concerned only with Nora's taking care of
their family and domestic matters; he does not think that
she is capable of thinking critically for herself. Not only
does he constantly call her by "pet" names, but he also
prohibits her from eating macaroons and other candies and
pastries. Torvald 's opinion of Nora is well characterized
in the opening scene during an exchange that occurs
between them. Torvald says, "The squanderbird's a pretty
little creature, but she gets through an awful lot of money.
It's incredible what an expensive pet she is for a man to
keep" (Ibsen 372). Torvald's reference to Nora as a "pet
for a man" is significant to the play as a whole, as well as
to Torvald's characterization.
Miller characterizes Willy, Linda's husband and the
main character of Death of a Salesman, in a way similar to
how Ibsen characterizes Torvald. Like Torvald, Willy
wants to advance in society and is very concerned with
keeping the status quo. He cannot realize that the
salesman's world has changed and that he no longer
remains a viable resource in the new era. He, too, is very
Brewer 103
self-centered. His egocentricity varies from Torvald's in its
manifestation: instead of directing Linda's actions as
Torvald does Nora's, Willy tries to impress Linda by
making his small successes seem larger and by lying to her
to protect his ego. After having been fired from his
salesman's position, Willy says to his sons, "I was fired,
and I'm looking for a little good news to tell your mother,
because the woman has waited and the woman has
suffered. The gist of it is that I haven't got a story left in
my head" (Miller 787). Willy has lied to his wife about
his failures and therefore protected himself from full
recognition of them for so long that he recoils from telling
her the truth.
Willy's focus on himself may also be seen in his
relationships with mistresses and in his preparation for
suicide. Willy gives his mistress new stockings but is
unable to afford to give his wife any. Then he gets upset
when he finds Linda mending her old stockings and tells
her not to. When Biff goes to Boston to talk to his father,
he discovers Willy with another woman and sees Willy as
a fake. Biff accuses Willy, "You—you gave her Mama's
stockings!" (791). Although stockings by themselves are
a very small part of a woman's wardrobe and her life as a
whole, in Death of a Salesman they represent the way in
which Willy places Linda second to his mistress.
Willy discounts Linda's feelings throughout, the play.
One of the most obvious ways in which he does this is in
his attempts to kill himself. The reader discovers that
Willy repeatedly wrecks his car and that the insurance
company suspects that his wrecks are not accidents but are
pre-meditated. Willy has also connected a rubber pipe to
the gas line in the basement of his house and has allowed
Linda to discover its existence. Of course, Linda is not
strong enough to confront Willy with an acknowledgement
104 Southern Academic Review
of the piping or of any of his suicide attempts, but instead
she passively removes the piping during the day and then
replaces it before Willy returns every night.
Despite being set in a differing place and time, the
society and the norms it places on women are comparable
in Death of a Salesman and A Doll's House. A Doll's
House was written and produced 70 years before Death of
a Salesman, yet the similarities of the societal expectations
of women are quite striking. Both Linda and Nora are
expected to provide emotional support for their husbands
and to raise their children. Neither works, and each
depends on her husband for financial stability. Although
one would think that Linda has choices in the twentieth-
century United States seemingly not available to Nora, it is
Nora who decides to leave her husband and her family.
Linda remains in her subordinate position throughout the
play.
Nora's development throughout A Do// '5 House may be
seen by the reader or the audience of the play. Although
she has acted independently and has naively risked forgery
to secure her husband's health, one does not know that at
the beginning of the play. The reader observes her
reaction to Torvald's pet names and at first thinks that she
has no will of her own. In his book Henrik Ibsen, David
Thomas writes, "She... always humours him and helps him
to feel that he takes all the important decisions in their life"
(71). In this way, Nora supports the facade that Torvald
is in total control. In the first scene Nora appears to be
very wasteful and also quite superficial, but one soon
learns that this estimation of her is not correct. Although
she appears to Torvald to squander money on frivolities, in
actuality, Nora saves as much as she can of what Torvald
gives her and also takes in copying work on the side to pay
back Krogstad for the loan she secured.
Brewer 105
Throughout Acts I and II, the reader discovers the
independent actions of Nora that have occurred in the past
and also observes changes in Nora's attitudes. When she
cind Torvald are speaking of a ball which they are supposed
to attend, Nora says, "I can't think of anything to wear. It
all seems so stupid and meaningless" (Ibsen 383). During
the same conversation, she tries to convince Torvald not to
fire Krogstad. Although she does not confess her
transactions with Krogstad to Torvald, Nora speaks to
Torvald on Krogstad 's behalf. Her attempts at influencing
Torvald are thwarted when Torvald speaks of Krogstad' s
crime, forgery, and of his moral failure. During this
scene Nora begins to assert her individuality, while still
remaining the woman she is supposed to be.
Ibsen recognizes Nora's potential for individual growth
in the fmal scene of the play. She renounces her life with
Torvald and decides to leave him and their children. In
this scene Torvald discovers her loan from Krogstad and
her forgery to obtain the loan. He does not recognize the
courage Nora displayed when she took the responsibility
for saving his life, but instead, he thinks of himself and his
reputation. Only when he receives the I.O.U. from
Krogstad does he "forgive" Nora for her actions. He
exclaims, "Yes, yes, it's true! I am saved! Nora, I am
saved!" (399). When Nora asks her fate, he replies that
she, too, is saved. Because he does not think of her until
she questions him, Torvald once again demonstrates his
self-centeredness and his inability to recognize Nora in any
way except how she relates to him and his happiness.
Torvald does not realize at first the great change that
has occurred in Nora since his discovery of her actions.
She had wanted him to tell her that they would face it
together, that he would "step forward and take all the
blame" (402) and then give her the chance not to let him,
106 Southern Academic Review
but instead, he denounces her as a wife and a mother.
After Nora tells him what she had wanted, Torvald says,
"But no man can be expected to sacrifice his honor, even
for the person he loves" (402). Nora willingly risked
everything important to her so that Torvald could regain his
health, but he will not blemish his reputation in order to
save her.
When Nora perceives her true relationship with
Torvald, she is unable to reconcile herself to her fate as a
wife to him and as a mother to his children. She blames
him and says, "It's your fault that I have done nothing with
my life" (401). She attempts to explain the change that
has occurred within her and tells Torvald, "I believe that
I am first and foremost a human being, like you~or
anyway, that I must try to become one" (401). In order to
do this, Nora must break away from her domestic life and
all that has defmed her as a woman and a person in
nineteenth-century society. Joan Templeton explains this
in her essay "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism,
Feminism, and Ibsen." Templeton writes,
When she realizes that she is unfit to do anything in
life and announces her remedy— T have to educate
myself. '--she expresses a nineteenth-century
feminism's universally agreed-upon base for women's
emancipation. (32)
Through the course of A Doll's House, Nora has grown
from a naive woman, independent enough to act on her
own to help her husband yet not autonomous enough to
confront him with what she has done, into a person able to
take responsibility for her actions, despite their being in
direct conflict with the norms placed upon her by her
husband and by society.
The change and development of Nora's character in A
Doll's House directly contrasts the static characterization
Brewer 107
and lack of development of Linda in Death of a Salesman.
Nora exhibits the potential for change throughout the play,
but Linda never has this ability. Nora blames Torvald for
suppressing her ability to grow as a person; Linda never
even thinks to blame Willy. She seems content with her
position as wife and mother throughout the production. In
Willy's flashbacks ihrowghovX Death of a Salesman, Miller
characterizes Linda as the stereotypical housewife; she puts
the laundry out to dry. Linda does not assert herself as a
person the way in which Nora does, and she allows Willy
and his fantasies to control her life.
Linda does not change into an autonomous person even
when she is faced with Willy's suicide attempts. Instead of
approaching Willy with the gas piping or with her
knowledge that his car wrecks have not been accidents, she
tries to placate him and make him feel better. She instructs
her sons to do the same. When she tells Biff and Happy
about finding the piping, she says,
How can I mention it to him... How can I insult him
that way? I don't know what to do. I live from day
to day, boys. It tell you, I know every thought in his
mind. It sounds so old-fashioned and silly, but I tell
you he put his whole life into you and you've turned
your backs on him. Biff, I swear to God! Biff, his
life is in your hands! (Miller 773)
Instead of taking any action on her part, Linda places the
responsibility for Willy on Biff. Miller does not give
Linda the ability to do anything but act as the nurturing
wife; she cannot break out of this mold and change their
lives.
In the last scene of Death of a Salesman, Linda sits by
Willy's grave. Even at this point in the play, Linda does
not try to understand Willy or the role she took in
perpetuating his fantasies. She speaks to Willy's grave of
108 Southern Academic Review
how their house mortgage has been paid and deludes
herself in believing that they were "free and clear" (797).
She allows herself to continue believing in the false hopes
and visions of her life with Willy after his death. She has
not changed from the woman she was in the first scene of
the play.
Both A Doll's House and Death of a Salesman may be
termed "problem plays," for they both deal with social
issues in the context of the societies in which they are set.
While Ibsen focuses on the problem of women and their
place in society in A Doll's House, Miller centers his play
around the perception of the "American dream." The
American dream has typically been a male one, which may
account for Miller's marginalizing of his main female
character. Miller's tragic hero is the male character,
Willy, while Ibsen's hero is the woman, Nora. Nora
seems on the surface to be typical for her age amd place in
society, but as the play continues, it becomes obvious that
she is a much deeper person than may be thought at first
glance. Ibsen instills in her the ability to change and
develop, while Miller pays attention to Linda only to make
her a part of Willy's American fantasy.
Perhaps Ibsen did not consciously create Nora in order
to facilitate the feminist movement that was beginning to
dawn in Europe and in the United States, but her
characterization, and A Doll's House as a whole, has been
used to show the plight of women in the two varying
societies. Templeton writes,
The universalist critics of ^4 Doll's House make the
familiar claim that the work can be no more about
women than men because the interests of both are the
same "human" ones; sex is irrelevant, and thus
gender nonexistent, in the literary search for the self,
which transcends and obliterates mere biological and
Brewer 109
social determination... But to say that Nora Helmer
stands for the individual in search of his or her
self... is wrong, if not absurd. For it means that
Nora's conflict has essentially nothing to do with her
identity as a nineteenth-century married woman, a
married woman, or a woman. Yet both Nora and A
Doll's House are unimaginable otherwise. (31)
Whether or not Ibsen wanted Nora to take up the feminist
torch, she did and must be analyzed as an independent
person in the context of being a woman in a male-
dominated society.
Linda also exists in a male-oriented society, but Miller
does nothing to show that he believes women's positions in
society should change. Miller focuses only on Willy's
failed pursuit of the American dream and does not allow
Linda to do anything separate from Willy. Does this lack
of independent characterization make Miller a chauvinist
and trivialize Death of a Salesman'^ importance in the
American literary canon? Because Miller has written such
a strong assessment of the failure of American culture to
perpetuate the actual realization of the typical American
dream by most citizens, his characterization of Linda as
stereotypical does not make the play a failure. Although
one may wish that he had done more to make Linda an
independent woman. Miller and his play withstand this
criticism.
Ibsen did influence Miller's choice to write plays in
which society and its ills play an important part, but Miller
moves away from Ibsen in his choice of what problems to
write about. In A Doll's House, Ibsen exhibits the
problems women faced in nineteenth-century society, but
Miller chooses not to focus Death of a Salesman on the
same type of issue. In choosing to make his hero a
woman, Ibsen breaks from the established norms of heroes
110 Southern Academic Review
as males, while Miller, 70 years later, does not. Although
the plays differ from one another and represent a society
foreign to the one in which we now live, both are still
relevant in today's society. Neither the feminist movement
nor the changes that have occurred in American society in
the past decades have altered the world to such a great
degree as to make either play obsolete.
Brewer 1 1 1
Works Cited
Hayman, Ronald. Arthur Miller. New York: Frederick
Ungar, 1972.
Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Toward a Recognition of Androgyny.
New York: Norton, 1964.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House. Jacobus 371-403.
Jacobson, Irving. "Family Dreams in Death of a
Salesman.'' Critical Essays on Arthur Miller. Ed.
James J. Martine. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1979.
44-52.
Jacobus, Lee A., ed. The Bedford Introduction to Drama.
New York: St. Martin's, 1989.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. Jacobus 758-797.
Templeton, Joan. "The Doll House Backlash: Criticism,
Feminism, and Ibsen." PMLA 104 (1989): 28-40.
Thomas, David. Henrik Ibsen. New York: Grove Press,
1983.
Wolves and Women:
The Sexual Fears
of the Male Protagonists
in Bram Stoker's Dracula
Amorak Huey
With his dark cape, sharp fangs, and strange powers, ,
Count Dracula has become an archetype of evil in our j
society. In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the Count is so I
dangerous that five men chase him across Europe to j
destroy him. To these men and to Stoker, the Count 1
represents pure evil; of that there is little question. 1
Jonathan Harker, Dr. John Seward, Arthur Godalming, |
Quincey Morris, and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing band
together to hunt down this evil and destroy it. They do so,
as Dr. Van Helsing says, "for the good of mankind" (326).
But why is it so necessary that Dracula be destroyed?
What makes him such a threat to "mankind"? It seems that
Van Helsing' s unintentionally sexist term is rather telling
about the group's underlying motives in killing Dracula.
Although the Count attacks only women in the novel, the
men seem to be more afraid of him than are the women.
The five men think that they, as men, have a duty to
protect Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker, whom they see
Huey 113
as "their women." By biting the women, Dracula changes
them into something menacing, horrible—and sexual. The
men have non-sexual conceptions of women to which they
expect Lucy and Mina to conform-conventional "feminine"
roles of virgin, wife, and mother. Dracula and vampirism
cause Lucy and Mina to reject their traditional roles, thus
robbing the men of their masculine identities; this
perceived emasculation is ultimately why the men are so
threatened by Count Dracula.
The first instance in the novel of a man's being
threatened by a sexually aggressive woman occurs in Castle
Dracula. Jonathan Harker wanders through the castle,
venturing into rooms that the Count has forbidden him to
enter. Having fallen asleep in one of those rooms, he
awakens to find himself in the company of three female
vampires:
There was something about them that made me
uneasy, some longing and at the same time fear. I
felt in my heart a wicked^ burning desire that they
would kiss me with those red lips. (46)
That he is sexually attracted to these vampires is obvious;
he even thinks briefly of Mina, his fiancee, feeling a
momentary pang of guilt for his lustful thoughts. His
desire is somewhat lessened by his fear, however, as one
of the female vampires takes on an aggression that Jonathan
finds simultaneously exciting and frightening:
The girl went on her knees, and bent over me,
simply gloating. There was a deliberate
voluptuousness which was both thrilling and
repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she licked her
lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight
the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red
tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and
lower went her head as the lips went below the range
1 14 Southern Academic Review
of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on
my throat....! could feel the soft, shivering touch of
the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and
the hard dents of the sharp teeth, just touching and
pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous
ecstasy and waited-waited with beating heart. (46-
47)
Jonathan recounts the vampire's actions in language that
describes not only an extremely erotic and sexual act but
also an animal about to prey. Thus we see that in Jonathan
Marker's mind (and the minds of the other men in the
novel) a woman becomes like an animal when she becomes
sexually dominant.
In her biography of Bram Stoker, Phyllis Roth claims
that Jonathan's part in the above scene is not only that of
willing victim but also that of child (118). Jonathan says
the female vampire's face seems somehow familiar to him,
that he seems "to know it in connection with some dreamy
fear" (46); Roth theorizes that this face is the face of a
mother presented as archetype. Supporting her claim is the
fact that as a substitute for Jonathan, Count Dracula gives
the three women vampires a child (Roth, Stoker 1 18). If
we accept that Jonathan sees himself as child in this
situation, then we can see that the seduction becomes all
the more frightening for a Victorian male who believes in
an ideal of the maternal, nurturing woman. Jonathan
becomes aware that the female vampires would have
destroyed him without Dracula' s intervention, and he
realizes with horror that they plan to destroy the child that
Dracula gives them. The female vampire then is a mother,
but a mother who rejects maternity, a mother who seduces
and destroys her child rather than caring for it.
Roth argues that the fear of the devouring female is
combined with a twisted Oedipal fantasy in the above
Huey 115
scene. She claims that the situation conjures up:
the mythic image of the vagina denrata evident in so
many folk tales in which the mouth and the vagina
are identified with one another by the primitive mind
and pose the threat of castration to all men until the
teeth are extracted by the hero. {Stoker 123)
Roth seems to have an excellent point here. The language
that Stoker uses to describe the vampire's mouth is quite
evocative and sensual. At the same time, though, it is
bestial and dangerous. This theory also explains in part
Jonathan's dual response of arousal and terror. He is
excited by the vaginal mouth but made wary by the sharp
teeth that threaten him.
Jonathan's attitude toward these vampire women
changes between the time he first sees them and the time he
leaves the castle. At first, he calls the women "ladies, by
their dress and manner" (45),- and he certainly seems
willing to let the one vampire have her way with him, but
after this encounter he is repulsed by the mere thought of
them, calling them "awful women... devils of the Pit" (61),
with whom his beloved, chaste Mina has nothing in
common. The fact that the woman's face seems familiar
to him, however, shows that Jonathan does indeed identify
these women with real women. In fact, if they did not
represent real women, he would not feel shame and guilt
when he thinks of Mina learning of the incident (Weissman
74). He says that Mina is unlike the vampires,- yet
the whole book reveals the fear that they do indeed
have something in common. There is always the
possibility that the Victorian wife will become the
sort of woman that her husband both desires and
fears. (Weissman 75)
Jonathan wanted to kiss the vampires, and he submits
himself to whatever the women have planned for him; he
116 Southern Academic Review
later judges and blames not himself but the women, despite
his passive acceptance of the situation.
This passivity becomes yet another threat for Jonathan.
He is repulsed by the female vampires' aggressiveness,
which robs him of his proper sexual role as a man. He is
forced to play a submissive role, the part usually assigned
to women in his society. As he lies waiting, he can feel
the teeth on his flesh, and his part becomes even more
feminine, waiting for penetration. In addition, the woman
plans to draw out of Jonathan "the fluid necessary for life"
(Roth, Stoker 121). Roth suggests that Jonathan seems to
view this act as a form of castration (122). Certainly he
leaves Castle Dracula to escape Dracula and the women in
hopes of preserving his life, yet his manhood also seems to
be at stake. Before he begins the climb down the cliff to
safety, he writes in his diary that "the precipice is steep
and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man" (62).
Although how the female vampires came to be is never
explicitly spelled out, Dracula' s control over them seems
to indicate that he created them. In addition, he reminds
them that they should know from past actions that he
knows how to love (47),^ intimating that he once loved
them, or perhaps had sex with them. They are all three
quite physically attractive, and from Jonathan's responses
to them, we can gather that they are relatively youthful.
We do not know what these women were like before
Dracula made them vampires, but we do know what the
two women whom he attacks in the novel are like. Mina
is newly married when she is attacked; Lucy is engaged.
As critic Judith Weissman points out, Dracula does not bite
"single women, preadolescent women, or old women. He
attacks women who are desired by other men and who are
becoming sexually experienced" (75). When Dracula bites
Lucy and Mina, they seem to become even more sexually
Huey 117
aware, and as they turn into vampires, "they become too
sexual for their husbands or fiances to endure" (Weissman
75).
Lucy is the first of the two women to be attacked by
Dracula, and we watch as she deteriorates toward death and
vampirism. During the daytime, she is quite languid and
sad; at night "she becomes very sexual" (Weissman 75) as
she comes more and more under the Count's influence.
But even before the Count's attacks, Lucy seems to be a
rather sexual being. She tells us directly that she is
attracted to Arthur, Seward, and Quincey Morris, wishing
that it were possible for a "girl" to marry three "men," or
as many as would have her (68). In fact, even her
sleepwalking, which seems to be a metaphor for sexual
consciousness, precedes Dracula (Johnson 26). Sex is
associated with sleeping, even by Mina, who says that men
and women should be allowed to see each other sleeping
before they marry (100). By sleepwalking, Lucy takes an
active role in her own sleeping, an activity which should be
passive. This active role, then, becomes a metaphor for
Lucy's awakening sexuality. Lucy's nighttime excursions
are quite frightening to the men, as are the mysterious bite
marks on her neck. Metaphorically, these puncture wounds
and Lucy's loss of blood can be taken to represent her loss
of virginity—or at the least her loss of innocence.
During the course of Lucy's illness, she requires blood
transfusions from each of the four men. The literal and
metaphorical significance of these transfusions is not lost
on any of the men."* The blood transfused into Lucy must
be from a man; women are too frail to provide enough.
John Seward agrees to be her first donor, but both he and
Van Helsing are relieved when Arthur shows up in time to
take his place. It is fitting that her betrothed be her partner
in such an intimate act. Eventually, however, all four men
118 Southern Academic Review
must give of their blood, and they all seem to agree with
Seward's sentiment that "no man knows, till he experiences
it, what it is to feel his own lifeblood drawn away into the
veins of the woman he loves" (137). The transfusions
seem to make the men feel like men—they all are proud to
give of themselves in order to save Lucy, to whom they are
all sexually attracted. Yet they also seem to fear Lucy
more and more. There is something illicit about the
transfusions that do not come from Arthur, and Van
Helsing warns against letting Arthur learn of them for fear
that he might be jealous or hurt. This attitude stems from
the sexual nature of the transfusions and of Lucy, and this
sexuality is closely aligned with her growing vampirism.
While Lucy's health is declining and she is turning into
a vampire, a wolf escapes from a nearby zoological
gardens and appears at her window. From the very
beginning of the novel, Dracula has been identified with
wolves, and we assume that he is in control of this one as
well. In an excerpt from the "Pall Mall Gazette," we read
of an interviewer investigating the escaped wolf. The wolf,
named Bersicker, has little plot value other than to show
Dracula' s hold on Lucy, but his thematic value is
significant. The interviewer talks to Thomas Bilder, a
zookeeper, and Bilder says several things that serve to
connect the wolf to Lucy on a metaphorical level. First, he „
says that Bersicker has always been a nice, well-behaved *
wolf, never causing any trouble. Never, that is, until the
appearance of a tall, gaunt stranger we know to be the
Count. Bilder credits the wolf's disappearance to the
creature's fickle nature. In a statement that seems to sum
up the attitude toward women shared by all the men in the
book, he says, "You can't trust wolves no more nor
women" (145). With this statement, Bilder connects
wolves, and thus, by association, vampirism, with women,
Huey 119
and he declares both of them to be generally untrustworthy
and equally threatening to men. As one critic, Gail
Griffm, says, this novel is largely "a novel about wolflike
women" (145). Bilder further links Lucy and the wolf
when he says that Bersicker is only a threat to small
children, foreshadowing Lucy's later victims.
Just before Lucy dies, she is openly vampiric in front
of the men for the first time. In a voice hardly her own,
a voice that is "soft and voluptuous" (168), she beckons
Arthur to her: "Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come.
Kiss me!" (168). Arthur begins to respond eagerly to this
frankly sexual invitation, but Van Helsing prevents him,
telling him that his life, his soul, and Lucy's soul depend
on his resistance. The implication of this warning is clear:
beware of sexually aggressive women. After Lucy dies
and becomes a full-fledged vampire, it is even more
important that the men avoid her sexual advances. When
Arthur goes with the group to destroy her, she again tries
to seduce (and therefore attack) him: "Come to me, Arthur.
Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry
for you" (218). Seward says that there is something
"diabolically sweet" (218) in her voice, something that
again is both attractive and repulsive to the men.
Another aspect of Lucy's vampirism that makes her so
fearsome to the men is that she attacks only children. Just
as the three female vampires in Castle Dracula, Lucy
rejects maternity, becoming a destroyer instead of a
nurturer. In some ways, Lucy and her rejection of
motherhood are even more insidious than the other three
female vampires, because her vampirism is not limited to
the animal-like savagery of Dracula' s castlemates. Rather,
Lucy makes children attracted to her. The children she
bites call her the beautiful lady, and they all want to be her
victims. Lucy becomes at once seductress and mother; she
120 Southern Academic Review
uses the very feminine role that she rejects to further her
vampirism. When the men confront Lucy in front of her
tomb, she throws to the ground the child she held at her
breast, proving that "Dracula has so completely polluted
her femininity that she has lost all maternal feeling"
(Griffm 143). This point is when the men lose all feeling
for her, and her cold-bloodedness brings a groan even from
her devoted Arthur (217).
The next night the men follow Lucy into her tomb, and
Arthur drives a stake through her heart, a symbolically
phallic deed of great importance. Not only is the act of
penetrating her with a stake sexually significant, her death
is described in terms that very closely resemble a
description of a woman having an orgasm: "The Thing^ in
the coffm writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling scream
came from the opened red lips. The body shook and
quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white
teeth champed together till the lips were cut" (222). Here
again we have the vagina dentata. Lucy's mouth is
described in sexual terms, and the men are repulsed by it.
But here Arthur becomes the hero and removes the teeth
and the threat.
That it is Arthur who destroys Lucy is meaningful
because of the sexual nature of the destruction. Not only
is Lucy's death evocative of an orgasm, but Arthur's own
role is described in sexual terms:
His untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper
and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood
from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around
it.... Finally [Lucy] lay still. The terrible task was
over. The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He
reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him.
The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead,
and his breath came in broken gasps. (222)
Huey 121
Plainly, the act is representative of intercourse. But this is
correct intercourse, as far as the men are concerned.
Arthur is the aggressor in consummating his marriage with
Lucy, and the language even suggests that he takes her
virginity (the blood symbolizes the loss of her hymen).
This act of sex restores Arthur to his proper role as a man
and Lucy to her passive role as a woman. Lucy's
salvation, as well as the men's, lies in her restoration to
her correct role as submissive female. The men all breathe
a great sigh of relief after this scene, grateful that, at least
temporarily, things have been returned to their natural
state.
This "natural state" is short-lived, however. Mina and
Jonathan Marker are already on their way to London,
where Mina will become Dracula's next victim. The men
view Mina somewhat differently than they do Lucy. As
already stated, the men were all physically and
romantically attracted to Lucy. They are also attracted to
Mina, but not quite in the same manner. From his very
first meeting with her. Van Helsing idealizes Mina. Before
he knows her well, he compares her to an angel. Seward
later calls her a "sweet, sweet, good, good woman" (313),
and the other men seem to share these opinions. For the
men, Mina becomes "the archetypal Good Woman"
(Griffin 145), responsible for carrying out the role Lucy
has abandoned. She is already married, so she becomes
untouchable. Instead of being the desirable virgin, she
becomes the loyal wife on her way to being the nurturing
mother. She is somewhat less sexually threatening than
was Lucy, and the men become symbolically her sons
rather than her lovers (Roth, Stoker 121). In addition,
Mina takes on the role of sister, asexual and caring. Then,
when she meets Quincey Morris, he calls her "little girl"
(237), so she takes on a third role, that of "eternal child,
124 Southern Academic Review
Dracula, and when Dracula leaves London, the men must
chase him to save Mina and all "mankind. " Mina asks Van
Helsing why they have to hunt down Dracula when he has
left them and is no longer an immediate danger to them.
His response to her is indicative of the men's fear of her as
a woman and a vampire: "Because he can live for
centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to
be dreaded—since once he put that mark upon your throat"
(319). In other words, the men know that once Mina dies,
she will become as Lucy was: a female vampire who
seduces and destroys men, rejecting the correct notion of
femininity and womanhood.
So, the men set off across Europe to kill Count Dracula
and end this threat to Mina~and to themselves. But whom
(or what) exactly are they chasing? In all that has
occurred, we have actually seen very little of Dracula
himself.^ In what we have seen of him, we discover that
he knows perfectly well that the way to intimidate the men
is through their women. In a face-to-face confrontation in
one of Dracula' s London homes, he tells the men, "Your
girls that you love are mine already; and through them you
and others shall yet be mine" (312). This statement reveals
a double threat to the men. First, he is attacking their
society at what the men perceive as its weakest point—its
women. But the second threat is more immediate and more
terrifying:
He can destroy this collective male unconscious
symbolically, by transforming its ideal Good Women
into sexual wolves. He is both a sexual competitor
gloating over his superior prowess and a subliminal
voice within our heroes, whispering that at heart, the
girls they love are all potential vampires, that their
angels are, in fact, whores." (Griffm 147)
Dracula, then, represents to the men both their
Huey 125
shortcomings and their fears. They worry that they are not
masculine enough to be men and that women can steal what
masculinity they do have. In short, these men are worried
that Dracula is a better man than they.
That the men think of the Count as something of a
superman is evident also in that they seem to project their
own desires onto him. Although Dracula is the character
associated with killing and destruction, most of the "on-
stage" killing is actually done by the heroes (Roth,
"Suddenly" 61). Their internal desire to destroy comes to
the surface when Seward sees the Lucy-vampire. "Had she
then to be killed I could have done it with savage delight"
(217), he says. Such speech is hardly to be expected of the
good guys. In addition, Dracula represents to the men
power, sex, and immortality, all of which seem to be traits
desired by men.
As well as all that he stands for as a man, and rather
paradoxically, Dracula is also associated with female
sexuality. In the scene where Mina drinks his blood, the
language used to describe Dracula' s mouth relates to him
the qualities of the vagina dentata:
The Count turned his face. . . .The great nostrils of the
white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the
edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips
of the blood-dripping mouth, clamped together like
those of a wild beast. (288)
Again we have the evocative language and the reminder
that if female sexuality is not destroyed, it will destroy its
male victims. To the men, this scene is perhaps the most
horrific they encounter, for it represents their worst fears.
They know that they must track down Dracula and
symbolically pull the teeth from the threatening mouth.
When the men finally reach Transylvania, there are two
things they must accomplish. Obviously, they have to kill
126 Southern Academic Review
Dracula himself, but they also must visit his castle and
destroy the three female vampires. Van Helsing is chosen
to kill the female vampires, and he does so, visiting the
castle during daylight and driving a stake through each of
them. The act of phallic aggression is reminiscent of
Lucy's destruction, and these three female vampires die
similarly, with appropriate orgasmic writhing and
screeching. Significant in their destruction, however, is
Van Helsing 's attraction to them. He finds them so
beautiful, so sexually exciting, that he is hard pressed to
kill them and is even momentarily entranced. He finds
their sexual nature both revulsive and attractive, but in the
end, it is too threatening for him to allow, and he kills
them.
In comparison to the deaths of the women vampires,
Dracula himself dies rather peacefully. Jonathan beheads
him, Quincey plunges a Bowie knife through his heart, and
the Count crumbles away into dust (380). With this
symbolic castration of Dracula, the men restore their world
to its natural order, freeing Mina from the curse of
vampirism and sexuality. No longer is Mina a wantonly
sexual woman, and the men are no longer threatened by
her. The men have not outgrown or overcome their fears;
they have merely eliminated the source of those fears. ^
They can rest assured that they have fulfilled their
masculine roles, protecting their Mina from vampirism and
sex. Appropriately enough, Mina gives birth to a boy on
the anniversary of Dracula' s death, and that boy is given
the names of each of our men. In him rests the future; he
is to be the embodiment of all the positive masculine traits
the men see in themselves. The novel ends with Van
Helsing 's words of praise for Mina:
This boy will someday know what a brave and
gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her
Huey ni
sweetness and loving care; later on he will
understand how some men so loved her, that they did
dare so much for her sake. (382)
Mina has been restored to her position as ideed woman.
She is sweet and good, maternal and nurturing.
Dracula is a monster throughout the novel, but his
threat is more serious than mere blood-sucking and murder.
If he were simply a killer, the men would most likely have
let him escape back to Transylvania. However, Dracula
and vampirism represent a sexuality that the men cannot
allow in their world—female sexuality. The men fear
women, and to allow a woman to possess sexual aggression
is to deny that aggression to men, unstabilizing their self-
definition. The men see women with desires as menacing
to their masculinity, and desires are released by Dracula' s
bite. Therefore, they must chase down Dracula and end
his power in an effort to save their own. But what is most
despicable about the men's attitude toward women is the
dual response to alluring women evinced by the men
throughout the book. The men are not merely repulsed by
sexual women; they are also attracted to them. Jonathan
Marker wants the female vampires in Castle Dracula to kiss
him, to bite him. Despite his revulsion, he is perfectly
willing to be their victim. Van Helsing is also quite
aroused by these vampires. Arthur must be prevented from
kissing Lucy when she beckons him in front of her tomb.
The men never stop to think about their own role in this
attraction. To do so would be to admit weakness, and
weakness is not masculine. Instead, the men blame the
women entirely and kill them. It is bad enough that the
men are afraid of sexual women; it is even worse that they
want women to be sexual and then destroy them for it.
128 Southern Academic Review
Notes
^Jonathan's use of the adjective wicked is telling. He
clearly sees sex as something to be abhorred and sexual
desire as wrong.
^Critic Gail Griffin argues that the fact that Jonathan sees
these women as ladies "makes them all the more perversely
exciting, as only lower-class women were supposed to have
sexual desires" (138).
^Critic Clive Leatherdale suggests that the relationship
between Dracula and the three female vampires has
incestuous overtones, adding yet another sexual taboo to
vampirism. According to Leatherdale, Dracula seems to
represent the husband of one of the vampires and the father
of the other two, which makes his statement that they
should know he is able to love even more horrific (149).
'^The significance of these blood transfusions is great.
Dracula sucks blood from his victims; Lucy drains the
blood of the men in these transfusions. The mingling of
blood is clearly symbolic of sexual intercourse, as blood
becomes an analogy for semen (Leatherdale 149). Thus,
Lucy's sexual awakening is furthered by the blood
transfusions.
^That John calls Lucy "The Thing" at this point is telling.
She is now so far removed from his Victorian male sense
of femininity that he cannot identify her as a woman.
Moments later, after her vampiric side is destroyed, he
again calls her Lucy, noting that her "sweetness and
purity" (222) have been restored.
^The scar on Mina's head is further significant in that it
serves to connect Mina with Dracula. Dracula still bears
Huey 129
the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan struck him.
Now they are both marked, warning the world of the
danger they represent.
^Dracula's absence throughout a large part of the novel
seems to reflect the fact that the true enemies of the men
are women and sexuality. In fact, he himself never
physically threatens the men, except in Castle Dracula,
where he tells the female vampires that Jonathan Harker is
his; this threat, however, proves empty.
^This reading of the end of the novel is not universally
shared. One critic, Alan Johnson, believes that by
destroying Count Dracula, the men have come to terms
with their fears of women. Johnson believes that Mina and
Jonathan Harker wind up as equal partners in marriage,
and that the New Woman triumphs in the person of Mina
(36).
130 Southern Academic Review
Works Cited
Carter, Margaret L., ed. Dracula: The Vampire and the
Critics. Ann Arbor: UMI Research P, 1988.
Griffin, Gail B. "'Your Girls That You Love Are All
Mine': Dracula and the Victorian Male Sexual
Imagination." Carter 137-148.
Johnson, Alan P. "'Dual Life': The Status of Women in
Dracula. " Sexuality and Victorian Literature. Ed. by
Don Richard Cox. Knoxville: U Tennessee P, 1984.
20-39.
Leatherdale, Clive. Dracula: The Novel and the Legend.
Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Aquarian P, 1985.
Roth, Phyllis A. Bram Stoker. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.
— . "Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker's Dracula. "
Carter 57-67.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. New York: Signet
Classics, 1965.
Weissman, Judith. "Women and Vampires: Dracula as a
Victorian Novel." Carter 69-78.
The Incompatibility
of Marxism and Feminism
Natalie Mever
Within western industrialized culture, some feminists
who view capitalism as an oppressive social, economic, and
political structure have attempted to incorporate feminist
thought into that of Marxism. In most attempts, however,
this incorporation repeatedly has meant the compromising
of feminist needs and aims. In contrast to Marxism, which
places total emphasis upon the fight to destroy capitalism,
feminism places as great or greater an emphasis on the
battle against the forces of patriarchy. Patriarchy, the
domination of women by men and the institutions among
men that perpetuate this domination, pervades all areas of
both the public and private spheres, and yet in spite of
patriarchy's all-encompassing nature, Marxism gives it
little attention, deeming it a manifestation of capitalism
which will disappear after the workers' revolution.
Although the male wage laborer experiences exploitation
and oppression under capitalism, his experience cannot be
generalized to a woman's experience under both capitalism
and patriarchy. By denying the existence of patriarchy as
an entity separate from capitalism, Marxism renders itself
132 Southern Academic Review
incompatible with the aims of feminism.
Before turning to a discussion of the relationship
between Marxism and feminism, it is helpful to examine
the basic features of traditional Marxist thought. In
building the case against capitalism, Marxism begins with
a foundation of human nature as defined through an
approach of historical-materialism. Unlike liberalism,
Marxism holds that there is no one universal human nature.
Instead, according to Marxism, human nature is historical
in that it is created in the changing contexts of societies.
The production of food, clothing, and shelter within society
is what separates humans from animals, since human
activity is conscious and has direction. This purposeful
activity is what Marx calls 'praxis.' Through praxis, the
first historical act is performed -in order to satisfy an
existing need; in turn, this action creates new needs. In
this way, humans continually create their own needs while
at the same time creating their own nature (Jagger 53-54).
According to traditional Marxism, human nature further
is characterized by the mode of production in a given
society. Individuals living in a hunting/gathering society
differ in nature from those living in an agrarian society,
just as those individuals living in a feudal society differ in
nature from those living in a nineteenth-century industrial
society. Societies are constituted by different modes of
production, and these modes are fundamental to the
character of a particular society, which is fundamental to
the creation of human nature. It follows, in traditional
Marxist thought, that there can be no abstract individual;
the individual is constantly changing in response to his or
her changing society.
For Marxism, the importance of the mode of
production in capitalist society lies in the fact that
capitalism creates class distinctions, which are inherently
Meyer 133
hierarchical. Marxism regards class distinctions as creating
certain categories of social types—the bourgeois and the
proletarian—and individuals within these two types display
different characteristics. Therefore it can be said that in
addition to the combined influences of history and the mode
of production, human nature is defined also by one's class.
It is the place of the proletariat, or working class, in
which Marxist thought is centered. According to Marxism,
work is valuable. It is through work that humans realize
their potential as creative beings. Forced work, however,
is harmful to this potential. A worker's labor power (not
the labor itself) is seen as property in the person, and this
property is exploited by capitalism through forced work.
Capitalism limits, or represses, an individual's creative
identity because capital, in owning the means of
production, alienates worker from both product and labor
power. Workers do not instantly rebel because they are
held in a sort of mental check by the dominant ideology of
capitalist society which creates a "false consciousness"
among the worker class, as well as the bourgeoisie. The
belief in the inevitability of a class society is an element of
this false consciousness, as is modem liberal
contractarianism. Under liberal contractarianism, the
worker contracts freely with the capitalist, and by definition
individuals who voluntarily enter into a contract cannot be
considered exploited.
Marxism argues that if they are ever to reach their full
potential, members of the proletariat must lay aside this
false consciousness and rise up against capitalism, taking
the means of production into their own hands. It is, in
fact, the potentiality of humans to achieve their full creative
powers that makes them potentially revolutionary. Without
this potential, workers are merely exploited workers,
lacking any sort of initiative for revolution (Eisenstein 7).
134 Southern Academic Review
With this initiative, though, workers will rise up, and
according to traditional Marxist thought, their revolution
will bring an end to their alienation and will create a
classless society in which the state shall wither away.
These are the basic tenets of traditional Marxist
thought, and it is within these principles that feminists
have, at times, attempted to create parallels between
Marxist and feminist theory. It is not difficult to see how
the doctrines of Marxism would have first attracted
feminists. The idea of the relationship of the proletariat to
the bourgeois as analogous to the relationship of women to
men can appear ideal. The male gender, seen as holding
the reigns of power, neatly fits into the category of
"bourgeoisie," while the female gender, seen as laboring
under the dominance of men, falls equally as neatly into the
category of "proletariat. " Some feminists therefore could
make the connection that woman, like workers, are unable
to achieve their potential within the existing structures of
society, and so become a potentially revolutionary body of
individuals.
More specifically, this relationship of worker to
capitalist has been seen as analogous to the relationship of
wife to husband. It is this analogy that has been
particularly attractive to some feminists, for within it lie all
the possibilities of a comparison of the employment
contract with the marriage contract. The above-mentioned
relationship between males and females is too broad in that
it cannot be seen in the context of a contract, for women,
as a group, do not enter a contract to be dominated by
men. By narrowing the scope to the relationship of
husband and wife, feminists have been able to argue that
the marriage contract, like the employment contract, is an
exploitative contract.
The early feminists fought for civil independence for
Meyer 135
the wife, whose property and person passed form father to
husband under the law; the wife had no "civic" personality.
Women also fought for women's suffrage; enfranchisement
is, like the ownership of property, one of the basic
freedoms associated with the individual under modem
liberal thinking, in which supposedly all individuals
exercise rational thought, although, "all individuals"
originally included only white male property holders.
Women, as well as a number of minorities, were excluded.
Having gained recognition as rational individuals, women
continue to argue for more equal laws within the marriage
contract.
The liberal feminist argument based upon women as
rational individuals, however, can be turned against itself.
Opponents argue that the marriage contract is just that, a
contract— 2ind implicit within the definition of contract is
the idea that only rational individuals are able to "contract
in." More importantly, a contract is valid only if these
rational individuals enter into it voluntarily. Therefore,
liberal feminists are caught in a theoretically-bound web.
Their opponents argue that women, as rational individuals,
by definition enter freely into marriage contracts of which
they fully know the conditions, and for some, the
conditions of the marriage contract seem fairly equal: the
husband provides shelter and security in return for
housework, childbearing an rearing, and sexual services
from the wife. Further, marriage contracts are not
compulsory, so those women who believe that the
conditions are unfair are not compelled to enter into the
contract. For liberal feminists to argue that women are not
aware of the conditions or are not entering these contracts
voluntarily is to undercut their own arguments that women
are rational individuals just as are men.
To counter these arguments, some feminists employ
136 Southern Academic Review
Marxist thought and its revealing commentary upon the
exploitative character of the employment contract.
According to traditional Marxist thought, capitalists, using
the tools of modem liberal contractarianism, maintain an
overarching belief system in which workers enter into the
employment contract voluntarily, in which no capitalist
forces any man to become a worker, and in which workers
know the conditions of their contracts. In reality, Marxism
argues, workers are forced into employment contracts
simply because they have no other options. Capital owns
the means of production which leaves workers no choice
but to sell their labor power, for labor power, as property
in one's person, is the only property workers own.
Similarly, feminists are able to argue that the marriage
contract, like the employment contract, is not really a
voluntary venture. Men control women's economic
opportunities, so women are forced to enter this "contract"
because economically they are left no other choice. The
argument continues that the rational individual as universal
is simply a figment of false consciousness, an idea in which
women as well as workers have been deceived. As
Pateman points out, however, the marriage contract and the
employment contract are not the same sort of contract; the
employment contract concerns workers' labor power, but
the marriage contract concerns women's labor {Sexual
Contract 136). Labor power is something a worker can
exchange for a wage. It is also something that can be
exploited by capital through alienation. Marxism takes
care to emphasize this distinction between labor and labor
power. In contrast to a worker, a wife contracts out her
labor (what she does), not her labor power (her ability to
do what she does); in effect, she contracts out herself.
In effect, women's oppression issues from the male
gender as well as from the ruling class as purported by
Meyer 137
Marxism. Marxism does not explain this double
oppression experienced by women, and herein lies the
major failure of Marxism in regard to the needs and
purposes of feminism. The inappropriateness of comparing
the marriage contract to the employment contract is only
one aspect of an examination of the incompatibility of
Marxism and feminism; the more closely feminism
examines Marxism, the more unsuitable the partnership
appears. As mentioned above, traditional Marxism
contends that woman's nature, like man's, is related
historically to the developments of particular societies;
there is no prior knowledge of woman's nature, nor is there
a "universal woman" just as there is no "universal man."
On the one hand, there is an attempt within Marxism
to generalize the "place" of women to that of men's.
Marxist categories are gender-blind; and individual is either
a bourgeois or proletarian. One either owns the means of
production, or one is exploited by the owners. There is no
recognition in Marxist theory that woman's place is
characterized not only by production but also by her status
as a woman. A man is characterized and his nature created
in reaction to his status as a member of the proletariat or
the bourgeoisie. A woman also can be a member of either
of these groups; her position within these groups, however,
is characterized further by her status as a woman. In the
essay "Women, Class and Sexual Differences," Alexander
explains that
Against Marxism's claims that the determining social
relationship is between wage labor and capital,
exploiter and exploited, proletarian and capitalist,
feminism insists on the recognition that subjective
identity is also constructed as masculine or feminine,
placing the individual as husband or wife, mother or
father, son or daughter, and so on. ("Women, Class"
138 Southern Academic Review
169)
Marxism's gender-blind categories do not take this fact into
account. Hartmann, in The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism
and Feminism, maintains that,
just as capital creates these places [bourgeoisie and
proletariat] indifferent to the individuals who fill
them, the categories of Marxist analysis, class,
reserve army of labor, wage-laborer, do not explain
why particular people fill particular places. (10)
They do not tell why it is that women are subordinate to
men.
On the other hand traditional Marxist theory does
recognize some distinction between the places of men and
women; it does not, however, do so in a way that adopts
this distinction as a central component of Marxist theory.
According to Elshtain, in The Origin of the Family,
Patriarchy, Property, and the State, argues that the first
class antagonism coincided with the development of
antagonism between man and woman in monogamous
marriage; the first class oppression was that of the female
gender by the male gender {Public Man 258). The family
relationships of monogamous marriage arose in relation to
the changing modes of production. Male domination was
based upon the ownership of private property, and the
subsequent dependence of the women upon the men. Men
now had property which they wished their offspring to
inherit. Only through monogamous marriage could men
most completely ensure the legitimacy of their offspring.
So, in this "class division," men assumed a place within the
category of the propertied bourgeoisie and women were
forced into a place in the proletariat.
Engels appears to be sympathetic to the plight of
women by comparing women to what he considers the
oppressed class in a class society. He perhaps is
Meyer 139
sympathetic, but he is not overly concerned for he then
proceeds to subordinate relations of reproduction inherent
in the male/female class division to the relations of
reproduction inherent in the traditional worker/capitalist
class division (Eisenstein 12). The husband is the
bourgeois and the wife is the proletarian, but only within
the boundaries of the family, within the private sphere.
Within the economic, public sphere of production, class
division is based on different characteristics wholly
divorced from any male/female distinctions. It is with
these traditional class distinctions that Marxism is most
concerned. Women's place is generalized to that of men's,
yet she is not actually given full consideration.
When Marxism does treat woman's oppression, it is
seen in connection with production, just as is workers'
oppression. Marxism hinges on the fact that capitalism is
the prevailing mode of production. Women at the time of
Marx and Engels were largely excluded from the work
force as structured by capital. Marxists believed then, as
they do now, that capital has benefitted from women's
domination by men. Capital keeps women anchored in the
home, providing free labor in terms of food preparation,
childbearing and childrearing, cleaning, etc. In this way,
capital, according to Marxism, ensures the continuation of
the next generation of workers and the continued upkeep of
the present workforce, and all at little cost to capital itself.
The wives at home free the husbands to work. Marxism
cites capitalism as an oppressor of women as a group and
workers as a whole; however, Marxism does not fmd that
men as a group oppress women as a group (Jagger 65).
Therefore, although the domination of women by men
results from the acquiring of property by men, this
domination is now maintained by capitalism.
The solution which Marxism offers to this problem is
140 Southern Academic Review
that women should join men in the revolution to end
capitalism, for only through the end of capitalism will
everyone be free to reach his or her potential. Women's
entrance into public industry and wage labor will result in
the equality of men and women, and at the same time, will
aid in the overthrow of capitalism. This overthrow will
effect the end of male domination because there will be no
more private property. Until this overthrow, however,
working women will be working wives with a double day
of work, inside the home and out. Again, Marxism blames
capitalism for this double burden, and moreover says that
it is a burden which will last only as long as does capital.
Some feminist arguments raise objections to these
"solutions" as constrticted by Marxism. Elshtain contends
that Engels fmds the source of women's oppression "both
in their exclusion from the mode of production and their
exclusive inclusion in the sphere of reproduction" (262).
The distinction made between these two spheres by
Marxism is an important factor in understanding the
divergence of feminist and Marxist thought. The public
and private spheres, for Marxism, are spheres of
production and reproduction, respectively. The economic
theory of exploitation which forms the basis for Marxist
thought is seen as separate from and independent of
domestic and reproductive life. There is a gender division
of labor that arose in the first human realization that a child
is the result of a specific sex act. This realization confines
women to the position of reproductive individuals. Their
position in society is created and limited by their biology.
Human praxis is not the only constant in an equation of
human nature; the gender division of labor also factors in.
Marx could not have foreseen the future advancements
of reproductive technology that are making it possible to
remove women from the center of reproductive activity.
Meyer 141
Early Marxism had to assume that, even after the
proletariat revolution and the advent of socialism and
collectivized work, women would remain the childbearers.
Such limitation would result in a "hierarchical sexual
ordering of society" in the future socialist society
(Eisenstein 9). Marx, however, did not envision a
hierarchical ordering of men and women, for "the sexual
division of labor as the sexual division of roles, purposes,
activities, etc. had no unique existence for Marx"
(Eisenstein 9). The idea that women might still feel the
weight of male dominance in the new society due to a
gender-based division of tasks was not rejected by Marx or
even dismissed as unimportant; the thought simply did not
occur.
It is within present Marxist thought that the idea of the
sexual division of labor, brought forward by feminists, has
been dismissed as either secondary to the cause of Marxism
or as a manifestation of the false consciousness promoted
by capitalism. In the first case, Marxism places feminism
in a subordinate position and places what it considers
"women's issues" on the periphery of Marxist activism. In
the second case concerning false consciousness, Marxism
has accused feminism of falling under the influence of
capitalism in its constant attempt to subordinate workers
through the promulgation of false beliefs. Feminist ideas
serve capitalism and the ruling class by obscuring class
lines, and only solidarity between men and women in the
working class will bring an end to capitalism and male
domination. But is there any reason to accept such a rosy
picture for the future? Eisenstein argues correctly that life
under a communist state
would still be structured by a sexual division of labor
which would entail different life options for men and
women. Sex roles would preassign tasks to women
142 Southern Academic Review
which would necessitate continued alienation and
isolation. (11)
The removal of capitalism as the prevailing mode of
production would not ensure the erasure of the sexual
division of labor and subsequent social equality between
men and women.
Presently, the sexual division of labor is not limited to
the "private" world, but is also inherent in the "public"
world. Marxism argues that women who are oppressed are
those who are excluded from wage labor (Jagger 215).
This would suggest that those who are in wage labor do not
experience oppression, at least not in a manner that differs
from the oppression experienced by the male worker.
Since the time of Marx, women have steadily increased
their numbers in the workforce. According to Marxism,
this should have brought equality between working class
women and men, but this has not happened. When women
initially entered the workforce, it brought low wages for
women and men. Men then fought to exclude women from
unions, thus lessening women's chances to obtain and
maintain higher wages. Men fought for the "family wage, "
a wage on which a male worker should be able to support
his family without the aid of other income, in order that
their wives should remain in the home. The jobs and
wages of those wives that did join the workforce were seen
as secondary, supplementary incomes to that of their
husbands. Today, with a few exceptions, women continue
to receive lower wages for jobs which are usually gender-
defmed—secretary, social worker, consumer, and restaurant
services continue to be lower paid jobs reserved for women
(Hartmann 21-22). In this way, work, which had been
predicted to give economic independence and equality to
women, has instead served only to further their dependence
upon men and increase men's domination over them.
Meyer 143
Although both men and women are now in wage labor,
feminism argues that the Marxist concept of alienation of
the worker is male-biased. "Worker" almost invariably
means "male worker." Alienation occurs when the male
worker is forced to sell his labor power to capital and yet
never receives any benefits of the product of this labor
power. The worker is free from alienation only when he
eats, drinks, and procreates. A wife, however, is
compelled to provide food, drink, and procreative services
and so fmds no "freedom" in them (Jagger 131). Working
women are twice-alienated because of their "double
workday." Their "defined sexual inferiority" allows
society to pay these women lower wages and still expect
them to provide maintenance for their working husbands
and carry on as chief childbearers and childrearers. These
women are not labelled "workers;" instead, the label
changes to "working mothers," and as Eisenstein puts it,
"the two jobs get done for the price of one" (29).
A "working mother" spans both the private and public
spheres, as labelled by Marxism, yet oppression, as defined
by Marxism, occurs only in the public sphere. Marxism
visualizes oppression in terms of wage labor, the public
sphere, the economy, material conditions, and capitalist
class relations. It does not see oppression in terms of
domestic labor, the private sphere, the family, ideology, or
the sexual division of labor (Eisenstein 6). It is this
dichotomy to which feminism objects. Private and public,
which Marxism views as separate worlds, actually are
interrelated. Marxists assume that it is possible to reach an
understanding of the public realm of economics and politics
without including the private sphere (Pateman "Feminist
Critiques" 118). It is the interaction, however, of the
spheres of private and public life which shapes economic
and political structures, and these two spheres are
144 Southern Academic Review
connected by the crucial "missing link" which has been
eluded to throughout this discussion: patriarchy.
Patriarchy is at the crux of the conflict between
feminism and Marxism, between the marriage contract and
the employment contract, between the female worker, the
male worker, and the gender division of labor, in general.
Hartmann has defined patriarchy as the "set of social
relations between men, which have a material base, and
which, though hierarchical, create or establish
interdependence and solidarity among men that enables
them to dominate women" (14). Patriarchy accounts for
the fact that while some men have control over other men,
all men, regardless of rank, have economic and political
control over some women. Man is an "unfree master"
because he is both master and subordinate (Pateman Sexual
Contract 42). Patriarchy accounts for male domination;
Marxist theory fails to account for patriarchy. In fact, it
might be more accurate to say that Marxist theory denies
the existence of patriarchy. Patriarchy, however, is a form
of power, and despite any denial by Marxism, all power is
political, even that which is exercised in the so-called
private realm (Pateman "Feminist Critiques" 119). The
problem of patriarchy should not be seen as a private
"feminist issue," but as a public "societal issue."
It is patriarchy which fills the theoretical gaps or
assumptions of Marxism on issues concerning woman.
Pateman observes that Engels, in his assertion that the
solution to women's oppression is to bring women into
wage labor, is assuming several points. One is that, once
they have entered public industry, women will be equal to
men. A second is that "men as men have no stake in their
power over women. " A third is that gender is irrelevant to
subordination and that the oppression of woman should be
understood as identical to the oppression of the proletariat
Meyer 145
{Sexual Contract 134).
The existence of patriarchy calls into question these
assumptions. In reference to the first, Marxists have
claimed that there will be a withering of male domination
because women in wage labor would be equal to men.
Women have entered wage labor, but male domination has
not ended. Women have been incorporated into the
workforce as women, not as workers. Marxism does not
account for this; patriarchy does.
Nor can Marxism account for why men did not fight
for equality of women in wage labor. Why, instead, did
men actively fight against women's entrance into wage
labor, even though solidarity of all members of the working
class would be the strongest weapon in the fight against
capitalism? The answer is that men were guarding against
inroads into their patriarchal power, their privilege as men.
Women have not received the same treatment as men
in the workforce. The sexual division of labor results in
restricted opportunities for women. Assuming that
women's oppression is identical to that of men's is failing
to recognize men and women's different experiences under
patriarchy.
Marxists also claimed that the end of capitalism would
bring the end of domination by both capital and men
because capital would no longer be capable of exploiting
women by using them as bargaining tokens. According to
Marxism, one way that capital keeps working class men in
a subordinate position is by making them unfree masters,
by trading women for subservience. What Marxism fails
to ask is why men accept this as a valid trade in the first
place. Again, patriarchy is the answer to this question.
Marxism and feminism's divergence on the
fundamental issue of patriarchy makes the two
incompatible. Marxism emphasizes the public sphere,
146 Southern Academic Review
assuming that the private sphere is separate and
unimportant and that women's issues fall into this latter
sphere. Patriarchy crosses into both the public and the
private spheres, and yet it has no theoretical position in
Marxist thought. Patriarchy, however, is found in all
relationships, including those of Marxism. Patriarchal
power makes the public dominant to the private; it makes
the husband dominant to the wife; it makes the male
worker dominant to the female worker. Marxism argues
that feminist politics obscure class lines by drawing
together women from both the proletariat and the
bourgeois, and that in doing so, feminism is serving the
interests of the ruling class and capitalism. Feminism
argues that by failing to combat patriarchy or even admit
that it exists, Marxism is serving the interests of capital by
maintaining hierarchies among men. In fact, Marxism as
201 ideology may actually be subversive to women's
interests.
Meyer 147
Works Cited
Alexander, Sally. "Women, Class and Sexual
Differences." Phillips 160-75.
Eisenstein, Zillah, ed. "Developing a Theory of Capitalist
Patriarchy." Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case of
Socialist Feminism. New York: Monthly Review P,
1979. 5-40.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Public Man. Private Woman.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988.
Hartmann, Heidi. "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism
and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union."
The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism.
Ed. Lydia Sargent. London: Pluto P, 1981. 1-41.
Jaggar, Alison M. Feminist Politics and Human Nature.
Sussex: Harvester, 1983.
Pateman, Carole. "Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private
Dichotomy." Phillips 103-26.
— . The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity P, 1988.
Phillips, Anne, ed. Feminism and Equality. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1987.
146 Southern Academic Review
assuming that the private sphere is separate and
unimportant and that women's issues fall into this latter
sphere. Patriarchy crosses into both the public and the
private spheres, and yet it has no theoretical position in
Marxist thought. Patriarchy, however, is found in all
relationships, including those of Marxism. Patriarchal
power makes the public dominant to the private; it makes
the husband dominant to the wife; it makes the male
worker dominant to the female worker. Marxism argues
that feminist politics obscure class lines by drawing
together women from both the proletariat and the
bourgeois, and that in doing so, feminism is serving the
interests of the ruling class and capitalism. Feminism
argues that by failing to combat patriarchy or even admit
that it exists, Marxism is serving the interests of capital by
maintaining hierau^chies among men. In fact, Marxism as
an ideology may actually be subversive to women's
interests.
Meyer 147
Works Cited
Alexander, Sally. "Women, Class and Sexual
Differences." Phillips 160-75.
Eisenstein, Zillah, ed. "Developing a Theory of Capitalist
Patriarchy." Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case of
Socialist Feminism. New York: Monthly Review P,
1979. 5-40.
Elshtain, Jean Bethke. Public Man. Private Woman.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988.
Hartmann, Heidi. "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism
and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union."
The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism.
Ed. Lydia Sargent. London: Pluto P, 1981. 1-41.
Jaggar, Alison M. Feminist Politics and Human Nature.
Sussex: Harvester, 1983.
Pateman, Carole. "Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private
Dichotomy." Phillips 103-26.
— . The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity P, 1988.
Phillips, Anne, ed. Feminism and Equality. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1987.
African- Americans
and Automobiles in Fiction
Dr. Roger N. Casey
A seeming norm in American literature finds the
coupling of automobiles and African Americans leading to
calamity: in Invisible Man (1952) the protagonist is
expelled from college for driving a white trustee across
"the white line dividing the highway" to the black side of
town (38); in Native Son (1940) Bigger Thomas murders
Mary Dalton ultimately as a consequence of his position as
a chauffeur; and as early as Ama Bon temps 's "A Summer
Tragedy" (1933) black sharecroppers use their car to
commit suicide. White authors coupling blacks and cars
have created equally disastrous results: Coalhouse Walker,
Jr., of E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime (1975) loses his life over
the restoration of his Model T Ford, for example. Henry
Ford's dictum concerning paint choice on his Model T,
"Any color as long as it's black," may identify the primary
reason for these characters' travails—the color of their skin.
These recurring calamities suggest that to these authors the
automobile, the most visible technological machine in
American society, embodies a larger machine— that of
racism and its byproducts of discrimination, exploitation,
and alienation.
Casey 149
"A Summer Tragedy" chronicles the final hours of Jeff
and Jenny, aging black sharecroppers who decide to end
their lives rather than continue with the infirmities of old
age and the difficulties imposed on them by their hard-
driving landlord. Their method of demise is their automo-
bile, an aging Model T, which they drive off a cliff into a
raging river. On several occasions, Bontemps parallels the
increasingly decrepit bodies of Jeff and Jenny with the
mechanical condition of "the little rattle-trap car," the Ford
becoming emblematic of the couple's condition:
The engine came to life with a sputter and bang that
rattled the old car from radiator to tail light.... The
sputtering and banging increased. The rattling be-
came more violent. That was good. It was good
banging, good sputtering and rattling, and it meant
that the aged car was still in running condition. (139)
Jeffs and Jenny's bodies correlate to the mechanical
clamor of the car: "The suggestion of the trip fell into the
machinery of his mind like a wrench.... When he took his
hands off the wheel, he noticed that he was trembling
violently.... A few moments later she was at the window,
her voice rattling against the pane like a broken shutter"
(139~emphases added). Jeffs heart beats like "the little
pounding motor of the car," which "worked harder and
harder. The puff of steam from the cracked radiator
became larger" (145). Even the shed which houses the car
is likened to the house of the old couple and metaphorically
to the couple themselves; "miraculously, despite wind and
downpour, it still stood" (139).
Clearly Bontemps wishes us to view the old couple in
much the same vein as the vehicle: both have existed for a
service function, and both have been literally driven into
the ground. Jeff comments how his landlord feels that one
mule is enough to plow forty acres and how such a philoso-
150 Southern Academic Review
phy has resulted in the deaths of many mules, and many
men, he adds. He is proud to have survived such a rigor-
ous existence. Yet like the Model T, his and Jenny's
radiators are cracked: he is partially crippled by a stroke,
Jenny is blind, and both fear they will end up like a
discarded mule, or a junked automobile. They therefore
choose to do what they perceive they must do to die with
dignity.
Neither Jeff nor Jenny can bear the loss of each other:
he is her eyes, she his hands. The old couple and the car
also have a symbiotic relationship. Jeff and Jenny could
have chosen a more passive role for the car in their
suicides, for example, using it for carbon monoxide poison-
ing. Instead, they have the car "die" with them, and
Bontemps leaves us, not with the couple, but with the
image of the torn car:
In another instant the car hit the water and dropped
immediately out of sight. A little later it lodged in
the mud of a shallow place. One wheel of the
crushed and upturned little Ford became visible
above the rushing water. (148)
The couple regards the car as "a peculiar treasure" (139).
Like most farmers of the thirties, they fmd the car
indispensable. The automobile is their one link to the
outside world, their source of mobility, particularly since
old age cripples the mobility of their own bodies.
Ironically, in spite of the car, they are unable to escape
from their condition, neither physically nor economically,
and this compounds their desperate state. Before his death,
Jeff remembers especially one event in his life: the time he
took a trip to New Orleans, the last time he really left the
farm behind. Now the old couple goes on one final
journey, a journey to their deaths made possible by the car.
The story of one old couple may seem insignificant, as
Casey 151
Bon temps relates in this image: "Chugging across the green
countryside, the small, battered Ford seemed tiny indeed"
(140); yet since their story is called a tragedy, the two are
obviously meant to be seen as heroic figures. They
exemplify the untold stories of countless lives worn out as
cogs in a machine exploiting them for cheap labor and
holding them captive in indebtedness. In the story's
conclusion we are torn between rejoicing over the couple's
ability to die in a manner they see befitting dignity and
outrage over the harshness of a life which has led them to
make such a decision. Like a Model T, Jeff and Jenny
have been pushed to their limits and discarded, products of
a cycle of exploitation.
In another story from the same year, "Saturday Night:
Portrait of a Small Southern Town, 1933," Bontemps again
uses automobiles to illuminate racial oppression in his
society. In this story the narrator speaks from his car as he
drives through town on a Saturday evening. A white man
has been killed by a hit-and-run driver, leading one charac-
ter to remark: "We know right well that it was a colored
man who was driving that car. . . .That driver refused to stop
because he feard a mob" (164). On another occasion a
political speaker remarks: "Take Macon County fer'n in-
stance. Down yonder there's seven niggers to every white
man.... Yet 'n still they got heap better roads 'n we got
here in Madison County" (159). Both quotations clearly
demonstrate prevailing racist attitudes, but by far the most
prominent racist incident involving an automobile recounts
the story of two black men helping a white driver:
[A]t the turn of the Pike there is an automobile stuck
in the heavy mud. We slow down. The white driver
beckons to two blacks who are about to pass him
without stopping: "Come here boys, give me a
push." They do not speak but come quietly and set
152 Southern Academic Review
their muscles against the weight of the car. Presently
it gets away. The driver does not pause or look
back.... Apparently neither they nor the driver have
been aware of anything irregular in the episode that
summoned them to push a carload of able men out of
the mud and left them ankle deep in the spot as the
others drove away. Apparently there is no pang, no
tragedy. (168-69)
These incidents involving automobiles clearly show the
second-class life of blacks in a small Southern town—they
are left in the mud while whites use them and drive away.
Bontemps would have us feel a pang and see these stories
as the tragedies they are.
Richard Wright's Native Son moves from Bontemps 's
rural settings to urban Chicago, but the protagonist. Bigger
Thomas, is also victimized, unable to escape. Again the
automobile is connected to his plight. Early in the novel
Wright uses passing cars to illustrate the restlessness of
Bigger and his unemployed companions. Like Bontemps 's
two men in the mud, Bigger and his friends are left behind
as those empowered by the automobile drive by: "They
waited leisurely at comers for cars to pass; it was not that
they feared cars, but they had plenty of time" (31). Bigger
has too much time on his hands, and in that time his
growing sense of alienation and anger festers. He wishes
he could escape. As a symbol of this desire, he steals auto
tires, the wheels for his flight.
Potential relief comes in his job as driver for the
"philanthropic" Daltons, a position which allows Bigger to
dream of escape. When he first gets the job, he imagines
his vehicle:
He hoped it would be a Packard, or a Lincoln, or a
Rolls Royce. Boy! Would he drive! Just wait! Of
course, he would be careful when he was driving
Casey 153
Miss or Mr. Dalton. But when he was alone he
would bum up the pavement; he would make those
tires smoke! (60-61)
Peter Marsh and Peter CoUett write:
For many individuals, driving a car is one of the few
opportunities to escape from a life of routine sub-
mission. . . .The car is, for them, a technological level-
ler.... Challenges... can be taken up and symbolic
battles won. (165)
The car provides such an opportunity for Bigger; it fur-
nishes the only real feeling of power he has ever had:
He had a keen sense of power when driving; the feel
of a car added something to him. He loved to press
his foot against a pedal and sail along, watching
others stand still, seeing the asphalt road unwind
under him. (63)
Bigger sees the automobile as a way out of his de-
pressed existence, yet paradoxically, it is responsible for
his plight. His situation represents the condition of many
inner-city blacks after the automotive revolution.
Economic opportunities increased because of the automo-
bile, yet such opportunities were often located out of the
reach of those without cars. Dan Lacy elaborates in The
White Use of Blacks in America:
The very ease of private automobile transportation
led to a decay and abandonment of public transporta-
tion even where it existed, and there was little
incentive for the establishment of new transit or bus
lines to serve the new areas. Blacks who could not
afford to own and maintain cars in the city were
hopelessly blocked from employment in precisely
those types of plants in which opportunities were
largest and most promising. (216)
Unable to fmd good jobs, inner-city blacks like Bigger
154 Southern Academic Review
worked at unskilled labor or in domestic positions, if they
had jobs at all.
Digger's dreams of power through the automobile
quickly crumble when Mary Dalton asks him to drive her
to the black side of town: "It was a shadowy region, a No
Man's Land, the ground that separated the white world
from the black that he stood upon. He felt naked,
transparent..." (67-68). Mary's request violates Rigger's
sense of order, thereby making him vulnerable. Wright
describes Bigger' s sense of losing control: "He was not
driving; he was simply sitting and floating along smoothly
through darkness" (77-78). This darkness engulfs Bigger,
and ultimately it leads him to smother Mary in his panic
over being caught in her bedroom, an act which eventually
results in his execution.
Like Bigger Thomas, the protagonist of Invisible Man
is ruined by driving a white person. Wright tells of
Bigger' s proximity to Mary that "never in his life had he
been so close to a white woman" (68), and the invisible
man fmds himself in the same position with Mr. Norton,
the white trustee of the college, asserting: "I had never
been so close to a white person before" (84). Like Bigger,
the invisible man is initially elated by the power he feels in
commanding an automobile, yet he also has a sense of
impending doom because of his proximity to whiteness: he
declares, "We were driving, the powerful motor purring
and filling me with pride and anxiety" (37), and "Riding
here in the powerful car with this white man who was so
pleased with what he called his fate, I felt a sense of
dread" (40).
The invisible man fears the crossing of the white line:
both entering into the territory of power and wealth which
society has taught him is reserved for white people and
taking someone from the white world into the true world of
Casey 155
the African- American community, the world of Trueblood
and of the Golden Day. "I suddenly decided to turn off the
highway, down a road that seemed unfamiliar," the
invisible man narrates of the journey to Trueblood' s (40).
Down this unfamiliar road they approach "a team of oxen
hitched to a broken-down wagon," a clear contrast to the
symbol of success and power of the automobile (40). The
white line of the highway becomes the symbol for this line
of division between black and white in society: "I wished
we were back on the other side of the white line, heading
back to the quiet green stretch of the campus," the narrator
declares (49); and on another occasion he states, "The
wheel felt like an alien thing in my hands as I followed the
white line of the highway" (96). The trip to the Golden
Day further compounds the crossing of the line, and
symbolically the invisible man drives there on the wrong
side of the road. As with Bigger, this act of crossing the
white line leads the invisible man to lose control of his
destiny: "I had a sense of losing control of the car and
slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road...," he
declares (97). The invisible man's fate is best represented
by Ellison's description of an insect that "crushed itself
against the windshield, leaving a yellow, mucous smear"
(44). He is crushed, destroyed by the circumstances of this
encounter, an encounter that demonstrates little real change
in the social position of African-Americans since
emancipation. Indeed, when we last see the car, it has
stopped "in front of a small building with white pillars like
those of an old plantation manor house," seemingly
indicating times have not changed at all (98).
Jean Rosenbaum asserts that the automobile "is more
than a convenience; it is a symbol... of belonging to a
group, and it brings group recognition" (2). The invisible
man wants to be part of "the group." At one point with
156 Southern Academic Review
Mr. Norton he thinks: "[W]ith the car leaping leisurely
beneath the pressure of my foot, I identified myself with
the rich man reminiscing on the rear seat..." (39). This
identification suggests that the invisible man wishes to
appropriate whiteness, and his emulation of the hegemony
of the white superstructure, as represented by Mr. Norton,
leads to his downfall. Only after realizing he must em-
brace blackness and not try to appropriate whiteness and
objects connected to the white power structure, such as
fancy cars, does the invisible man become self- actualized.
Ragtime demonstrates that Caucasian writers also tie
automobiles to the demise of African- American characters.
Like the invisible man, Doctorow's character, Coalhouse
Walker, Jr., also wants to belong to the power group.
Driving a new Model T and wearing goggles and a duster.
Walker appears at the home of a white family housing
Sarah, the mother of his child. The family's father finds
Walker's status exceptional: "It occurred to father one day
that Coalhouse Walker Jr. didn't know he was a Negro"
(185). Walker, however, knows that "as the owner of a
car he was a provocation to many white people" (199).
One of the people Walker provokes, the racist fire chief
Will Conklin, asks Walker for a toll to pass his firehouse.
Walker leaves to get a policeman and upon returning disco-
vers his car muddied, torn, and defecated on. He demands
reparation, but in the ensuing exchange the officer arrests
him. The following day he returns to find the car thor-
oughly vandalized, pushed into a pond, wires ripped from
the engine: "Waterlogged and wrecked, it offended the
sensibilities of anyone who respected machines and valued
what they could do" (274).
Walker becomes obsessed with justice over the restora-
tion of his car, yet he is unable to obtain it because of
Conklin 's judicial connections. Then, another incident
Casey 157
involving an automobile compounds his rage. Sarah
attempts to plead Walker's case before the visiting U.S.
Vice President, and as he exits his Panhard limousine, she
bolts toward him. Suspected of being an assassin, she is
mortally wounded by a blow from a gun. Ironically, an
expensive automobile much like that which carried the Vice
President bears her to her funeral:
a custom Pierce Arrow Opera Coach with an
elongated passenger compartment and a driver's cab
open to the weather. . . .The car was so highly polished
the boy could see in its rear doors a reflection of the
entire street. (223)
Walker then becomes a vigilante, burning down firehouses
and leaving the demand: "I want my automobile returned
to me in its original condition. If these conditions are not
met I will continue to kill firemen and bum firehouses until
they are" (243). He forms a gang that executes terrorist
activities in quick strikes from automobiles, and these acts
lead the New York legislature to enact an automobile
registration law so that vehicles might be traced. Even-
tually the gang takes over the J. P. Morgan Library, and
Conklin is forced to restore the car on the street in front of
the edifice. Walker ultimately surrenders, but upon
exiting the building is needlessly shot and killed.
To Walker, the struggle for racial equality begins with
justice over the destruction of his Ford; he feels "with an
enemy as vast as an entire nation of the white race, the
restoration of a Model T automobile was as good a place
to start as any" (337). That Walker owns a Model T is
interesting, not only because of Ragtime's emphasis on the
interchangeability of parts, as the Model T had, but also
because of Henry Ford's dealings with black employees in
Detroit. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick's Black Detroit
and the Rise of the fMW addresses this association. At one
158 Southern Academic Review
time Ford was the largest employer of African-Americans
in Detroit. He saw "in black America an eager reservoir
of workers committed to the American system" (14);
however, Ford viewed African-Americans and other
minority groups as "social outcasts who needed and would
appreciate his help" (11). Ford's patronizing attitude, like
that of Wright's "philanthropic" Daltons and Invisible
Man's Mr. Norton, does not promote equality and
opportunity, but rather reupholsters the notion of the
superiority of white society, positioning whites as saviors
of the downtrodden black community. Walker's assertion
that the restitution of his Ford is as good a place to start as
any thus can extend beyond the car to Ford himself and
particularly to the enterprises practiced by the white
capitalist elite.
Jeff and Jenny, Bigger Thomas, the invisible man, and
Coalhouse Walker are all associated with the automobile,
perhaps the most visible symbol of the machine age. They
are also victimized by another machine—racism. All are
victims of the alienation, discrimination, and exploitation
of a racist system; and all die, except the invisible man,
who recognizes the turnings of the machine before it grinds
him to death in its cogs. Ragtime's Father "said it was
ridiculous to allow a motorcar to take over everyone's life
as it now had" (217); nevertheless, the car is the most visi-
ble mechanical symbol of empowerment in our society.
Jeff, Jenny, Bigger, the invisible man, and Coalhouse all
want to have power, the power they feel society owes them
as human adults. Owning, or even driving, a car gives
them a sense of having made it, of being part of the
economic power structure. Yet it is a short-lived and
unfounded sense for all. In spite of the symbolic power of
the automobile, it imparts no real economic nor political
empowerment. Despite their car, Jeff and Jenny can
Casey 159
escape the system which ensnares them only in death; both
Bigger and the invisible man's cars carry them on destruc-
tive paths; and Coalhouse Walker pays for his Model T
with his life. In the works of Bontemps, Wright, Ellison,
and Doctorow, the automobile assumes a larger-than-life
role as a precipitator of doom, an emphatic emblem of the
injustices of the American system.
160 Southern Academic Review
Works Cited
Bontemps, Ama. The Old South: "A Summer Tragedy"
and Other Stories of the Thirties. New York: Dodd,
1973.
Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime. 1975. New York: Bantam,
1976.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 1952. New York:
Random, 1972.
Estrin, Barbara L. "Recomposing Time: Humboldt's Gift
and Ragtime." Denver Quarterly 11. 1 (1982): 16-31.
Lacy, Dan. The White Use of Blacks in America. New
York: Atheneum, 1972.
Marsh, Peter, and Peter Collett. Driving Passion: The
Psychology of the Car. London: Cape, 1986.
Meier, August, and Elliott Rudwick. Black Detroit and the
Rise of the UAW. New York: Oxford UP, 1979.
Rosenbaum, Jean. Is Your Volkswagen a Sex Symbol? New
York: Hawthorn, 1972.
Wright, Richard. Native Son. 1940. New York: Harper,
1966.
Contributors 1 6 :
Notes on the Contributors
John Mark Allen is a junior history major/religion minor
from Columbia, Tennessee. His hobbies include rare book
collecting, tennis, table tennis, and defending theism.
After graduating from Birmingham-Southern, he hopes to
attend graduate school and later become a history
professor.
Molly Brewer is a junior English major/political science
minor from Athens, Georgia. In the fall she will be
interning for interest groups in Washington, D.C. She
hopes to one day work for a magazine or newspaper and
perhaps attend graduate school m journalism or
contemporary literature.
Amy Dingier, a senior history major/political science
minor, is from Newnan, Georgia. This summer. Amy will
work in Georgia Senator Sam Nunn's office in Washington,
D.C. in hopes of obtaining a permanent staff position there
in the fall. She is also interested in moving. to Cairo and
studying Arabic at the University of Cairo.
V/esley Edwards is a senior political science major from
Columbus, Georgia. His career interest includes working
in higher education and in the public sector, especially in
162 Southern Academic Review
the areas of race relations and community development.
Wesley will be attending graduate school on a Truman
Fellowship.
Amorak Huey is a senior English major/political science
minor from Trussville, Alabama. After doing graduate
work in literature and creative writing at Florida State on
a University Fellowship, Amorak hopes to one day become
a writer and a teacher so he never has to face the real
world.
Natalie Meyer is a senior double majoring in English and
political science. An Air Force Brat, she spent most of
high school in Germany, so attending college in Alabama
provided quite a case of culture shock. In an effort to
subject herself to further culture shock, after graduation she
will head to Japan to teach English.
Stephen Nickson is a junior from Gadsden, Alabama. He
enjoys taking black and white pictures, fishing from an
innertube, and brushing his teeth in the shower. In the
future, he plans to read many different books on many
different things so that he can write about the same things
over and over again, only doing it better and better.
Michael Peacock, a senior philosophy/English major,
learned to write at a very young age in a dark, damp
basement where his parents kept him chained. His paper
covers both philosophical and literary topics which are, no
doubt, very useful in every day life. Upon graduation, if
he cannot decide which job to accept, Michael hopes to
continue his education at the expense of others and with no
particular goal in mind.
Contributors 1 63
Chip Trimmier is a senior political science major who tries
to educate the public on environmental issues whenever
possible. After graduation, he will study environmental
law, assuming he chooses to remain an integral part of a
society that has no respect for its own future.
Dr. Roger Casey, Assistant Professor of English, teaches
drama and contemporary literature, particularly American.
He received his Ph.D. from Florida State University and
was recently awarded the Russell Weaver Award for
Outstanding Dissertation at Florida State. The article
included in this journal is part of a chapter from his book
77?^ Driving Machine: Aufomohilin' and American
Literature.
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