After Reading
|
Dr. Bordelon's The Short Story: On Campus |
Afterward to "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" For me, this is one of those "Wow" stories: every time I read it, I say "Wow!" The layers of irony, the precise descriptions, the way the meaning darts in and out of sight makes for a complex and, for me, satisfying read that sets my critical faculties reeling. Is this a story about the hollowness of religion (an apparently heavenly emissary is treated as a circus geek) or a paradoxical restatement of its power (the old man does bring manna to Pelayo and Elisenda and cure the boy of his fever)? Is Garcia Marquez interested in exposing the frailty and shallowness of celebrity culture (notice how quickly the old man is dropped for the spider woman) or the plight of the worker in a capitalist society (for a person that brings Pelayo and Elisenda a fortune, the old man certainly isn't treated with respect, or even properly housed)? Is the story a parable of human ignorance (the reaction of Father Gonzago seems particularly wrong-headed) and cruelty (why do they hold the old man "captive" [¶4] and later brand him?) or a glorious treatise on the redeeming power of the imagination (as one critic notes, the story "centers the reader's attention on the power of human imagination. In the end the old man is but 'an imaginary dot on the horizon,' a dot whose very existence defies the human rational world" [Oberhelm 38])? Is your head reeling now too? The most obvious question is both the best place to start and ultimately unanswerable. Is the man an angel? He doesn't look like Della Reese or that Irish woman on Touched by an Angel, but the wings are a dead (if you'll pardon the pun) giveaway. Still, the descriptive details are conflicting. On the one hand, he is "impeded" (¶1) by the wings, which suggests that, far from being a source of angelic pride, the wings somehow prevent him from revealing his true nature. Likewise, his ill-kempt and seedy appearance few teeth or hairs, "buzzard wings" (¶2) (why not at least eagle wings?), feathers lousy with parasites suggest a decidedly earthly descent. But is it that simple? The descriptions of the man make it difficult to separate the seedy from the celestial. For instance, the parasites are of a "stellar" descent (¶8). Similarly, when branded, he "brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust" (¶8) a combination that bridges the gap between the earth ("chicken dung") and the heavens ("lunar dust"). And what is one to make of "antiquarian eyes" (¶12) his odd, yet nonetheless patent, miracles, and his final flight? These are all elements not usually found in sailors even Norwegian ones. Ultimately, this uncertainty forces us to fall back on our own wits. By remaining ambiguous, the narrator, in a ontological (I love being able to use that word) twist, makes his readers become characters in the story: we, like they, have to decide for ourselves what the old man "is." This decision forces us to examine our means of classification and judgment. What do we do when confronted with the unknown? Usually, we make it conform to our expectations or limits. When Columbus stepped ashore in the Bahamas, he looked at the native Awaraks, a race of people wholly unknown to the European world, and pronounced them "Indians." He thought that he had reached the fabled shores of India (expectations), and given his Eurocentric mindset, couldn't fathom the existence of a new continent or race of people (limits). In "A Very Old Man" we also confront the paradox of human response to the new: the way we reshape the fantastic into the familiar. In the story, we see several examples of this reshaping. Faced with a very old man with enormous wings in their courtyard Pelayo and Elisenda, at first, react like I would: they are "frightened" and consider it a "nightmare" (¶2). However, they "very soon overcame their surprise," by staring at him until he becomes "familiar" (¶2): here familiarity breeds, not contempt, but a bland acceptance. Then the old man's speech a human quality allows them to skip "over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently [a bit of sarcastic irony there on Garcia's part] conclud[e] that he was a lonely castaway" (¶2). Their minds cannot grasp the enormity of an angel, so in a typically human fashion they instead settle for the comfort of the familiar. We've seen this earlier in "A&P" when Sammy makes a similar, though more caustic, observation about the customers: "I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists" (1542). This impulse to categorize (what the poet Wallace Stevens calls our "blessed rage for order") takes a darker turn in the old neighbor's hand. She exhibits another common reaction of man when confronted with the unknown: violence. Her desire to see him "club[bed] to death" or fed mothballs stems from a typically human fear of the Other. The intractability of bureaucracies is illustrated by Father Gonzaga's attempt to comprehend the old man. Locked in his authoritarian mindset, he views the world as a system of hierarchies and tries to fit the man into them. His limitations, and those of Catholicism, are ironically exposed by their small-minded and futile attempts (¶ 5,9) to confront the mystery and paradox of a "flesh-and-blood angel" (¶4). The reactions of the townspeople complete the vision of humanity (notice how Marquez moves from individuals, to organizations, to society/culture in general) by offering a look at how society at large responds to the sudden intrusion of the fantastic. Moving from fascination to cruelty to apathy, the townspeople (and by extension, all humans) illustrate the quick cycle of celebrity, and how the minds (imaginations?) of the people are quickly aroused and sated by whatever catches their fancy. The shift from apparent angel to Spider woman a shift in degree, not in kind eerily captures the quandary of modern media, where you can flip from Jerry Springer to the bombings in Iraq with just the press of a button. Thanks to television, the peccadilloes of a wayward brother-in-law and the annihilation of an "anti-aircraft missile battery" are treated with equal gravity which means they can both be dismissed as diversions (or embraced as entertainment). Similarly, in "A Very Old" everything, even the appearance of an unearthly creature, becomes fodder for amusement. The townspeople's initial response to the man they see him as a "circus animal" (¶ 4) introduces this air of carnival. In a persuasive essay examining the role of the carnival in the story, Michael Millington notes that because the outlandish nature of the old man invites curiosity as it stirs the imagination, it "constitutes or reinforces a radical disequilibrium in life patterns; in this way [he] represents a potential opening or transformation" (113). A harbinger of change, the old man shakes the established order, from the financial standings of Pelayo and Elisenda to the Pontiff himself, creating in the former financial gain, and in the latter bureaucratic befuddlement. On one level, Pelayo's and Elisenda's imagination is quite sharp: quickly realizing the earning potential of the man, they profit from the spectacle, and fill their house with lucre. Yet while they demonstrate the imagination of a Wall St. venture capitalist, on a larger, more human level, their imagination fails. They can only see the material gains and remain blind to the miraculous. Even the doctor isn't surprised: to him, the wings "seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn't understand why other men didn't have them too" (¶ 11). It's readily apparent that the change in these characters is only on the surface. When this apparently heavenly "annoyance" flies away, Elisenda lets out a "sigh," not of longing, but of "relief" (¶ 13). All of which brings us back to imagination: each person's ability to understand this apparition is inhibited by their inability to imagine a world they cannot know or envision. Confronted with a specter that confounds their received view of the world, the characters' imaginations fail, and they fall on conventions and stereotypes to explain away what they cannot understand. In this modern fable, the foibles of man are exposed by their reaction to the unearthly old man; the fantastic or surreal in his nature and in their responses distort and exaggerate reality only to more clearly illustrate it. Discussing his use of magical realism in an interview, Garcia points out that "the great majority of things in this world, from spoons to heart transplants, were in man's imagination before becoming reality." He added "I believe that this system of exploration of reality, without rationalist prejudices, opens up . . . a splendid perspective. And it should not be believed that it is an escapist method: sooner or later, reality ends by agreeing with imagination" (qtd. in Duran 80). Particularly when viewed as a fable, where the characters are understood to be representatives of types, the exaggerations in this story are oddly precise: they help pinpoint the weaknesses and stress points of our supposedly civilized and advanced societies. Works Cited Duran, Armando. "Conversations with Gabriel Garcia Marquez." Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Study of the Short Fiction. Ed. Harley D. Oberhelm. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. 80-81. Millington, Mark. From "Aspects of Narrative Structure in The Incredible and Sad Story of the Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother." Gabriel Garcia Marquez: New Readings. Ed. Bernard McGuirk and Richard Cardwell. Cambridge: CUP, 1987. 117-28. Rprt. in Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Study of the Short Fiction. Written and Ed. by Harley D. Oberhelman. Boston : Twayne Publishers, 1991. 104-115. Oberhelm, Harley. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Study of the Short Fiction . Boston : Twayne Publishers, 1991. Quotes from the Critics "The incident of the spider woman frequently appears in other Garcia Marquez writings, often serving as a symbol of exploitation" (Oberhelm 38) "what he seeks to explore in this so-called children's story is the free reighn of the imagination" (Oberhelm 39) "Garcia Marquez has made muteness and patience seem truly supernatural virtues, and by implication exaggeration the expression of human fallibility. But the center of the story is still an exaggeration. Men do not have wings. The process of distortion itself is the vehicle of our approach to the story" (Gerlach 87) "Viewed from one perspective, humankind is relieved of a burden. Viewed from another, a creature more perfect, more logical than man has achieved his freedom" (Gerlach 88). "though literal myth-making is no longer used to explain the world around us, the sense of wonder that myth brings with it need not in consequence be abandoned. . . . The sense of wonder that a myth or fantasy evokes inheres not in the subject, but in the telling. Fantasy is more the how than the what" (Gerlach 89). Gerlach, John. "The Logic of Wings." Gabriel Garcia Marque . Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. 81-89. Afterward to "The Lottery" Something about this story always gets me. I still get a jolt of revulsion at the deadly innocence of the line "and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles" (789). What's your favorite line and why? The irony is heavy in this story. It starts with the title: of course, a lottery is something you hope to win, but in the perverse world of the story, it is a death sentence. Irony touches all aspects of this story, such as the contrast between the bucolic setting and the grisly actions, the polite and commonplace greetings exchanged before the drawing, and especially the irony of the importance, yet ultimate neglect, of ritual at the end: "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones" (789). This last line is a crushing blow to any semblance of upholding tradition: it's obvious that the violence is far more importance than the ritual. Another important element is the delicious and modulated sense of horror that slowly dawns on the reader. Jackson sets us up for a fall so well that when it comes, "A stone hit her on the side of the head" (789), we gasp in disbelief. The setting of the story, full summer with its lush greens and rank, profuse growth, conjure up images of life and celebration. Together with the title, they lead the reader to believe that pleasure, riches or at the very least a new tractor lie in the offing. But as we find out, this is all a ruse. And we find hints of this rather quickly, for in our fallen state, there is always a serpent in the garden. The foreshadowing works especially well here, because the details, when first read, are, as is proper, innocuous. What's the big deal about boys collecting stones? But on another, almost unconscious level, there is a steady current of tension that keeps us hooked, keeps us reading to find out what will happen. The men stand "away from the piles of stones" and "their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed" (782-3). There is a "hesitation" (783) before anyone helps Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers steady the black box. These flickers of apprehension, a sense that all is not well, help unconsciously prepare the reader for the fate of Mrs. Hutchinson. Without them, you would be inclined to feel cheated by a "trick ending." Yet here the foreshadowing is handled so well that each event, from the dazed expression on Bill Hutchinson's face to Mrs. Delacroix's two-handed stone, seems to fall into its preordained place. The symbolic names of the lottery officials, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, are a kind of yin and yang that also contribute to the tension in the story. Mr. Summers, sunny and light-hearted, contributes an air of business and collegiality to the proceedings. Referring to his role conducting the lottery, the narrator notes that he "was very good at all this" (784). The irony of having the same man who conducts the "square dances, the teenage club, [and prophetically] the Halloween program" (784) officiate at the town stoning, captures the depth to which the town has sublimated the event into their culture. It's as if a dance and ritual sacrifice were somehow equal in their eyes. On the other hand, Mr. Graves represents the dark side of the event, the gaping black hole that awaits the winner. Like Mr. Summers, his name well suits his demeanor: in a little ironic joke, the taciturn Mr. Graves greets Mr. Summers "gravely" (786) as the businessman selects his ticket. His unsmiling demeanor well suits his name. Symbolism also acts as a kind of foreshadowing in this story. The black box itself is a potent symbol of death. Black, a color long associated with death, injects an element of dread into the story. It transforms a simple wooden box into a specter of death, a coffin that holds the fate of one of the townspeople. When the lottery ticket is finally wrenched from Tessie's hands, it seems inevitable that the "winning" ticket is marked with a black dot. With such a ticket, it's obvious that Tessie will not win a crock pot. Crucial to the story's shock value and success is the point of view and tone of the narrator. Similarly, the limited point of view ensures that our surprise is complete. Imagine the difference if Bill Hutchinson or Old Man Warner were telling the story. They would remember past lotteries, and maybe even recall the thrill they felt when hurling a stone and, of course, the dread of choosing that ticket. By getting inside their minds, we would know what to expect and the shock value of the story would be lost. The third person point of view allows the narrator to assume a neutral, detached tone. Throughout the story, the narrator's quiet, understated tone lulls the reader into a false sense of security, the feeling that, even though the kids are piling up stones and there's a black box, everything will right itself in the end. This sense increases the shock of the story: with such a calm voice, even as the rocks rain down upon Tessie, many first-time readers have to check again to be sure that a stoning has occurred. It seems incomprehensible that such grotesque events can be reported with such complacency. The lack of emotion also adds to the horror of the proceedings. Evincing no shock or even surprise as the events transpire makes them all the more terrifying: it seems that the narrator accepts the annual stoning of an individual as readily as the townspeople. For me, something as simple as tone contributes to the meaning. Jackson seems to suggest that the narrator's lack of outrage makes her complicit in the acts: standing idly by, the narrator somehow condones the group murder of a helpless individual. Then, if we take this a step further and apply this analogy to our own lives, she seems to suggest that this trait of human nature, which engenders feelings of revulsion as we read the story, is actually not that far from our own actions or is it inaction? Not that we would ever be as complacent about a death that affects our neighbors. Or would we? Most criminal justice scholars and many judges, including some Supreme Court justices, have concluded that the application of the death penalty is, to use their words, a "lottery." Yet since our thirst for justice demands biblical (old testament of course) vengeance, we turn a blind eye to statistics that show that, since 1970, one out of seven death row inmates have been "exonerated and freed from death row" (Shapiro 6). Granted, there is a difference between letting the justice system do its work and casting the first stone, but that's the same difference of the narrator, who knows all, yet shows no emotion and is one of the ways Jackson holds a mirror to our faces. And is the difference that distinct? After writing the story, Jackson received letters from inquiring readers who asked "Will you please tell me the locale and the year of the custom?" or "Are you describing a current custom? If it is based on fact would you please tell me the date and place of its origin." I don't think these people wrote to her out of idle curiosity. To tie in to the death penalty example I used above, how many people would be interested in having executions televised? Is the root of this interest justice, or is it a more primitive bloodlust that teems just below the veneer of civilization we profess to abide by? Do you believe that such a lottery could occur today? That such apparently well-adjusted people could turn on another of their kind and inflict such savagery? Well, in our century we have two sadly convenient examples: the stench of the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald, and in our own country, the lynching and burnings, during the 1960s, of the South. Of course, behind the killing lies the pagan fertility myths, the idea that a sacrifice will ensure a good crop. As Old Man Warner notes "Used to be a saying about Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon'" (786). But a more modern connection lies in the examples cited above which are related to the dynamics of group psychology. Groups need symbols to rally around, a totemic, concrete representation of their abstract ideologies and histories. For instance, the Nazis had the swastika, the Southerners, the burning cross. The townspeople in "The Lottery" had the black box: as the narrator notes, there was a decided lack of interest in making a new box because "no one liked to upset even as much tradition as [it] represented" (783). Likewise, identifying rituals often accompany groups, like the "Heil Hitler" salute of the Nazis, to foster group cohesion. While the rituals had mostly lapsed, a few remained, including the greeting by Mr. Summers as they townspeople approached the box (784). Yet Jackson believes that the power of ritual works on a more elemental level as well. As I noted earlier, she writes that: "Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones" (789). The appurtenances of ritual are lost and only what the townspeople seem to consider important violence remains. Another relevant aspect of group psychology is its all-encompassing power, a power which subsumes the bonds of friendship and even family ties for the sake of the group. This was demonstrated throughout the Nazi era by families and friends turning on each other and revealing Jews in their midst, and in the South, as the recently released files of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission (begun in 1956 and closed in 1973) show, by the friends and neighbors who acted as spies to assist the "good ole boy" network of racists and their friends in government. In both cases, the impersonal will of an immoral government triumphs over the personal will of the family of man. In "The Lottery," we see how "groupthink" (to borrow an Orwellian phrase) leads to a breakdown of family bonds as Tessie tries to make her chances of survival greater by suggesting that her married daughter join in the final drawing (787); we see Mrs. Delacroix, who earlier had spoken in a teasing, friendly manner to Tessie, excitedly lug a two-hander rock; finally, we see, as I noted earlier, her own son with a few pebbles. Jackson wants to make it clear that no one escapes the moral damage of group psychology. What ties many of these disparate elements, including the objective tone of the narrator, the acceptance of the stoning by the townspeople, and the group psychology, is a term that Hannah Arendt used to come to terms with the Holocaust: "the banality of evil." Although this term was coined after "The Lottery" was written, it captures the distinction Jackson was interested in. Arendt believed that Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of Nazi Germany, far from a madman, was a bureaucrat doing his job. This makes the terror of the Holocaust even more frightening because it suggests that anyone could make an excuse for such an action by cloaking it in the familiar, workaday world of business and, more generally, human interaction. This explains why Mr. Summers is carefully identified as a businessman: in accordance with this mindset, he runs the Lottery with a ruthless efficiency. After Bill Hutchinson picks the ticket he cheerily says "Well, everyone . . . that was done pretty fast, and now we've got to be hurrying a little more to get done in time" (787). Transforming a murder into the everyday, and investing it with ritual importance, makes it into something not to be feared, but something to be finished with as much haste as possible. In America, before injecting a prisoner with the lethal solution that will end life, the technician fills out forms, follows a set procedure, and swabs the insertion site with an alcohol wipe. Why? Because it's a procedure, something that has to be finished with as much haste as possible. The fabulistic qualities of stories like "The Lottery" lead, as I've shown above, to multiple interpretations. Thus, a story ostensibly about an odd ritual in a small farming community takes on a larger significance, encompassing the obvious horror of the holocaust, and the more everyday, hidden atrocities of advanced, supposedly civilized countries like America. Read in this way, the story becomes not merely a shocker, but a lamentable fable of human brutality. Work Cited Shapiro, Bruce. "Wrongful Deaths." The Nation. 14 Dec. 1998: 6-7. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" Ahhh, a perfect world. Just what would it entail? That's part of the problem the narrator of "Omelas" is faced with: the difficulty of picturing pure, unadulterated joy: as she put it, "How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?" (968) How can you describe Utopia, when it is different for everyone? For some unfortunate, blighted souls, Utopia would be a place where Monday night football lasted forever, with a perpetual tap of Coors Light and honey-roasted peanuts; for more gifted and enlightened souls, Utopia would be a vast library, time to read, a well-stocked kitchen, and a group of good friends to discuss literature, life, and to help you drink a nice bottle of Beaujolais and polish off a plate of pomme frites. The narrator avoids this problem by making Omelas both a concrete place and an imaginary city. She lets the reader construct their own utopias, saying "Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all" (968). Unfortunately, like all utopias, this is an imaginary world, but the narrator does assert that, with imagination, you can enter its realm. But just who is the narrator of the story? She uses the word "they" to describe the inhabitants, yet also "our" (967). The exalted tone of the descriptions "the swallows soaring . . . . the rigging of the boats in the harbor sparkled with flags" (967), suggest that the narrator, if not a citizen of Omelas, is quite satisfied with its workings. In fact, she finds it "incredible" not believable that some people would actually leave this utopia for the unknown lands beyond the limits of the country. So locked into the philosophy of Omelas, the narrator even doubts the existence of any place else. Her imagination like that of many others has an odd quirk: it can appreciate the benevolent effects of an action, yet refuses to confront its causes. Thus the narrator revels in the beauty of Omelas (the effect), yet ignores the pain and suffering on which it is based (the causes). Similarly, she can understand why people would want to stay in Omelas, yet remain perplexed ("I cannot describe it at all" [972]) by "the ones who walk away from Omelas" (972). More than the other stories in this assignment, "Omelas" lacks individuated characters. In this story, the message is all. Still, it does retain many of the features of fiction. Her use of symbolic words and images help set up the moral dichotomies Le Guin is interested in illustrating. The opening, with its vision of "swallows" and its "bright-towered" (967) skyline suggests a happy, harmonious land, filled with sunshine and hope. On the other hand, the cellar which houses the child suggests mystery, darkness, and death. The conflict between these two symbols provide the narrative drive which propels this story. "Omelas" substitutes dramatic tension for plot. The main source of tension comes from the difference between the narrator's perception of Omelas and (hopefully) ours. As the story progresses from tourist brochure to tales of the crypt, the reader is confronted with the moral contradictions of the city. Le Guin's knowledge that most (can I use the dreaded "all" here?) readers will recoil in horror at the plight and thus distance themselves from the narrator's view of the child in the cellar is central both to the shock value of the story and the message she is trying to impart. For almost all of its inhabitants, Omelas is a utopia, a place where all needs are satisfied, and everyone (well almost) is happy. After all, Omelas sounds "like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time" (968), a place that satisfies the moral it doesn't need "the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police and the bomb"(968) and physical orgies and drugs needs of humans. But this happiness comes at a price: the suffering of one individual. Apparently, the inhabitants of Omelas have decided that Jeremy Bentham's (19th century British philosopher) maxim, "the greatest good [for] the greatest number," is a worthwhile philosophy to follow. Thus, a kind of moral mathematics is employed: 1 < everyone else. Essentially, this story is the working out of the problems inherent in such a calculation. Putting William James' theory to test, Le Guin ends up creating a fable of man to show that, while "hideous," James' utopia is rather close at hand. Like Jackson, Le Guin holds up an exaggerated version of our own society hoping to expose the moral contradictions inherent in it. To expose the contradictions of the world of the story (and by extension ours), Le Guin, like Garcia Marquez and Jackson, uses withering irony. This discrepancy between what the speaker/narrator believes or shows and what the reader knows to be true also exposes Le Guin's own opinions. Often, irony is used as satire, a way of poking fun or exposing the foibles of human thoughts and actions. In "Omelas" the reader knows that all of its inhabitants understand and accept the imprisonment of the child. Yet the narrator states plainly that "One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt" (969). The irony created by the dissonance between the happiness of the community on the one hand and the suffering of the child on the other, exposes the hypocrisy of the supposed ideal community. The narrator unconsciously reveals that, far from being a utopia or perfect society, Omelas is a dystopia or defective society. And so we come to the analogy part of this afterward. What could this imaginary, utopian world and the cruelty which sustains it have to do with our world? Well, for starters, there is the discrepancy between what is known and what is conveniently forgotten or rationalized. One example that comes to my mind is educational funding. It's known that, all other things being equal, students in underfunded schools achieve lower test scores, yet we do nothing to balance the playing field; we pay lip service to the idea that all are created equal, yet click our pocketbooks shut when money is needed. Parents and politicians in richer school districts would never agree to spread their largess around so that schools in poorer districts would receive equal funding. New Jersey is currently under a court order to make school funding more equal but has not developed a plan because they cannot commit to play Robin Hood and take from the rich to give to the poorer schools. The connection to the story? I can think of two. First, editorialists have been bemoaning this inequality since the Florio administration (remember him?), but no one has done anything about it. Secondly, the rationalizations used to deny equal funding are eerily similar. Of course, no one would be cruel enough to voice the rationalizations used by the citizens of Omelas. In one case, they argue that releasing it wouldn't really help the child: "[i]t [notice pronoun choice] is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy" (971). Compare this with the words of a Rye, New York high school senior. Asked if students in the South Bronx should be bused to the better schools in Rye, he responds, "You can take them out of the environment, but you can't take the environment out of them. If someone grows up in the South Bronx, he's not going to be prone to learn" (qtd. in Kozol 127). How distant are we really from the folks in Omelas? You may be wearing another example. If your shoes or clothing were made in a foreign country (as most are), it was probably made a worker in a sweatshop consigned to poverty no matter how hard they strive. We've seen the news specials on child labor, seen Kathie Lee's husband handing out $100 bills, seen the stories on prison labor in China, yet most of us, like our erstwhile ex-president, seem to compartmentalize our brains and conveniently forget these images as we don our Gap sweaters and lace up our Nike shoes. Ah, the pleasures of global capitalism. What other forms of Omelas amnesia can you come up with? Granted, we don't live in a utopian world, but we'd all like to say we'd be one of the ones who'd walk away from Omelas. Yet it seems that most of us (myself included) choose to live the convenient lie. After all, the choices are stark: enjoy the sensual (in the strictest sense of the word) pleasures of our material world, or walk away. And walk away where? I think it's a measure of Le Guin's accuracy that it is difficult to live without somehow, somewhere along the way, taking advantage of someone's suffering. Like the ones who walk away from Omelas, it would require losing touch with the rest of the real world and, more frightening, never going to the mall. Whew! Wasn't that a depressing reading of the story? But I don't think Le Guin (nor myself for that matter) is interested in "laying a guilt trip" on readers. Instead, as a good fable does, it's meant to show the world slant, as Emily Dickinson would say, and make concrete the abstract world of morality. This dystopian tale of degradation and rationalization shakes us out of our bovine complacency and makes us honestly confront our perceptions of equality. And a little bit o' honest never hurt anyone. Work Cited Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children In America's Schools. New York: Crown Publishers, 1991. © 2000 David Bordelon
|