Walk a little on the lake path with me. The sun is coming up.

As faint as flowers

As light as fingertips

As soft as the sky at sun set

God as Metaphor: Nietzsche’s Use of Christian Values to Problematize the Relationship of Creditor/Debtor and ‘the Morality of Custom’

In the second essay of On the Geneology of Morality, “’Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’. and related matters”, Nietzsche explores the origin of guilt, the dichotomy of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ conscience, and the way both these outlooks, society, and the concept of God form and influence the individual. The “problem of humankind” Nietzsche theorizes, is that we are bred by nature to have the “prerogative to promise” (35). However, we are products of circumstance, of a series of accidents that make up history and are thus made in the image of the society we live in. In this paper, I intend to argue that this image, this position we are placed in of debtor, is amplified in our relationship to God; God acts as a metaphor for the ultimate creditor, who has both created us and sacrificed his son for our sins. To do this, I will first discuss how society has its foundations on a ‘morality of custom’ (36), then, I will explore the relationship of creditor/debtor, and finally, discuss how Nietzsche views our relationship to God as the pinnacle metaphor for the subjugation of humanity through this power dynamic. We must, Nietzsche argues, reverse this power dynamic by embracing our animal instincts, enacting our will to power and saying ‘yes’ to ourselves. It is up to us to redeem ourselves and back away from the void that passively reinforcing the status quo is leading us to.

Society is founded upon a ‘morality of custom’ (36). This structure of morality is based on tradition: “a higher authority which one obeys, not because it commands what is useful to us, but because it commands” (133). It is not a system of morality that takes the individual into account; it is a form of authority in and of itself; in fact, it does away with the individual. One must follow it, not because of any benefits that may come to the individual, but merely because custom ‘says so’. As Nietzsche states, “they demanded one observe prescriptions without thinking of oneself as an individual” (134). Those who advocate for a ‘morality of custom’ command that the individual must submit to the needs of society, they cannot think of themselves as a part but must think of themselves within the whole. They must act ‘without thinking of oneself’. Ultimately, the “individual is to sacrifice [themself]—that is the commandment of the morality of custom” (134). Under a morality of custom, there must no longer be the individual, there can only be the whole the society.

It is through this subjugation of the individual that ‘bad conscience’ comes to fruition. A conscience is “the awareness of responsibility”; to have a good conscience is to “be answerable to oneself, and proudly too, and therefore to have the prerogative to say ‘yes’ to oneself” (37). Under a society based on the morality of custom, one cannot have a ‘good conscience’—society provides you with the path you are to take, therefore, you lack the prerogative to say ‘yes’ to yourself, because you are unaware that is an option. For, “under the domain of the morality of custom, originality of every kind has acquired a bad conscience” (135). Morality of custom serves to make “man to a certain degree necessary, uniform, a peer amongst peers, orderly and consequently predictable” (36). Society acts as the means for upholding the morality of custom, so that “with the help of the morality of custom and the social straightjacket, man was made truly predictable” (36). Society makes the morality of custom inescapable; it holds individuals to something outside themselves. To be ‘autonomous’ to be ‘ethical’ are, under the morality of custom, mutually exclusive identities (37). In a society based on the morality of custom, the individual is only shown one option and that option is one that maintains and reinforces the status quo.

It is through the comparison of ourselves to others and this idea of society as being some ultimate provider that we are trapped by ‘bad conscience’;”the main moral concept, ‘Shuld’ (’guilt’) descends from the very material concept of “Schulden’ (’debts’)” (39). We are taught that we are forever indebted to society for what it provides for us: shelter, refuge, the ability to be free from suffering. It is almost the ultimate creditor/debtor relationship, wherein, we (humanity) are indebted and society is our creditor. Greek tradition holds that we are indebted to three entities: our parents, our gods, and our societies; these are entities that have provided for us that which we can never return: life, salvation, and refuge. Like our devotion to gods, our devotion to our society is equally based in mythology—the political mythos of the ‘state of nature’: a brutish, chaotic, land, free of laws, where everyone is ‘equal’ but no one is safe. Society lends us refuge from this chaos. We are no longer feral animals controlled by our base instincts, with the promise of safety from society. With the memories of punishments given to anyone who went against the collective branded in our minds, “man was eventually able to retain five or six ‘I-don’t-want-to’s’ in his memory. In connection with which a promise had been given, in order to enjoy the advantage of society ... Oeioke finally came to ‘reason’” (39). Through this reverberating ‘memory’ of the state of nature and our comparison of it to the society in which we live, people came to ‘reason’ that it is best to subjugate themselves to the wants and needs of the community, lest they are exiled from the haven it provides.

This system of creditor/debtor creates a value system inherent in society and thus, inherent in the views of all: “everything has its price: everything can be compensated for” (47). This system creates an unequal power structure between humanity and society. It is not mere things that have contingent value, as stated by Kant. Within this system, people too have a value placed upon them. This is the basis of a contractual agreement—men can agree with each other what value something one is offering has and what value something one is receiving has—thse two views are not always equal. It is when people do not recognize the mutual worth, or when people enter into contracts with larger systems that contractual agreements become problematic. Our dependency on the current value system reinforces this inequality: “fixing prices, setting values, working out equivalents, exchanging—this preoccupied man’s first thoughts to such a degree that in a certain sense it constitutes thought” (45). We can no longer view items or people outside ourselves without comparing what their value may be. We are forced to compare ourselves to the external, and therefore, are trapped by the value it places upon us. As Nietzsche states, “the feeling of guilt originated in the relationship of buyer and seller, creditor, and debtor: here person met person for the first time and measured himself against person” (45). One can only feel guilty if they have something to compare themselves to; if we were to have the freedom to base our actions with total control of ourselves, there would not be guilt in the way that it exists today. There would be no basis of comparison, no implicit value system which we must judge ourselves against and hold ourselves ‘accountable” to.

When man is “imprisoned within the confines of society and peace...all instincts [are] devalued” (56). To exist within society, people must forgo their animal instincts, they become forced to rely on external influences and values. Essentially, people are taught and made to be sick of themselves. (57). We become conflicted between the way society shapes us and our repressed “instinct of freedom” (59). This conflict within ourselves is what Nietzsche believes to be the origin of the ‘bad conscience’. This bad conscience causes us to value unegoistic actions: selflessness, self-denial, and self-sacrifice (60). It further cements the belief that the individual does not matter; it causes us to devalue ourselves and the power that we may hold. It is, as Nietzsche states, “a sickness” (60), the symptoms of which cause us to continually devalue ourselves, until we believe that individuals hold no value and that anything we do in this life is meaningless. This devaluing of the self and the increasing value and debt we accrue to society is culminated and amplified in our relationship to God. The “advent of the Christian God as the maximal good yet achieved, thus brought about the greatest feeling of indebtedness on earth” (62).

WIth the “moralization of the concept of debt/guilt and duty and their relegation to bad conscience, we have in reality an attempt to reverse the direction of the development [described above], or at least in its tracks” (63). These concepts are to be reversed against us, the debtors so that we can transform from beings held by bad conscience to ones who actively work towards the possibility of good conscience. We must confront the “paradoxical and horrifying expedient through which humanity has sought a temporary relief, Christianity’s stroke of genius: God sacrificing Himself for man’s debt” (63). Our feeling of debt towards God, of having to pay Him back for his ultimate sacrifice of His son for our sins, is expressed through the repression of our animal instincts. Acting upon these instincts becomes ‘sinning’. We deny ourselves the ability to act on our desires, not only because society shapes us to believe that these are things to avoid, but because we feel indebted to God. Instead of gods justifying man, like mythos of the Greek gods, Western society’s relationship to the Christian God, acts to deny people out natural instincts, to guilt us into conforming to the will of society instead of our own. 

Even though society has become more secularized, these feelings of guilt, of bad conscience are still very present. Nietzsche uses God as a means to discuss the amplification of the creditor/debtor relationship individuals of Western society find themselves trapped in. While it is not merely Christianity that has restricted the path we view for ourselves and has shaped us in a way that best reinforces current structures. Christianity contains all the elements of a morality of custom: it feeds its followers insurmountable feeling of guilt, debt, and the desire to fulfill unegoistic actions—self-sacrifice. Christianity, for Nietzsche, acts as the ultimate metaphor for the creditor/debtor power dynamic that individuals in Western society find themselves circling down the drain in.

To rid ourselves of this bad conscience, Nietzsche proposes that we inverse this power dynamic. That we attempt a reverse experiment: we must view our animal instincts with pride, we must be active in making ourselves, we must say ‘yes’ to ourselves, and not make promises that reinforce and continue tightening the social straightjacket, but promise with our own future in mind. We must find meaning in the future we create. We must be the ones to redeem ourselves. We cannot expect someone else to redeem us. By embracing our natural instincts, our individuality, we are acting with ‘good’ conscience; we are aware of the responsibility we have to ourselves and are acting with our own future in mind. We must work to redeem ourselves, to unshackle ourselves from the position of debtor and back away from the cliff of nihilism that society is leading us to.

Word Count:1888

On the Ontological Nature of Postmodernist Short Fiction in “Happy Endings” and “Octet”

Society is progressing at a rate faster than any other era; this creates a chaotic and confusing place and time in which to exist for most anyone. This change is occurring through technology, globalization and the contemporary use of language. Postmodern fiction often explores these themes; it explores the ontological nature of existence (McHale 3). Postmodern fiction explores the ontological nature of fiction itself, which is evident in the short stories “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood and “Octet” by David Foster Wallace. THrough “Happy Endings” Atwood argues for conflict and character to replace plot as the driving force of action in narrative and “Octet” explores the role of the author and the ‘tricks’ authors play on their readers in an effort to communicate ‘truth’ or ‘sameness’. While both short stories contend with metanarratives and use micronarratives to communicate their ideas, “Happy Endings” contends with what a reader should focus on regarding the action of a narrative and “Octet” discusses the conflict authors may face when creating works.

Many literary critics characterize plot as the driving force of action in narratives; it has been most notably argued for by Aristotle in his Poetics. In it, Aristotle argues that “the most important [aspect of a narrative] is the structure of the incidents. For tragedy is a presentation not of human beings but action and life” (8). However, contemporary fiction has started to move away from presenting action and life, to contending with what it means to be human. For fiction to do this, i.e., contending with the meaning of humanity, we must move away from a strict-plot based structure, to one based on character and motive. This is what Atwood presents in “Happy Endings”, a short story dealing with two characters* in six micronarratives who deal with varying conflicts (excluding the first micronarrative where they deal with none). The first micronarrative (’A’) illustrates that, without conflict, based solely on plot, narrative can be quite uninteresting. What is needed to drive the action, is the character, the motive, as Atwood puts it, the “How and Why” (476). Atwood would agree with Aristotle that “happiness and unhappiness lie in action” (Aristotle 8). However, it is likely that Atwood would begin to disagree with Aristottle that “actors do not act in order to represent their characters, but they include the characters for the sake of their actions” (Aristotle 9). In contemporary fiction, “small figures large. It disfigures teleology, displaces universal truths and eternal verities, and eventually the epiphany itself” (Clark 387). Postmodern writers are not looking to convey Life™, but instead, to convey humanity, what it means to be and exist on a smaller scale. For Atwood, and many postmodern writers, there is no solution, it is not about a set beginning, middle, and end—”a what and a what and a what”, because there is only one actually possible ending: “John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (Atwood 476). 

Wallace grapples with the conflict that exists between what a reader expects of a writer and vice versa in “Octet” a story comprised of for “Pop Quiz” style micronarratives. Alongisde expectation, “Octet” contends with “real--narrative-honesty-v.-sham-narrative-honesty” (Wallace 147). The most ‘important’, or at least, the micronarrative that attempts to bring “Octet” together, is “Pop Quix 9″, in which the narrator, talks to you the fiction writer, about the person reading it**. This second person P.O.V. narration attempts to ‘interrogate’ the reader, attempts to break the fourth wall and create a dialogic sense in the narrative. “Octet” is an example of the postmodern writer being “no longer content with invisibly exercising [their] freedom to create worlds, the artist now makes [their] freedom visible by thrusting [themself] into the foreground of [their] work. [They] represent [themself] in the act of making [their fictional world—or unmaking it” (McHale 30). Through this thrusting of the self (of the writer) into the narrative, it breaks down barriers that have been previously constrained fiction. “Octet” is not looking to ‘tell’ the reader anything, or to force some grand epiphany on them; it is looking to share a feeling that the reader may or may not relate to; as the narrator points out: “at any rate it’s not going to make you look wise or secure or any of the things readers usually want to pretend they believe the literary artist is... it’s going to make you look fundamentally lost and confused” (Wallace 159-160).

Both Atwood and Wallace through “Happy Endings” and “Octet”, comment on the traditionally held beliefs about how short stories should be structured. Both communicate their ideas through micronarratives: Atwood looks to challenge the idea of plot as the driving force of action and Wallace attempts to create a dialogue between the author and the reader. Both challenge metanarratives about fiction. As Leitch states, they both move “from a false sense of certainty to a more authentic sense of uncertainty” (Clark 388). Atwood challenges the teleology of plot: “what and a what”, to a more human, more local, paralogical use of a “How and Why” (476). Wallace, through his final “Pop Quiz” piece, outwardly comments on the ironic nature of postmodern fiction and its use of meta-commentary: “these intranarrative acknowledgments [in Pop Quiz 6 and Pop Quiz 6A] have the additional advantage of slightly diluting the pretentiousness of structuring the little pieces as so-called ‘Quizzes’, but it also has the disadvantage of flirting with metafictional self-refence—viz. the having  This Pop Quiz isn’t working’ and ‘Here’s another stab at #6′ within the text itself” (146). A conflict between genuine honesty vs. grating self-reference and connection vs. trust in an audience become apparent in the commentary Wallace makes through the narrator in “Octet”. Unlike the structure of tragedy as defined by Aristotle, there is no solution; postmodern fiction asks questions of the audience, attempts to ‘interrogate’ a sense of feeling, but does not overreach and provide any answers. Unlike modern works, “post-modernism [contends with] ontological instability or indeterminacy, the loss of a world that could be accepted, “willy-nilly” as a given of experience” (McHale 25). 

While “Happy Endings” and “Octet” have many similarities in the structural sense, the main difference between the two pieces lay in who the pieces are addressing. Atwood is arguably addressing the reader; plot as the key driving force of action in a narrative greatly affects the way in which a reader analyzes and interprets a story. One will most likely gain different insight through a focus on character and conflict than they would by focusing on plot. On the other hand, Wallace is reaching out to authors, talking them through the struggles they may face with honesty and wanting to genuinely connect with their audience. He attempts a dialogue that contends with the potential issues that can arise through meta-reference. Through this division of the discussion of the ontology of fiction, both Atwood's and Wallace’s short stories act as prime examples of what the post-modern movement can do for fiction: promote a dialogue between authors and readers and work to re-shape our traditional understandings of narrative so that our stories can evolve alongside us.

*(i.e., John and Mary, or John and Madge, or James and Mary, or John (but arguably not the first John) and Mary (who is arguably not the first Mary either, but this is beside the point) and James) (Atwood 474-476)

**Which, in fact, also happens to be you, the ‘fiction writer’, who is also the ‘reder’. who has to contend with the disjointed nature of the ‘Octet’—a piece of writing composed of eight narratives, although in reality, “Octet” as a short story is composed of four (or even really three and a half micronarratives). 

Word Count: 1280

                                                      Works Cited:  

Aristotle. Poetics I. Translated by Richard Janko, Indianapolis: Hackett Pub.               Co., 1987

Atwood, Margaret. “Happy Endings.” The Nelson Introduction to Literature. Al              Valleau, and Jack Finnbogason. Thomson Nelson. 2004, 474-476.

Clark, Miriam Marty. “After Epiphany: American Short Stories in the Postmodern          Age.” Style, no. 3, 1993, p. 387.                                 EBSCOhost.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/loginurl=http://search.         ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.42946059&site         =eds-live&scope=site.

McHale, Brain. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Routledge, 1987.

Wallace, David Foster. “Octet.” Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. New York: Back Bay Books. 2007, 131-160.

Regardless of God(s): An Exploration of Responsibility and Agency Through Frankenstein and the “Euthyphro”

Human beings have the potential to act morally and creatively, and therefore, should be responsible for their creations. In a world without God(s) existence precedes essence (Sartre 2). However, through Frankenstein's creation of the Monster, he has robbed the Monster of his ability to create himself. Frankenstein has failed to fully form what the purpose of the Monster will be, has abandoned him, and thus has condemned him to sort his own path in a world where he will never be accepted. Through Frankenstein’s creation of the Monster, 'humanity' loses meaning, objectifies man, and makes a mockery of human agency. Frankenstein fails both as a Creator and as a Father because he has refused to infuse an essence into the Monster, yet forced the Monster to create its own destiny, and therefore, has caused the suffering of all involved.

Regarding gods and human agency, we can turn to another important work, Plato’s “Euthyphro”. Within “Euthyphro”, Socrates finds himself at the law courts in discussion with the titular character. Euthyphro has decided to indict his father for the murder of a dependent; this is often done by the victim’s family, not by the family of the murderer. Socrates, at first, is quite shocked by the young man’s decision to try his father: “Good heavens! Certainly, Euthyphro, most men would not know how they could do this and be right” (Plato 4). Euthyphro’s indictment of his father is certainly unorthodox, but he justifies his actions on his supposed knowledge of piety and of the gods. Thus, the central conversation of this dialogue occurs: that what is loved by the gods is pious and what is hated by the gods is impious (Plato 8). However, gods are in a state of discord and therefore have differing views of what is to be loved and hated, different views of what is just and unjust; It is impossible to judge whether an action is inherently pious or impious by the love or hate a god has for such a person or action.  

The “Euthyphro” also briefly discusses human agency: “consider this: Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? … If anything is being changed or is being affected in any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed, but rather it is something changed because it is being changed” (Plato 12). There are two agents at work here: the one who is acting and the one who is acted upon. If God(s) exist, we lack agency, “you must not oppose the powers-that-be; you must not fight against superior force; must not meddle in matters that are above your station” (Sartre 2). If we, as humans, commit actions or hone virtues for the sake of gods and what they love, we do not truly have agency. By basing our actions and decisions on an outside force, we take away any moral and creative responsibility we could have for the consequences of our actions.

Now, what does this have to do with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? First, we must understand Victor Frankenstein and his pursuits. Victor is a young man enamoured by the alchemists of old, to the point of disregarding modern scientific advancement: “I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy It was very different when the masters of science sought immortality and power… [now I am] required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth” (Shelley 28). To Frankenstein, there has been a swift regress from imagination and endless wonder, to banal, meaningless minutiae. However, one realizes, if they take the time to truly consider scientific pursuits, that one must start small before they can go larger. It is all well and good to imagine the grandiose, but one must put in the work, and go step by step before they can explore miracles. M. Waldman has a more grounded view of the alchemists: “these are the men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names, and arrange in connected classifications, the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light” (Shelley 29). Dreams of grandeur, grounded in a realistic outlook, can lead to great works and acts of concrete science.

Frankenstein fails to truly grasp this lesson and his lust for understanding animation and what separates the dead from the living eventually leads to his downfall: the creation of the Monster. Victor admits to Walton that creating the monster led to his undoing:

              “I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes       express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am  acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will  easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example…how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge [to a man who] aspires to become greater than his nature will allow” (Shelley 32).

At this moment, Frankenstein admonishes Walton against following in his footsteps because he recognizes the same, voraciously hungry, desire for knowledge. Unlike God, Victor is not omniscient; Sartre describes God the Creator as such: “when God creates he knows precisely what he is creating. Thus, the conception of man in the mind of God is comparable to that of the paper-knife in the mind of the artisan” (2). Victor has attempted to become greater than his nature allows, he has attempted to become God; unlike God though, he failed to properly instill the conception of man in the Monster.

   In a world without God(s), existence precedes essence, that is, “man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world, and defines himself afterwards… To begin with, he is nothing. He will not be anything later, and then he will be what he makes of himself (Sartre 3).  Frankenstein has had no sort of religious upbringing (“a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm” (Shelley 31).), he does not have respect for the supernatural, or the natural order of things because of this. It is not until the Monster awakes that he realizes he has made a mistake in his pursuit. However, Frankenstein’s creation of the Monster changes this order: with a God, essence precedes existence. Frankenstein had the idea of creating the Monster so that he could understand what separates the living from the dead, and to “renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption” (Shelley 33). But, he did not consider what he would do with his creation once it became alive. Thus, Frankenstein did not fully instill the conception of man in the Monster.

Furthermore, Victor abandons the Monster upon its awakening: “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs…but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room” (Shelley 35-36). Through his abandonment, he condemned the Monster to freedom. That is, the Monster is “condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world, he is responsible for everything he does” (Sartre 5).

Shelley complicates a Sartreian reading of Frankenstein, as shown when the Monster confronts his creator: “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous… I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity: but am I not alone, miserably alone?” (Shelley 68). This, along with sharing his rescue of the girl from the pond, act as an attempt by Shelley to convey an a priori moral code. Without God(s), there is no “human nature” (Sartre 3). I will argue, however, that because the Monster has an existence that originated somewhere between being formed by a God and being thrown into an existence, like man, that he has a partial ‘essence’, or a partial moral code. Frankenstein is merely a man who played God; he does not possess the true ability to fully form a being with a whole essence. Therefore, the Monster is in a kind of limbo; he is partly the “sum of the formulae and the qualities of [its] production [and] something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so” (Sartre 2-3).

It is arguable, that the Monster even feels the “abandonment” of his “God” more sharply than we do because he knows that Victor despises him: “you, my creator, abhor me” (Shelley 68). It is in this interaction, that Frankenstein finally feels responsible for his creation, “for the first time, I felt what the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness” (Shelley 70). He has been first, abandoned by his creator, chased away and shot at by the farmer, and beaten and insulted by the De Laceys; this is the first time within the novel that a human shows him any sort of kindness. But, even that kindness is fleeting; the Monster’s motive behind this meeting with Frankenstein was to implore his creator to make him a companion, to which Frankenstein initially agrees. However, just as Frankenstein is finishing his second creation, he destroys it (Shelley 119). In a moment when Victor could have granted the Monster compassion, given him another creation to understand and hopefully be understood by, he instead tears it to pieces, the one chance at happiness his Monster had.

Nevertheless, Victor’s treatment of the Monster does not justify the actions the Monster takes in revenge against his creator. He is, as has been discussed earlier, free to choose for himself, free to invent his own essence (Sartre 7). He is a being responsible for the choices he makes, just as every human is. While the reactions of others towards his existence are truly heartbreaking, it is not their malice that turns him into a Monster, but his actions. His killing of William and the framing of Justine, and the murders of Henry Clerval and Elizabeth, are what turns him from virtuous to vile. Frankenstein is responsible for his creation and partly culpable for these crimes because of his abandonment of the Monster, but ultimately, the Monster is the one who must answer for these crimes.

Ultimately, both Frankenstein and the Monster do not act responsibly; Frankenstein only acts ethically after his fortunes have been reversed and he has lost all that he loves, the Monster while terribly treated by his creator, seals his fate through his villainous acts. In Victor’s creative act of creating the Monster he has failed to act morally; he destroyed the order of existence before essence, abandoned his creation, and refused to understand it. The Monster, because he only had a partial essence, became victim of the same freedom to choose man possesses as a being without a creator, and thus existed within a limbo of object and conscious being. Through both Frankenstein and “Euthyphro”, we can see that humanity always has the potential to be responsible for our creations, to be accountable for our actions, but that we often fail to do so. We must constantly strive to better ourselves and others, to act morally and ethically, and to at least try to understand others so that we can all embrace the life we are thrust into.

Word Count: 2001

Works Cited:

Plato. “Euthyphro.” Five Dialogues. Translated by G.M.A. Grube, Indianapolis, Hackett Pub. Co., 2002.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre. Translated by Walter Kaufman, Cleveland, The World Pub. Co., 1969.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 2012.

On Syntax and Theme in Cummings’ “since feeling is first”

             Cummings is best known for his concrete poetry (Gale 334). However, "since feeling is first" is a fantastic example of the influence the romantic movement had on Cummings' works. As Gomez-Jiminez states, "the unconventional use of punctuation has been considered one of E.E. Cummings' prominent stylistic features" (192); while "since feeling is first" is not nearly as radical as Cummings' more experimental poetry in his use of punctuation, Cummings' application (or more importantly) his lack of application of punctuation is crucial to the communication of theme in "since feeling is first". Firstly, the speaker advocates for feeling over reason, secondly, he communicates the superiority of physical means of affection over intellectual means, and lastly, he strongly argues against trapping ourselves within the confines of syntax.

             "since feeling is first" begins with the argument the speaker intends to make, that "feeling is first" (Cummings 1). The speaker is attempting to entice both the lady he mentions within the poem and the reader to be present in the world, instead of paying attention to syntax. Syntax is "the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, specifically word order and punctuation" (Chomsky 11). Anyone who "pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you" (Cummings 2-4), will never wholly be present with you. This line also communicates that the rules of syntax cause us to fall short in expressing our emotions as they manifest themselves in reality. By paying attention to syntax, we rob ourselves of the chance to experience the world and all of the beauty it contains. It is evident from the beginning that " [the speaker is evidently dissatisfied] with the limited ability of language to represent reality" (Springer 10). As "since feeling is first" progresses, the reader gains a better sense of the shortfalls of following a rigid syntax in regards to expressing oneself: unlike emotion, syntax is a fixed form, it is not meant to change. However, emotions manifest themselves in numerous ways, they are fluid, not fixed. Emotions and feelings are natural; grammar and punctuation are mere fabrications and (as the speaker argues) cannot express the genuine experiences we experience.

             In the second stanza, the influence of the romantic movement becomes increasingly present. The speaker advocates for the reader and his lover to "wholly be a fool while Spring is in the world" (Cummings 5-6). According to the speaker, he and his lady deserve to be entirely present with each other, to be fools in love. With Spring comes new growth, it is a season associated with beauty and love. Springer chastises Cummings poetry by arguing that "even his best poetry does little more than explore the most obvious possibilities of [love, nature and the all-importance of the present moment" (8). However, I would argue that even though "since feeling is first" is a short poem, Cummings manages to explore the themes of love and the importance of staying in the moment, in a way that is both in depth and fresh. It is not through promises that the speaker swears his love for his partner, but "by all flowers" (10). Their love, in his eyes, is as beautiful as a fresh flower in spring, and as worthy of attention.

             To the speaker, the physical expressions of love shown by his partner vastly outweigh any "gesture of his brain" (Cummings 11). Her "eyelids' flutter" fully communicates that they are "for each other" (Cummings 12-13). The words of this poem, and anything the speaker can think to say to his partner, cannot even begin to touch the profound meaning of her laughter, or her being in his arms (14). For him, his "blood approves" (7); the very essence of life that runs through his veins assents to their love. It is not his head that approves, it is not reason, but what runs throughout his body, keeping him alive, that acclaims their love. Again, physicality comes first; sensation over contemplation: "kisses are a better fate than wisdom" (Cummings 8-9). The speaker has no wish to pause and contemplate the world or analyze the structures that exist around them; he wishes for both himself and his lover to be wholly present with each other.

             The speaker advises his lover to "laugh [and] lean back into [his] arms for life's not a paragraph" (Cummings 14-15). Contrary to the contents of a paragraph, the two lovers are not constrained by any one thing. Life contains a multitude of feelings and experiences and they should allow themselves to experience these as fully as they possibly can. Finally, "since feeling is first" ends on the stand-alone line "and death i think is no parenthesis" (16). This line emphasizes the speaker's desire to focus on life; the time we are given on earth is limited, and death (unlike things found in parenthesis) should not be thought of as an afterthought. This emphasis is created through marks-omission which Gomez-Jiminez defines as "the suppression of required punctuation marks in a word, phrase or a sentence" (197). While parenthesis often denotes an afterthought, it also "…reflects the desire of the main poetic voice to pay more attention or carry out a particular action" (Gomez-Jiminez 201). This underlines the speaker's wish to focus on being actively focused on this moment with his partner; he has no urge to reflect on life, or death, but instead to completely exist in the moment, as a fool in love.

             While Springer argues that Cummings' utilizes "syntax that seems to make a mockery of meaning" (8), I would instead argue that it is Cummings' manipulation of syntax that allows him to truly pay respect to meaning. It is his method of exploring such universal themes as love, nature, and the importance of staying present despite the numerous distractions that draw us out of the present moment. Instead, we must put feeling first, make the effort to physically express ourselves more often, and give life the attention it deserves. We need not be confined by syntax, but instead, we ought to live as fully as we can with those we love in the limited time we are given.  

Works Cited:

Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. 's-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1957.

e.e. cummings. “since feeling is first”. Poetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2010. EBSCOhost,login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsgvr&AN=edsgcl.2280700020&site=eds-live&scope=site.

"Edward Estlin Cummings." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 4, Gale, 2004, pp. 334-336. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/apps/doc/CX3404701601/GVRL?u=edmo69826&sid=GVRL&xid=ef0e9c0d. Accessed 5 Feb. 2018.

Gómez-Jiménez, Eva María. "Unconventional Patterns in the Experimental Poetry of E. E. Cummings: A Stylistic Approach to Punctuation Marks." Language and Literature: Journal of the Poetics and Linguistics Association, vol. 26, no. 3, Aug. 2017, pp. 191-212. EBSCOhost, login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/loginurl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2017701801&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Springer, Haskell S. "The Poetics of E. E. Cummings." South Atlantic Bulletin, vol. 32, no. 4, Nov. 1967, pp. 8-10. EBSCOhost, login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=0000214536&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Iris Marion Young’s Throwing Like a Girl and the Extension of the Glass Ceiling

 While the glass ceiling hangs over our heads we must forget the saying that “those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Women face an invisible barrier between the limited space they inhabit and the space that is actually available to them. The glass ceiling is traditionally defined as “an unofficially acknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities” (Merriam-Webster). I argue that through Young’s analysis of the modalities specific to feminine spatiality, it becomes clear that the glass ceiling exists not only in professional environments but extends throughout a woman’s life. Women experience space as enclosed or confining, the severance between a “here” and a “yonder” creates a disconnect between the current situation of women, and the possibilities they see for others but not themselves, that the glass ceiling amplifies patriarchal society’s portrayal of women as objects, and finally, that this invisible barrier sometimes acts as the only defense women have against the invasion of their space.   Young begins Throwing Like a Girl by discussing Beauvoir’s account of the situation of women to lay a foundation for her analysis of how women comport themselves and exist in space. Young states that through Beauvoir’s account it seems as if it is “woman’s anatomy and physiology as such that at least in part determine her unfree status” (23). However, it is not the anatomy of a woman that weighs her down, but society’s patriarchal views of women’s bodies, and thus women’s relationship with space. Young clarifies, as should I, that the claims made within both her paper and mine apply to the “feminine” existence and therefore do not apply to all women. The feminine existence is “a set of structures and conditions that delimit the typical situation of being a woman in a particular society, as well as the typical way in which this situation is lived by the women themselves” (24). Young combines Beauvoir’s account of the “feminine” existence, and the situation of women with the theory of the lived body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty theorizes that “phenomenal space arises out of motility and lived relations of space are generated by the capacities of the body’s motion and the intentional relations that motion constitutes” (32). If lived space arises from our relationship with space and the ability to use our bodies, a connection can be drawn from the situation of women to our perception of space as enclosed or confining. Women do not only experience a barrier between them and upwards movement but at all sides. This is reflected in Erik Erikson’s study where he concludes that “females emphasize inner or enclosed space” (32).  Young suggests that this is a “reflection of the way [women] live and move their bodies through space” (32). The space that is available to women is often larger than the space used by women. Therefore, women perceive a limited range of space for themselves to move through, and thus feel trapped, or enclosed. Merleau-Ponty suggests that there is an “immediate link between the body and outlying space” (33). For the feminine existence, however, “the projection of an enclosed space severs the continuity between a “here and a yonder” (33). There is a distinct difference between the space we currently inhabit, the “here,” and the space beyond, the “yonder.” In the feminine existence, the space of “yonder” exists as possible for someone but not for myself. The disconnect between the “here” and the “yonder” is an expression of the “discontinuity between aim and capacity” (33). The severance of the connection between a “here” and a “yonder” is expressed in the discontinuity between where women perceive they belong and the possibilities they see for others. Women realize that others can take up space, offer their own opinions, without having to justify doing so. The “timidity, immobility, and uncertainty” (33) that characterize feminine movement, however, severs a woman’s ability to see that she too is just as worthy and capable as anyone else. Imagine someone looking through a window, they must acknowledge that people are passing by, but they also must recognize that they cannot pass through the glass. “Yonder” exists for the feminine essence as something which she is “looking into rather than moving in” (33). In feminine existence, not only do women face a glass ceiling, we face a glass The glass house women face is built pane by pane as we accept our “feminine status” (35). As children, boys and girls show almost no difference in spatial perception, spatial problem-solving, and motor skills, but as these differences increase with age (36). Girls are more often encouraged to play house or to play with dolls. Whereas boys are encouraged to “tinker,” to get dirty and to play sports. These activities encourage “free and open engagement with the world” (35). The play of girls often reinforces gender roles and often begins to build the barriers females face as they grow older. When a girl is told she cannot “get hurt [or] get dirty,” that “what she desires to do is dangerous for her” (35), she internalizes these commands and it translates to a limited range of choices for what she believes she can and cannot do later in life. When she learns to comport her body in ways that are feminine, she learns to “hamper her movements” (35). As girls grow older, they often take on more and more of these traits and they actively “enact [their] own body inhibition” (35). The socialization of girls ensures that the glass ceiling stays in place through a self-maintained system. Similarly to Young spending hours practicing a “feminine” walk, I can recall my first time walking in heels; both create a limited range of movement. In Merleau-Ponty’s account “the body is the original subject that constitutes space” (33). Without the body, there would be no space, thus the body does not occupy the same position as other objects. However, through Young’s discussion of the socialization of girls and women, we can see that the “feminine bodily existence is self-referred and thus lives itself as an object” (33). Merleau-Ponty argues that “visual perception and motility stand in a relation of reversibility; an impairment in one leads to an impairment of the other” (34). Women’s view of objects as rooted in place and “anchored in their immanence” (34) act as a reflection of the impairment in their motility. The barrier women face in enacting their own agency and being recognized as people, socially and culturally amplifies the objectification they experience.  One of the sources of the “modalities of feminine bodily existence” is that “patriarchal society defines woman as object” (36). As the meaning of art is left to the interpretation of the viewer, women are presented as “the potential object of another subject’s intentions and manipulations in society” (36). Women’s bodies are constantly on display in media, through commercials, and music videos. This constant sexualization of women’s bodies partnered with the dismissal of our bodies as “manifestations of action and intention” (36) often creates uncomfortable, and sometimes even dangerous situations for women.

The glass house acts not only to limit the activities girls can partake in, and the opportunities women have access to, but it also acts as a defense against “the threat of invasion of her bodily space” (36). Young mentions that this invasion of space includes both ends of the spectrum, rape, but also other subtler ways.  Attached to the “window” that women look out of to see the possibilities for others is a wall. Women often try their best to transmit an air of unapproachability, or we at least try to not draw attention to ourselves. We wall ourselves off from the world by walking with our arms to our chest, attempting to take up as little space as possible. There have been many times on the bus where I have barricaded myself in my seat with my bags, sitting against the window, and putting my headphones in an attempt to evade unwanted interaction with others. While all the unwanted interactions I have had on the bus have thankfully only been an inconvenience, it is because of my lack of belief in my ability to use my body’s capacity to protect myself from the threat of violence that could occur if I rejected the advances. The attempt at projecting a closed space for myself, like many other women is the only way I know how to defend myself from such advances. Although significant strides have been made and continue to be made in improving the situation of women since Throwing Like a Girl was first published, society is still built on a patriarchal framework and thus many women still live in the glass house created by the feminine experience. Women experience space as enclosed or confining because of the process of socialization starting when we are young, women often experience a lack of confidence because of the severance between a “here” and a “yonder,” the glass ceiling acts to amplify the objectification of women, while also acting as a defense mechanism against the unwarranted advances women face as a consequence of the objectification. It is time to start throwing stones; the time for the glass house to come down is now.

blank pages on blank spaces tear holes through my eyes. How can I finish what I cannot start? For throwing words away is like throwing cares away but if that were true I would never open my lips. They say it doesn’t mean a thing unless you say it out loud or write it down on a page but who’s to say that it isn’t anything if silence only makes it grow stronger. Besides, they almost always say “absence makes the heart grow fonder."

I have pictured many lives for myself this was never one of them

It’s okay We grow We learn We continue to make the same mistakes over and over again hoping the outcome will be different than the last