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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Stephen Dedalus is born of a woman, created of the earth; pure in his childhood innocence. From this beginning stems the birth of an artist, and from this the novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce recounts Stephen’s story. His journey is followed from childhood to maturity, and thus his transformation from secular to saintly to an awakening of what he truly is. The novel evolves from simple, childlike diction, to sophisticated, higher ideas and thoughts as Dedalus completes his transition into an artist. In the beginning, Dedalus sees the world in an almost sing-song nursery rhyme sense, with a “moocow” coming down the road. By the end of the novel, Dedalus is mature and worldly; a man who stands tall and who feels confident with “Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.” (238). Through the use of the symbols of woman and earth, and white and purification, Joyce gives his novel depth and wonder. These symbols follow an array of transformations, changing throughout the novel much like Stephen himself.
The figure woman goes from the mother figure, to that of the whore, and finally to the representation of freedom itself. As a child, the image of the mother figure is strong. It is nurturing and supportive, that of “a woman standing at the half-door of a cottage with a child in her arms . . .” (10) who shelters and protects and makes Stephen afraid to “think of how it was” to be without a mother. As Stephen grows, however, like any child his dependency of him mother begins to dwindle, as does his awe for her. He begins to question his relationship with her and she is suddenly seen as a dirty figure, beginning the transformation of Stephen’s image of women; from that of mother to whore. He first begins to questions the purity of his mother, his creator, his earth, when confronted by class mates, who taunt and confuse the innocent act of kissing his mother. He suddenly wonders, “Was it right to kiss his mother or wrong to kiss his mother? What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face up like that to say good night and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss.” (24) However, later in the novel the image of the pure and novel mother appears once more, but not in the figure of Stephen’s own mother. Rather, it is in the image of the Virgin Mary: the ultimate symbol of purity, nurturing, and creation. She is the giver of life to man as earth is to nature, creating the tie between earth and women: the bearers, the creators of life. Jesus, “He was born of a virgin pure, Mary the virgin mother.” (110) Why can’t the rest of man kind born as pure?
The figure of the whore physically begins with Stephen’s first sexual encounter. From childhood he has heard of women like that of the whore, their names unspeakable at the dinner table, mistresses of highly noted figures. “But what was the name the woman had called Kitty O’Shea that Mr. Casey would not repeat?” (36) Stephen, however, is unaware and unable to comprehend this symbolic image until he reaches the real, physical whore who was “dressed in long vivid gowns” and “traversed the street from house to house.” (88) In the actually encounter, Stephen felt “the warm calm rise and fall of her breast, [and] all but burst into hysterical weeping.” (90) He feels this out of happiness, but it is also a symbolic loss of innocence, which he later weeps for consciously, because “His childhood was dead or lost and with it his soul capable of simple joys and he was drifting amid life and like the barren shell of the moon. The whore is she who takes innocence, she represents not only an evil of the flesh, but that of Eve herself. She was “the weaker vessel” and because of her temptation, Eden fell and the innocence of man was lost. “She ate the apple and give it also to Adam who had not the moral courage to resist her.” (124) This scenario parallels Stephen’s encounter with the whore. He is caught up in it all, he “weeps” and it helpless against the temptation of the whore, for, though he attempts to resist by not “bend[ing] to kiss her,” “it was too much for him” much like it was too much for Adam. Thus the prostitute figure represents the fall of man all together, and a feeling “darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour.” (92) For Stephen, and for the rest of man, the whore only invokes feelings of shame, “shameful thoughts, shameful words, shameful acts. Shame covered him wholly like fine glowing ashes falling continually.” (139) So, in the end, Stephen is doomed to always “looking humbly up to heaven, “weeping” for the innocence he had lost (169) This, all because of the whore, the symbol of evil and shame, a creature born of the Garden of Even, destined to ruin man in the eyes of God.
Due to of his loss of innocence and his endless dive into the depths of sin, Stephen resolves to once again recapture that which was innocent inside of him, and spurns the whore and woman all together. Here, the symbol of the woman remains that of evil: dangerous, forbidden. He avoids all eye contact with women. He attempts to recapture his good, to once again be looked favorably upon in the eyes of his creator, and by doing this he must spurn that which took man to this detestable state in the first place: the woman whore. However, his innocence is now gone, and he can not recapture it, so the image of woman does not return to the mothering figure it did in the beginning of the novel. It never can. Therefore, bent on the destruction of evil thoughts, and thus woman, from his mind, woman becomes only a vision, an untouchable mirage, for much of the novel. This is not really Stephen, however, and it will not last. Thus, when he comes to a rebirth, and discovers who he really is, the image of the woman returns to Stephen. This time, however, she is the dancing nymph, the symbol of rebirth, of freedom. The girl is “gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness.” (203) The girl is at the beach, gazing out upon the earth that created her. The sea is free, much like her, much like Stephen. Suddenly, “his soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings.” (205) He has come into himself, and discovered the artist he truly is.
This last female has a strong connection with the earth. She is the transition, the link, between secular and saintly, between the artist and his creation. She is described as part of the earth, as part of nature, “Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh.” (203) The earth is woman, for as mother is to nature, woman is to man. When in his zealot stage, the earth is seen as a prison, and “In earthly prisons” men must abide by “obedience to His word.” (174) However, when Stephen finally comes to himself, discovers the artist within him, the earth is not a prison, it does not stifle, but instead it creates. It is the ultimate mother, the purest woman there is. “A world, a glimmer or a flower?” (205) He had long though of it as a glimmer, to be ignored, he now sees it in its bloom, its wonder and its beauty, the mother of all that is pure and good and beautiful. It is the ultimate creation and yields the greatest beauty.
Portrait of a Victim Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye
Portrait of a Victim: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye
The Bluest Eye (1970) is the novel that launched Toni Morrison into the spotlight as a talented African-American writer and social critic. Morrison herself says “It would be a mistake to assume that writers are disconnected from social issues” (Leflore). Because Morrison is more willing than most authors to discuss meaning in her books, a genetic approach is very relevant. To be truly effective, though, the genetic approach must be combined with a formal approach. The formal approach allows the unpacking of the rich language, imagery, and metaphors of Morrison’s writing, and the genetic places it in the larger context of her social consciousness.
In The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s uses her critical eye to reveal to the reader the evil that is caused by a society that is indoctrinated by the inherent goodness and beauty of whiteness and the ugliness of blackness. In an interview with Milwaukee Journal staff writer Fannie Leflore, Morrison said that she “confronted and critiqued the devastation of racial images” in The Bluest Eye.
The narrative structure of The Bluest Eye is important in revealing just how pervasive and destructive the “racialization” (Morrison’s term for the racism that is a part of every person’s socialization) is (Leflore). Morrison is particularly concerned about the narration in her novels. She says, “People crave narration . . . That’s the way they learn things” (Bakerman 58). Narration in The Bluest Eye comes from several sources. Much of the narration comes from Claudia MacTeer as a nine year old child, but Morrison also gives the reader the benefit of Claudia reflecting on the story as an adult, some first person narration from Pecola’s mother, and narration by Morrison herself as an omniscient narrator. Morrison says, “First I wrote it [the section in The Bluest Eye about Pecola’s mother] out as an ‘I’ story, but it didn’t work . . . Then I wrote it out as a ‘she’ story, and that didn’t work . . . It was me, the author, sort of omnipotent, talking” (Bakerman 59). Morrison intentionally kept Pecola from any first person narration of the story. Morrison wanted to “try to show a little girl as a total and complete victim of whatever was around her,” and she needed the distance and innocence of Claudia’s narration to do that (Stepto 479). Pecola’s experiences would have less meaning coming from Pecola herself because “a total and complete victim” would be an unreliable narrator, unwilling (or unable) to tell relate the actual circumstances of that year (Stepto 479). Claudia, from her youthful innocence, is able to see and relate how the other characters, especially Pecola, idolize the “ideal” of beauty presented by white, blue-eyed movie stars like little Shirley Temple.
In addition to narrative structure, the structure and typography of the novel itself help to illustrate how much and for how long white ideas of family and home have been forced into black culture. Instead of conventional chapters and sections, The Bluest Eye is broken up into seasons— Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. This type of organization suggests that the events described in The Bluest Eye have occurred before, and will occur again. Linda Dittmar, in her article examining form in The Bluest Eye, says, “Inherent in the notion of the seasons is the fact that they are an annually recurring condition from which there is no escape” (143). Further dividing the book are small excerpts from the “Dick and Jane” primer that is the epitome of the white upper-middle class lifestyle. Each excerpt has, in some way, to do with the section that follows. So the section that describes Pecola’s mother is started with an excerpt describing Dick and Jane’s mother, and so on. The excerpts from “Dick and Jane” that head each “chapter” are typeset without any spaces or punctuation marks. The “Dick and Jane” snippets show just how prevalent and important the images of white perfection are in Pecola’s life; Morrison’s strange typography illustrates how irrelevant and inappropriate these images are.
Names play an important part in The Bluest Eye because they are often symbolic of conditions in society or in the context of the story. The name of the novel, “The Bluest Eye,” is meant to get the reader thinking about how much value is placed on blue-eyed little girls. Pecola and her family are representative of the larger African-American community, and their name, “Breedlove,” is ironic because they live in a society that does not “breed love.” In fact, it breeds hate— hate of blackness, and thus hatred of oneself. The MacTeer girls are flattered when Mr. Henry said “Hello there. You must be Greta Garbo, and you must be Ginger Rogers” (Morrison 17). As for the name “MacTeer,” an argument can be made that it refers to the fact that the MacTeer girls are the only ones who shed a tear for Pecola. Claudia says “we listened for the one who would say, ‘Poor little girl,’ or ‘Poor baby,’ but there was only head-wagging where those words should have been” (Morrison 148). Soaphead Church represents, as his name suggests, the role of the church in African-American life. “I, I have caused a miracle. I gave her the eyes. I gave her the blue, blue, two blue eyes,” Soaphead says (Morrison 143). The implication is that the church’s promise that if you worship God and pray to Him that everything will be alright is no better than Soaphead’s promise to Pecola that she will have blue eyes. Morrison reveals the significance of Pecola’s name through the character of Maureen Peal. Maureen confuses Pecola’s name with the name of a character in the movie Imitation of Life. By this allusion, Morrison illustrates that Pecola’s life is an imitation (meaning the same as, not inferior to) of the real experiences of black women. “Black women have held, have been given, you know, the cross. They don’t walk near it. They’re often on it” (Stepto 479).
Morrison also uses metaphors to describe the conditions under which African-Americans in general and Pecola in particular are forced to live. There are two major metaphors in The Bluest Eye, one of marigolds and one of dandelions. Claudia, looking back as an adult, says at the first of the book “there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941” (Morrison 9). She and her sister plant marigold seeds with the belief that if the marigolds would grow and survive, so would Pecola’s baby (Morrison 149). Morrison unpacks the metaphor throughout the book, and, through Claudia, finally explains it and broadens its scope to all African-Americans on the last page. “I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruits it will not bear . . .” (Morrison 160). The implication is that Pecola, like so many other African-Americans, never had a chance to grow and succeed because she lived in a society (“soil”) that was inherently racist, and would not nurture her. The other flower, the dandelion, is important as a metaphor because it represents Pecola’s image of herself. Pecola passes some dandelions going into Mr. Yacobowski’s store. “Why, she wonders, do people call them weeds? She thought they were pretty” (Morrison 41). After Mr. Yacobowski humiliates her, she again passes the dandelions and thinks, “They are ugly. They are weeds” (Morrison 43). She has transferred society’s dislike of her to the dandelions.
In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison tells the story of a little black girl who thinks that if she can live up to the image of the blue-eyed Shirley Temple and Dick and Jane that she will have the perfect life that they have. The importance of this book goes beyond its value as a work of literature. Morrison speaks to the masses, both white and black, showing how a racist social system wears down the minds and souls of people, how dominate images of white heros and heroins with blue eyes and wonderful lives show young black children that to be white means to be successful and happy, and then they look around at their own lives of poverty and oppression and learn to hate their black heritage for keeping them from the Dick and Jane world. Morrison does not solve these problems, nor does she even try, but she does show a reflection of a world that cannot call itself right or moral.
Hormel Strike in the American Dream
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Hormel Strike in the American Dream
American dream is a film that was directed by Barbara Kopple in 1990. The film is centered on the strike that took place against Hormel foods due to a two dollar decrease in the wages of the workers in the meat packing plant. The decrease of wages from10.69 dollars to 8.25 dollars received a negative welcome by the workers and other people. This reaction was a result of the fact that the company had been making good business at the time and claimed the wage cut was to enable them to stay competitive. (Yahnke, 1)
The strike saw the management of the meat packing company trying to justify the wage cut by claiming that it was a visionary strategic move as it did not wish to see the company fall apart since its costs had out done its productivity. The management of Hormel Food resulted to firing all the striking workers and replacing them with new ones. By so doing the managements replacement approach made them look cowardly and hard headed since they were not willing to meet the striking workers halfway and listen to what they had to say.
The local union took a more strategic approach to ensure the return of the workers to their jobs under favorable conditions. Ray Rogers, a consultant hired by the union, came up with strategies that attracted the national press’ attention (Yahnke, 1). The labor union used the human emotion and lobbying as an approach to get the workers the working conditions that they deserve. In so doing, it hoped to appeal to the public’s empathetic side so as to drum up support for their cause. This however only produced short lived effects since people grew weary and some of the workers decided to go back to their jobs. The local unions approach failed as it was taken as a form of harassment and not a diplomatic bid to solve the problem at hand as was initially intended.
In conclucion, both the local union and the company management were flawed in their ways of reasoning and in their attempts to quell the strike that went on for months. As a company, Hormel’s decision to lay off striking workers some of whom had been working there for up to 43 years saw the company loss its loyal and hardworking staff. This lead to an unprecedented turn over cost that further increased their expenditure instead of reducing it as intended in the wage cuts.
The local union’s approach to bully the company too had its detrimental effects. It saw the members of the union lose faith in the union and opt to go back to the company due to the economic hardship the strike had caused on the workers and their families.Work Cited
Yahnke, Roberts. “Film Summary: American Dream”. 04 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Mar. 2013.