Queen Guinevere and The Way Christians View Women

While reading a helpful book about constructing fiction, I came across a line that startled me. The author was using the King Arthur tale to illustrate the use of symbols in story. He commented that by placing women on a pedestal, chivalry made all women into symbols and divided them into the "Christian binary of madonna and whore."

It's an unusually succinct summary of a popular interpretation of how Christians view women.

And, alas, there are and have been some Christians about whom the comment is accurate--Christians who see sexual purity as the only really important virtue or who judge men and women according to different laws. Yet in the context of the history of the orthodox Christian faith and the stories it has produced, the comment displays a bit of willful blindness.

It is ridiculous to complain that a knight's love interest is a symbol without admitting that so is the knight. It seems obtuse to point out that the Arthurian women were either "good" or "bad" without noticing that the male characters are also divided between those who are brave and pure and those who are cowardly and evil. The point of the stories isn't to show us multiple facets of the character's personalities but to present listeners with inspiring types who are general enough to allow anyone to imagine himself in their place.

It also displays a peculiar modern bias to assume that characters who get their own fight scenes are automatically more well-rounded.

More importantly, though, the overall message of the Arthurian story is not that women are either madonnas or whores. Guinevere didn't fall alone.

Christians don't think women are sinners by virtue of being female. Christians think women are sinners by virtue of being human.

The point is that in a paradise constructed by humans, sin conquers even the most strong and the most fair. Sin destroys everyone. That is actually a rather democratic message.

Greensleeves (review)

by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, 1968 (newly released 2015)

The pacing of the prologue-like first chapter aside, I slipped easily into the world of this book and would have liked to remain there longer. Our eighteen-year-old heroine is a girl who has been haphazardly raised by seven different parent-figures, including her divorced father and mother, while being dragged up and down across Europe. When in Europe, she is perceived to be an American; while in the States, she is seen as European. Life has not been gentle to her sense of self. Our story opens with her desperate attempt to hit the pause button and escape for a time from her own awkward identity before she is pushed into a college education she does not want. She will be a detective. In disguise.

The story is told with charm, wit, and perceptiveness. Our heroine may be filled with angst, but it is a self-aware, rather mature angst that does not exaggerate her own importance or sap her sense of humor. Many aspects of this late 1960’s world are delightful. The way trendy blue eye-shadow and a massive hair-do, well glued-up, are used by our heroine to create a mask is fun to read about. The way daily life is conducted with a complete lack of modern screens is striking. The characters’ moral universe are appealing. They assume that love leads to marriage and that playing with sexual contact in the form of kissing and making-out is to awaken a deep, heavy, potentially dangerous thing that robs people of the ability to properly evaluate their mutual compatibility.

Yet the overall message of the story left me feeling ambiguous. Essentially, it is a well-presented, charming manifestation of the idea that life’s purpose is to find and know oneself. This must be done as an individual, and involves escape from other people’s undue influence (in the imagery of the novel, one must “escape one’s own cage”--the personal fears and insecurities that hold one imprisoned--without the help of friends, parents, or true love, because no one can save us from ourselves). Marriage is something to consider only after both parties have first pursued their own dreams and discovered who they truly are. This message is all the more powerful because, rather than being assumed, it is discovered by the heroine in a slow and non-preachy way.

Dealing with Anne Shirley, And Other Quick Takes

1.

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First, a digression: Recently I blogged about Jules Verne, Ursula Le Guin, dragons, and giant octopi. I've significantly expanded that into an article about the subtle, hidden, cultural rules of storytelling. You can read it at The Federalist.

2. 

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L.M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley is so very, very beloved by many readers that I hesitate to confess my ambiguous feelings about her. Each time I return to the novels (which I read several times throughout childhood, and very much enjoyed at the time), I find myself resenting her for being airbrushed and perfect. That might sound like a weird statement, since Anne is presented as a decidedly flawed individual who is always getting into "scrapes." However, every single one of her flaws are of the sort that readers are most willing to forgive. Inclined to daydream? Good, it makes the story better-- besides, our culture admires and encourages dreams, imagination, and originality. Generous to a fault? How sweet. Passionate tempered? Adds drama, and fits our desire for feisty heroines. Anne has flaws, but they are all romantic flaws. That is rather different from having the unattractive, wart-like flaws that tend to beset us real humans.

Here Lie No Dragons: Unspoken Rules of Socially Acceptable Storytelling

(Or, What I Learned from Ursula K. Le Guin and Jules Verne)

UPDATE: I expanded this blog post into an article for The Federalist, (read it here).

As I peruse Jules Verne’s dramatic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I am repeatedly struck not just with a case of I-am-not-buying-into-this-improbable-event-in-your-plot, but with actual discomfort. There are certain passages that conform to Nineteenth Century mores but clash with ours. Nowadays, when we talk about the astonishing creatures of the ocean, we are supposed to sound…. well, positive. Admiring. We aren’t supposed to judge them according to human standards of behavior or physical appearance, and to declare some of them (such as gigantic octopi) “monstrosities of nature,” or to decide that others (like sperm whales) are “mischievous creatures” who should be slaughtered in a “wholesome massacre” because of their supposed viciousness toward other, nicer whales. Our modern stories are supposed to focus on the danger that unrestrained humanity poses to the animals, not the danger that wild animals pose to humanity. To read about a scientist who says, “What a magnificent specimen of a rare creature! Quick, kill it!” feels downright awkward. I myself am no foe of hunting, but I am enough of a child of my era to experience unease when the fictional sea runs red with the blood of whales.

I am also reading the first story in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Tales from Earthsea (a collection of novellas that intersect with her Earthsea fantasy novels). What fascinates me is the contrast between this story and the author’s first Earthsea novel from 1968 (in the forward to Tales from Earthsea, Mrs. Le Guin herself acknowledges that the vast social changes in moral outlook have changed her own view and thus her stories).

The first Earthsea novel is called A Wizard of Earthsea. In it, a young man named Ged travels the difficult path to wizardry and self-knowledge. The story is unconventional in many ways that were, in their day, quite bold. For instance, although not all the book jacket illustrations reveal this, the hero and most of the characters are not white people. For another, instead of engaging in epic warfare (or any warfare at all) the hero endures a long quest that ultimately revolves around facing and accepting his mortality. It is a hero saga and a quest story with a counter-cultural, reflective atmosphere (and without any fair-haired maidens who require rescue).

Infiltrating the Arts, Part I

Stories are powerful. Can the arts (broadly defined to include popular forms of storytelling) be used to shape people's beliefs? Can they be used a subtler form of apologetics?

Conflicts about ideas and beliefs tend to be messy. This is in part because, even if ideas themselves are logical, human allegiance to them is based on a chaos of feelings, assumptions, and preferences. Often we are not even aware of the presuppositions with which we approach an argument. Merely being right does not necessarily make a position convincing. When Christians try to engage in the interplay of ideas, we often find that our audience does not just disagree with us—instead, it actually cannot give us a fair hearing, and cannot truly understand what we say. This is observable in many different settings. Missionaries to unreached peoples cannot start with the story of Good Friday and Easter, but must first teach Genesis and the concepts of sin, God, and the soul. Missionary-citizens in the United States are also faced with a culture that is often a barrier to communication. Addressing these barriers is part of what we call apologetics.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Yes, There Is a Right Way to Portray Fairies (and Why It Matters)

By “fairies,” I refer to the creatures who inhabit the unsettling tales of old legend, not those winged lawn ornaments of Victorian and modern art. I really mean “the fey folk,” “the people under the hill,” “the fair ones.” We need them, and I shall explain why.

The fey folk are dangerous. Disobey their instructions not to look over your shoulder, and your head might get stuck that way. Annoy them, and your cows may never give milk again. Go to one of their parties, and you might just dance until the flesh falls off your bones. They are not like humans: they do not feel love or pity. They are unearthly and amoral.

Yet they are also fascinating. Their powers are mysterious, their race appears immortal, and often they are more beautiful than any sight yet seen by human eyes.

The only reliable thing about the fey folk is that they are unpredictable. Sometimes they plague a farm with tricks and mischief, sometimes they exchange a human child for one of their own, sometimes they steal a man away to be husband to a fey, sometimes they give a woman rich rewards for having helped them. Cautious people avoid them. Sane people are always terribly polite to them. Unfortunate people are driven mad by them.   

The folk play an important role in the stories that shape our imaginations. It is important to remember the lessons of the fey:

1. Always treat strangers with courtesy and caution, because you do not know who (or what) they might be.
2. There are mysteries in the world that make life deeper, more frightening, more beautiful, and more exciting than it would otherwise be.
3. There are realms into which humans ought not to delve, and desires which humans ought not to satisfy, lest we destroy ourselves.

The last point is something very much needed today. We live in a world where the concept of Eve’s apple and Pandora’s box is hard to truly understand, because it is fashionable now to think that any taboo can be thrown off and any barrier broken. We are accustomed to choice and freedom and scientific discovery. We are bold enough to think that we will be able to understand everything about the human brain, or outer space, or love, or engineering humans in petri dishes. We truly believe that everything in the world is ours for our taking (and we probably even believe that we can custom-order it while we take it).

Millennial Life: When The World is a Jungle and Peers Are Your Tribe

The myths, folk tales, and fiction of every culture are part of a feedback loop that both reflects and also shapes cultural values. Such tales provide their listeners with heroes to be imitated and enemies to be despised, with dreams to be chased and errors to be avoided, and, above all, with a sense of what is normal in the world. Through stories comes a sense of shared culture and a shared way of interpreting life. Youths of ancient Greece and Rome were immersed in the hierarchic, heroic culture of The Iliad. Uncle Tom’s Cabin magnified nineteenth-century disapproval of slavery. The Andy Griffith Show upheld trust in the wisdom and authority of sensible, masculine American virtue. These stories all helped to shape the social outlook of young people and to prepare them for entrance into the adult world. In the last forty years, the stories that our culture provides for our youth have acquired a strangely regressive message. It is a change that both reveals and contributes to the tribalism and generational isolation of our era. 

Read THE REST OF MY ARTICLE at The Federalist. 

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Also 1: for those who missed it, are you acquainted with HOMESCHOOL BARBIE? (Thanks to Rebekah of A Mad Tea Party for the link). No doubt I should have somehow incorporated this doll into my series of articles about homeschooling. Oh well. Note: I took this "barbie" as tongue-in-cheek humor, not mockery. Speaking of beauty and image, I found THIS rather amusing as well.

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Also 2: A certain degree of Individualism is necessary for democracy, but did American Rationalism lead to an unhealthy individualism?

Put the Sword Down, Bilbo Baggins! Domesticity and The Hobbit

Moviemakers have a habit of spicing stories up by making them all the same. Like sodium in fast food or sugar in soft drinks, Hollywood’s seasonings reduce their original ingredients to something blandly marketable. Some stories deserve this. Tolkien’s, however, do not. Peter Jackson’s movies about Middle Earth display enthusiasm for Tolkien’s world. Yet in one important regard, Jackson’s portrayal of Bilbo Baggins in the first Hobbit movie is sadly ill-conceived. Mr. Jackson films as if he has forgotten what hobbits represent.

Hobbits are the epitome of domesticity. Admittedly, they are also stodgy, traditional, and devoted to food and trivial hobbies. They are even exasperatingly insular. For example, Rosie reproaches Sam at the end of Return of the King for leaving the Shire and running off on an adventure just when things became dangerous at home. She clearly has no understanding of his role in saving the world (including the Shire), and thinks that he ought to have stayed behind to grapple with the hardships that she did experience. Yet the hobbit insularity that seems so narrow is ultimately strength, because at its heart is a tremendous love of home. It is this love that protects the hobbit ringbearers from corrupt ambition, and also spurs them on to save their world. Tolkien celebrates the incredible endurance that such a mix gave to Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam even as he pokes fun at the stodgier hobbits who disapprove of anything “foreign.” He writes about hobbits with an exasperated, affectionate admiration that is typical of English books about English people. The hobbits and their Shire are perhaps not too different from the historic country folk of England. Just as England was jolly well worth saving during two world wars, ignorant hobbits like Rosie were what Sam and Frodo nearly die for.

Why Vampires Can’t Have It All

Twilight’s Edward Cullen has a problem, and it’s not his sparkly skin. His problem is a complete absence of poetic tension.

Vampirism brings him immortality. It is also delivers eternal, youthful beauty; effortless wealth; fast cars; and tremendous physical strength. What's not to like? Even though Edward claims that being a vampire is a hard and lonely route, the reader is not made to feel this suffering. Even though he speaks of missing out on the normal milestones of humanity, he is ultimately able to marry and to father an equally beautiful child. Edward gets to have it all for free, and that is why he is forgettable.

Vampires of old legends or of contemporary novels like Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian are caught in a very different situation. They possess immortality, yes. But it extracts so heavy a price that it makes their deathlessness a curse instead of a coolness factor: in order to continue their existence, they must live off the deaths of others. Ultimately, the people they once were are no longer alive because they have forfeited their souls. These vampires are difficult to forget. 

Even apart from vampires, enduring literature is always filled with tragic tension. Achilles must choose between a long and comfortable life that will end in obscurity, or an early and glorious death that brings the immortality of fame. Guinevere and Lancelot cannot embrace their passion without destroying their kingdom (and themselves). In Les Miserables Jean Valjean cannot retain his integrity without sacrificing the success that his integrity made possible. Even the characters in Lord of the Rings pay for their choices: Frodo is never again able to belong to the Shire that he helped to save. Arwen must walk alone in the empty woods of Lothlorien after her beloved Aragorn dies. There is a reason that we humans write this kind of story over and over again, and it is not merely a crude realization that no lunch in life is free.

How Big Is Your Child’s Bubble? Weighing the Merits of Mainstream Fiction in a Classical Education

Recently, a friend asked me why I think it is O.K. for kids to read Harry Potter. This is the kind of conversation that can go in many directions, but is ultimately less about the specifics of J. K. Rowling’s work and is more about the proper role of literature in a Christian child’s upbringing. For me, it is also a discussion that highlights the philosophy of classical education.

First of all, why should fiction be part of a child’s mental and moral education at all? It would be possible to draw all stories from history and to spend the rest of the day on arithmetic, science, and theology. Theoretically, the child would thus be exposed only to truth instead of to imaginary people and their lives. Yet the physical information provided by science, arithmetic, and even history cannot fully explore psychological and spiritual realities and does not prepare the mind to grasp the intangible aspects of theology. Fiction is better than history at helping readers to explore the baffling, beautiful, and horrifying depths of human nature because fiction is an art form and is therefore free to arrange stories in whatever manner is needed to make truth clear. This arrangement can force the reader to think in new ways. It strengthens our ability to empathize with losses, sufferings, and triumphs that we have never experienced because it helps us imagine how they would affect us. It provides a safe way to examine the consequences of life choices without committing them ourselves. Fiction is needed because we humans were created with emotions and imaginations that arithmetic cannot fully satisfy. 

The classical education presents literature from throughout the scope of human experience in order to explore the great questions of life and to see how humanity's answers (whether true or false) influence our own culture. Simultaneously, these books shape the student’s taste by providing the best possible examples of literary and artistic excellence. In the classical model, then, books are chosen for three reasons: 

How Romance Novels Teach Us Natural Law

Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me?

Buttercup: Well... you were dead.

Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.

(The Princess Bride)

Beneath the garish and embarrassing covers of romance novels lies a vivid picture of the natural law that is written on the hearts of humanity. It is not easy to recognize, but it is there, and it shows us ourselves. The actual covers are predictable. Lovely maidens (struck, no doubt, but a sudden stroke or fit) arch backward in the arms of a gentleman who is having a dreadfully difficult time keeping his clothing fastened. You would think that even before they invented zippers, they would have figured out how to carve buttons or something. Even the more sedate covers are silly enough to signal their genre.

If we took these covers seriously, we would learn a lot of odd facts about people from past eras.

(Beautiful women discovered shampoo and conditioner 

long before the rest of the unwashed masses)

(Apparently, the men of past centuries all waxed their chests)

(Regency gentlemen liked to wander around 

in rose gardens whilst half naked)

(Historically, women didn’t have heads)

(Or if they did have heads, they kept them turned away)

(Or just wore masks)

Few heroines of romance novels make eye-contact with the reader. They gaze to the side. They turn their back. They poke their heads above the frame. They are intended to provide readers with an avatar for fantasy, and their own identity does not much matter. Since novels provide consumers with something they want, what do the books tell us about those women—and about the natural yearnings and beliefs of all humanity?

When the World Turns Grey: Two Juvenile Novels in Contrast

“I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones. . . It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing, or thinking he hears a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of the police.” C.S. Lewis

Last week I read two juvenile novels with superficial similarities. Both could be called fairytales, and both center around parentless children who work for dishonest showmen. They prompted me to think about how juvenile fiction presents good and evil. How should an author communicate the messy reality of life without damaging a child’s sense of right and wrong? How grey can you go?

First, a summary of both books:

The Charlatan’s Boy

Jonathan Rogers, 2010

(Classified as Young Adult, but safe and simple enough for younger readers)

“… when it comes to knowing where you come from, you got to take somebody else’s word for it. That’s where things has always got ticklish for me. I only know one man who might be able to tell me where I come from, and that man is a liar and a fraud.”

Grady is an extremely ugly orphan who knows nothing about his own parents or origins. He travels with the fraudulent Professor Floyd and performs as a “Genuine He-Feechie Alive and in the Flesh,” the main prop of the professor’s lectures on the Feechie folk and their habits. However, as fewer and fewer folk maintain belief in the mythical swamp-dwellers, business dries up. Eventually the professor decides to fabricate a great Feechie scare in order to revive the once-lucrative trade.

Although the story takes place on the imaginary island of Corenwald, it is steeped in the vernacular story-telling tradition of the Old South. Grady’s language and outlook are engagingly atmospheric while remaining down-to-earth. His personality is appealing. Although he suffers from the isolation of someone who belongs nowhere and must deceive almost everyone, he is a kind-hearted soul who attempts to remain honest and who reflects on the nature of truth. He is also loyal to his unloving master because, as he puts it, he has no one else to love. Fairly simple in both plot and character development, the book is full of humor and a touch of melancholy. It would appeal especially to preteen and young teen boys.

Strong Woman Who Punches Hard

The portrayal of female characters in modern books and movies, especially genre fiction, is a narrow one. It is seen as morally imperative that these ladies fulfill a specific role: that of the “Strong Woman Who Punches as Hard as a Man.” Yet isn’t it rather Victorian to require that all heroines must be role models? Why are we so afraid that if all the women in action movies don’t wield fists of iron, the girls of American will become repressed maidens who faint at the sight of math?

Sophia McDougall has an interesting article in the New Statesmen, in which she points out how demeaning this role actually is. A few quotes (not all of it in the most delicate of language):

“Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong.”

“The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts. She’s George from The Famous Five all grown up and still bleating with the same desperate lack of conviction that she’s ‘Every Bit As Good as a Boy.’ ”

“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They're still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”

“I want a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than strength or weakness. Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative.”

 

Would any mainstream action movie allow a heroine to be as "weak" as Sherlock Holmes? 

McDougall’s critique is fascinating. It highlights the way that unctuous moralism in stories often backfires. Personally, I want my daughters to be strong and courageous. I also don't want them to be robbed of their femininity by modern feminism or pressured to behave according to our culture's narrow definition of "strong" (essentially, the idea that strong = aggressive). Our modern era doesn't seem to "get" that femininity is a varied, healthy, human thing. On the other hand, the Victorians did not get it 100% right either-- their popular fiction also took certain aspects of womanhood, exaggerated them, and portrayed that exaggerated version as the ideal female. Perhaps the real solution is to read stories from many eras, instead of limiting ourselves to the wisdom of only one.

This issue is all the more interesting because many cultural conservatives and Christian families gravitate toward "hero movies" (especially those made from classic comic books) as demonstrating the clash between good and evil, and as providing masculine role-models. If conservative Christian families feel that it is helpful to young men to identify (albeit in a limited degree) with Captain America or Superman, what of the young women? Can there be any inspiration in this kind of movie for them? 

What do you think? Does the narrow role of modern heroines cause harm, or is it merely irritating? 

Tom Gauld. 

Somewhat Related Reading:

- An interesting take on the rather sad decision of a gender studies professor.

- A post of my own on fantasy warfare and gender realism.

I'm linking up to Wednesdays with Words!

The People’s Republic of Happy Endings

Look how happy everyone in the People's Republic is!

Stories with meaningful endings are important. They fulfill a human need. Lest we despair, we need to believe that the routines, suffering, and sacrifices of life are worthwhile. We need to hope.

Unfortunately, the most pervasive narratives in our culture present a warped view of happy endings. Reality television is perhaps the most blatant example. In forty-five minute segments, the obese become trim, forensics teams solve baffling murders, and frumpy women develop both stylish wardrobes and improved self-esteem. Even though we all know that these shows are scripted and edited, our culture does not escape their influence. They echo formulae for success that seem to fit well with the optimism and democracy of the American spirit:

1. People can always solve their own problems if they want it passionately enough.
2. The path to success may be emotional, but it shouldn’t feel long.
3. The definition of a happy ending is getting what you desire.   

One problem with this recipe is that suddenly, it is everyone’s duty to fix their own problems and find happy endings. Why are you still fat if those folks on the show drop hundreds of pounds? Get with it! Desire it! Achieve it! It’s pretty much your American obligation. Society will fawn over you for 15 minutes once you do, but we’re kind of grossed-out until then. Unfortunately, we humans do not always get what we want, no matter how hard we try. Therefore, our narratives have created a situation in which, realistically, not everyone will have a happy ending, and yet it is everyone’s duty to do so. Perhaps this is why our culture has become so sensitive to words and phrases (such as “fat,”) that imply a failure to achieve.

(This is not an ad. It is an example).

Another problem with this message is the implication that if your success is meant to be, it comes quickly. The speed of your success is the new way to throw diviner's knucklebones and see if the gods are favoring your endeavor. Instead of teaching us to endure, this kind of narrative encourages us to drift from goal to goal in search of cheap results.

Worst of all, this recipe defines a good ending as the gratification of our own desires. It teaches us that we deserve to receive whatever we want (after only a brief effort), and subtly encourages us to use whatever means necessary to grab the happiness that we are all “supposed to have.” Ironically, most of the desires that we see fulfilled in reality T.V. are trivial.  This unfortunate attitude unravels the entire purpose of telling stories with good endings. If our goals in life are merely a series of minor successes along life’s path, they do not transcend us. They cannot provide hope that is bigger than our own feelings. They cannot comfort us when we fail or when we die.

We may feel that we are more intellectual, or more spiritual, or more sensible than the ordinary consumer of reality television, but we still belong to the same culture and pick up the same messages. It is important that we recognize the tyranny of this cultural message—we need not belong to the People’s Republic of Happy Endings. Unfortunately, many thinking individuals notice the silliness of our culture's addiction to cheap, happy endings, and conclude that happy endings don't exist. Such people write bleak books in which there is no meaning to anyone's lives. The only happy ending available in their stories is the protagonist's realization that he is unhappy and will remain so. This is why it is important to offer our culture a better, truer alternative.

Oddly enough, we will find greater happiness and joy if we recognize that we absolutely will fail in this life. Frequently. We won’t have enough passion and may have too much body fat. Yet all this failure does not rob our lives of meaning, because we are part of a far greater narrative than “Biggest Loser” or “What Not to Wear.” Lest we despair, we need stories that illustrate the true narrative that gives real hope. More on this in a future post.

The Socratic Root Vegetable (Flash Fiction)

Once upon a time, a mistake was made in the kitchens of the Bastille. The error was so strange as to seem a miracle. This is what occurred: on the day in question, a young prisoner received in his bowl, hidden beneath the starvation-broth of prison, a raw turnip. The prisoner marveled.  The vegetable brought back to him memories of freedom and meals along the Rue Chalet. Once, he recalled, he had eaten a turnip with onion and pheasant, and another time mashed turnips with sausages.

           

Slowly he drew forth the marvelous prize. He imagined the crunch it would make beneath his teeth, and the thought filled him with joy.

           

The vegetable was ellipsoid and more slender than most. Studying it, the prisoner saw a vision of a man with coarse lavender garments and a fiercely ugly face. Slowly he traced his fingers across the ridges. It was a wise, knowing countenance, the sort that he had hoped to see on his lawyer. Once he had had a lawyer. Now he was forgotten. So long had he been alone that his clothing was mere shreds, symbolic of his hopes.

The prisoner’s nails were long. He used them to take a nick out of the turnip where the little man’s neck might be. The sliver of vegetable tasted fresh and good upon his tongue. Working with concentration and snail-like speed, he proceeded to free the little man’s head, and jacket, and trousers, and feet, eating each scrap as it was cut away. At last the fellow lay in his palm. An ugly man, but a unique one nonetheless. He called it Socrates.

           

***

           

Socrates had lived with the prisoner only a few days before the aptness of his name was proven, for he possessed the ability to rouse the prisoner’s mind from the hopeless torpor into which it had sunk.

           

“Once,” said the prisoner to his turnip, “I believed in the equality of man. ‘Égalité,’ that was my watchword. Do you believe in the equality of man?”

           

Socrates said nothing, but the ridges of his ugly face showed that he pondered.

           

The prisoner admitted, “Perhaps it is a fantasy. The brains and muscles of men are distributed entirely unequally. I myself ought to have received more brains. My father is a clever man, and my brother is a clever man, and even my nephews are clever. But I? I am an idealist, a man of dreams and revolutions. People said at one time that my pamphlet was clever. Yet what has it done for me?” He pointed to the stones around them.

           

Socrates also glanced about, but only as if to say, “Why complain?”

           

The prisoner tried to make his point more plainly. “Their God-given intellects enable them to sit at home in safety. By now they have pawned my watch and sold my books. My intellect merely betrayed me into this living grave. Is that equality? No, it is clear proof that men are born unequal!”

           

Somewhere in the prison, a madman shrieked, and a key ring rattled in a keeper’s hand.

           

The turnip whispered something, and the prisoner laughed. “You claim that the material state does not disprove the spiritual, eh? The mere fact that I rot here does not disprove my moral equality with his majesty King Louis? Perhaps. In the realm of God there is truth without prison. Yet here I sit. Be careful, my friend, or I will think that you are suggesting I should hurry to the realm of God.”

           

(Image of the real Socrates)

The turnip seemed to smile. It was a companionable smile, but not a sympathetic one. What can a root vegetable know about the sufferings of a sensitive human mind? 

           

Slowly the prisoner exhaled. “Your nose reminds me of the nose of Père Aboit, the schoolmaster. Do you know what he would say to me? He would say that the ways of God are inscrutable. Once I told him that mathematics are also inscrutable. He whipped me for impiety and insisted that I memorize the common sums. You yourself, Socrates, are worse than he, for at least he told me that six of six is thirty-six. You tell me nothing.”

           

The turnip smirked.

           

“You are infuriating! As bad as the real Socrates! Forever questioning and badgering, yet never venturing an answer of your own.” The prisoner drew himself up. “Who are you, to look at me thus? Here in this cell you shall treat me as an equal.”

           

Yet as the days went on, the argument was not resolved. Continuously did the prisoner implore his vegetable to cease with smirks, and wise looks, and other subterfuges. He begged it to be free and equal and speak as man to man. Yet it would not.

           

At last, the prisoner came to a realization. He had expected too much of Socrates. How could a newly-carved turnip understand equality, when it had never seen beyond the confines of this cell? How could the ugly little man be free, unless he tasted freedom? The prisoner was grieved. He had come to treasure his friend. Yet because of that love he must act. He must send Socrates forth to feel wind and hear the chatter along the Rue Chalet.

           

The next day, the prisoner hid his companion in the slop bucket. It was not a fragrant way to escape, but it would serve. Socrates would be taken away.

           

Life in the cell was lonely after that, yet no longer bitter. The prisoner had found his philosophy. The equality of men, he explained to himself, is in their equal ability to choose the good and noble course. That was the equality which no prison cell or king could take from him.

*** 

           

Far off in the Bastille kitchens, slops and peelings were being thrown into cauldrons. Steam rose. Somewhere a kitchen boy was weeping because a guard had boxed his ear.

           

Yet in the cell of the prisoner, quiet reigned. The prisoner was at peace.

END

The Station Inspector and Writing with Compassion

Recently I watched the movie Hugo. It prompted me to think about storytelling, and about how difficult it is to create lifelike worlds on paper or screen. Sometimes writers focus so much on crafting their protagonist that they forget to also breathe life into the people who surround him. We human beings tend to be self-centered and inclined to view others only as they relate to ourselves, yet literature is supposed to help lift us out of ourselves and show us more about the world than we are capable of finding inside our own heads. Fiction in which non-protagonist characters have no meaning except in the way they relate to the protagonist’s goals and development is too “realistically” unreal—like our heads, it shows us only what we know already and fails to stretch the way we think about life.

Hugo contains plenty of whimsically fantastical elements, yet it is also an unusually real movie because even the minor characters are nuanced. Despite their brief appearances and scant dialogue, they are treated as individuals, and are not defined merely by their relationship to young Hugo. For example, consider the Station Inspector. Although he menaces Hugo’s daily life and treats orphans cruelly, harshness is not the entirety of his character. The movie hints at his childhood and wartime backstory, and sympathetically portrays his awkward attempts to kindle a romance with the flower seller. The movie is constructed as if the Station Inspector possesses neither more, nor less, of a right to happiness as anyone else. He is simply pursuing his misguided duty as he sees best (emphasized by the scene in which he matter-of-factly saves Hugo from a passing train, then immediately resumes his attempt to collar the boy). In fact, he even travels a bit of character arc on his own—and not merely for Hugo’s benefit. He does not simply soften through his new-found love and release the boy. Instead, his softening is not yet complete in the moment of Hugo’s capture, and the boy is saved only because the Station Inspector is offered a reason for mercy that is compatible with his sense of duty.

How is an author to create such lifelike nuance without burying their story under the weight of irrelevant information? In order to do this, every word must be purposeful. Perhaps every phrase should serve multiple purposes. A scene might center around our protagonist, yet also allow other people’s stories (or hints of stories) to weave through the main plot in a way that adds to the theme or connects to later events. The material in the story should all be relevant to the tale the author is telling—and affect the life of the protagonist—yet it should not all draw its meaning from the protagonist alone. Perhaps that can only happen if the author likes people.

It seems to me that an author who hopes to write in this style cannot do it artificially. Surely such an author must cultivate the compassion that sees others as intrinsically valuable human beings whose lives are interesting in their own way. The author should develop understanding for why people behave in the ways that they do, and the skill to communicate the individuality of humanity’s masses whilst they wander past the protagonist. Perhaps this is simply a way of life.

Fantasy Warfare and Gender Realism

Our culture’s desire for equality has drastically changed the stories we tell. Even modern editions of Richard Scary’s picture books (as opposed to the original editions from the 1960’s) are altered: note that the genders of most of the animals on this book cover have been reversed so as to make the point that daddy helps with breakfast and that women are policebears, too.  Yet despite the strides our culture has made in erasing traditional gender roles, a sense of urgency remains, and storytellers feel morally compelled to present readers with the type of gender relationships that are now considered equal.

This puts the writer of fantasy fiction in a challenging position. Although their stories are often set in medieval-style surroundings, modern readers expect women who are strong not only emotionally but also militarily. Yet often this is done in a style that is utterly unrealistic and would be laughable if readers were not so conditioned to expect (and demand) that gender play little role in the physical prowess of fictional characters. When reading (or watching) stories in which women don armor and routinely fight men twice their size, I often long to ask the author why he/she thinks that even liberated, modern women don’t play on male football teams. I am not about to suggest that all female characters in fantasies limit their activities to embroidery and food preparation. However, if authors wish to truly address gender in a meaningful way, they must consider it realistically in conjunction with their worldbuilding. The following points should be considered:

1.      Although women’s physiques provide an advantage over men in some athletic pursuits (swimming across the English channel, for instance), the typical women does not possess the speed, reach, or weight-lifting ability of the typical man. Hence, gender segregation is maintained in professional sports.  If we moderns do not send women to play against men’s football teams, would a culture really send their women against the equivalent male team when the stakes are victory or death?

2.      Before modern medicine, the mortality rate of all populations, especially infants, was high. In addition, humans tend to pair into couples, and in eras without wide-spread birth-control, young women spent a significant amount of time pregnant and nursing.  Would a medieval-style culture really send their young women (their only hope of maintaining a population) into battle?

What is a writer to do? If it is important to your story that women routinely fight alongside men, create a system of weaponry that makes this realistic, or at least deal realistically with the physical implications of women's bodies. In addition, however, the culture must be addressed. What would compel a group of people to send their women into battle, when most humans throughout history have not routinely done so? Consider the fact that until the advent of modern technology, physical strength was so important in daily life that the physical capabilities of men and women remained decisive factors. It is only nowadays, when women really can perform most jobs as easily as men, that the concept of gender equality is accepted. Yet also consider the cultures of the past in which women were treated as possessing the same moral rights as men, or did participate in leadership roles. How do the shaping beliefs of those cultures compare to your own worldbuilding?

Above all, however, I urge writers to broaden their definition of strong women. Why must battle be the only test of moral, mental, and emotional strength? Why must the woman ALWAYS pick up a sword before the story ends? Women throughout time have shown courage in many ways. They have provided medical care, maintained the farms and cities their men fight for, outwitted invaders, and contributed immeasurably to moral by choosing to maintain courageous attitudes. When their world is crushed by enemies, women have helped to build new worlds. It is sexist and blind that many writers and readers do not recognize the power and triumph in these activities. Although there is a time and a place for women to pick up a sword, the writer who does not recognize that combat is only one facet of strength is in danger of narrowing women’s spheres instead of broadening them. This stereotype is maintained when female protagonists reject the “women’s sphere” with contempt, as if all traditionally feminine activities are demeaning, instead of also drawing strength from it. Developing a broad (and realistic) image of gender in stories is important because, despite all of the fantastical elements, fantasies are still about human beings. That is what makes them good stories.

Dilemma-Framing: Why The Hunger Games Needs Yellow Boots

“You don’t understand,” whined Pettigrew. “He would have killed me, Sirius!”  

“Then you should have died!” roared Black. “Died rather than betray your friends, as we would have done for you!”                 

(Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabaan)

The framing of a question is huge. I could ask, “Should hard-working, undocumented workers receive a chance to earn citizenship?” Yet if I hoped for a different answer, I might say instead, “Should illegal immigrants be required to respect American immigration laws?” My framing would not only reveal my own bias, but would also influence a percentage of poll-respondents and thus shape the final results. Fiction authors are constantly framing moral dilemmas. They do this not only to advance the plot but also to guide the sympathies of the reader.


Suzanne Collins frames the shocking events of The Hunger Games so successfully that readers are able to sympathize with a heroine who kills fellow-teenagers. Her protagonist, Katniss, enters the arena only though sacrificial love for her sister and is clearly a victim of a corrupt system. Furthermore, although Katniss initially communicates a willingness to kill rather than die, the plot is arranged so that she kills only indirectly or when motivated by strong emotions with which reader can identify. In the end she even risks her own life in an effort to save a friend and fellow contestant. In the world that Collins has created, Katniss did the best she could in a terrible situation.


Yet the thing about dilemma-framing is that it involves a certain sleight-of-hand. I can ask a toddler, “Do you want to wear the blue shoes or the red shoes?” cleverly framing the situation in order to prevent discussion of the yellow boots. Collins has chosen to present Katniss’ experience in a way that prevents readers from pondering the implications of the missing options.

While reading The Hunger Games for the first time, I hoped that Katniss would rebel completely. The degradation that she endured, not only by committing horrible acts but by doing so as the slave of masters who wanted entertainment, is horrifying. I wanted her to refuse to participate, perhaps in solidarity with other decent teenagers. Yet Katniss is not a person who is willing to sacrifice herself for an idea, a gesture, or in hopes of inspiring change in the world. Even when she is later made into a political figure by others, her choices are driven only by personal loyalty to a few beloved people.


Collins has created a character who is pragmatic and deeply damaged by the tragedy she has endured. She is believable. Yet something about this world is not realistic: there is no religion, no ideology, no philosophy. No one is guided by belief. Is there any oppressive regime in the world that does not use belief to try to control the population, or any resistance to oppression that does not involve belief in something better? In Collins’ world, characters are influenced only by love for individuals or ambition for power, neither of which is based on something bigger than themselves and their friends. Even the loyal Peta’s reluctance to lose his identity as a decent person does not involve an external definition of “decent”— and by the end of the series, he is willing to support any act so long as it helps to protects Katniss.


The characters of The Hunger Games face their dilemmas without the support of beliefs, and this limits their options. Yet the thing is, in real-life moral dilemmas, there are always options—and sometimes the hidden option is to suffer. Sometimes death is better than degradation. Sometimes doing the right thing in a horrible situation is a victory regardless of the cost. It can be argued that Katniss did the right thing when she risked her life to save her friend Peta. Glad as I was that she did not betray him, I cannot help feeling that this kind of morality is not enough—motivated only by personal loyalty, and perhaps fear of ostracism, it does not free Katniss. She is still trapped within a pragmatic, tribal outlook that leaves her a pawn among both tyrants and rebels, and ultimately does not give her much hope in the face of continued tragedy.

It is tempting to say that The Hunger Games is a series without belief. Yet perhaps the yellow boots are present after all, and the story does communicate a strongly-felt understanding of morality. In this series, it is notable that only ambitious and ultimately dangerous characters think that they know how the world should be run, and are eager to implement this vision. Leadership itself is dangerous because it involves a willingness to assert one’s own vision as superior to another's. In Collins’ world, perhaps belief is too dangerous to be indulged in because it leads to attempts at control, and the only safe option is a kind of moral agnosticism. Perhaps this is the ultimate post-modern morality. If young readers are told that Katniss is a wonderful role-model, they are handed the unspoken message that survival is the highest goal, and that sometimes in life they will have no choices. Also inherent in this message is the understanding that beliefs and ideas (other than individual loyalty to people) are irrelevant in crises, and are certainly not worth dying for.


If an author intends his or her characters to commit some normally-unsympathetic act, it is the author’s job to frame it in a sympathetic a manner as possible. Yet it is also the job of an honest author to demonstrate that the act (as are all acts) is a choice, with a moral weight, and that committing it carries a moral load. Only in this way do books echo real life.