Writing the "American" Self

As a freshman in college I was expected to be a biology major. With a brother in medical school and a sister in dental school, it was almost a family tradition. But, after a year of fulfilling my first year biology requirements, I knew that the major was not for me. But, then came the next dilemma in my life. If I was not going to go into the medical field, what was I going to do with my life? Although this question lingered over my head, the first question I needed to answer was what I was going to major in. I knew that the math and science fields were not of much interest to me, but the College of Charleston’s extensive list of arts and humanities majors did not help lessen the search of possible majors.

It was not until my English 102 class that I realized what subject I wanted to studied.  It was almost like an epitome, I was sitting in class imagining what classes I would take for the following semester and I realized that the class I was sitting was the last English class I would take for the rest of my life. The idea was unsettling for me. I did not want English 102 to be the last English class I ever took. I loved the discussion on Atonement and World War II poetry. I relished in ripping apart every perspective a soldier could have written a poem in and then analyzing each perspective to interpret a different meaning to the work. I found that English captured the moments of history better than the history books themselves, because English does not analyze actual events, but rather the emotions and feelings that those events had on individuals. English captures history on a much more intellectual level. As I prepare to graduate in May with my English degree, I am lucky to be so captivated my a major that still keeps me yearning for more, after all four years.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Like most children, I enjoyed reading, but when it came to English classes in school I always resisted the assigned reading material and opted for a Choose Your Own Adventure book instead, which lead me to rely heavily on Cliff Notes to get by.  My eighth grade English class came close to getting me interested in books with some literary value with assigning S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders  (which is still one of my favorites), but that was followed by Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt and my distaste for required reading was renewed.  It wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school when Mr.Krasnansky handed me a copy of The Great Gatsby that I gave required reading a chance and an interest in literature quickly developed.  Not only did I fall in love with the story, its characters, its era, but with the ideas that were beneath all of Fitzgerald’s details and Nick Carraway’s narration.  Writing became a legitimate art form to me after reading this book.  I began to realize the power literature had to heighten the senses and our consciousness and lead us to question and to think beyond our daily and common practices as human beings.  The style of Fitzgerald’s writing together with his social critique of the American Dream and high society strips down the characters’ rich identity in a way that reveals an unfulfilled human being in the endless search of attainment.  His interpretation of modern society’s corruption and the devaluing the dream of the individual in favor of material and monetary wealth was a profound idea to an impressionable sophomore.  I began to see my own green light above the horizon and became more aware of the threat of society’s imposition upon my values and hopes for the future.   This was also my first encounter with Modernism and shortly after my reading of Fitzgerald I read an e.e. cummings poem and I immediately fell in love with poetry.  “Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond” left me speechless once I reached the final stanza, and as it was with Fitzgerald’s fiction, it was the language and style of Cummings that I responded to the most.  His pastoral images of the struggles of love creates and emotional tension that as a love-sick teenager I immediately sympathized with, but beyond that, I had never before seen words capture so beautifully and intimately the uncertainties and certainties of human emotion. That poem’s level of writing and intimacy is what I hope to [someday] achieve in my own poetry.  So here’s to you F.Scott and e.e.: if I hadn’t read your work, I’d probably be majoring in communications.

     Many coaxers present in modern day society were not available in Douglass’ time.  The paper trail each of us leaves behind on a daily basis did not exist in Douglass’ day, and certainly not for a slave or even someone who was poor, such as a freed black man.   This makes memory much more important in Douglass’ perception of himself, and his story as he related it. 

     For most people, even whites back in Douglass’ time, some sort of document existed to verify when and where that person was born.  Douglass relied on memory, other people’s memories in fact, to verify this most basic of personal details.  He begins his narrative by stating that “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot country, Maryland.”  He opens with this assertion not only because it is logical, but also to immediately enforce his own humanity upon his presumably white reader.  He goes on to discuss how he doesn’t even know his own name, and how this was a common tactic by slave holders to strip slaves of their humanity.

   In reading about this tactic, we are reminded of the importance of memory in all facets of our existence.  If the slaves couldn’t remember their African cultural heritage, their languange, indeed their very freedom as a people, then this made them much easier to hold in bondage.  By stripping them of their memory, you strip them of their identity.  Once they have no identity, slave-holders simply created one for them by giving them Christian names and telling them they are meant by God to be faithful servants.  It is for this reason that African customs and languages were banned, as well as educating slaves. 

    Another example of this stripping of memory and identity is the seperation of families, particularly mothers from children.  If you have no memory of your mother, your identity will be even more barren of role models of any kind, save for the slave master. 

     These tactics and strategies used by slave-owners were brutal but effective.  Studying them now serves to remind us of the importance of memory in the identity of not only an individual, but a people.  It reminds us that even something we take for granted, such as memory, can be taken from us and is a freedom we should all be thankful for.

In Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative, the early years of his life are filled with severe traumatic experiences. The narrative is straightforward and written in clear terms, which is astonishing given how horrific his childhood was growing up as a slave. In Smith and Watson’s Reading Autobiography, trauma can be recounted in a resolved manner (250). When Douglass’ mother dies, he is not present for “her death, or burial” (341). Since their relationship was distant, the death of his mother is likened to “the death of a stranger” (341). The lack of familial knowledge and emotion between a slave mother and child was normal, according to Douglass; the mystery surrounding who is father is also important factor in his identity (340). He grows up as an orphan essentially, which is probably why he became such a strong individual, only having himself to rely on to survive.

In Douglass’ account of his aunt’s abuse, the reader understands that this is one case among thousands. When Douglass witnesses Aunt Hester’s brutal beatings, he in turn witnesses the social injustice of being a slave on a on a plantation and having no voice (344). His aunt was beaten constantly to make her submissive; slaves were meant to be controlled bodies used for whatever efficient means necessary. So, when Mr. Auld tells his wife that she shouldn’t teach Douglass how to read, it’s to keep him down, uneducated and unaware of his potential (364). It’s incredibly damaging to realize that not only your physical body, but your mind is meant to be captive and limited.

I also see a reaction against the trauma that slaves endured through their slave songs. Prior to getting their freedom, the use of song can be literally one of the few ways that slaves were able to have a voice. According to Douglass, the songs he heard weren’t always articulate, but the immense amount of “woe” was translated nonetheless: “The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart” (349-350).

My father always said to me, “Son, if there is one thing I am going to give you, it is a damn good education.”  This is why he sent me to Porter-Gaud.  For those of you who are not from Charleston, Porter-Gaud is an episcopal prep school located on the banks of the Ashley River just outside of downtown in West Ashley.  Thanks to my well behaved class, it gained the nickname Porno-Gaud when I was in high school, but that is a different story.

Needless to say, I hated Porter-Gaud.  Well at least I hated 6th through 12th grade.  I mean let’s be honest, middle school and high school can be terrible times of awkward puberty, gangly limbs, and acne, but that it not what made me so miserable at my school.  I felt stuck.  I felt like I had been put in the wrong box and no one would let me get out of it.  I went to my parents multiple times begging them to send me to School of the Arts, Academic Magnet, or even Wando for God’s sake, but my pleas were to no avail.  My Dad would just look at me and smile and say, “Son, I am going to give you a good education.”  And you know what, I actually did get a really good education.  I loved all my teachers, excelled in the classroom, but Dad did not understand that there is more to learning, more to adolescence, than what happens in the classroom, and I knew that I was in the wrong place but could not convince my dad of my anguish (I was a bit melodramatic back then).

However, there was one man who made my entire twelve years worth it: Dr. Slayton.  I think everyone can immediately recall their favorite English teacher in high school (at least I am assuming that most English majors can easily do this), and Dr. Slayton was so much more than just an English teacher.  With his constant mind games and love of Freud, he treated us as adults and taught us to read as critical, emotional, and artistic thinkers.  He held a book club Wednesday mornings at 7 before school started, and it was considered a great honor to be chosen for this book club.  Somehow I got chosen and it was this little group of people meeting together in the wee hours of the morning munching on donuts and discussing literature that made me want to pursue English in college.  More specifically, there is one book that Dr. Slayton taught in this book club that made me want to be an English scholar.  It was not Of Mice and Men or Catcher in the Rye, but John Fowles’ The Magus. With its Freudian undertones, sexual content, and Jungian premise, not too many English teachers would attempt to teach this book to high school students, but Dr. Slayton put this book in our hands and watched as we ran with it.  I still have not engaged in the kinds of conversation at the College of Charleston that we had in this 12th grade English book club.  These were seventeen year olds discussing Freudian versus Jungian Psychology and how that related with the New Critical ideas of the text.  Dr. Slayton showed me that there were so many different ways to view one piece of literature opening up a new way of reading and a new world of reading, and he did so with the help of The Magus.  So if you are looking for a great read this summer I highly recommend checking it out.

I’ve always loved to read. My grandmother was a librarian, and both of my parents (who I’ve always admired) can hardly ever be found without a book in hand. During summers I used to read a novel a day, and more if I could find the time. I loved getting lost in stories, and often became so absorbed in books that I would literally lose track of time, my surroundings, everything. I was called out in elementary school for trying to read in class more times than I care to remember.

In middle school, I reached a reading plateau. Nothing inspired me, and I became frustrated with school because I hated being forced to read – I wanted to read because I wanted to, not because I had to. When Harry Potter came out, I had absoltuely zero interest in the series. I was never into fantasy type books and the whole idea seemed stupid and childish for cool 12-year-old me. My grandmother bought me the first book and told me to read the first chapter. After that, I was free to stop reading if I didn’t like it. The first short chapter seemed doable, so I reluctantly agreed. I admitted to my grandmother that it was alright – good enough to read the second chapter. Then it was good enough to read the third, then the fourth, then I finished the book that day. I had a whole new respect for books and writing in general. The fact that J.K. Rowling could create an entire world was beyond comprehension.

I’m forever grateful to my grandmother for not only introducing me to Harry Potter, but for teaching me to be open-minded. Since then, I’ve discovered so many amazing books that are way out of the genre realm I’m naturally drawn to. Without my grandmother’s insistence on me trying something new, I would have missed out on so many beautiful stories.

(I’m still not crazy about reading because I have to instead of because I want to, but four years of college English will do that to a person.)

I don’t love reading.  It’s ok, a decent way to pass some time.  Let’s say better than most TV, but not a mediocre movie (Patrick Swayze will always trump Hemingway).  My mom is big reader, a former english teacher.  My dad is not, and with a wink from my historical “I”, I of course fall in the middle.  But why then am I an English major (something I’ve asked myself even more than my parents)?  I think the answer is split into two parts.  The part I’m focusing on, even though it is the main topic of this post, only accounts for a minuscule portion of the decision.  The big part, what some might call the ‘real reason’ I am a English major is because I like Shakespeare to write.  Boring, self-explanatory, moving on.  But the other part, despite being minor, speaks to the revelatory aspect of literacy.  The way it can give someone agency in their life, a thirst for knowledge and the means to quench it.  This second part, as you have probably already guessed, is Harry Potter.  My mother is to blame.  She bought me the first three Harry Potter’s, possibly because she was an English teacher whose son spent most of his time making friends watching SNL reruns.  Of course (=excuse), I was young. I read those books and got hooked, like many other people my age did.  But the books themselves didn’t do too much for me.  They are fun, but not life changing.  It was the time in between the books that changed me.  As every Harry Potter fan knows, there is usually about a two year break, sometimes longer, between each book and my hyper eleven year old self filled those initial Harry Potter hiatuses by reading other books.  Crazy books for an eleven year-old; Vonnegut, Shakespeare, even The Old Man and the Sea.  And, after about a solid year or so of reading my mom’s classics and my sister’s college books, I totally burned out and stopped cold.  Until college.  When I decided I wanted to read for the next four years of my life.