Thursday, February 23, 2006

ENG 396a ~ Charles Dickens’ Hard Times
Desperation and Dreaming

“I was tired, father. I have been tired a long time,” said Louisa.
“Tired? Of what?” asked the astonished father.
“I don’t know of what—of everything, I think” (16).

The first book of narrative in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times puts into conflict the expectations of duty with the expression of love and compassion. Louisa Grangrind and Stephen Blackpool are from opposite backgrounds experiencing fundamentally the same struggle. The narrative asserts the irrelevance of class structures with the juxtaposition of these dynamics illustrating an underlying humility between the differing social backgrounds.

It is Mr. Gradgrind’s duty to educate his children, and his methods require a strict adherence to fact. No exceptions. No room for a child’s imagination. He expects decorum and duty with no time for charades or the circus. Being subject to such a deadening adherence to logic and reasoning make Louisa acutely aware of any sentiment. It is through her relationship with Sissy Jupe that awakens Louisa’s curiosity and compassion. Sissy’s hope for word from her father spills over to Louisa. She watches her “with compassion” (59) as Sissy leaves disappointed and sad. Mr. Gradgrind attests that had Sissy been educated like Louisa, she would recognize “on sound principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes” (59). Since Louisa feels compassionately toward Sissy, and Mr. Gradgrind represents duty, this conflict forces Louisa to reevaluate the validity of her father’s methods. The narrator takes the struggle even further by suggesting how “it did seem (though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact”(59). Louisa’s reevaluation makes her withdraw into long contemplative hours watching the fire. Eventually it will also lead her to turn her father’s logic back upon him in a way that had never before been illustrated by the narrative.

When approached with a proposal from Bounderby who is thirty years her senior Louisa articulates herself with utter rationality. She places before her father a simple question that he ‘factually’ dances around while never really answering. When she asks him about “love” (92), he answers that “perhaps the expression itself—I merely suggest this to you, my dear—may be a little misplaced” (92). Her sense of duty is constructed with the rationale of her calm tone. The narrator, however, articulates the true state of her situation that suggest she “throw herself upon his breast and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart”(93). The desperation here is that Louisa’s duty has placed her in the predicament of a marriage without love.

Although he is not educated as Louisa, and works as a laborer in the factory, Stephen Blackpool is in the same situation. Unlike Louisa, he is expressively poetic, and does not deny or deduce his emotions for the sake of duty. He daydreams about his one true love. Unfortunately, Stephen is married to a woman he detests, and there is no way to free himself from his duty as a husband. His desperation is that he loves Rachel, and cannot be a husband to her. It is his duty to be a husband to a woman he does not love, and the only expression of love he wants to give conflicts with this duty.

Love and compassion conflicting with duty, all encircling the institution of marriage from persons of differing social classes asserts the irrelevance of class separations. The parallel struggles of Louisa and Stephen are equally desperate and romantic regardless of their rigid prison of fact. This symmetry of dynamics confirms the unity of their humility.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

ENG 396a ~ John Stuart Mill
Not a prisoner of emotion:

For a man who was depraved of emotion, or “tenderness” (58) throughout his boyhood, John Stuart Mill developed a sensitivity that would enable his intellectual convictions to be articulated with just enough passion to persuade his argument. Whether the topic is education or religion his analysis was not without humility regardless of his strict and isolated scholarship. Ironically the absence of a social upbringing instilled a certain appreciation for a structured and objective display of emotion. The first three chapters of Mill’s Autobiography serve as not only a tribute to those who influenced his life, but as a retrospective illustrating a psychological evolution.

Early on, his father’s tyrannical influence proved to be rewarding with libraries of knowledge and analytical abilities that surpassed most of the young boys his age. Mill admits, however, the defects of his education were the lack of “physical strength” (47), and limited ability in social skills of a non-analytical manner with his peers. He was kept from engaging with other kids his own age for fear that his father’s instruction might be tainted by “the contagion of vulgar modes of thought and feeling” (47). It is no wonder than that “This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself at an early age, was attended with some moral disadvantages” (52). This suggests that without knowledge of some social etiquette of assimilation Mill was in fact free to express his opinion and fight for it with the methods he had so strictly learned.

Mill recognized the advantage of these so-called deficiencies. He was not good at physical activity, and that was fine because it afforded him more time for the lessons of his choice. The practice of the “Socratic Method”(38), and the debates practiced on walks with his father taught him how to take a stand. He brings to point an incident with another boy who attempts to sway Mill from his professed “disbelief” (53) of popular religious opinion:
My opponents were boys, considerably older than myself: one of
them I certainly staggered at the time, but the subject was never
renewed between us: the other, who was surprised and somewhat
shocked, did his best to convince me for some time, without effect. (53)
His rigorous educational training provided him with a foundation of logical conviction that recognized the paradox of popular religion. His opponents were not equipped with the analytical methods to deconstruct Christianity in the way Mill was able to. He was not subject to the “blind tradition” (52) of his peers.

The narrative embraces the hard discipline of his early education with a tone of appreciation and rebellion. Mill does not overlook the advantages he had, and could not since his father did constantly remind him of this. He remained a devoted son grateful for his father’s guidance. In reference to his religious stance Mill offers suggestions to “men of my father’s intellect” (53), and calls for a declaration:
Make their dissent known; at least, if they are among those whose
station, or reputation, gives their opinion a chance of being attended
to. Such an avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the
vulgar prejudice (53)
Write to Congress. These may be the words of a boy deprived of feelings, but they are also the words from a man who learned how to appreciate the weight of emotion. This narrative foreshadowed this kind of passion when Mill mentions his wife:
The one whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no
opportunity of knowing. The reader whom these things do not
interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do
not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing
in mind, that for him these pages were not written. (26)

Thursday, February 02, 2006

ENG 396a ~
Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal is yet another ‘how to’ guide of a wealthy man’s life. Franklin’s tone is more ‘matter of fact’ while Trump’s approach is cool as a breeze, and both of course are unapologetic. Each work illustrates their individual life experiences, and wise decision-making that leads to the illusive ‘American Dream’. Trump’s nonchalant attitude toward wealth is peppered with the deeds of good will, but there remains a façade within that casual tone that reveals the true nature of the beast. The Holiday Inn stock marks the harsh reality of business transactions. Just as Franklin’s interactions with Keimer would be gainful, this transaction for Trump is extremely profitable. Setting the wealth aside, how was it attained? Taking advantage of a weaker businessman, of course. Franklin’s victories were at times modest, but Trump did it smiling straight in the face of the enemy, the competitor. Mocking their incompetence in a way that is triumphant and demoralizing. Hoorah. Monopoly anyone?

Trump, like Franklin, strategically reveals the course of events in a mask of orderly fashion. In Trump’s day-planner narration he introduces the maneuverings towards Holiday Inn during a phone call with Alan Greenburg. He anticipates a few options, and is prepared for all of them, even selling off his shares, “If I did that today, I’d already be up about $7 million” (3). Fourteen days of trading, sitting on shares, like a shootout on some dusty road where nothing happens, psyching out the enemy for the pleasure of creating tension. Trump admits that he likes “seeing the lengths to which bad managements go to preserve what they call their independence—which really just means their jobs” (3). Incompetence should justly be dealt with. Go get ‘em “Rambo” (51).
The narration drifts off to promote Trump’s political connections, and then comes the Georgia widow’s tragedy, a little sports, a few projects, then Trump mentions a lawsuit stating that “Nowadays, if your name is Donald Trump, everyone in the world seems to want to sue you” (7). Taking away the strategic day-planner narration as an indicator of chronological accuracy, the sequence of stories here acts to diminish the importance of Holiday Inn stock ventures, hype up the good will aspects, then follow up with a pity party. This is a successful execution of events. The big news about Holiday Inn doesn’t climax until half the book later where the nature of the beast is revealed.

Turns out that Trump had a reason to ‘smoke out’, ‘buy out’, or ‘call out’ that management of Holiday Inn, and he made them grovel in debt before disarming. He hears from his “Ace” (2) that Holiday Inn has to borrow a ton of money to battle against a “potential hostile” (222). Trump sells the stock and makes a killing, “many millions of dollars” (223). He attempts an honest, passive, modesty to explain:
Looked at another way, I earned back from my Holiday Inn
stock much of the money I’d paid them just three months earlier
to buy their share of my casino in Atlantic City. (223)
So essentially, they tried to get in his house, his gold platted pistol gets rid of them, and he turns around and does the same thing to them. Only difference is that they have to weaken their position further by borrowing the means to get rid of him. This was Trump’s revenge under the guise of good business.
How will his consciousness sit? Trump is obviously an intelligent man who recognizes the church’s influence by characterizing “the cardinal” as “a businessman with great political instincts” (36). Trump is a true American who identifies “two of the all-time-great characters, Rocky and Rambo” as the work of “genius” (51). Yet for his Holiday Inn endeavors he learned “something even more valuable than money from the experience: a first-hand view of corporate management in America” (223).