A Portrait of the Author as a Young Man:A Brief Sketch of Jon Barber, By Zach Willis

Born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin, Jon Barber has always been fascinated by

technology. Whether surfing the Internet, writing programs, playing games, or typing papers for

English classes, Jon’s passion for computers has persisted. This interest has been paramount in

his life since he first enrolled at St. Matthew Lutheran Grade School, and progressed during the

time he spent at Fox Valley Lutheran High School. During his grade school years, Jon also

developed an interest in reading. Classic literature has continued to captivate Jon throughout his

life, and he appreciates that English classes have offered an opportunity to create an even deeper

connection between himself and the literature by writing about the ideas he has gleaned from his

readings. Naturally, when it came time for Jon to look toward life beyond school, he

immediately set his sights upon incorporating his passions into his vision for the future.

Upon entering St. Norbert College, Jon knew that his future was going to center around

his two passions: technology and literature. Because of his strong interest in technology, Jon

decided to become a Computer Science major, but to supplement that degree he chose to minor

in English, which would allow him to pursue his interest in literature and writing. Since arriving

at SNC, Jon has also able to pursue his interests by becoming an active member of both the

Computer Science Club and Film Club on campus. During a recent “48 Hour Film Festival” put

on by the Club, Jon contributed his own short film, entitled Alone in the Dark, which focused on

the process of writing a paper. One sincerely hopes that the central character, a habitual

procrastinator who puts off writing an important paper until the last minute, is not an exact

representation of Jon himself. Even if this character is less of an exaggeration that we would like

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to think, however, it certainly does not show. Each of Jon’s essays provide keen insights and

show an obvious devotion to creating thorough, well-written papers.

Jon’s first essay, a close reading of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, provides an

interesting perspective on the main character, a governess who, according to Jon, wreaks havoc

upon the estate and all those who dwell in it due, oddly enough, to her excessive displays of

affection. Jon asks: “Is it possible to love someone too much?” According to his analysis, the

governess is guilty of this charge, thereby creating a complex but well-argued thesis for his

essay. His unique insight, which reads into the often vague and ambiguous nature of James ’s

text, provides a fresh and quite interesting perspective on this oft-discussed ghost story.

In his essay on Chopin’s The Awakening, Jon accomplishes the difficult task of creating a

male-authored, yet feminist-leaning, paper. Jon readily admits the difficulties he had in

removing his own biased masculine viewpoint during his initial reading of the novel in order to

replace it with a better understanding of Chopin’s goals as a feminist. This self-reflective essay

provides concrete evidence of Jon’s considerable gifts as a writer, as he gives his audience a feel

for the struggles he went through in coming to terms with Edna Pontellier’s awakening to

independent womanhood.

Jon is also quite proud of his abstract, summary, and evaluation of two articles

concerning the presentation of literature in the classroom. A considerable amount of time must

have gone into Jon’s reviewing of the articles, as his abstract and summary are both very well

written; his inclusion of key details combined with his ability to provide the information in a

concise yet understandable way is a testament to his devotion to a thorough understanding of the

articles. However, Jon’s evaluation is what he takes the most pride in. His prior analysis of

“Taking Cover in Coverage” provides a firm foundation for his educated response, in which he

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refutes many of Graff’s suggestions. With sound arguments and solid proof, Jon is able to

provide a clear analysis of the shortcomings of Graff’s proposals. The composition of this

detailed evaluation must have consumed much of Jon’s time, but the effort paid off in the end, as

this is likely one of his finest accomplishments.

The final addition to Jon’s portfolio is his New Historical essay. The Catcher in the Rye

has fascinated Jon ever since he first read the novel back in high school, but it was the endless

references to the work that he noticed throughout American popular cultural in the years since

which convinced Jon that a historical analysis of the book could prove interesting. His essay

pays close attention to how Salinger’s work has impacted society since its publication in 1951.

Since his arrival on the literary scene, Holden Caulfield has become one of the most important

fictional characters of the past fifty years, and he continues to speak to future generations. In this

intriguing paper, Jon attempts to trace the ways in which Holden has affected society in the past

decades, as well as to explain why he remains so popular to this very day.

As Jon begins to again look to the future, with graduation now only a year away, he

hopes to find a career that will allow him to continue to pursue his technological and literary

passions. Jon plans on discovering a position in the computing field which will allow him to also

implement the writing skills he has garnered during his time at St. Norbert College. He feels that

writing is absolutely vital as a form of communication; whether that interaction is written or

verbal, Jon knows that his English minor will help him to express himself intelligently in any

future business environment. Furthermore, the profound analytical abilities that Jon has gained

will allow him to better evaluate anything that might be placed before him in his life after

college, whether it be a work of literature, a business proposal, or even a computer program.

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Enjoying the Ride:Avoiding Platitudes on the Road to Self-Reflection

The act of creating an essay necessarily entails a long and arduous process which

unfailingly grants me no shortage of mental and physical anguish. I just wanted to make that

clear from the outset. Now, that being said, my decision to pursue an English minor is a choice

which, quite clearly, will require a good deal of explanation. Let us see if I can provide a

convincing analysis of my own thought process in this regard.

To begin, let me simply state that I love to read. From Shakespeare to Tolkien to Stephen

King, there is little that I find more enjoyable than to have my imagination engaged as I am

carried away by a captivating storyline. I also possess a deeply ingrained love of analysis, as I

have always been one of those people who is not satisfied with the knowledge that, for instance,

“It was a really great movie.” What was it about the movie that made it so “great?” Was it the

acting, the dialogue, the plot, the cinematography, or all of these things? Once I have gained a

clear insight into a subject, be it a novel or a film or anything else, I relish the opportunity to

share my opinions with others who have conducted their own careful studies of the subject

matter, hopefully learning something new in the process. However, although all of these

observations are true, I must admit that what I love most about English courses is the immense

feeling of pride and personal satisfaction that I receive each time the final version of my latest

analytical essay rolls off the printer. Despite all of the pain and the many sleepless nights they

have caused me, I can happily announce that never in my college career have I turned in a paper

that I was not completely satisfied with, and that, in my opinion, is an accomplishment to be

proud of.

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How is it possible for these excruciatingly difficult acts of creation to end on so positive a

note? Any thoughtful response to this question would require an in-depth analysis of my

personal writing process, and since I have never been one to hesitate to over-analyze what I find

to be interesting, I would be more than happy to walk you through my convoluted “process.”

For me, contextualization is key, as everything begins with the work of literature itself, in my

mind. This is why I have excelled at close readings (i.e. the vast majority of required papers)

throughout my writing career. I will read an article or short story once, develop a tentative thesis

which I find to be interesting, then reread the story, viewing it entirely through the perspective of

providing evidence for my critical claim. Although this step of my process remained useful, the

past semester was indispensable to my maturation as a well-rounded writer in that I learned how

to incorporate new knowledge from outside sources into my essays. I was often forced to rely on

texts relating to feminist or psychoanalytic theory, contemporary reviews, or modern critical

analysis of a work, rather than merely focusing my full attention on the novel or short story

itself. At first I was more than a little upset by this disruption of my traditional writing routine,

but I have since come to realize the value of these additional sources in creating a strong final

essay, and have thus incorporated their use into my ever-expanding “process.”

Analyzing a work in order to formulate and provide evidence for a given claim is the

“easy” part. For me, the most torturous hours in the development of any essay are the ones I

spend in translating my handwritten thoughts into a Word document format. The issue is not that

I “don’t know what to say,” it is that I know what I want to say all too well, and I am never

satisfied until the exact sentiment I was hoping to express appears before me on my monitor. If

this means rewording a particular sentence a half dozen times before moving on to the next one

(and it often does), then so be it. Although this may result in a first attempt at an essay requiring

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an entire night to formulate, the upside to my obsessive compulsion is that my “rough” drafts

generally end up appearing as carefully constructed as the first or second revisions of many of

my peers.

This fact no doubt goes a long way toward explaining why revision is the stage of my

process that I have always felt a true passion for. After letting a rough draft sit overnight, I will

return to the paper with enthusiasm the following day. After offering up a brief prayer to help

focus my attention and clear my mind of any distractions, I will crack open an ice-cold bottle of

Mountain Dew and start out on a long journey of revision which will, in all likelihood, continue

well into the wee hours of the morning. In my more poetic moments, I have been known to refer

to Mountain Dew as my Muse, as even though it does not “sing to me,” it does do a marvelous

job of both keeping me awake and getting my mind racing on new improvements which could be

made to each paragraph. Fueled by the caffeine, I will read (aloud, whenever possible) all the

way through a given essay four or five times, making constant revisions until I am finally

satisfied with the ebb and flow of my latest analytical effort.

By this point you have probably come to an understanding of my portfolio title, Deep

Thoughts, a Compaq, and 77 Bottles of Dew. Each represents one of the three steps in my

process of writing and revision, and as they have served me so well over the past semester, I

found it only fitting to name this portfolio in their honor. As I stated earlier, I have never turned

in a paper I was not completely satisfied with; the four essays which follow are no exception. In

fact, they may very well be the four works I am most proud of having authored in my entire

collegiate career. Further insights in the genesis of these essays can be found in my brief

introductions to each. With that being said, the time has come to embark on an introspective

journey through the mind of Jon Barber. I sincerely hope that you enjoy the ride.

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Evaluating the Evaluation:An Ironic Look at “The Argument to End All Arguments”

In this essay, I was asked to compose a short abstract of the Terry Eagleton article

“Introduction: What is Literature” as well as a summary of Gerald Graff’s “Taking Cover in

Coverage.” Although these opening sections were pain-stakingly researched and carefully

constructed, the real centerpiece of the paper is my heartfelt response to, and evaluation of,

Graff’s article. In an effort to express my opinion that political and methodological debate

should not be forced into college classrooms, I nevertheless create my own argument against

Graff’s proposals, thus opening up our contrasting ideas for a debate that could, potentially, take

place within the classroom environment. The irony is delicious! As a result, I have given my

evaluation the equally ironic title of “The Argument to End All Arguments.” My greatest source

of personal satisfaction in this essay was my ability to clarify what could have been a very

confusing paper through the use of concrete, real world examples of each of my points of

emphasis.

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The Argument to End All Arguments:An Abstract, Summary, and Evaluation

Abstract

Eagleton, Terry. "Introduction: What is Literature?" Literary Theory: An Introduction.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. 1-14.

Eagleton makes the claim that any definition of “literature” will be highly influenced by

the value judgments previously instilled as a result of the deeply founded, socially ideological

beliefs of a given culture. He comes to this conclusion after examining a wide variety of

differing definitions of literature. Eagleton begins by pointing out that since much of what we

commonly describe as “literature” is non-fiction, we can easily dismiss the common assumption

that the only true literature is fictional. He next disproves the Russian Formalist notion that

literature exists solely to “make strange,” and thus intensify, daily speech, on the basis that there

is no such thing as a universal “norm” for ordinary language. In addition, he feels that literature

need not be limited to “non-pragmatic discourse” (that is, applying only to the general state of

affairs), since much that was at one time considered practical or functional has since come to be

regarded as model examples of literature. Eagleton also argues that eternally relevant,

“universal” literature does not exist. In his mind, even Shakespeare could potentially be replaced

with more currently relevant playwrights at some point in the future. Eagleton’s final

observation is that there can be no such thing as a “pure” critical interpretation of literature, due

to the fact that no critic is capable of making any judgment apart from the prejudices instilled in

them from birth by the ideologies of the cultural powers-that-be.

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Summary

Graff, Gerald. “Taking Cover in Coverage.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

Ed. Vincent Leitch, et. al. New York: Norton, 2001. 2059-67.

In “Taking Cover in Coverage,” Gerald Graff makes a case for the integration of literary

theory into existing collegiate English courses, based largely on the assumption that all

professors are already theorists. Graff argues that an application of theory is necessary in order to

negate the gaps between distinct periods and genres, thus ensuring a stronger unification of the

entire English curriculum. Additionally, he is not merely in favor of exposing English students

to the field’s oftentimes fierce ideological and methodological disagreements; he also wants to

encourage these same students to play an active role in such debates.

Graff begins his essay with the claim that a majority of modern English courses adhere to

the traditional “field-coverage” model, whereby a work’s background information and criticisms

are left largely uncovered. As a result, precious little light is shed on the implications or social

functions of what is being studied. The most effective solution to this troubling dilemma would

be to incorporate theory into everyday English courses. When Graff speaks of “literary theory,”

he is referring to any type of open debate regarding the meaning of such seemingly self-evident

terms as text, tradition, and literature. It is due in large part to their isolation from this type of

intellectual discussion that so many students, collegiate or otherwise, have been forced to resort

to such aids as Cliff’s Notes in order to make sense of many of our literary classics. They simply

have not been given enough context against which to judge their own perceptions regarding these

works, and so feel that their only option is to rely on “experts” like Cliff to broadly generalize

these stories.

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Graff next shifts the focus of his essay to the widely accepted “field-coverage” model of

English, in which differing eras and genres of literature are strictly subdivided. While this model

is undeniably an administrative convenience, a careful application of theory to the model itself

would reveal the inherent incoherence of this practice. The coverage model’s rise to prominence

has been justified largely by its ability to regulate itself without the intervention of management,

as well as the ease with which diverse viewpoints can be expressed. However, the extreme

isolation that this structure all too often imposes on professors from differing areas of study is

more than enough to outweigh any of these positive aspects. The discussion of ideas which

subdivision, by its very nature, frowns upon has served to destroy any firm sense of community

amongst these peers, and has therefore, in Graff’s words, “programmed professional loneliness”

(2065). Furthermore, this overemphasis on division has allowed many crucial contrasts and

connections between different genres and periods to slip, mostly unnoticed, through the cracks.

In addition, Graff is highly discouraged that the average student is not in any way

benefited on the rare occasions when intellectual debate does takes place. These students would

learn much if they were allowed to actively participate in the debate over the department’s key

ideological conflicts. The majority is quite mistaken in their assumption that, until a consensus

opinion is reached regarding a theory, it will be far too incoherent to be of any practical use in

the classroom. Graff even envisions a golden opportunity in the fact that college curriculums are

often forged as a direct result of warring political factions. Rather than attempting to downplay

the influence which outside forces possess in determining what is taught in today’s schools and

universities, students should be fully informed of the conflict, then invited to express their own

opinions on the education they are receiving.

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With departmentalized isolation enjoying such immense popularity, it is not surprising

that many students find themselves unable to make sense of the English curriculum as a whole.

Graff again insists that the ideal solution would be for literature theory to become central to

every class, thus creating a context through which the links between particular periods or genres

could be made evident. Graff concludes with the observation that the most natural course of

action within the confines of the coverage model, that is, to compartmentalize theory as simply

one more unconnected requirement, is in fact the worst idea of all, and would solve exactly none

of the problems raised in this essay. The entire institution should instead strive to accomplish the

exact opposite by increasing all forms of communication between both departments and the

professors themselves. When theoretical or political debates spring forth as a result of this

breakdown of isolation, the conflicts should be built into the curriculum and discussed at length

within the classroom setting. Furthermore, although the current chronological approach could be

largely retained, professors should not remain slaves to period, instead being granted the freedom

to select the literary texts which best illustrate key issues. If each of these changes were to take

place, college graduates everywhere would be able to look back at their education as having been

a much more enriching and rewarding experience than is currently possible under the too-

simplistic field-coverage model.

Evaluation: The Argument to End All Arguments

I agree with the vast majority of Gerald Graff’s assertions in his essay “Taking Cover in

Coverage,” with only a single exception. Graff’s primary claim, namely that the field-coverage

model’s enforced isolationism has done much to negatively affect the collegiate experiences of

students and professors alike, appears unassailable. Likewise, the professor’s initial suggestion

in response to this problem, that theory be incorporated to draw parallels between differing

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courses, is both fundamentally and logically sound. However, the secondary focus of Graff’s

grand solution to this isolationist dilemma is the reason that I cannot, in good conscience, fully

endorse this essay. Graff argues that students should engage in methodological debates in order

to decide the most effective ways to analyze literature. While I could easily imagine this manner

of teaching becoming hugely successful if thoughtfully applied, I feel that Graff takes his passion

for debate one step too far when he suggests that the controversy surrounding political tradeoffs

should likewise be discussed. Although he is quick to scoff at the notion that such potentially

bitter conflicts would “confuse and demoralize” (2064) students, I could easily envision those

precise reactions being the end result of allowing theoretical and political arguments to supersede

a traditional study of the literature itself.

Graff’s thoughts on the importance of open debate can be summed up in how seemingly

disappointed he is that in the past, “the average student did not need to be aware of the clashes of

principle, much less use them as a larger context for literary study” (2063). In other words, there

would be considerable benefits to educating students as to the variety of different analytical

theories and devices that are available to them. While I do not deny the truth of this statement, I

nevertheless find myself somewhat worried by what appears to be a consistent underemphasize

on contextualization. For instance, it would be entirely appropriate to debate the merits of

approaching Chopin’s The Awakening from a feminist, rather than New Critical, perspective;

therefore, the potential benefits of this discussion within the classroom setting are readily

apparent. However, if Graff’s suggestions are followed to the extent that students are

encouraged to lead the way during these exchanges of opinion, it seems inevitable that such

discussion will not always be nearly so appropriate. To use the example of The Awakening once

again, a devout Marxist might insist on examining the novel in terms of the way social

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inequalities are presented. Intriguing though this theory may be, the amount of time necessary

to do justice to this particular reading would, in my opinion, be better spent in focusing attention

on the novel itself. I do not mean to imply that a close reading is the only valid approach to

literature; I am simply expressing that class time is far too precious to spend on introducing a

theory that does not readily apply to a given work.

What I find most troubling about Graff’s educational plan is not that he asks us to

introduce potentially non-applicable theories, but that he then wants to spend additional time in a

debate over the merits of these approaches. Call me a pessimist if you must, but I have a deep-

seeded suspicion that, amongst such intelligent and opinionated young collegiates, a benign,

levelheaded sharing of ideas could easily transform into in a heated debate, or even an outright

argument. This turn of events could potentially be highly educational for those directly involved,

yet I could also imagine students without invested interest in either opinion disengaging

themselves from the conversation entirely, and feeling, to once again quote Graff, “confused and

demoralized” (2064). As an example, imagine a classroom populated by a small number of

Shakespeare devotees who would turn red in the face at the first mention of the hypothesis that,

as some New Historicists claim, many of the bard’s play were in fact ghostwritten. Although the

heated arguments which would certainly arise in this situation might prove fascinating from a

historical perspective, I feel that class discussion would be better complimented by a somewhat

more applicable approach; a psychoanalytic, Oedipus-driven analysis of Hamlet the character

would be quite fitting, for instance. Although it is true that the application of this psychoanalytic

theory might likewise prove controversial, the crucial distinction is that the basis for each

student’s argument would be their own critical analysis of the literature itself. The students

would not be asked to place their trust in questionable outside sources, or worse yet, to simply

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cling to long-held personal biases. Graff is upset that “we have been able to exploit so little of

the potential education value of our unresolved conflicts” (2064), but I think the fact that such

controversial issues have bitterly divided even the supposed experts should by all means be

viewed as a foreboding indication of two important points regarding this practice. First, it is

extremely unlikely that undergraduates will succeed in uncovering these elusive “decidable

answers” (2064), and second, the potential value or merit of such an approach is simply not

worth the very serious risk of an outbreak of ugly argumentation, not fit for the classroom

environment. Graff dismisses as “old-fashioned” the attitude that “open debate is unseemly”

(2064), yet I am of the opinion that this particular notion may be one of the few that remain as

true today as ever.

Another piece of common wisdom that has been proven time and again in my own

experience is that one should, at all costs, avoid bringing religion and politics into polite

conversation. Graff, however, argues that even these delicate issues should be brought to the

forefront of the classroom environment. While briefly discussing some of the key “theoretical

and cultural question[s]” (2064) surrounding the collegiate curriculum, he makes what I find to

be a deeply troubling statement: “If the curriculum is going to continue to express political

trade-offs... why not bring students in on whatever may be instructive in the conflict of political

principles involved?” (2064). In airing this opinion Graff has opened, to slip briefly into sports

terminology, a enormous “can of worms.” Imagine, if you will, a particular English class being

blessed with the good fortune of featuring the presidents of both the College Democrats and

Republicans. We would expect no less than for constant political bickering to be the order of

the day, and we would almost certainly be correct in that assumption. Although these arguments

might be entirely justified during a discussion of a deeply political work, such as Orwell’s 1984,

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I could easily envision this overly competitive atmosphere resulting in shouting matches over

absurd topics such as whether or not King Lear’s Gloucester should have been allowed to abort

Edmund, or any other subsequent bastards. The most liberal or conservative-minded of students

might enjoy these off-topic debates, but this minority would do so at the expense of those non-

politically oriented students who had enrolled in the Lit class with the vain hope of discussing

literature. Although Graff would no doubt claim that even the most bitter of debates could

somehow be seamlessly incorporated into the current curriculum, I believe the time has come to

remove the rose-colored glasses and admit the truth: such an agenda would put the intended

focus of a course, in this case the literature itself, on the backburner.

Although Graff’s overconfidence in the correctness of his suggestions is rather troubling,

the most disturbing aspect of the entire essay is the unsettling terminology into which its author

eventually slips. In his last sentence, Graff implores professors everywhere to no longer “keep

students from observing and joining in the battle” (2067). I fail to comprehend what could

possess any author to wrap up an otherwise well-crafted presentation of his ideas on such a

decidedly threatening and combative note. Only four pages after encouraging his audience to

chuckle at the politically correct notion that open debate is “unseemly,” Graff now expects to

win teachers over using imagery suggesting that the best plan of action is to transform each of

their classrooms into miniature battlefields. War may be hell, but heaven forbid that we be so

quaint as to follow Graff’s direct inference that warfare’s intellectual equivalent, bitter

argumentation, is “unseemly.” I sincerely hope that the lasting impression left by this phrase has

not done anything to discourage professors from implementing Graff’s many other ideas, the vast

majority of which are sensible and entirely plausible. For example, his suggestion to emphasize

contrasts between “views of literature in earlier and modern literary periods or between

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competing and complementary methodologies” (2066) could easily be implemented, to the

benefit of all involved. In conclusion, I found “Taking Cover in Coverage” to be an excellent

essay consisting of many worthwhile insights, yet one whose momentum was at least partially

derailed by Gerald Graff’s insistent overemphasis on bringing argumentation into the classroom,

coupled with his occasional off-puttingly overzealous terminology.

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Works Cited

Eagleton, Terry. "Introduction: What is Literature?" Literary Theory: An Introduction.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. 1-14.

Graff, Gerald. “Taking Cover in Coverage.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

Ed. Vincent Leitch, et. al. New York: Norton, 2001. 2059-67.

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Abuse Through Affection:A New Perspective on a “Suffocatingly Close Reading”

My only real struggle in the creation of this New Critical close reading of James’ The

Turn of the Screw was simply finding something to say about the short story that had not already

been pointed out dozens of times in the past. I strive to provide a unique insight in every one of

my papers, and to never take the easy way out by setting aside an interesting, complex claim that

will be difficult (but ultimately worthwhile) to construct a paper around. Once I had settled upon

my final claim: that the ghosts did not exist and that furthermore, the governess had both

literally and symbolically smothered her young pupils to death, the essay more or less wrote

itself. There was certainly no shortage of evidence to support my thesis (I believe I filled five

handwritten pages with notes). As a result of several months of revisions, I can say with

confidence that this is the strongest close reading I have ever constructed. That is quite an

accomplishment, and one which I am proud to display in this portfolio as an prime example of

some of my strongest work of the semester.

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A Suffocatingly Close Readingof The Turn of the Screw

In his now classic “ghost” narrative The Turn of the Screw, Henry James goes a long way

toward answering one of life’s more intriguing questions: “Is it possible to love someone too

much?” If the shocking result of choices made by his nameless governess are any indication,

one would have little choice but to conclude that James himself would have responded in the

affirmative. Throughout the course of the short story, the reader is forced to bear witness to a

creeping, expansive horror, namely, the overwhelming love of this heartbreakingly delusional,

though undeniably well-intentioned, young woman. Her slow descent into insanity eventually

turns a harmless affection for her pupils into a deadly, undiagnosed addiction. By the time the

tale has drawn to its gruesome conclusion, this deeply disturbed “protectress” has succeeded only

in destroying both the mental and physical well-being of her innocent, pre-adolescent charges.

In The Turn of the Screw, the governess accomplishes with Miles and Flora what many would

consider a physical impossibly: she literally kills them with kindness.

The legitimacy of this morbid line of thought rests entirely upon one’s perception of the

mental state of the tale’s protagonist. Fortunately, James provides more than enough textual

evidence to throw the reliability of this woman’s mental process quite seriously into question. In

addition, it is important to note that we have no record of these fateful months at Bly aside from

a disputable account, penned by this very woman. Each of these points are likely meant to

impress upon the reader the feeling that the testimony, in its current form, is not to be taken

entirely at face value. If one takes into consideration the possibility that these ghosts do not

actually exist, however, he or she must then account for the troubling new question which arises:

What is the real reason for the downfall of these angelic youths? The most legitimate culprit

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may very well be the smothering affection which was forced upon the children during their long

months of well-intentioned servitude.

The first outward sign of the highly unnatural (though never supernatural) events which

take place during this fateful summer at Bly is the unusually, perhaps even dangerously, strong

attachment the governess instantly feels for the first of her young pupils. It would be one thing

to describe Flora as “the most beautiful child I had ever seen” (30); it is quite another to exude at

length upon her “angelic beauty” (30) after the manner of one of “Raphael’s holy infants” (31),

thus making the girl altogether as “beatific” as a “radiant image” (30). Even more unnervingly,

the reaction of this inexperienced governess when introduced to the older sibling is not in the

least bit more reserved. In describing Miles she says, “He was incredibly beautiful... everything

but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was swept away by his presence” (37). So moved is

the protagonist by the presence of these, the eighth and ninth wonders of the natural world, that

she even goes so far as to admit to feeling “under a charm” (37), one which “lifted [her] aloft on

a great wave of infatuation and pity” (37). Throughout the course of the narrative, the prophetic

potency of this intuition is made increasingly clear, as the governess soon succeeds in casting

this same passionately delusional “charm,” or perhaps spell, over the entirety of Bly. The

disturbing result of distancing oneself from reality in this manner can easily be witnessed in this

tale’s gruesome final chapter, and as is so often the case, the results speak for themselves.

The first casualty of this newfound infatuation is the bedtime privacy of little Flora, when

it is decided “as a matter of course” (31) that she would from then on share a bedroom with her

governess. Why a self-sufficient, intelligent girl of eight would be incapable of spending a night

alone is never explained; however, one would do well to keep in mind that this is a narrator who

needs no special occasion to justify “catching my pupil in my arms” (35), after which she

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“covered her with kisses in which there was a sob of atonement” (35). Her precious new charges

appear so gentle that, after knowing them for only days, the protagonist has already come to

doubt their ability to survive amidst an uncertain future. Is it any wonder that a woman who

exhibits from the outset such a needlessly nervous, unusually pessimistic mindset soon finds

herself in the process of creating a subconscious fantasy world in which only she could possibly

come to the rescue of these defenseless young angels?

Regardless of one’s stance on the issue of this woman’s mysterious subconscious

impulses, one must admit that she had always been blessed, on the conscious level, with a

tremendously vivid imagination. The governess would sometimes go even so far as to envision

the house at Bly as a fantastic castle out of a childhood storybook while daydreaming through

her late-evening perambulations. This does much to explain why it was not altogether shocking

that, while in the midst of one of these curious moods, her “imagination had, in a flash, turned

real” (39) in the form of the hallucination she would later coerce herself into regarding as Peter

Quint. Unlike a vast majority of poltergeist victims, the most noticeable effect of each

successive close encounter with this specter is not to further frighten the governess, but rather to

make her feel increasingly justified in regarding herself as the surrogate mother to these

supernaturally stalked children. Their mood when in her presence is apparently so delightful, so

psychologically intoxicating, that the young woman confesses to eventually giving herself over

to “the spell” (43) without reservations, as it was an “antidote to any pain, and I had more pains

than one” (43). The primary concern when perscribing oneself to any type of painkiller,

medicinal or otherwise, is the threat of addiction. The governess is a perfect example of that

most unfortunate of cases whereby the patient finds herself utterly unable to admit to her

addiction until its unacknowledged source lays lifeless in her own arms.

21

Eventually the atmosphere becomes so claustrophobically smothering in nature that the

narrator “was careful almost never to be out of” (65) the presence of her pupils. The company of

her young friends becomes nearly impossible to abjure the moment this highly unstable

governess starts to view herself as not only their substitute mother, but also their nigh-divine

protectoress. Like a knight in shining armor, this selfless martyr to imagination concludes that

“the children in especial I should thus fence about and absolutely save” (51). Not surprisingly,

she comes to “find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded” (53). It

is not all fun and games in her own little world, however, as she makes the claim that having to

“watch them in a stifled suspension” (53) would likely, had it gone on much longer, have “turned

to something like madness” (53). The question of whether it would be possible to descend even

further into psychosis at the behest of visions arising from one’s own, previously insane

subconscious is, unfortunately, left unanswered.

The fact that the children take advantage of an opportunity to rebel, ever so slightly,

against their overweening protectress is not at all surprising, given the complete lack of privacy

which had become a way of life by mid-summer. Seen in this light, Miles’ decision to sneak

outdoors and stand in the middle of the cold, bare yard one fateful midnight ought naturally to be

viewed as a sign that the young pupils were longing for some small sense of freedom. The boy

should not be held accountable for his governess being too awash in her own fantastic

hallucinations to recognize this act as a cry for independence. The narrator instead reacts in the

most damaging manner possible, redoubling her efforts by staying up all hours of the night in the

hopes of warding off any further evil impulses. The staggering depths to which this demented

young women had soon sunk could best be summed up by her later reflection that “I had all but

pinned the boy to my shawl” (83), thus setting herself up “like a gaoler [slang for “jailer”] with

22

an eye to possible surprises and escapes” (83). Despite her own icily calm assurance that such an

observation could only have been put into the boy’s head by the devil himself, in reality Miles

had a perfect right to state that it was odd “for a fellow to be with a lady always” (83), and to

express a desire to “see more life” (85) and be with his “own sort” (85). Seen from this

completely reasonable perspective, there is nothing unusual about the boy’s decision to repeat his

feelings on the matter later that evening. He must have thought it incredibly immature of his

elder to show a total lack of restraint by, in her own words, “throw[ing] myself upon him” (94) at

the mere thought of losing her precious Miles to a new boarding school. While the reader, of

course, is aware that this governess is under the dangerously mistaken impression that she would

be “losing her boy” to a considerably warmer, somewhat more southerly locale, Miles’ next

words are, though gently spoken, blunt enough to pierce even this most advanced state of

dementia: “let me alone” (94).

Though her brother’s impassioned speech earns for himself a much-needed temporary

reprieve from the increasingly suffocating presence of their guardian, little Flora is not so

fortunate. The poor child sees the last shred of her own fragile sanity pass by the wayside on one

all-important autumnal evening. The girl’s childishly innocence mind and mannerisms are

pushed beyond the limit of endurance by her insane protector’s insistence that there, on the other

side of the pond, stands a vision of her long-dead former governess. “She was there, so I was

justified; she was there, so I was neither cruel nor mad” (101), claims the narrator, but in light of

the later revelation that neither Mrs. Grose nor Flora herself were able to share in her wild

hallucination, the reader is forced to conclude that this unfortunate young woman was guilty of

both of these dreadful self-accusations. Given the abruptly shocking manner in which she is

suddenly forced to confront her repressed, frightening memories of Miss Jessel, it is hardly

23

strange that the girl “appeared to read and accuse and judge” (102) her former “savior.” That

Flora would despise her governess for treatment so horribly insensitive that it “made her, every

inch of her, quite old” (105) seems only natural; the real issue is whether she will ever be able to

regain her former beauty and innocence this side of heaven.

Having now fallen quite decidedly out of favor with her beloved Flora, the only

remaining outlet for the madness of the unstable governess is the girl’s already standoffish older

brother. With Flora permanently removed from her life and the heroic dignity of her imaginary

world beginning to crumble beneath her feet, the young woman becomes obsessed with the

notion that if she could just get Miles to confess to having stolen her letter, it would be enough to

save the boy from dark damnation. The child seems to realize this, and although he is

understandably rather confused as to how a harmless prank had become a matter of eternal life or

never-ending hellfire, it is to his credit that he has the internal fortitude to meet one final time

with his judge, jury, executioner, and governess. Unfortunately, not even the long, torturous

months he had previously spent under the thumb of this cruel mistress had prepared him for the

religious fervor with which she pursues this crucial confession. Only minutes into this

interrogation, the pressure becomes much too intense for young Miles, and the governess notes

how “it was as if he were suddenly afraid of me” (115), as he soon began “actually flushing with

pain” (115).

Even with the advantage of decades-worth of hindsight, the governess remains so deeply

ingrained in her own hallucinatory worldview that she still has not been able to discern the

fundamental difference between her pupil’s original declaration, “I’ll tell you everything” (116),

and his frightened amendment of only seconds later: “I mean I’ll tell you anything you like”

(116). Within minutes, the once-angelic face of poor Miles has grown pale, sweat runs from his

24

body in droves, and his heart is beating like a jackhammer in his small chest – yet the governess

presses on. When parts of his confession are not quite up to the standards she demands, the

narrator makes the telling admission that “my hands – but it was for pure tenderness – shook

him” (118). At this point it is not Miles, but the interrogator herself, who makes the most

revealing and, ultimately, disturbing confession of the entire novel: “There had come to me out

of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent. It was for the instant

confounding and bottomless, for if he where innocent what then on earth was I” (119)? As the

tension within the small room continues to mount, the helpless boy is again and again crushed to

her breast rather than being allowed to escape the suffocating atmosphere by reaching the

freedom and fresh air that he looks out the window in longing of. Just as in the case of his sister,

it is the all too cruel mention of the dead, but never to be forgotten, specters of Quint and Miss

Jessel which push Miles’ abused and fragile psyche far beyond its natural breaking point.

Though his once promising young mind may never have returned to its former brilliance after his

being forced to utter, out of extreme mental anguish, “the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss”

(120), there may still have been hope for a recovery of his frail body. If it ever existed, this hope

is dashed utterly by the irresponsibly impulsive reaction of the delusional governess. “I caught

him, yes, I held him – it may be imagined with what a passion, but at the end of a minute I began

to feel what it truly was that I held” (120). So it was that Miles’ short time on this earth came to

an end in what could be described in a darkly poetic fashion; just as had occurred for months at a

time on the figurate level, the boy was, in the end, literally smothered to death by the headless,

violent love of this deeply disturbed young woman.

25

Works Cited

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. 1898. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2004.

26

The Importance of Being Caulfield:Why So Many Are Still “Holden Out For a Hero”

Although I would not classify myself as having been a true “rebel” at the time, Salinger’s

The Catcher in the Rye nevertheless had a profound impact on my life when I first encountered

the novel as a sophomore in High School. Despite the fact that I wasn’t about to go joyriding

around New York City (or downtown Appleton, for that matter) in protest of the situation, I

could easily relate to Holden’s frustrations over the inherent phoniness of the adult world that

both he and I were quickly being assimilated into. This fond recollection, combined with the

endless Holden references I had noticed in the five years since that time, made my ideal choice

for a New Historical topic rather obvious. I begin my essay by exploring what it is about Holden

that has kept him popular for well over 50 years, but I then take a closer look at the novel’s

infamous reputation as one of the most-banned books of all time. In what I found to be a highly

intriguing twist, I round out the paper by drawing a connection between the two themes, making

the claim that the book continues to be read largely as a result of the concerted effort to sweep it

under the rug. Once again, the irony of the situation is simply too delightful to pass up, and in

the end I felt this to be another very strong addition to my portfolio.

27

Holden Out For a Hero:The Catcher in the Rye from a New Historical Perspective

In April of 2005, The New York Times was one of many publications to describe the nine-

year-old protagonist of Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly

Close, as a Holden Caulfield for the 21st century. Critic Walter Kirn calls little Oskar a

“hyperactive impersonation of Holden Caulfield,” as Salinger’s troubled teenager had “trod the

same sidewalks that Oskar does and tried to shake off a funk that also traced back to a family

tragedy” (Kirn 1). An attempt to imitate Holden is entirely understandable, given that this young

man has remained one of America’s most popular fictional characters ever since his arrival on

the literary scene in 1951. The longevity and far-reaching influence of J.D. Salinger’s coming-

of-age story has been prominently displayed even in the unlikeliest of places, such as mainstream

Japanese television. One of that country’s most popular shows of 2002, Ghost in the Shell:

Stand Alone Complex, prominently featured rebellious young characters lifted almost directly

from Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Nine Stories. Salinger’s influence within his own

country has been even more prominent; critic James E. Miller goes so far as to credit the author

with the popularization of post-World War II “black humor,” without which modern American

classics such as Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest might never have been written

(Miller 18). Perhaps the greatest testament to how highly regarded Salinger’s novel has

remained was USA Today’s December 2004 announcement that The Catcher in the Rye had been

the only work of fiction over 50 years in age to have earned a position on the year’s Top 100 best

sellers list. Why has Holden Caulfield continued to capture the imagination of both young adults

and their middle-aged parents, from one generation to the next? Perhaps an answer can be

discovered in the unwavering popularity of the tale amongst a third group: professional literary

28

critics. The regularity with which these writers have found something new to say about Holden’s

adventure would seem to ascribe a deeper historical significance to this boyhood journey than is

at first readily apparent. However, the primary reason that new generations of readers have

continued to discover The Catcher in the Rye has been, paradoxically, an unrelenting effort on

the part of conservative fundamentalists to prohibit these very students from doing so. Despite

their tireless attempts to ban the novel, these moral crusaders have succeeded only in helping to

maintain the book’s unrelenting popularity. After all, there is little which could engage the

interest of a teenager of Holden’s disposition more thoroughly than the impression that, in

reading Salinger’s controversial work, he will be committing his own act of rebellion.

These same troubled and confused adolescents have, understandably, never hesitated to

identify themselves with their 16-year-old counterpart, Holden Caulfield. The immense

popularity of the young anti-hero has remained nearly constant since 1959, when the claim was

made that Salinger’s work was “the one novel that every undergraduate in America has read”

(Hicks 88). Gwynn and Blotner’s 1958 appraisal was even more generous: “The only post-War

fiction unanimously approved by contemporary literate American youth consists of about 500

pages by Jerome David Salinger” (Steiner 113). Holden’s attraction amongst young adults of the

1950s is readily understandable; after all, he quite literally “speaks their language” (Hicks 89).

Holden’s “slangy, idiomatic, frequently vulgar language” (Kaplan 32) was considered so

accurate for its time-period that its usage drew the attention even of cultural linguists. In a 1959

issue of American Speech, Donald P. Costello called The Catcher in the Rye a “significant

historical linguistic record of a type of speech rarely made available in permanent form”

(Costello 92). By the early 1960s, teenagers had become so enamored with Holden that his

creator had begun to command “the authority of a prophet... American youth has learned to

29

speak of Salinger and Dostoevsky in the same breath and to read them in the same measure, as a

recent [1961] survey in The Nation claimed” (Hassan 57). Holden had become the

“characteristic hero of contemporary fiction... an embodiment of their secret terrors and

accumulated hostilities” (Miller 5).

Given its similarly prolific history, it is not surprising that The Catcher in the Rye has

drawn frequent comparisons to that other uniquely American boy-wanderer tale: Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn. What may come as somewhat of a shock, however, is that Holden appears to

have finally relieved Huck of his status as the rebellious child-icon to whom modern American

youth can most easily relate. The sales figures, at least, seem to bear this out; at over a quarter of

a million copies per year, Salinger’s novel is currently outselling Twain’s masterpiece two to one

(Pinsker 1). Modern writers of fiction, eager to capture even the smallest portion of Salinger’s

popularity within this demographic, have attempted so many “spiritual reincarnations” of this

erstwhile narrator that one is tempted to, like Kirn, wish that “all the Holden Caulfields who

aren't Holden were back inside J. D. Salinger's manual typewriter” (Kirn 1). Perhaps the best

example of a successful translation of The Catcher in the Rye into the present day was 1999’s

Freaks and Geeks, an inventive television program which has reached the status of cult classic in

the years following its regrettable cancellation. The show’s lasting popularity, especially

amongst teenagers, can be largely attributed to series creator Paul Feig’s decision that his own

16-year-old protagonist, Lindsey Weir, would be “a modern day, female Holden Caulfield” (Feig

4).

Salinger’s choice of narrator alone makes the novel’s sustained popularity within

Holden’s own age group easily understandable. More perplexing by far is the fact that older

generations, and even literary critics, have returned to The Catcher in the Rye time and again

30

over the previous decades, always finding a new observation to make about the work. A 1963

Salinger review made the rather startling claim that “critics have written more on Catcher than

on any other contemporary novel” (Ohmann 119). This bold statement was later validated by a

1981 study which found that Salinger’s novel had inspired 344 published essays, 21 books, 142

articles, and 14 dissertations (Schriber 226). Modern critics have explained this popularity by

claiming that the work “transcended the boundaries of age, education, and culture, a

phenomenon unparalleled in the history of modern and contemporary literature” (Salzberg 1).

There can be no denying its place in history as one of the “small number of American books

which not only had great immediate impact but have steadily grown in stature” (Laser 9). Early

reviews characterized Holden’s tale as a “rare miracle of fiction” (Gutwillig 3), an “unusually

brilliant first novel,” and “acidly humorous deadpan satire” (Laser 10), but it is interesting to

note that there was never any suggestion of the book’s universal and (apparently) timeless

appeal. Certainly no early reviewer could have been so prophetic as to predict that, ten years

after the publication of The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger would be hailed as the writer of

greatest “public and critical influence” since Hemingway, a fact forever memorialized by his

reluctant agreement to appear on the cover of the September 15, 1961 edition of Time magazine

(Miller 5).

The great emotional and psychological depth of Holden Caulfield, which has helped to

maintain his own popularity through a sustained public and critical fascination with the

character, can be at least partially explained through an autobiographical reading of The Catcher

in the Rye. Salinger himself might very well approve of such an analysis, as in a letter to a close

friend the author once “acknowledged that Holden Caulfield was a self-portrait and went so far

as to quote Holden’s opinions as though he were a person” (Salzberg 2). Always a writer before

31

a soldier, Salinger admitted to Hemingway (with whom he would later keep up a close

correspondence) that he had been crafting the story of Holden’s life even while in the midst of

storming Normandy’s Utah Beach as member of the famed Fourth Division on June 6, 1944

(Alexander 95). The four months of heavy fighting which Salinger experienced following the D-

Day invasion had a profoundly negative effect on the young man’s subsequent worldview.

Taking all this into consideration, is it any wonder that the oftentimes equally jaded literary

critics of this Greatest Generation found that they could easily relate to Holden’s profound sense

of alienation from modern existence? Miller’s understanding is that Holden’s “spiritual crisis”

was shaped “in the boredom, frustrations, agonies, and horrors of the world at righteous war with

itself” (Miller 5). Although the older readers of today do not agree with Holden’s assumption

that the entire adult world is phony and worthless, most have at least grown self-reflective

enough during their lifetimes to “identify with some part of the society being satirized” (8).

Despite these underlying and unexpected layers of depth and complexity to Holden’s

personality, The Catcher in the Rye’s modern reputation is based largely upon the novel’s long

and bitter history of censorship. Much like Huck Finn before him, Holden’s “vulgar” language

and rebellious nature have resulted in his remaining in the public eye for much longer than

anyone could have suspected. The first blatant attack on Salinger’s work was released only days

after the book itself. The Christian Science Monitor denounced Holden’s story as “not fit for

children” (Gutwilig 5), calling it a “nightmarish medley” of “vulgarity, naiveté, and sly

perversion” (Laser 12). The narrator himself was “preposterous, profane, and pathetic beyond

belief,” adding, “thankfully there cannot be many of him yet [in the real world]. But one fears

that a book like this given wide circulation may multiply his kind” (Laser 12). One shudders to

think how this author would have responded to the rise of the “Generation X” of the 1980’s and

32

1990’s (the first generation to routinely wear their hats and baseball caps backwards, in imitation

of Holden’s most outward act of defiance), had she lived to witness it! The father of a

University of Texas undergraduate was even more horrified by Salinger’s book a decade later,

claiming that Holden “used language no sane person would use,” thereby “corrupting the moral

fibers of our youth” (123). Invoking the “evil” catch-all of the Cold War era, he then went on to

say that, although it “is not a hard-core Communist-type book... it encourages a lessening of

spiritual values which in turn leads to Communism” (123). Later in this decade of supreme

paranoia, a California country grand jury came to the conclusion that the Texas father must

likewise have been misled, as there could be no doubt about it: “The Catcher in the Rye was

definitely placed in our school’s libraries to plant the seeds of communism in the minds of our

children” (Laser 132).

The early Salinger hearing which garnered the most national attention was held by the

Temple City (CA) Board of Education in 1962. Their conclusion was that The Catcher in the

Rye had no place in schools, due to “many blasphemies, unpatriotic attitudes, references to

prostitution and sexual affairs... [resulting in a] downgrading of our home life, teaching

profession, religion and so forth” (Laser 127). Apparently many other classics of literature were

guilty of similarly corrupting influences; the same Board later banned Crime and Punishment,

The Scarlet Letter, and The Grapes of Wrath. This decision ignited an intense controversy,

especially within the opinion column of a local newspaper, where a concerned mother chimed in

with a nuanced support of the Education Board: “The book is filled with swear words and no

decent person wants to read swear words” (128). One California minister found himself in

complete agreement, releasing an equally profound written statement in which he condemned the

book on the grounds that it “brings reproach upon the name of God” (131). Admittedly, he “had

33

read only excerpts,” but one could hardly have expected him to do more, given that “he found

the language so sickening that he could not continue” (131).

The firestorm of controversy surrounding The Catcher in the Rye was ignited once again

in December of 1980, when Mark Chapman, a Salinger fanatic who had attempted to have his

name legally changed to “Holden Caulfield” only a week earlier, shot former Beatles lead man

John Lennon to death outside of his home. Chapman’s only explanation for his action was

likewise eerily Holdenesque: Lennon’s “authenticity had been replaced by phoniness that was

morally corrupting to the young” (Salzberg 1). A similar assassination attempt was made on the

life of President Ronald Reagan only three months later by John Hinckley, who claimed to have

been inspired by the Scorsese film Taxi Driver and, once again, The Catcher in the Rye. Yet

despite the intense conservative backlash which resulted, the novel’s unprecedented popularity

(it had recently sold its 10 millionth copy at the time of Lennon’s death) continued unabated

throughout the 1980’s (Ohmann 119). Rarely has there been a case where the truth of the old

adage, “any kind of publicity is good publicity” was proven more concretely than during these

troubling years in the history of Salinger’s novel.

Concerned parents and politicians have not grown any more lenient with Holden

Caulfield in the past two decades. During the 1990’s, Salinger’s novel was banned from schools

in Illinois, Iowa, Florida, Pennsylvania, California, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, on the basis

that it contained “vulgar words” and presented the main character’s “sexual exploits” (Sova 7).

All signs appear to point a 1961 ALA bulletin having summed up the book’s peculiar situation

perfectly when it claimed that “efforts to discourage interest in this book” had only made it

“more popular than ever” (Laser 130). If the concerned moralists of today would learn from

their past mistakes and simply turn a blind eye to The Catcher in the Rye, the novel might

34

eventually fade from public consciousness, despite its engaging idiom and deeper layers of

complexity. Thankfully for our next generation of readers, however, one can only assume that

the heightened conservatism of today’s climate will be sure to encourage further attempts at

censoring Salinger’s “immoral” work, thereby ensuring Holden Caulfield’s exposure to those

rebellious young readers who will most easily identify with the troubled narrator. In this way,

these same teenagers, just like their parents before them, will be sure to maintain the unrelenting

popularity of The Catcher in the Rye for decades to come.

35

Works Cited

Alexander, Paul. Salinger: A Biography. Los Angeles: Renaissance Books, 1999.

Costello, Donald P. “The Language of The Catcher in the Rye.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. Ed.

Marvin Laser and Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 92-104.

Feig, Paul. “The Freaks and Geeks Series Bible.” 31 May 1999. FreaksAndGeeks.com. 14 Apr.

2005.

<http://www.freaksandgeeks.com/OtherJunk/MakingContentPages/MakingBible.html>

Gutwillig, Robert. “Everybody’s Caught The Catcher in the Rye.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. Ed.

Marvin Laser and Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 1-5.

Hassan, Ihab. “J.D Salinger: Rare Quixotic Gesture.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. Ed. Marvin Laser

and Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 57-68.

Hicks, Granville. “J.D Salinger: Search for Wisdom.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. Ed. Marvin Laser

and Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 88-91.

Kaplan, Charles. “Holden and Huck: The Odysseys of Youth.” Critical Essays on Salinger’s The

Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Joel Salzberg. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1990. 39-44.

Kegel, Charles H. “Incommunicability in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.” Studies in J.D.

Salinger. Ed. Marvin Laser and Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963.

53-57.

Kirn, Walter. “Everything Is Included.” New York Times 3 Apr. 2005, late ed., sec. 7: 1.

Laser, Marvin, and Norman Fruman. “Community Critics... and Censors.” Studies in J.D.

Salinger. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 123-141.

---. “Salinger: The Early Reviews.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. New York: The Odyssey Press,

1963. 9-22.

36

Miller, James E. Jr. J.D. Salinger. St. Paul: The University of Minnesota Press, 1965.

Ohmann, Carol and Richard Ohmann. “Reviewers, Critics, and The Catcher in the Rye.” Critical

Essays on Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Joel Salzberg. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co,

1990. 119-140.

Pinsker, Sanford. “Holden Caulfield on Social Security.” The College Dispatch 29 March 2001,

1.

Salzberg, Joel. “Introduction.” Critical Essays on Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Joel

Salzberg. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1990. 1-22.

Schriber, Mary Suzanne. “Holden Caulfield, C’est Moi.” Critical Essays on Salinger’s The

Catcher in the Rye. Ed. Joel Salzberg. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1990. 226-238.

Sova, Dawn B. Banned Books: Suppressed on Social Grounds. New York: Facts on File, 1998.

Steiner, George. “The Salinger Industry.” Studies in J.D. Salinger. Ed. Marvin Laser and

Norman Fruman. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1963. 113-118.

“The Top 100 Selling Books of 2004.” USA Today 20 Dec. 2004, D1.

37

The Genesis of a Response:How Feminism Impacted “Virtual Versus Reality”

The final paper I have chosen for inclusion in my portfolio is “Virtual Versus Reality:

How Distinct Narratees Respond Differently to The Awakening.” Despite its official

classification as a Reader Response essay, this self-reflective piece was at least equally impacted

by Feminist theory. My inspiration for this paper was provided by comments I received earlier

in the semester after submitting an initial, feminist draft on Chopin’s story. I was surprised to

see that my paper had been termed more “anti-feminist” than feminist; that I was doing lip

service to feminism while actually re-enforcing my own, patriarchal ideology. At first I

disagreed with this analysis, but after reviewing outside sources relating to both Edna and the

period she was attempting to “awaken” within, I realized that my initial judgments had been far

too harsh, and not at all sensitive to the complexity and difficulty of the decisions that were

forced upon this young women. I feel that although this essay’s strength relies largely upon my

self-reflection, this aspect is well complimented by both an efficient use of outside sources and a

strong writing style that is indicative of my maturation as a writer during the course of the

semester. Given all of these strengths, “Virtual Versus Reality” was the natural choice for this

portfolio’s grand finale.

38

Virtual Versus Reality:How Distinct Narratees Respond Differently to The Awakening

The ambiguity present in the concluding chapter of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening has

been the source of endless controversy and critical debate throughout the previous century.

Reader response critics, such as Wolfgang Iser and Gerald Prince, feel that these differing

opinions tell us more about the readers themselves than the actual text in question. Iser’s most

important contribution to the field of reader response was his invention of the “gap,” which he

described as leading the reader “to shade in the many outlines suggested by the given situations

so that these take on a reality of their own” (Murfin 340). By this definition, Chapter 39 of The

Awakening could easily be viewed as feminist literature’s most infamous “gap.” According to

Prince, the way a reader “writes meaning” into these gaps defines what type of narratee they are.

The narratee is “the person or figure who receives a narrative” (Murfin 342), and Prince feels

that these figures exist in three distinct types: the real, virtual, and ideal readers. Real readers,

such as myself, are the physically-present individuals who actually sit down and read from, and

respond to, a given work. Virtual readers could be considered the author’s “intended audience”

at the time of publication; in Chopin’s case, this would her fellow women of the late 1890’s.

Although these two groups might very well enjoy a piece of literature, the narratee most

appreciative of a work will always be the ideal reader. Many modern feminist critics provide a

fine example of this third narratee type, as they possess as complete an understanding of The

Awakening as is possible, and also approve of Chopin’s purpose in creating the novel. When

first exposed to the story, I must admit that my reaction had much in common with that of the

misinformed, largely sexist real readers of the turn of the Century, many of whom were so

disgusted by the actions of Edna Pontellier that they sought to cease all publication of the

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scandalous novel. However, due to insights into the unfortunate plight of women during the late

19th Century which I have gained in the months since, I have discovered that my own opinion

regarding Edna’s suicide now more closely resembles that of ideal reader Barbara C. Ewell, who

views the act as “a revolutionary image of the dream of female selfhood” (Ewell 165).

Chopin’s intended reader (or as Prince would say, virtual reader) is not at all difficult to

determine. For the author, “writing was a means of exploring and articulating... the life of

women and their struggle to achieve selfhood” (Ewell 159), and thus it seems readily apparent

that Edna Pontellier was intended to be a tragic martyr to feminine independence, one whom

similarly-oppressed women could look up to and compare themselves against. Seen from this

perspective, The Awakening can be viewed as an attempt by Chopin to create an open dialogue

regarding the almost non-existent rights and freedoms of women in the society of her day. In

this regard, the controversial novel was at least somewhat of a success. Unfortunately for

Chopin, the rapidity with which her novel was banned across the nation evidences the one-

sidedness of this “dialogue” during her own lifetime. As was so often the case during this

period, the “one side” consisted solely of the type of oppressively patriarchal rhetoric which the

“Mr. Pontelliers” of the day would have found entirely appropriate.

In this sense, one could claim that The Awakening was completely disregarded during the

first half of the 20th Century as a direct result of the drastic contrast between Chopin’s virtual

reader and the actual “real readers” of the era. In two anonymous (yet obviously male-authored)

1899 reviews of the novel, the Providence Sunday Journal was so scandalized that it could only

state: “The purport of the story can hardly be described in language fit for publication” (qtd. in

Walker 166), while the presumptuously-titled Public Opinion cruelly proclaimed that it had been

“well satisfied when Mrs. Pontellier deliberately [swam] out to her death” (qtd. in Walker 171).

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While my own initial experience as a real reader of Chopin’s work did not have anything in

common with either the typical, “scandalized” reaction of this era, or the untypical (or at least

one would hope!), “I liked watching her die” reaction of the Opinion, a third contemporary

review, this one from The Nation, managed to hit much closer to the mark. “Had she flirted less

and looked after her children more... we need not have been put to the unpleasantness of reading

about her and the temptations she trumped up for herself” (qtd. in Walker 166), the article read.

While my own initial opinion was somewhat less harsh, I nonetheless echoed much of this early

reviewer’s sentiment.1 My claim was that Edna should have strived to become an “equal partner

in her relationship with her husband,” while still remaining a “mother to her loving children,

even if she frequently took time off to do... what left her most feeling most personally fulfilled,”

i.e. her painting (Barber 2). On the final page of my essay, I described Edna as a liar and a

“weakling,” who had eventually had “the hypocrisy of her pseudo-feminism... laid bare” before

taking her own life in symbolically appropriate fashion (Barber 7).

What I had failed to take into account was that I was, at that point in my life, far from the

ideal reader of The Awakening. In the months since that initial rough draft, I have reviewed

dozens of feminist articles written about the novel, looked through a wide variety of contextual

documents from the 1890’s, and collected enough personal information to grant me at least a

vague biographical sketch of Kate Chopin herself. The end result of my drawn-out, yet very

much worthwhile, process of enlightenment has been a considerably deeper understanding of the

themes Chopin wanted to express in her story, as well as the means by which she was attempting

to communicate them. Just as Prince hypothesized, this greater understanding of the work has

lead in turn to an increased appreciation for the difficult choices that Edna was forced to make

throughout the course of her awakening.

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As an uninitiated and largely ignorant real reader, I had, just like the contemporary male

reviewers, regarded The Awakening as little more than yet another addition to “the tradition in

which heroines who transgress the rules of society had to be punished by death” (Walker 181).

Although I have not yet progressed to the level of appreciation practiced by the most ideal of

readers, who have come to regard Mrs. Pontellier’s suicide as “a transcendent experience in

which Edna reaches a reconciliation,” I now realize that her death at sea is far from pointless,

because at the very least it serves as damning “proof of the negative power of society against a

rebellious woman” (Walker 181). I have come to the realization that my own experience with,

and changing opinion of, The Awakening serves as an excellent example of one of the key

assumptions of reader response, that being that the expectations and presuppositions with which

a reader comes in to a work will ultimately determine the way he or she chooses to “fill in the

gaps” they are presented with. As my personal ideology was influenced by the persuasive

feminist writings of Showalter, Walker, Ewell, and many others, this crucial shift in “what I

[mentally] brought to the work” had a profoundly positive effect on the way I responded to the

novel during subsequent readings.

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Note

1 The following quotations were taken from an initial draft of a feminist essay on The

Awakening which I authored in March of 2005. Each of the quoted selections was altered

significantly in subsequent revisions.

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Works Cited

Barber, Jon. “Soaring On Broken Wing: A Feminist Analysis of The Awakening.” Deep

Thoughts, a Compaq, and 77 Bottles of Dew: The Process Portfolio. De Pere: The SNC

Copy Center, 2005.

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. 1899. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000.

Ewell, Barbara C. “Kate Chopin and the Dream of Female Selfhood.” Kate Chopin

Reconsidered. Ed. Lynda S. Boren and Sara deSaussure Davis. Baton Rouge: Louisiana

State University Press, 1992. 157-165.

“From Books of the Week.” Providence Sunday Journal 4 June 1899, 15. Ed. Nancy A. Walker.

Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000. 166.

“From Recent Novels.” The Nation 3 Aug. 1899, 96. Ed. Nancy A. Walker. Boston: Bedford / St.

Martin’s, 2000. 166.

Murfin, Ross C. “What is Reader-Response Criticism?” Case Studies in Contemporary

Criticism: The Awakening. Ed. Nancy A. Walker. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000.

337-348.

Showalter, Elaine. “Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book” Case

Studies in Contemporary Criticism: The Awakening. Ed. Nancy A. Walker. Boston:

Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000. 202-221.

Walker, Nancy A. “A Critical History of The Awakening” Case Studies in Contemporary

Criticism: The Awakening. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2000. 169-185.

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