mosaic: volume 10, issue 1

a magazine for the literary and visual arts at

Holderness School

Mos

aic

Winter 2012 Volume 10, Issue 1

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mosaic ● Volume 10, Issue 1 ● Holderness School ● www.holderness.org

Dear Readers, Welcome to the newest issue of Mosaic! In my work at Holderness I am impressed by the talent of our students on a regular basis. As the editor of this magazine, it is part of my job to carefully review students’ pieces of writing and artistic expression and select the best. I don’t put in the difficult hours of teaching, editing, and correcting. Instead I get to view the pieces when they are complete, and it is always a pleasure. I enjoy creating Mosaic every year not only because the students’ pieces are so amazing, but also because it gives me the opportu-nity to see many students anew. Students who I have got-ten to know because of their talent on the soccer field turn out to be really great writers as well. Students who I only know because of articles they have written for The Picador turn out to be the strong painters too. It is an honor to work with such multi-talented students. Within this issue you will find stained glass designs that were created by Western Civilization students and por-traits of orphans created by painting and drawing stu-dents. There are also pieces of writing in which students imitated the styles of published authors including Pat Mora and Edward Murrow. There are personal essays as well as self-portraits, landscape photographs as well as analytical essays. There is a little something for everyone! Thanks for reading! Emily Magnus Director of Communications

Cover Art by Reed Carpenter

Photographs by Eliza Cowie

mosaic

Voume 10, Issue 1

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This fall Ms. Field worked with three students during Art in the Afternoon to create four mosaics that will hang in the tunnel leading to the new dorms. Ms. Field received the inspiration for their project from Isaiah Zagar who spent fourteen years creating a mosaic maze in a vacant lot in the South Street neighborhood of Philadelphia. The students began the project in September, sketching their ideas on paper and expanding their drawing with projectors to get the large scale they needed for the four-foot by three-foot murals. The students then made some of their own ceramics tiles, learning about clay and glazes along the way. Lastly, the students learned about breaking and arranging the mosaic tiles and grouting around them. The results are truly spectacular. Below are pictures of the mosaics both in their final state as well as in production.

So Hee Park

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Addie Morgan

Hannah Foote

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This fall Mr. Lin’s AP Composition students wrote poems based on Pat Mora’s “Sonorisas,” in which the poet describes two rooms in which she sees two very different groups of women. Within their own poems Mr. Lin asked the students to think about a doorway in which they stand and describe within the metaphor the two distinct cultures they see. The students were asked to pay attention to imagery and capture the vivid details of the different rooms. Below are some of the students’ poems.

Only a Ridge Apart By Treat Hardy I live in a doorway between two rooms. I hear reveilles, prayers, cold showers, mines. The firm handshake and a brothers’ grip, inspection and teamwork. Hiking and hard work. Living as my best self, bearing with the Hell of rejection but grinning because of the Heaven of resilience. Taps, prayers, and a night full of thought. The successes outweigh the failures, as I follow those who came before me. I Peek in the other room. Alarm clocks, and gentle parents. The love that I feel I sometime find difficult to show. Classical music, folk, jazz, WCBS, and WFUV, a home with no children other than me. A large dog helps with my support, in addition to a family full of pride for their “Little Prince” of sorts. The smell of oatmeal, the screech of a coffee grinder, from the kitchen comes a call for breakfast. Church, a walk, perhaps a round of golf, tennis, or fast-paced squash. The success is hard to measure as I attempt to follow the rubric left by those who came before me.

Tyler Mathieu Young Soo Sung

Reed Carpenter

Perry Craver

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I Live In a Doorway By Rachel Huntley I live in a doorway, Between two rooms I see women babbling in Yiddish. Fried Matzo for lunch with cinnamon sugar. Hamsas dangle around their necks. Eight nights of Hanukkah and Chinese food for Christmas. Across the way I see strict Catholic views on gays and babies out of wedlock. Prayers before Sunday dinners and names that come from the Bible. Where pierced ears are absurd because, “If God wanted holes in your ears he would’ve put them there himself.” I stand in the doorway, With neither foot resting in either room.

Canciones By Sara Mogollon I live in a doorway Between two rooms. I hear The click of shoes, patent leather Pumps, tapping like pencils, cold teeth, An Amazon Kindle, on women in classy Clothing by someone Italian, their Stares cooler than Ice Breakers I peek in the other room tias in lipsticks That smack with their infectious Canciones si si bailamos, they Dance with arms up, teeth bright, Creating happy lines on their warm faces.

I Smell Sambusa By Saro Ntahobari I smell sambusa and fufu along with the burning sensation of pilli pilli. The room is engulfed with the scent of cas-sava, fish heads, and goat. I hear laughter and yelling in Kingyarwanda, even though they are right next to each other. The music is loud and booming. Some are even performing the Rwandese traditional dance, while others drink heavily and reminisce intently and passionately. The other room is quiet. Everyone is the same here, except I seem to stand out. I whisper here, so as to not draw even more attention. I don’t dance or sing, and I speak without passion or intent. In this room, I am without cul-ture or heritage; instead I am surrounded by white walls.

So Hee Park

Paige Pfenninger

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This fall in Western Civilization, a freshman history course, students studied the relationships be-tween the different people in feudal and manorial societies. They were then asked to examine their own lives at Holderness and create stained glass windows that depicted similar relationships. Before creating their own designs, students studied the history of stained glass windows and the techniques used to create them; art teacher Kathryn Field shared her knowledge of stained glass artisans and their techniques, and Holderness School archivist Judith Solberg shared her knowledge of the stained glass windows in the Chapel of the Holy Cross. Armed with lots of historical background, the students created many beautiful works of art.

Parker Densmore

Will Tessier

Lizzy Duffy

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Thomas Chau

Qianyi Zhang Nikki Blair

Abby Jones

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Throughout the fall many students took the time to write personal essays. Some students wrote their unique, personal stories to share with college admission officers throughout the country. Others de-veloped their personal statements through assignments in AP Literature and Theology. For whatever reason, these students reached deep and contemplated what makes their lives worthwhile.

Convention By Stephanie Symecko A college essay would be a good place to display how I daringly defy convention; but convention, by its lit-eral definition, means to “come together.” To defy convention, then, would be to refuse—to outright deny—such coming together. Despite the response often given to those who march to the beat of a dif-ferent drummer, I would be forced to admit that I do not “defy” convention; however, the experiences I have sought—the opportunities I have had—are defi-nitely unconventional.

I thought to myself, “Are you serious? You want me to stick my hand into that guy’s thoracic cavity? You’re kidding.” The doctor was taking time to teach me, to let me explore, and to make sure I understood what was going on. I was no longer a child, no longer told to stand in the corner and watch. Nobody held me by the hand. Unconventional.

The first time I walked into the operating room, I had no idea I would ever feel the beat of a human’s heart in the palm of my hand. By the end of six weeks I had morphed into someone I would not have recognized before the experience. I spent this past summer eat-ing, breathing, and living everything the University of Texas/MD Anderson Cancer Center had to offer. I

was assigned my own research project, which I slaved over to organize and analyze a human heart biopsy repository. I loved every minute of my research, but I learned from the doctors far beyond what I discov-ered on my computer screen.

In order for lives to be saved, medical researchers must come together; they must “convene.” Doctors, surgeons, nurses, interns, administrators, orderlies: all cooperate to offer medical care, and the survival of their patients depends on it.

Purposeful, yet boisterous. Sterile, yet messy. Focused, yet light-hearted: this is how I would describe the op-erating suite I was sent to in order to scrub in on my second surgical experience, a nephrectomy. We had to be focused, yet I heard Ozzy Osbourne blasting in the background. Everything had to be sterile, yet the doc-tor squirted pee from the patient’s ureter at the nurses. The doctors were focused for the stressful minutes that the aorta was clamped with the bull clip, yet light-hearted while searching for the kidney. This environment—a surgical operating room—is enjoy-able. That is unconventional.

What doctors do is unconventional. What I was ex-posed to was unconventional. But the spirit of “coming together,” of cooperating to insure another’s health, another’s life, is definitely assured by “convention.”

Leaf photos by Tino Tomasi

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Surplus Honey By Oliver Netterre I depress the bellows and a cloud of smoke shoots out towards the home of 50,000 agitated bees. Thankfully, the burning pine needles and twine in the bottom of my smoker seem to have an instant calming effect on them. The stingers that were just recently trying to penetrate my bee suit are now relaxed, and the swarm-ing insects crawl lazily down my legs. They soon re-treat into their hive and begin to gorge themselves on honey - an evolutionary reaction in response to forest fires. Since the bees are now more taken with the presence of smoke than of the two white-suited in-truders outside their hive, it is now safe for me to open the hive and extract the surplus honey.

There is nothing quite as appealing as making some-thing by hand. This is a value that was engrained in me while growing up on Stonehedge Farm in The Plains, Virginia. Some may believe that I became a successful farmer easily, but that is not quite the case; I crashed, burned, and learned my way through the processes of raising poultry and keeping bees. Nearly all amateur apiarists would have given up long ago after yearly swarms, invasive mites, and even frozen hives in the winter. However, after encountering all of these failures over the past ten years, I gained valuable knowledge, both in beekeeping and in life lessons: keep the bees happy and always try something new, even when success isn’t there initially.

Sometimes, this means putting oneself in harm’s way.

Personally, I am severely affected by bee stings. While an allergic apiarist might be considered somewhat ironic, this has not deterred me in the slightest. Even as a skinny eight-year-old, I took precautions against my own “killer” bees. My commercial bee suit is made out of almost impenetrable canvas, and although I puff clouds of dense smoke to calm the bees, I know this is not enough to keep me out of anaphylactic shock. By wrapping my ankles and wrists with layers of duct tape, I am protected at the weak points of my suit and bees can’t crawl up my arms and legs. I also keep an EpiPen in one of my suit pockets as a final precaution.

Protecting myself is only the first step, I must also protect my honeybees. There are so many variables that can lead to success, or disaster. I have made many mistakes in my quest for that Pooh-Bear-full honey jar at the end of a season. After each failure I had three options: give up, try my method again, or completely rethink my process. I typically tried to learn from my mistakes and took the trial and error approach of bee-keeping into other parts of my life. When things don’t go as hoped the first time, I attack my problems dif-ferently in the next attempt.

After experimenting with beekeeping for the past ten years, it seems as though my determination has finally paid off. Now, it is not unusual for me to extract close to eighty pounds of honey from my three hives every year. This leaves me with a good problem: what should I do with this much honey?

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Haircuts By Molly Tankersley

I believe in haircuts. Every few months I wake up late on an idle Wednesday at home. Sleepily, I wander into the kitchen on a beeline for the fridge and find a sloppy note with my name across the top. I give it a cursory glance, followed by a frown. It reads, “Hair appointment at two.” I finish my breakfast slightly preoccupied, thinking with a grimace about past hair-cuts gone wrong.

Haircuts are funny things. I walk in, conflicted and excited, picturing how it could go right as well as how it could go wrong. The process can be unpleasant. I am forced to watch with an alarmed expression as chunks of my hair fall to the ground and then sud-denly, I am a different person altogether. As shocking as the experience can be, I usually leave liberated, with a chance to be different and make different choices.

I like to approach my chances to start over like I do

my haircuts. Granted, walking into a new hair salon is slightly less nerve-wracking than walking into a new life, but the same principles apply. The transition will be awkward, the aftermath will be unfamiliar, but you will be left with new chances and choices to make.

I have lived in six different countries over the course of my life, filled with fresh starts. And as someone who has had quite a few chances to start over, I think I can finally appreciate a new beginning for all that it’s worth. I am not yet labeled, graded, or judged. I don’t have to be who I am expected to be. I can improve and become a better, well-rounded person or a differ-ent person altogether.

Starting over doesn’t have to involve moving across the world, or going off to college. It can be as simple as a finding a different attitude, making a friend, or getting a haircut. Every day there are chances to start over, to change your path and change the ending that comes with it. I believe in starting over.

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Realizing Reality By Dan Do

“Aren’t you supposed to be smart in math because you’re Asian?”

Since my middle school years, I have been repeatedly asked this question, either by my classmates or by my closest friends. At first, I thought it was just a friendly gesture or compliment. As a matter of fact, I was ac-tually surprised because at the time, my math grades were not the best. Soon, I realized that the question my classmates had mockingly shot at me was not one of praise but one that aimed a direct punch straight at my stomach and hurt deeply. Over time, that little question became a mere, careless joke that I reluc-tantly accepted whenever I heard it. I even willingly smiled back, but deep down, coldly inside of me, I know I should not have.

Years later, that question morphed into powerful, stereotypical gestures such as making squinty eyes,

gently bowing down while saying “Ni hao” (even though I am Vietnamese), or shouting “Pork, fried rice” and ridiculing an Asian’s broken English. Some-times, I even heard adults in the supermarket disap-provingly remark that my parents and I were a “bunch of Chinks” because we were talking too loudly in our native language.

Sometimes, I was so ashamed of myself for my yel-lowish skin color, my ordinary jet-black hair, and worst of all, my squinty eyes that I even began to say unordinary things like “Wassup, dude,” or “My homie boy fresh,” just to feel like I fit in. At times, I sadly perceived in my own head that I was actually a white kid with freckled skin, curly blond hair, and gorgeous eyes, completely forgetting my own heritage, my own culture, and myself.

At home, expectations from my parents were set at a high level academically. Athletics were unmistakably

(Continued on page 14)

KJ Sanger

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left out of the equation because they were considered a “waste of valuable” time. For me, that was a devas-tating punishment, because at the time, sports were the only way in which I could hope to connect with the other kids. Instead of abiding by my parents’ stern virtues of schoolwork first, I would obsessively dig my nose into the latest sports magazines, carefully pick out the nicest pair of brand-name, tennis shoes, and implore my parents until they finally gave in.

Yet, once the shoes were mine, and I zealously tied them on, I actually felt guilty for disappointing my parents’ expectations by not concentrating on my

schoolwork, but instead on my classmates’ popular trends.

As the son of Vietnamese immigrants, I realize that I have grown up in a white man’s society where I need to be Americanized to merely fit in with others. But at the same time, I must not forget who I am every sin-gle morning when I wake up, because I cannot change what God has made of my skin color, nor do I ever want to change it. I believe in trusting and accepting myself, my heritage, and my culture, because I live in two worlds that demand and require the best of each of me.

(Continued from page 13)

This is Mine By Josie Brownell

I buy four pairs of skis almost every winter. I buy a pair of ski boots every two years. I drive at least 400 miles a week to a mountain to race. I have flown to Europe multiple times to train on receding glaciers. I ride electric-powered chairlifts about a thousand times a year, hauling with me my helmet, goggles, poles, mit-tens, speed suit, and jackets. Looking at the resource consumption of my skiing career, one might think I’m rooting for global warming. Actually, I’m deeply com-mitted to environmental conservation, but at the same time, it’s hard for me to imagine giving up ski racing.

One race is still fresh in my mind. I had already kicked off my ski boots when the loud speaker announced that I’d made it to the final rounds of the race. Some-one threw me my number. I sprinted to the lodge, buckled my boots, and dashed out to the chairlift. As I was clicking into my skis, my mom rushed over, looked straight through my goggles, and said, “This is you, Josie. This is you.”

At the top, I pushed out of the start, and the gates blurred by as I powered through the course. When my opponent and I crossed the finish at the same time, I could hear my mom and my coach screaming. Just the week before, my coach had yelled, “I need to see some commitment, Josie!” while I strained through my last set of squats. I had had trouble then, but today was mine. This was mine.

Every plastic bottle needs one third of its volume in petroleum to be produced. By weight, this means that my skis, boots, bindings, and gear combined drink up approximately forty-five gallons of oil just to be manu-factured. While hiking on my NOLS course in Wyo-ming and enjoying alone, the crisp, blue air and unde-veloped view, a jet roared overhead. I cursed it and the people who made it be there. It wasn’t until a heated conversation later that week that I got it: I was on that plane, with all my skis and gear.

Over the last year, I’ve committed to being more ac-countable for my consumption. I volunteered for a summer, cleaning out exhibit tanks at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in my home state of Vermont. At school, I also continue to stick my hands in dozens of syrupy bins as the Recycling Leader.

Clearly, I contribute to our environmental dilemmas. Especially since the thought of not skiing is difficult to imagine, I know that I will likely never be able to do enough to completely offset my impact. This same commitment that drives my effort to ski also drives my effort to be accountable. To solve our growing issues, it will take ownership and daily commitment. It will take each of us deciding: this is mine. This, is mine.

Maggie Caputi

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Bird Girl By Sara Mogollon

An Anole lizard lay face up on the pavement beneath my great banyan tree. My mom looked down. “It’s hurt, Sara,” she said. “Don’t touch it.” The lizard’s head was cracked from the twenty-foot fall. I ran in-side; my mother had already realized what was going to happen next…an injured lizard joined our family.

Growing up, I got very mixed messages about ani-mals; my mother grew up with them in New England, and my father, in Bogota, did not. Over the years, my mother allowed me to keep all the animals I found in my yard. I viewed her as my accomplice. My father’s intolerance for animals in the house notwithstanding, he never objected to animals outside. I took full ad-vantage. During summers in New England I had ter-rariums full of turtles, salamanders, and once, a mole. Back in Miami, the yard was my menagerie, filled with snails, lizards, and tadpoles that quickly multiplied in our lionhead fountain.

When my father finally gave into “a small pet,” one cockatiel turned into four. I received the nickname “Bird Girl” from my family when they discovered the head of my favorite cockatiel, Lucky, poking through my hair while I did homework. After Hurricane Katrina, I discovered a white bird with a broken wing among the rearranged landscape formerly known as my yard, and yes, my mother let me rescue Charms.

As I grew older, my parents opened up the world of travel to me with trips that included encounters with animals who needed far more help than the Anole lizard I rescued when I was seven. After swimming through the murky waters of El Rio Negro in the Amazon, alongside “botos,” or wild pink dolphins, who curiously nudged my legs, the story of their de-mise caught my attention; local fisherman were using their flesh as catfish bait. Coming eye to eye underwa-ter with a great white shark, once my biggest fear, was

nothing short of majestic in the freezing waters of South Africa and I quickly understood their right to a place in overfished waters. Hearing the poignant cries of an elephant chained inside a small cement pen in a remote province of China was one of the worst ex-periences of my life. And what’s worse, it happened in a zoo right next to the world’s most well-equipped panda conservation center where I volunteered for two weeks. It was a sound I will never forget.

Who would have known that the small girl with her own animal hospital would continue with the same passion for rescuing animals the rest of her life? The day I saw the Anole lizard on the sidewalk in front of me, I couldn’t have predicted what a big role that en-counter would someday play in my future.

Photos by Eliza Cowie

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Ms. Field also worked with her drawing and painting students on The Memory Project, a unique ini-tiative in which art students create portraits for children and teens around the world who have been orphaned, neglected, or disadvantaged. Each project begins when pictures of children are taken at orphanages throughout the world. The pictures are then sent to high school art students who study the pictures and study the history and culture of the countries where the children are living. When their portraits were finished, the students send them to the children as gifts. The project is meant to give the children something that is theirs despite the unfortunate circumstances in which they live and to inspire caring, global friendships throughout the world. Below are just some of the portraits stu-dents at Holderness gave to the orphans of Ecuador and Sierra Leone.

Lea Rice Connor Kenney

Erica Steiner Hailee Grisham

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Momo Xiao

Lea Rice

Abby Guerra

Jingyi Wu

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Sir Gawain Analysis By Bee Crudgington

After facing fierce opponents in weather and in beasts, Sir Gawain has found refuge in a castle that sparkles with purity and appears to be cut out of pa-per. Unbeknownst to Gawain, he finds himself in the home of the Green Knight, where he is tempted and tested. In the 15th stanza in Fit III, the lord’s wife is trying for the second time to seduce Gawain so that he strays from the knight’s code of chastity. After the lady’s failed attempt of direct seduction earlier in the poem, she decides to pander to Gawain’s virtues in hopes of successfully beguiling King Arthur’s noble knight.

The lady approaches Gawain claiming that she only wishes to learn about love. This approach juxtaposes her first attempt at persuading Gawain to abandon his virtues; instead of teasingly holding Gawain her cap-

tive, she tries to reverse the power roles in this stanza. As lady of the castle, she outranks Gawain, who is but a mere guest, so cleverly she comes to him as a stu-dent and places him in a role as her superior, her teacher. She casts herself as the eager student and claims that Gawain “ought to be eager to offer this pupil some lessons, and to lead by example” (1526). By calling herself dunce-like, she further reduces her rank, while also playing into Gawain’s sympathies. She continues to break down the social barriers of rank and hierarchy, by calling Gawain a “man of emi-nence” (1528), which places him in a position of supe-riority.

The situation of the lady and Gawain is sensitive, so Gawain must be careful. It is unnatural because the woman has the power in this situation, and it is the woman pushing for sex instead of the man. This idea is in contrast with what was acceptable during this time period. However, with the role reversal, order is

And after wenged with her walour and voyded her care, And broȝt blysse into boure with bountees hor awen-- And ȝe ar knyȝt comlokest kyd of your elde, Your worde and your worchip walkez ayquere, And I haf seten by yourself here sere twyes, Ȝet herde I neuer of your hed helde no wordez Þat euer longed to luf, lasse ne more; And ȝe, þat ar so cortays and coynt of your hetes, Oghe to a ȝonke þynk ȝern to schewe And teche sum tokenez of trweluf craftes. Why! ar ȝe lewed, þat alle þe los weldez? Oþer elles ȝe demen me to dille your dalyaunce to herken? For schame! I com hider sengel, and sitte To lerne at yow sum game; Dos, techez me of your wytte...

Throughout the year, students are often asked to write analytical essays in which they reflect on the meaning of the texts that they are reading. The following pages contain just a few examples of the essays students wrote during the fall semester.

Jingyi Wu Hailee Grisham

A Passage from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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restored to the situation and Gawain is left in charge. However, instead of seizing this opportunity, he re-fuses to abandon his code of chivalry.

Sexual tension and lust is woven into this passage from beginning to end and the lady’s pleas drip with lust. The lady attempts to neutralize her sinful desires with pure and innocent words: valor, noble, courteous, considerate. The lady beseeches Gawain to explain why he is not like other knights, loyal to love.

She points out that knights lay “down their lives for love” (1516) and then show ladies what love is with “avenging valor by bringing great bliss to a lady’s bed-room” (1518). Line 1518 uses diction and a change in tone to portray the scandalous nature of the conversa-tion. The juxtaposition of the words valor and avenging lend to the erotic tone. The word valor is defined as strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to face danger with firmness, whereas the word avenge is de-fined as gaining satisfaction by punishing the wrong-doer. By pairing these two words together the lady paints an arousing sexual scene; however, the allitera-tion of the letter “B” softens the tone of the sentence. The words by, bringing, bliss, and bedroom have positive connotations; the weight of these “B” words is light compared to the heavy words avenge and valor. The sequence of “B” words is another contrast to the harsh tone of the beginning of the sentence. The “B” sequence is an attempt to neutralize this wanton sen-tence.

Later in the passage, the lady continues to contrast ideas and tones; she buffers an attack on Gawain’s manhood with praise. She calls Gawain “a knight so courteous and considerate in his service” (1525). Two lines later, however, in line 1528, the lady attacks Ga-wain’s manhood by questioning if he is ignorant about the subject of love. She feigns confusion by asking how a “man of eminence” (1528) could be ignorant of such an important topic.

The bob and wheel of this passage is the lady’s last attempt on the second day to lead him astray. Sir Ga-wain must uphold his knight’s code, which includes not only courtesy but also chastity. Gawain cannot deny the lady his company, because he is her guest and it would be discourteous; he is forced into a situa-tion where his Christian morals must dance with pa-

gan temptations, entertaining but not succumbing to them. In the last three lines the lady coaxes Gawain by offering herself up as “a lady all alone” (1532): urging him to “perform for [her] before [her] husband heads for home” (1534). Gawain’s chivalry is derived from the Christian concept of morality. His sense of spiritu-alism and chastity are challenged by the pagan nature of the lady. The concept of paganism refers to the lack of religion and to people who delight in sensual pleasures. The lady symbolizes sin and paganism with her lack of scruples and desire for sex.

The undertone of this passage explores the Christian idea that women are the downfall of society and man-kind. At the end of the poem, Gawain bitterly cries out against women saying that we are all “ruined by [women’s] wrongs” and wishing that men “could love our ladies without believing their lies” (2420). This passage explores the association of women with sin and contrasts the beliefs Christianity and paganism.

This stanza is a crucial point in the poem because Ga-wain has yet to relent to the lady’s temptations; it is the height of the rising action. The unknown author is able to relay multiple complex ideas and themes through his diction, syntax, and tone in this passage. Each word is weighted with meaning and purpose. This stanza is laced with sexual desire, themes of Christianity, paganism, and the characteristics of the knight’s code that Gawain successfully upholds. In anticipation of and contrasting to the climax of the poem, Gawain triumphs over the test of seduction and temptation.

Hannah Foote

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Excerpts from “Joseph Conrad: A Bloody Racist” By Justin Simpkins

Introduction

The stick felt good in his hands—smooth, heavy, and solid. It was not going to break. It gave him a sense of power, a sense of power that was enforced by the sat-isfying thud of the stick on another man’s skull. But this was not another man. According to Joseph Con-rad, this “poor old nigger”—who did not deserve be-ing whacked—was viewed as less than a human, as an object. In the question posed, we are asked to con-sider whether Joseph Conrad is a racist or Chinua Achebe is over reacting. Conrad wrote Heart of Dark-ness in the voice of Marlow. However, by looking at Conrad’s word choice and perception of native Afri-cans, anyone can tell Conrad is a racist. In order to investigate this further, numerous ideas and philoso-phies must be considered: race, speech, darkness, zo-omorphism, and diction….

Silence

They were silent. Walking with a lifeless, dull look in their eyes. They seemed to be zombies, simply going through the motions, only waiting for death to save them from this living hell. The dark figures did make sounds as they were forced to work, but it was not known whether these sounds were grunts, expressions of pain, or a developed language. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, he refers to the native inhabitants of central Africa as being silent.

These “creatures” are able to speak. Speech is defined by the ability to express one’s thoughts and emotions through oral communication, sounds, and gestures. We can see the natives communicating when Conrad describes a scene of them interacting: “We are accus-tomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you could look at a thing monstrous and free… They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces…”(pg. 64). This is a per-fect example of Conrad displaying his racism. He de-prives these natives of speech, the thing that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. Conrad puts native Africans in the same class as animals by not giving them the ability to speak. Acclaimed author Thomas Mann said, “Speech is civilization itself.” Mann means that if speech has been established, then civilization has also been established; therefore, Con-rad also deprives them of having established a civiliza-tion because they cannot speak. By 4000 BC, central African civilizations had been established and were flourishing. Being an educated, well-respected author, Conrad knew that the group of people he was de-meaning—by portraying them as silent and without civilization—actually had an intricate language and society, both set up hundreds of years before the white man had done so….

Zoomorphism

They don’t talk, staring with blank looks, following orders, but not fully grasping anything. They have to be trained through repeated actions over and over again. When beaten, they simply cower away, a mix-ture of confusion and fear flashing in their eyes. The frontal cortex is what stratifies animals from humans. The ability to reason, the ability to think about the future, and the ability to speak all prevent us from be-ing in the same class as instinctual beasts. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he attributes the qualities of primal animals to the native Africans forced work in the ivory trade.

Zoomorphism is the representation or conception of humans in the form of animals. Conrad is seen de-grading the natives, by giving them qualities of primal animals: “The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two who grinned… exchanged short, grunting phrases… I don’t think a single one of

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them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the begin-nings of time—had no inherited experience ” (pg.73). Conrad is implying that although the natives seem engaged they are not fully understanding….

Diction

They did not wince anymore. In the beginning, the metal collars that held a row of them together had rubbed the top layer of skin down until there was just nerves touching the steel. Now their skin had tough-ened and the endless rub of the dog-like collar did not affect them anymore. The six men had become close; its hard not to when chained together. They worked together, they slept together, and when the white man got out the hard leather whip, they endured the pain together. They shared the same confusion as to why they were mercilessly beaten day in and day out. Jo-seph Conrad’s diction in his acclaimed novel Heart Of Darkness is a perfect example of his obvious racism.

Diction is defined as a style of speaking or writing that is dependent on word choice. The word that is con-sidered to be one of the worst and most offensive word in the English language is nigger. It feels wrong simply typing it. It seems only people who feel that their race is superior call blacks by this awful term. Joseph Conrad uses it five times in his novel, the ma-jority of them referring the moaning of a beaten nig-ger. As if this is not enough, the other times Conrad talks about the native Africans he calls them “black fellows” (pg.73). Fellow is defined as sharing a par-ticular quality or condition with someone or some-

thing. According to this definition Conrad is calling all blacks the same. He is implying that they are simply interchangeable objects.

Analysis

If Joseph Conrad is “generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction in English” (Back Cover), then he must have chosen every word in his novel, The Heart of Darkness, very carefully. Conrad deprives native Africans of having an established civilization when he refers to them as silent. He goes on to use darkness as a metaphor; everything Marlow sees is shrouded in darkness, and he assumes that every per-son in central Africa is a savage waiting to devour him. Finally Conrad consistently takes away the man-nerisms attributed to humans and describes the native Africans as animals. Conrad is a racist who views members of the central African race as undistinguish-able objects, useable objects—like sticks—more spe-cifically smooth, heavy, solid sticks that are held by men with power.

The power seems to engulf all of him as he brings the stick down with brute force each time pushing the poor old nigger closer and closer to death. Despite the blood pouring down the victim’s face he does not stop; action needs to be taken, and it is. With one fluid motion the chief’s son steps out of the crowd. He whirls his spear into position with grace and sends it effortlessly through the culprit’s rib cage and into his heart. The body goes limp and falls to the ground. The superstitious crowd scatters. His body remains there, forgotten, grass growing through his ribcage.

Momo Xiao

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There was an eternity of silence In the field where I lay The sun shone with an almighty brightness The haziness in the air was hot Waiting for something to happen Wondering why something did Feeling an uncomfortable emptiness Unsure of what to do A small burst of wind Blew over my face Disturbing the silence Blowing the long grass side to side Back and forth Hitting each other continuously Making a sound A sound like no other A sound like your best friend telling you a secret A sound like someone whispering “I love you” The crickets in the grass Adding to the symphony Playing their own instruments The frogs in the pond

Adding bass to my song That single burst of wind Blowing the chimes hanging on the porch Filling the world with sounds Sounds that made me feel better And then it was gone The magical wind that started it all The emptiness was back Seeming as if it were more filling Almost over flowing Giving me a scary feeling A feeling that made me want to scream Most of all the silence was back Big and loud Blaring in my ears Making me feel angry Staying in the same monotonous tone Droning on forever Because silence is the loudest, most powerful, thing you’ll ever hear.

Haley Michienzi Momo Xiao

There Was an Eternity of Silence By Rebecca Kelly

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Austin Baum Chance Wright

Yejin Hwang

Haley Michienzi

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Painting People By Ari Bourque It was Thursday evening when the painters showed up. The season, spring. At least, I think it was a Thursday evening. In any case, these were not the type of painters that you would open the door for when you were home alone. Although it may seem stereotypical, the white van with tinted windows and the short men that stepped out of the vehicle in splat-tered blue overalls, torn undershirts, and thick mus-taches screamed danger. Besides, the house was only three years old. The paint was as good as new as far as I was concerned; there had been no recent storm surges or accidents that would cause the paint to chip. So unless the husband had called for the men, or the men had arrived at the wrong address, they were not here to paint.

Instinctively, I crawled around the house as fast as I could, making sure that my body was below the panes of the windows, so that the men were not able to de-termine that I was home. In retrospect, this was a careless mistake. When the men assumed that no one inhabited the house, it gave them more incentive to poke around the yard, peek in the windows. If I had only thrown on a hooded sweatshirt and casually walked around, then maybe I would have appeared as more of a threat, more masculine. Maybe they would have seen the baggy silhouette and left.

But they did not witness a hooded figure, and they did not drive away. Instead they stood outside on the front stoop, contemplating their next step. Mean-while, I came to my first door, quickly lifting the han-dle and turning the knob to lock it. TRPP Q TRPP Q. Breathing heavily, I sat with my back against the door. That was when my eye caught a glance of the mirror that was hanging on the wall to my right, tilted at just the right angle so that I was able to see the painters through a small window. They were conversing with one another, and although I was not able to make out

what they were saying, the expressions on their faces made me uncomfortable. As one of the men’s thick mustache moved up and down, the other’s remained completely still, waiting for the man to finish. And when he did, the silent partner seemed satisfied, for his own mustache began to widen as his lips creased into a maniacal smile.

That was when my heart bungee-jumped into my stomach and back up into my throat. The smile of that man had forced my eyes away from his face and onto his waistline, where a shiny black handle was jut-ting out from one of the pockets of his overalls. My mind began to try to visualize the rest of the object that was half hidden from the pocket. I easily con-vinced myself that it was a knife.

I began to crawl again. This time my knees slammed against the floor. The china dishes in the other room even began to clang. I reached for the bronze-colored door handle and weakly turned it to the right. The door opened and I slipped inside the darkness, closing the door behind me, making sure to lock it. TRPP Q. I rose to my feet, feeling the blood reaching the sur-face of my knees as they throbbed, and began to walk down the stairs. I flipped the switch. The lights flick-ered on. I walked to the middle of the room and col-lapsed on the sofa. Why were they here? What did they want? Why me?

My eyes bounced from one object to another. My cof-fee table was covered in newspaper cutouts from 1986, the year that I got married to the husband. Among the plethora of newspaper clippings was our black and white wedding invitation. Broken glass from the empty picture frames were scattered all over the plain white rug. Pictures of the husband and I accom-panied the glass. In almost every picture there were smiles. I longed to jump into one of the pictures, to bring myself back in time to that very moment when I was happy, when I trusted society and when I relied on others. I lifted myself off of the sofa and trudged to the mini-refrigerator to grab a beer. I hooked the

At the end of the semester, students in Mr. Durnan’s AP Literature class wrote their own stories emu-lating the styles of published authors they had read and admired. Many channeled the horror of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart," and others imitated the classics styles of Hawthorne and Gilman; still others drew on more contemporary writers like Murakami and Barthelme. Below is one student’s riveting begin-ning.

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pull-tab with my finger and popped it open. A few gulps and the can was half empty.

I was leaning against the wall when the painters walked in. I must have been so consumed in my other thoughts that I did not hear them enter through the side door that was left unlocked. I stayed completely still. Even though every muscle in my body was tense, I dared not move. They walked past the large card-board box labeled “trash” that was filled with the hus-band’s contractor belt, Timberland boots, weekend clothes, and work clothes. The top of the box had begun to collect a thin film of dust as it waited to be moved to another location.

The painters did not seem to notice the collage around them. The broken shards of glass and the pa-pers did not bother them. Instead, they just put their can of paint on the rug across from me. The man with the disturbing smile kneeled down beside the paint and reached into his pocket, grabbing that shiny black handle. I was overcome with fear once again. I knew the men saw me, even though they had yet to make eye contact with me or speak a single word to me. I knew that they were here for me. Slowly, the handle of the tool slid out from his pocket. As expected, the blade of the tool gleamed when it was exposed, for the silver metal reflected the light. I braced myself for the attack, imagining how much more pain I would have to endure.

But instead of the blade becoming narrower towards its head, the blade became wider. And instead of the blade having a serrated edge, the blade was equipped with a straight edge. The painter stabbed his putty knife into the crease of the paint can, pried open the lid, and released the metallic smell of the liquid. Fi-nally, he spoke. “It’s a shame about your husband,” he said in a low monotone voice.

“It’s a shame about your husband,” I repeated silently to myself. I did not understand. “What’s so shameful? Nothing has happened to him. Nothing could have happened to him. He may not be here now, but I know that he is coming back soon. He always comes back after his business calls.”

I took a deep breath in. The aroma of the paint had reached my nose, and it reminded me of the hus-band’s work site. My favorite part of the day used to

be bringing him a cold turkey sandwich and a Pepsi for lunch when he worked close by. When I walked into the construction site, half of the house was only framed while the other half was already sheet-rocked and receiving its first layer of paint. The smell of saw-dust mixed with paint was always present in the house. And now, with the paint drifting from the freshly opened container, I could not help but think of the husband. I stared blankly through the painter’s face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you upset,” he said. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, we are going to re-layer these walls so that they look more appealing to the potential buyers that will be walking around during the open house tomorrow. I know this is a hard time for you, ma’am, but you are going to have to move your project and your husband’s belongings out of the way so that there is room to walk around. I can help you if you’d like. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

I closed my eyes for brief moment and exhaled. I glanced at the boxes and the pictures again. For the first time, sadness, instead of hope, swept over me. Reality was kneading its way back into my life. “He is saying he’s gone. That he isn’t coming home. I can’t bring myself to believe it’s over.”

Jingyi Wu

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Molly Tankersley

Molly Tankersley Jingyi Wu

Holderness School Plymouth, NH 03264-1879

www.holderness.org

603.536.1257

mosaic: volume 10, issue 1

Documents

mosaic volume

students pieces of writing

newest issue of mosaic

mosaic tiles

western civilization

multitalented students

mosaic maze

lins ap composition