Isabel Allende. Many connotations are associated with this famous name. Some recall the name of her ancestor, Salvador Allende, and his controversial presidency in Chile. Most, however, know her as the Latin American novelist famous for her unique writing style that protests against the patriarchy that has long hindered Hispanic woman from gaining a voice, not only in their own countries, but around the world. Her 1987 novel Eva Luna serves as a semi-autobiography of the author, giving an insightful look into the woman who has revolutionized Latin American literature and feminism.
Isabel Allende was born on 2 August 1942 to Francisca Llona Barros and Tomás Allende, a Chilean diplomat and the first cousin of Salvador Allende (Erro-Peralta). At a very young age, her parents divorced, forcing Allende and her mother to live with her maternal grandparents (Ibid). Growing up in the home of her grandparents Allende benefitted from intellectual freedom as well as access to a large home library (Pinto 23). In an interview with Magdalena García Pinto, Allende revealed that her mother was the most important person in her life (Ibid). Although she passed away when Allende was quite young, her grandmother was also influential in her life; she bequeathed to her granddaughter a legacy of great storytelling (Erro-Peralta).
As a child, Allende also extensively travelled the world after her mother remarried to another diplomat (Erro Perralta). At age fifteen she returned to Chile to complete her high school education (Ibid). Then, after graduating at age sixteen, she worked for the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for the United Nations before discovering her aptitude for journalism (Ibid). While working for a television program, writing children’s stories, producing children’s plays, and editing the successful children’s magazine Mampato, Allende found time to write a column called “Impertinentes” (Impertinences) for Paula, a reformist women’s magazine (Ibid). In 1962, Allende married Miguel Frías- her childhood sweetheart (Pinto 24). They went on to have two children together.
On 11 September 1973, in a military coup d’ état, General Augusto Pinochet took over Chile and established a regime that lasted until 11 March 1990 (Dorfman 1). Days later, Pinochet ordered the Chilean Air Force to bomb La Moneda, the presidential palace where Salvador Allende resided, completing the coup with the assassination of Chile’s democratically elected president (20). The betrayal involved in this act was atrocious, as President Allende had promoted Pinochet to the position of Commander in Chief of the Army of Chile just nineteen days before on 23 August 1973 (22). During the reign of terror that seized the country, the government used the National Stadium for several months as a concentration camp in a gross transgression against human rights (1-2, 14). There, they interrogated, tortured, and killed more than two thousand Chileans, who came to be known as the desaparecidos (disappeared)—people whom they catured in brutal police raids who were in the least suspected of supporting Salvador Allende or opposing Pinochet’s regime (Ensalaco 19). In many cases, it remains unknown even today why various individuals were executed and others freed after their tortuous incarcerations (73). Frequently, the government disposed of the executed by flying over the ocean to dump the bodies in the sea, or in rivers (74). In the years that followed, unemployment rates reached almost 70 percent, in large part due to Pinochet’s habit of selling profit-producing public enterprises at substandard low prices to private buyers (Dorfman 43-44).
During an interview with Magdalena García Pinto, Allende describes her family’s struggles during the time of Pinochet’s dictatorship. “The military coup split my life in half with the blow of a hatchet,” Allende described (26). At first, the Chileans did not fully understand what was going on; neither did they entirely know what a military coup was, or what torture entailed, except in referenced to the Middle Ages or the Inquisition (26-27). Most believed that after a few days, the soldiers would return to their barracks, there would be another election, and democracy would be reinstated; but this was not to be (Allende, Mi Pais 187-88). “I’m not very brave,” Allende admitted, “and after a few months I came to believe that any direct action [against the regime] would mean an enormous risk for me and for my family” (Pinto 26-27). However, according to an article by Nora Erro-Peralta, “Confronted with the repression and violence instituted by the military dictatorship, she joined the efforts of church-sponsored groups in providing food and aid to the needy and families of victims of the regime.” Allende explained to Pinto that she and her husband picked Venezuela for their self-exile because, as a journalist, Allende needed to work in a Spanish-speaking country. Also, Venezuela was the only country under that category where they could easily obtain passports, where the economy was doing well enough that foreigners could obtain jobs, and where no fascist dictatorship dominated (Pinto 27).
When they first moved to Caracas, Venezuela, Isabel Allende suffered from the well-known problem of writer’s block, and so she decided to work for several years as a teacher and then as an administrator (Erro-Peralta). Eventually, she was hired at a leading Venezuelan newspaper, El Nacional, as a reporter and satirical writer. It was not until she heard about the imminent death of her grandfather that she wrote her first novel, which began as a letter, encouraging him to never give up hope for life, and ended as a 500 page novel entitled La casa de los espiritus (Ibid). The novel was initially banned in Chile because of Pinochet’s censorship, and so it was smuggled into the country, sometimes even in diaper bags; later, however, the regime lifted the ban and her books became bestsellers in her native country (Pinto 38-39).
Eventually, Allende and Frías divorced because he was forced to work in another part of Venezuela away from Isabel and the children, causing their marriage to disintegrate (Allende, Mi Pais 195). In 1988 she remarried to an American lawyer named William Gordon. He who is from California, where they now reside (Hunter). Eva Luna and her subsequent novels were written from the United States, but not without considerable influence from her prior residences. Well-known for her talent in interweaving fiction and reality through her writing, critics “single out [Allende] for her dedication to combating the traditionally patriarchal dominance of Latin American history and tradition by attesting to the significant role of that region’s women, and by emphasizing the importance of family relationships, storytelling, memory writing, survival, and the courage to defy and oppose gender and class divisions” (Ibid).
As Barbara Mujica so accurately stated, reading Eva Luna gives “that sensation of peeling an onion.” The episodic novel closely resembles the picaresque genre, while also serving as a bildungsroman, or coming of age novel, for the protagonist, Eva Luna (Erro-Peralta). Allende’s writing holds strong emotional appeal, using personal anecdotes to depict the societal and political concerns of Chile as well as other similar countries (Perricone 83). Although her narrative “embodies, contradicts, or transcends the patriarchal system through the characterization of Spanish American men,” she also uses highly romantic male and female relationships in her stories (83-84).
Eva Luna is set in Venezuela, the place of Allende’s exile from Chile, and in many ways serves as a tribute to her place of asylum from Pinochet’s regime (Ruta). Furthermore, “Eva Luna is Allende’s allegorical representation of her acceptance of the condition of her exile and of her profession as a writer of fiction” (Ramblado-Minero 54). Through the novel, she metaphorically analyzes the advances she made as a Latin American female author (64). She even admitted in an interview that it was only through writing the novel that she finally began to accept herself for who she is as a woman (Rodden 79). In an interview with Farhat Iftekharrudin, Allende stated, “I think that in a weird way, Eva Luna is me or I am Eva Luna. She is a storyteller, and she creates herself.” Nora Erro-Peralta explains that Eva Luna “learns the power of words and how to spin tales that first serve as an escape from a life of abject poverty and eventually pave the road to love, fame, and fortune.”
Eva Luna is conceived when, as a treatment, her mother Consuelo, a housekeeper for the elusive embalmer Professor Jones, sleeps with an elderly Indian gardener who is suffering from a snakebite (Hart 164). Making love to the Indian was Consuelo’s first act performed of her own initiative and against the patriarchal society in which she lived (Davies &Jones 70). By naming her daughter Eva without having her take the Indian’s last name, Consuelo ignores the traditional patriarchal code of assuming the father’s surname. When people protest her decision, she allows Eva to take on the name of her father’s tribe (Luna) as her last name (Diamond-Nigh 137-138). Through Eva Luna, Allende depicts aspects of her own childhood growing up with an absent father. “You will never find a loving father in my books,” Allende once stated (Foster 80). Women in her books are strong and know what they want from the beginning, without the help of men (Ibid).
Consuelo dies when Eva Luna is still young, but not before she passes on her legacy of storytelling and fantasy in much the same way as Allende’s grandmother. To explain her love for the sea, Consuelo invented a story that she was the daughter of a Dutch sailor when, in reality, missionaries found her on the floor of a forest and brought her to live in a convent (Lang 116). According to Susan de Carvalho, “Eva Luna learns from her mother to fantacize, to use her own private world as an escape, a space in which she has the power to create and control her own reality” (77). Similarly, according to Linda Gould Levine in her article Weaving Life into Fiction, “[Allende’s] unbridled imagination and sense of dramatic exaggeration continually refashion real-life experiences and events, even her own, perhaps because like her character, Eva Luna, she tries to live her life as she ‘would like it be, as in a novel’” (2).
After the death of her mother, Eva is left in the charge of the household cook until the death of their benefactor, Professor Jones, forces them to find another home. Eva finds employment at age seven with an old maid and a bachelor who are brother and sister; one day, however, finally weary of the woman’s constant nagging and the man’s sexual advances, Eva flees the home under the pretense of shopping at the market. Now homeless and on the streets, Eva meets a boy named Huberto Naranjo, who teaches her the art of pick-pocketing as well as other means of survival. Eventually, Eva decides to return to her previous employers because of the assurance of food and shelter that she has there. This time, she charms the cook, Elvira, with her story-telling abilities, becoming like her granddaughter. Later, Eva is fired, and moves around for a time, working a variety of jobs. In a particularly interesting episode, she works for a minister who, each night in his bedroom, relieves himself in a felt-covered chair with a chamber pot in the seat. Her job is to clean up his mess each morning. Ultimately fed up with his laziness and the stench of her duty, one morning Eva dumps the contents of the chamber-pot over the man’s head before fleeing the house forever.
At the end of her resources, she searches the city for her old friend who helped her in her time of distress several years earlier—Huberto Naranjo. He takes her to the proprietor of a brothel, la Señora, telling her that Eva is his sister and an excellent storyteller who should be used only for this purpose. There, Eva meets a transvestite named Melecio, and they become close friends. During her stay at the brothel, Eva begins her education. When police shut-down the brothel, Eva is forced onto the streets once more. A Turkish merchant then takes her to his home in the jungle to care for his sickly wife, where he sexually abuses Eva and then later accuses her of murder when his wife commits suicide. After staying in jail until she is proven innocent, Eva once again meets Melecio, who has undergone extensive surgery to be converted into a woman, and who is now called Mimi. Eva continues her education while simultaneously working in a factory. Her renewed friendship with the now guerrilla commander, Huberto Naranjo, sparks into romance for a while until he tells her that he is fighting a “man’s war” in which she cannot participate.
After rejecting sexual advances from another factory worker, Eva leaves and begins a new job script- writing for television soap operas. When Huberto Naranjo and other guerrilla soldiers are imprisoned, Eva aids them in their escape, and then carefully weaves her experiences into her television scripts. She soon meets a German photo-journalist named Rolf Carlé (whose story has been told in third person intermittently throughout Eva Luna’s first person narrative) who has fled his country to escape the shame he feels because of his father’s participation in the Nazi atrocities of World War II. A romance ignites between the two that takes reader through the remaining episodes of the novel.
Eva Luna and Isabel Allende are comparable on many levels. First of all, they both tell stories to survive. Similarly to Eva, when her daughter Paula contracted an fatal disease, Allende told stories in the hospital in exchange for food (Ramblado-Minero 66). Next, Allende’s exile from Chile to Venezuela is comparable to the episode in which, after finally finding a home of equality and acceptance, Eva is forced to leave the brothel ad her friends there and live in the jungle. The police who raid the brothel represent the Armed Forces of Chile who took over Chile as part of Pinochet’s regime took (67).
Later, Eva is unable to voice her support of Huberto Narjanjo and the guerrilla forces because of the repression of free speech; however, she uses her storytelling capabilities to write her opinions into her scripts in such a way that she cannot be indicted. Similarly, although in large part because Isabel Allende was related to the assassinated President Salvador Allende but also because of Pinochet’s regime, she was unable to voice her sympathies through journalism without jeopardizing her safety. It was not until she began writing novels that she truly began to speak out against the atrocities in Pinochet’s regime. Allende displays the impact her exile to Venezuela had on her life through her novel, as Eva Luna is constantly seeking a home and a job in which she can freely develop her own personal identity as a Latin American woman and storyteller. Eva Luna writes similarly to Allende, too. As María de la Cinta Ramblado-Minero writes, “For Eva, the first writing experience is an exercise of memory, in which she recollects her mother’s legacy and her own experiences in order to manipulate them according to her own will” (70). Likewise, in an interview, Allende stated that “A novel is made up partly of truth and partly of fantasy. The author uses something of experience and knowledge and something of his or her own angels and demons to create a personal vision of life…Daily life is brimful of fantasy and at the same time books are saturated with reality” (Agosin 48). Allende’s writing is a remembrance of her past, but with a spin— she rewrites the history of her novels to contradict the standard patriarchy through strong protagonists like Eva Luna.
In Eva Luna, after receiving an education, the protagonist is opened up to many opportunities that did not previously exist. The same is true of Allende and other Latin American women. Studies show that, in Latin American coutries, education and socioeconomic status directly correlate in Latin American countries to political involvement among women (Aviel 157). Furthermore, most Latin America women work until they are married, and afterwards only ten percent continue their jobs, which amounts to a thirteen percent total of active women in the Latin American workforce as a whole (158). The majority of Latin American countries did not grant women suffrage until after World War II; but even though they now have the right to vote, most women do not participate in elections unless education opens their eyes to civic duty (158). Even then, Chilean women vote separately from men, who frequently influence the way in which they vote (159). Additionally, because their patriarchal society considers motherhood to be the sole responsibility of the females, “the most important problem for [Chilean] women was their economic situation and the second most important problem was marriage” (160). Without this basic understanding of the role of the family in the lives of Latin American women, it is impossible to understand the struggles they have overcome to gain a voice. In 1968, official surveys revealed that more than 84 percent of Chilean women did not participate in organizations, such as the one Isabel Allende’s aided during the early months of Pinochet’s rule (161). Allende worked to make changes in the patriarchy and to create awareness of the plight of marginalized Latin American women, but she did so alone, without joining a larger radical organization.
In conclusion, through her novels Isabel Allende not only reveals many aspects of her personal life and the difficult events of her past, but she also works against the traditional Latin American patriarchal codes to pave new for Latin American women. However, it seems that her ultimate goal in writing is equality without marginalization in “a more just and free society”, as she explains that feminism is not a war against men, but a joint effort of the genders to create such a world (Pinto, “Chile’s” 73). As María de la Cinta Ramblado-Minero writes, “In Eva Luna, the social worries of the author are represented in the main character, a servant’s illegitimate child who will prosper in life through her own work, but with her social origin ever present” (145). Allende, likewise, is constantly dogged by critics who distrust the work of Latin American women, but she continues to write her stories, winning over thousands of readers of multiple tongues.
Works Cited
Agosin, Marjorie. "Pirate, Conjurer, Feminist." Trans. Cola Franzen. Conversations with Isabel Allende. Ed. John Rodden. Austin: University of Texas, 2004. 44-52. Print.
Allende, Isabel. Eva Luna. New York: Harper Collins, 1987. Print.
--- Mi Pais Inventado. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print.
Aviel, JoAnn F. "Political Participation of Women in Latin America." The Western Political Quarterly 34.1 (1981): 156-73. Print.
Carbalho, Susan De. "Escrituras y Escritores: The Artist-Protagonist of Isabel Allende." Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Isabel Allende. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. 75-82. Print.
Diamond-Nigh, Lynne. "Eva Luna: Writing as History." Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Isabel Allende. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. 133-44. Print.
Dorfman, Ariel. Exorcising Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet. New York: Seven Stories, 2002. Print.
Ensalaco, Mark. Chile Bajo Pinochet: La Recuperacion de la Verdad. Madrid: University of Pennslyvania, 2000. Print.
Erro-Peralta, Nora. "Isabel Allende." Ed. William Luis and Ann Gonzalez. Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers 2nd ser. 145 (1994). Print.
Foster, Douglas. "Isabel Allende Unveiled." Conversations with Isabel Allende. Ed. John Rodden. Austin: University of Texas, 2004. 77-85. Print.
Hart, Patricia. Narrative Magic in the Fiction of Isabel Allende. Cranbury, NJ: Associated UPes, 1989. Print.
Hunter, Jeffrey W., ed. "Isabel Allende." Contemporary Literary Criticism 264 (2009). Print.
Iftekharuddin, Farhat. "An Interview with Isabel Allende." Ed. Janet Witalec. Short Story Criticism 65 (1997): 3-14. Print.
Jones, Anny B., and Catherine Davies. Latin American Women's Writing: Feminist Readings in Theory and Crisis. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print.
Lang, Peter. Critical Approaches to Isabel Allende's Novels. Ed. Sonia R. Rojas and Edna A. Rehbein. Vol. 14. New York: Peter Lang & American University Studies, 1991. Print. XXII.
Levine, Linda G. "Weaving Life into Fiction." Isabel Allende Today. Ed. Rosemary G. Feal and Yvette E. Miller. Pittsburg: Latin American Literary Review, 2002. 1-28. Print.
Mujica, Barbara. "The Life Force of Language." Contemporary Literary Criticism Select 47.6 (1995): 36-43. Print.
Perricone, Catherine R. "Allende and Valenzuela: Dissecting the Patriarchy." South Atlantic Review Spanish American Fiction in the 1990s 67.4 (2002): 80-105. Print.
Pinto, Magdalena G. "Chile's Troubadour." Conversations with Isabel Allende. Ed. John Rodden. Austin: University of Texas, 2004. 53-76. Print.
--- Women Writers of Latin America: Intimate Histories. Trans. Trudy Balch and Magdalena G. Pinto. Austin: University of Texas, 1991. Print.
Ramblado-Minero, María de la Cinta. Isabel Allende's Writing of the Self: Trespassing the Boundaries of Fiction and Autobiography. Vol. 77. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2003. Print.
Ruta, Suzanne. "Lovers and Storytellers." Ed. Janet Witalec. Short Story Criticism 65
(2004): 10. Print.
Friday, April 30, 2010
My Paso Fino (A Memoir)
Clicking with my tongue and raising the whip ever so slightly with my right hand, I sent Rio to the left around the red metal ring. His feet seemed to never touch the ground as he moved from the paso fino walk to the intricate paso corto gait of his breed. With its icy blasts, the wind whispering through the trees lifted his silky mane that never tangles, giving him a wild and untamed looked. Glancing at the skies, I wondered if it would snow, covering the ground with powder the color of Rio’s coat. I shivered in apprehension, and turned my full attention to the task at hand.
After a few turns around the edge of the ring, I moved the whip to my left hand to see how well Rio was paying attention to me. Snorting at the loud sound of the dual-mufflers of the early 90’s Pontiac Grand Am that sped by on the country road bordering the field, Rio ignored my subtle command to change directions. Okay. The time had come to pay attention, to get down to business. It was time to whip Rio into shape. Establish control. Demand respect. Show the beautiful but young and green-broke Paso Fino who was boss and bridge the gap that hindered him from being a good partner.
Pushing him to his fast, four-beat gait, the paso largo, my vision narrowed, focusing in on the muscle tone that covered his shoulders and hind quarters, which carried him careening around the ring almost as quickly as the Grand Am that had sped by moments earlier. Within seconds, all I could see were flaring nostrils, gliding muscles, and glossy mane and tail floating through the still, cold air. Sweat glistened on the sleek white coat that sported tiny flecks of barely perceptible brown interspersed at regular intervals throughout the graceful hide of my Paso Fino, Rio. Colors whirred by and blended into one at the edges of his white coat as we turned about the ring, around and around and around. I was at the center, barely moving in a circle as he floated rapidly around me, yet he was the focal point, the true the center, the object of all my attentions and the concentration of all my senses. The effect was almost dizzying as the horse and I became like one.
Rio tested the limits by periodically trying to come into the center of the ring to stop and change directions before I gave the command, but I scolded Rio and moved my body according to the language of his species, the nonverbal language he knows, to send him loping on as I instructed. Despite the tunnel vision and incredible focus I had on him, my thoughts drifted to memories of the times I’d almost hated this infernal horse, and I wondered how we were now so much alike, so one, in complete and perfect understanding of one another. I remembered the time he’d knocked me flat on the ground in an attempt to steal the bucket of food from my hands before I was ready to give it to him. Oh, I had been furious, ready to sell the little fiend and have him off my hands!
Growing up with horses, I had always been unquestioningly in control and never afraid of these large beasts that weighed endless hundreds of pounds more than I. At that moment though, when the fierce and hungry aggression of my little but feisty Paso Fino took me off my feet, I felt a moment of fear. It angered me because I had never been one to feel fear. Today I would win back my confidence, gain my control, and demand the respect of this spirited gelding.
Duh-duh-dah-dum, duh-duh-dah-dum, duh-duh-dah-dum… as I heard the rapid, four-beat cadence of Rio’s hooves on the ground, I couldn’t wait for the moment when I could feel that smooth and even rhythm beneath my knees, and I relished the thought of how wonderful that wild and untamed speed would be when it was a controlled power under my direction. This time, as I switched the whip to my left hand, Rio immediately whirled around, changing directions to canter to the right around the ring as naturally if there were a fork in the river that he was navigating. We were getting there. He was listening. He was paying attention to my every move. He was giving me the respect I demanded.
I recalled the anger I felt towards him not many weeks before when he had been so defiant and difficult to saddle and bridle, and nearly impossible to ride. I felt a twinge of remorse as I remembered how infuriated I had become with the beast, only to later find out that he had been bitten on the underside of his jaw by the baby Copperhead snake I had killed right outside of his stall not long after. I had completely mistaken his behavior as defiance and rude impulse, when, in reality, he was hurting and didn’t understand what had happened to him or how to convey his pain to me.
It wasn’t like that now. Now we understood each other perfectly. I breathed to the tempo of his flaring nostrils. My heart beat to the wild yet peaceful sound of his hooves moving in their unique way around the ring. We were one now. As I dropped my whip, stopped moving, and yelled “Whoa! Whoa there Rio!” The graceful horse stopped immediately, lowering his head in a sign of submission and obedience as he walked to stand behind me in the ring. As I walked in tight circles or drunkard-like zig-zags around the pen, Rio followed me and emulated my every turn. This was it. This was what it was all about. I demanded respect, and now he gave it in full. I knew that with a flick of my whip and the click of my tongue he would go instantly careening around the ring again as I instructed. He would remain at whatever speed I commanded without stopping until I said so- even if it were for days on end, not because of fear or out of drudgery, but because he understood me and no longer needed to assert himself.
As I mounted onto his bare back, it felt as if the horse and I were molded into one creature, never to be separated again. Leaning down to open the gate, I directed him through it with my knees. Then, away we galloped into the fields that surrounded the barn, moving rapidly towards the horizon. The sun was setting in a vibrant array of colors that made the wintry clouds look like cotton balls dipped in paint. My hair whipped in the wind in just the way I had watched Rio’s mane earlier. When finally I slowed him down and we halted near the pond to look at the gentle ripples from the wind and the reflection of the sunset in the water, I was breathless with the exhilaration of the oneness and control that two wild and untamed sprits could experience through simple understanding. We meandered back to the barn, and when I slid gently off his back to the ground, Rio lowered his head for me to rub his face in encouragement. I knew at that moment that I had a companion and a confidante that would remain loyal to me until the day he dies. No more anger, frustration and misunderstanding. Now I knew his language and he knew mine. Now we understood each other utterly and completely. He knew what I expected and wanted to give that in return. Now he would listen to me, and I, in turn, would tune in to his wave link. I had a friend for life.
After a few turns around the edge of the ring, I moved the whip to my left hand to see how well Rio was paying attention to me. Snorting at the loud sound of the dual-mufflers of the early 90’s Pontiac Grand Am that sped by on the country road bordering the field, Rio ignored my subtle command to change directions. Okay. The time had come to pay attention, to get down to business. It was time to whip Rio into shape. Establish control. Demand respect. Show the beautiful but young and green-broke Paso Fino who was boss and bridge the gap that hindered him from being a good partner.
Pushing him to his fast, four-beat gait, the paso largo, my vision narrowed, focusing in on the muscle tone that covered his shoulders and hind quarters, which carried him careening around the ring almost as quickly as the Grand Am that had sped by moments earlier. Within seconds, all I could see were flaring nostrils, gliding muscles, and glossy mane and tail floating through the still, cold air. Sweat glistened on the sleek white coat that sported tiny flecks of barely perceptible brown interspersed at regular intervals throughout the graceful hide of my Paso Fino, Rio. Colors whirred by and blended into one at the edges of his white coat as we turned about the ring, around and around and around. I was at the center, barely moving in a circle as he floated rapidly around me, yet he was the focal point, the true the center, the object of all my attentions and the concentration of all my senses. The effect was almost dizzying as the horse and I became like one.
Rio tested the limits by periodically trying to come into the center of the ring to stop and change directions before I gave the command, but I scolded Rio and moved my body according to the language of his species, the nonverbal language he knows, to send him loping on as I instructed. Despite the tunnel vision and incredible focus I had on him, my thoughts drifted to memories of the times I’d almost hated this infernal horse, and I wondered how we were now so much alike, so one, in complete and perfect understanding of one another. I remembered the time he’d knocked me flat on the ground in an attempt to steal the bucket of food from my hands before I was ready to give it to him. Oh, I had been furious, ready to sell the little fiend and have him off my hands!
Growing up with horses, I had always been unquestioningly in control and never afraid of these large beasts that weighed endless hundreds of pounds more than I. At that moment though, when the fierce and hungry aggression of my little but feisty Paso Fino took me off my feet, I felt a moment of fear. It angered me because I had never been one to feel fear. Today I would win back my confidence, gain my control, and demand the respect of this spirited gelding.
Duh-duh-dah-dum, duh-duh-dah-dum, duh-duh-dah-dum… as I heard the rapid, four-beat cadence of Rio’s hooves on the ground, I couldn’t wait for the moment when I could feel that smooth and even rhythm beneath my knees, and I relished the thought of how wonderful that wild and untamed speed would be when it was a controlled power under my direction. This time, as I switched the whip to my left hand, Rio immediately whirled around, changing directions to canter to the right around the ring as naturally if there were a fork in the river that he was navigating. We were getting there. He was listening. He was paying attention to my every move. He was giving me the respect I demanded.
I recalled the anger I felt towards him not many weeks before when he had been so defiant and difficult to saddle and bridle, and nearly impossible to ride. I felt a twinge of remorse as I remembered how infuriated I had become with the beast, only to later find out that he had been bitten on the underside of his jaw by the baby Copperhead snake I had killed right outside of his stall not long after. I had completely mistaken his behavior as defiance and rude impulse, when, in reality, he was hurting and didn’t understand what had happened to him or how to convey his pain to me.
It wasn’t like that now. Now we understood each other perfectly. I breathed to the tempo of his flaring nostrils. My heart beat to the wild yet peaceful sound of his hooves moving in their unique way around the ring. We were one now. As I dropped my whip, stopped moving, and yelled “Whoa! Whoa there Rio!” The graceful horse stopped immediately, lowering his head in a sign of submission and obedience as he walked to stand behind me in the ring. As I walked in tight circles or drunkard-like zig-zags around the pen, Rio followed me and emulated my every turn. This was it. This was what it was all about. I demanded respect, and now he gave it in full. I knew that with a flick of my whip and the click of my tongue he would go instantly careening around the ring again as I instructed. He would remain at whatever speed I commanded without stopping until I said so- even if it were for days on end, not because of fear or out of drudgery, but because he understood me and no longer needed to assert himself.
As I mounted onto his bare back, it felt as if the horse and I were molded into one creature, never to be separated again. Leaning down to open the gate, I directed him through it with my knees. Then, away we galloped into the fields that surrounded the barn, moving rapidly towards the horizon. The sun was setting in a vibrant array of colors that made the wintry clouds look like cotton balls dipped in paint. My hair whipped in the wind in just the way I had watched Rio’s mane earlier. When finally I slowed him down and we halted near the pond to look at the gentle ripples from the wind and the reflection of the sunset in the water, I was breathless with the exhilaration of the oneness and control that two wild and untamed sprits could experience through simple understanding. We meandered back to the barn, and when I slid gently off his back to the ground, Rio lowered his head for me to rub his face in encouragement. I knew at that moment that I had a companion and a confidante that would remain loyal to me until the day he dies. No more anger, frustration and misunderstanding. Now I knew his language and he knew mine. Now we understood each other utterly and completely. He knew what I expected and wanted to give that in return. Now he would listen to me, and I, in turn, would tune in to his wave link. I had a friend for life.
St. John's
“Guys, pack your bags because next week we’re going on an overdue family vacation to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands!” my dad announced after a lengthy discussion with my mom about whether or not the four of us kids could miss a week of classes. . Just two weeks before on November 2, 2004, my dad, Justice Paul Martin Newby, was elected to an eight-year term on the North Carolina Supreme Court after a long and arduous campaign against seven other candidates. Now, finally, our family was getting away from the hustle and bustle of political life to enjoy a week of relaxation and family time on a tropical island.
After a long flight with a layover in Miami, my family landed in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands ready for a weeklong vacation with our close family friends the Wilsons. The sun began to set as we rode the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John. The Wilsons, who had arrived a couple days earlier, met us at the ferry-stop with our rental car for the week, which was also the standard island taxi— a small white Ford pick-up with benches in the back and a blue canopy-cover to protect passengers in case of rain. All ten of us piled on and headed to the villa that we rented for the week. The neighborhood was full of beautiful villas of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and the streets were lined with rhododendrons and other tropical flowers in full bloom.
Inside, much to the relief of everyone’s on-edge emotions, the villa was beyond spacious. In addition to the large community area, kitchen, and dining room upstairs, there were three large bedrooms—one for each set of parents and another for the three boys to share. “You girls get a room all to yourselves downstairs!” Dr. Wilson announced as he led his daughter Stacey, my sister Sarah, and me out the back door and down a set of stone stairs to the heated pool. A set of double glass doors on the other side of the pool and surrounding patio opened into our room. It was huge—nearly the size of the community area in the floor above it. The two queen-sized beds were neatly made, and the curtains drawn back from the sliding glass doors that enclosed three sides of the bedroom. As the last rays of sun slowly faded from the horizon, everyone convened on the upstairs back porch that overlooked a magnificent bay to plan our week’s activities after moving our things in.
For the rest of the week, we spent our days in the sunshine and water, enjoying the sights and the aquatic activities. “Don’t you want to put on some higher SPF sunscreen?” my mom asked me everyday. “No thanks,” I always replied as I slathered on dark tanning oil, determined to return to my high school for that last week of November with a tan as dark as I usually had in the summer.
Although I was too young to fully appreciate all that surrounded me during our vacation, two elements of the island culture have stuck in my mind to this day. First, the kitchen of our villa was stocked with all varieties of complementary rums, liquors, and beers. It looked like the whole alcoholic beverages aisle from Kroger along with parts of the liquor store had been misplaced in our cupboard. Apparently this was commonplace hospitality on the island. My parents, the upstanding Southern Baptists that they are, do not drink. One night, they called us children into the kitchen where they proceeded to open a particularly potent bottle of rum and require us each to taste it. They presumed that when you are fourteen, sixteen, twelve and eight, and rum alone is your first drink you are going to hate it. “See, it doesn’t even taste good at all!” I remember my mom emphasizing. “Now when people offer you alcohol you can say you’ve tried it and therefore have plausible deniability that you do not like it,” my dad chimed in his most judicial sounding voice. It seemed like they went on for an hour talking about the evils of such drinks.
In addition to the drinking culture, were the hand-crocheted tams that all of the island men wore over their long dreadlocks. They even made imitation headpieces with fake dreadlocks attached to the tams. My dad bought one as a joke. It was striped red, yellow, black, and green. Although many of the islanders could have passes for Bob Marley, even with the tam-wig apparatus, my balding father had no chance at such a disguise.
The salt water was clear as glass and warm enough to snorkel as long as you kept moving. Coral reefs dyed the ocean floor in many areas a vibrant crimson and provided excellent hiding spots for a wide variety of sea life. In the shallower areas were all sorts of Angelfish and other smaller, bright-colored and uniquely shaped fish. Although we had several underwater cameras, they could not capture the beauty of the place. One afternoon, my dad, brothers and I swam out quite far into one bay. All of a sudden, my dad grabbed my arm and silently pointed off to the right. Not far off was a school of nearly twenty squid. Their translucent bodies left inky-smudges in the glassy water as their slender tentacles propelled them along to a nearby outcropping of coral.
The next day, we drove for nearly an hour to the other side of the island to another bay that a native had recommended to us for snorkeling. It had stormed the night before, and so the surf was up, the wind was blowing, and the waves were crashing. It was difficult to get past the breakers, but after fighting our way out, we realized that the bottom dropped of sharply. With a few kicks of our flippered feet we were in water twenty to fifty feet deep depending on the exact location where you were. It was incredible. My siblings and I learned to swim practically as soon as we could walk so the depth was not frightening; however, when some fish that seemed larger than we were swam past several feet below us, my heart raced a bit. Several stingrays glided past, fascinating me to no end with their wingspans that seemed larger than my own. That was before Steve Urwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed when one of their barbs pierced his heart. Because of the cool wind blowing off the ocean and the cooler temperatures of the deeper what that the sun had not yet fully warned, I became chilled and decided to swim to shore, a decision I later very much regretted. My dad and brothers stayed out for at least an hour more and were able to see two sea turtles and a nurse shark with her offspring.
Sadly, at the end of the week, we were forced to pack our bags, say goodbye to our lovely villa, and return home. We almost missed the ferry back to St. Thomas to catch the plane home. I kept my fingers crossed as we sped to the ferry landing, much to my parents chagrin. I never have understood why they were in such a hurry to return to the harsh world of reality of political life.
After a long flight with a layover in Miami, my family landed in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands ready for a weeklong vacation with our close family friends the Wilsons. The sun began to set as we rode the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John. The Wilsons, who had arrived a couple days earlier, met us at the ferry-stop with our rental car for the week, which was also the standard island taxi— a small white Ford pick-up with benches in the back and a blue canopy-cover to protect passengers in case of rain. All ten of us piled on and headed to the villa that we rented for the week. The neighborhood was full of beautiful villas of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and the streets were lined with rhododendrons and other tropical flowers in full bloom.
Inside, much to the relief of everyone’s on-edge emotions, the villa was beyond spacious. In addition to the large community area, kitchen, and dining room upstairs, there were three large bedrooms—one for each set of parents and another for the three boys to share. “You girls get a room all to yourselves downstairs!” Dr. Wilson announced as he led his daughter Stacey, my sister Sarah, and me out the back door and down a set of stone stairs to the heated pool. A set of double glass doors on the other side of the pool and surrounding patio opened into our room. It was huge—nearly the size of the community area in the floor above it. The two queen-sized beds were neatly made, and the curtains drawn back from the sliding glass doors that enclosed three sides of the bedroom. As the last rays of sun slowly faded from the horizon, everyone convened on the upstairs back porch that overlooked a magnificent bay to plan our week’s activities after moving our things in.
For the rest of the week, we spent our days in the sunshine and water, enjoying the sights and the aquatic activities. “Don’t you want to put on some higher SPF sunscreen?” my mom asked me everyday. “No thanks,” I always replied as I slathered on dark tanning oil, determined to return to my high school for that last week of November with a tan as dark as I usually had in the summer.
Although I was too young to fully appreciate all that surrounded me during our vacation, two elements of the island culture have stuck in my mind to this day. First, the kitchen of our villa was stocked with all varieties of complementary rums, liquors, and beers. It looked like the whole alcoholic beverages aisle from Kroger along with parts of the liquor store had been misplaced in our cupboard. Apparently this was commonplace hospitality on the island. My parents, the upstanding Southern Baptists that they are, do not drink. One night, they called us children into the kitchen where they proceeded to open a particularly potent bottle of rum and require us each to taste it. They presumed that when you are fourteen, sixteen, twelve and eight, and rum alone is your first drink you are going to hate it. “See, it doesn’t even taste good at all!” I remember my mom emphasizing. “Now when people offer you alcohol you can say you’ve tried it and therefore have plausible deniability that you do not like it,” my dad chimed in his most judicial sounding voice. It seemed like they went on for an hour talking about the evils of such drinks.
In addition to the drinking culture, were the hand-crocheted tams that all of the island men wore over their long dreadlocks. They even made imitation headpieces with fake dreadlocks attached to the tams. My dad bought one as a joke. It was striped red, yellow, black, and green. Although many of the islanders could have passes for Bob Marley, even with the tam-wig apparatus, my balding father had no chance at such a disguise.
The salt water was clear as glass and warm enough to snorkel as long as you kept moving. Coral reefs dyed the ocean floor in many areas a vibrant crimson and provided excellent hiding spots for a wide variety of sea life. In the shallower areas were all sorts of Angelfish and other smaller, bright-colored and uniquely shaped fish. Although we had several underwater cameras, they could not capture the beauty of the place. One afternoon, my dad, brothers and I swam out quite far into one bay. All of a sudden, my dad grabbed my arm and silently pointed off to the right. Not far off was a school of nearly twenty squid. Their translucent bodies left inky-smudges in the glassy water as their slender tentacles propelled them along to a nearby outcropping of coral.
The next day, we drove for nearly an hour to the other side of the island to another bay that a native had recommended to us for snorkeling. It had stormed the night before, and so the surf was up, the wind was blowing, and the waves were crashing. It was difficult to get past the breakers, but after fighting our way out, we realized that the bottom dropped of sharply. With a few kicks of our flippered feet we were in water twenty to fifty feet deep depending on the exact location where you were. It was incredible. My siblings and I learned to swim practically as soon as we could walk so the depth was not frightening; however, when some fish that seemed larger than we were swam past several feet below us, my heart raced a bit. Several stingrays glided past, fascinating me to no end with their wingspans that seemed larger than my own. That was before Steve Urwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed when one of their barbs pierced his heart. Because of the cool wind blowing off the ocean and the cooler temperatures of the deeper what that the sun had not yet fully warned, I became chilled and decided to swim to shore, a decision I later very much regretted. My dad and brothers stayed out for at least an hour more and were able to see two sea turtles and a nurse shark with her offspring.
Sadly, at the end of the week, we were forced to pack our bags, say goodbye to our lovely villa, and return home. We almost missed the ferry back to St. Thomas to catch the plane home. I kept my fingers crossed as we sped to the ferry landing, much to my parents chagrin. I never have understood why they were in such a hurry to return to the harsh world of reality of political life.
A Child Placed
From the moment your coming was announced, you only knew love. You were only with us for a brief three days, but you will be in my heart for the rest of my life. You were surrounded by enough love to fill a lifetime. My arms are empty but my heart is full. Adoption means in the Bible “a child placed.” Truly God lead me in the selection of your adoptive parents. I want you to know that I love you, you touched my life and I will never be the same. I do not understand, but I trust.
I just found out that I’m pregnant and I have no idea what to do or think. The baby is due in January 1990, the 13th to be exact. I still have another three semesters at the University of West Virginia before I can graduate. What am I going to do? What will my parents, Ray and Jackie, say?
You are loved by your birth mother and your grandparents. I thank the Lord for my parents. My mom and I have gotten very close through this and I’m thankful for that. Many girls in my situation don’t have parental support, and so I’m thankful for my loving, giving parents.
What will Dennis think? Will he want anything to do with the child I carry inside of me? Will he want to marry me? Would I even consider marrying him? What if he wants me to abort? Should I raise my tiny, beautiful baby girl or give her up? How is this going to affect the remainder of all of our lives?
For some reason God wanted you to be formed with the genes from Dennis and I. God is the Father and He will be your Father. I know this is His will. He is the Creator, the Father, and He allowed you to be created, and I believe that He will be your Father and that He will watch over you just as He has watched over me and kept me strong.
Well, he decided he wanted nothing to do with the baby or me once he found out. I just don’t get it. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’ve decided to give you up for adoption through Bethany Christian Services. Three days after your birth, they will place you in a foster home until Dennis agrees to sign the papers allowing your adoption into a wonderful family that I have lovingly picked out from among Bethany’s registry.
Dennis signed the papers on February 26th. I’m so thankful that Dennis cooperated so willingly. I just cannot understand his disinterest in knowing about you, what you look like, etc. His own flesh and blood, his first child, and he has no idea what a beautiful little girl you are. I suppose that disassociating himself from you and me is his way of dealing with it—pretending that you don’t exist and that I don’t either.
The adoption is to be closed. For my baby’s first year I will receive monthly photos and notes from her adoptive mother via Bethany Christian Services. After that, I won’t hear anything until she turns eighteen—and even that is indefinite. I am writing her a letter that Bethany will mail her on her eighteenth birthday. I will explain why I gave her up, tell her how much I love her, and let her know how to get in touch with me if ever she feels she wants to.
It doesn’t seem fair at times that I won’t know anything for 18 years. But, would it be fair to you to grow up in a single parent home? No. It is so hard to remind myself to be selfless not selfish! God led me to place you with your family. The decision to give you to your parents and brother was a very difficult and painful decision to make. It was a decision made only after many hours of prayer, counsel, and long thought. You are not a child “left on a doorstep” by any means. The decision to give you up for adoption was not a financial decision, rather, it was a decision made out of love for you and based on God’s will. I had to give you the best chance I could possibly give you in this life and that chance involved being reared by two loving parents, not just one. I do not understand, but I trust that God has a special plan for you. You are in my thoughts and prayers daily, not only for your welfare, but also I pray that one day we will be reunited. Until that reunion, however, I commit you to God’s care, for He can care for you as no one else can.
I just found out that I’m pregnant and I have no idea what to do or think. The baby is due in January 1990, the 13th to be exact. I still have another three semesters at the University of West Virginia before I can graduate. What am I going to do? What will my parents, Ray and Jackie, say?
You are loved by your birth mother and your grandparents. I thank the Lord for my parents. My mom and I have gotten very close through this and I’m thankful for that. Many girls in my situation don’t have parental support, and so I’m thankful for my loving, giving parents.
What will Dennis think? Will he want anything to do with the child I carry inside of me? Will he want to marry me? Would I even consider marrying him? What if he wants me to abort? Should I raise my tiny, beautiful baby girl or give her up? How is this going to affect the remainder of all of our lives?
For some reason God wanted you to be formed with the genes from Dennis and I. God is the Father and He will be your Father. I know this is His will. He is the Creator, the Father, and He allowed you to be created, and I believe that He will be your Father and that He will watch over you just as He has watched over me and kept me strong.
Well, he decided he wanted nothing to do with the baby or me once he found out. I just don’t get it. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’ve decided to give you up for adoption through Bethany Christian Services. Three days after your birth, they will place you in a foster home until Dennis agrees to sign the papers allowing your adoption into a wonderful family that I have lovingly picked out from among Bethany’s registry.
Dennis signed the papers on February 26th. I’m so thankful that Dennis cooperated so willingly. I just cannot understand his disinterest in knowing about you, what you look like, etc. His own flesh and blood, his first child, and he has no idea what a beautiful little girl you are. I suppose that disassociating himself from you and me is his way of dealing with it—pretending that you don’t exist and that I don’t either.
The adoption is to be closed. For my baby’s first year I will receive monthly photos and notes from her adoptive mother via Bethany Christian Services. After that, I won’t hear anything until she turns eighteen—and even that is indefinite. I am writing her a letter that Bethany will mail her on her eighteenth birthday. I will explain why I gave her up, tell her how much I love her, and let her know how to get in touch with me if ever she feels she wants to.
It doesn’t seem fair at times that I won’t know anything for 18 years. But, would it be fair to you to grow up in a single parent home? No. It is so hard to remind myself to be selfless not selfish! God led me to place you with your family. The decision to give you to your parents and brother was a very difficult and painful decision to make. It was a decision made only after many hours of prayer, counsel, and long thought. You are not a child “left on a doorstep” by any means. The decision to give you up for adoption was not a financial decision, rather, it was a decision made out of love for you and based on God’s will. I had to give you the best chance I could possibly give you in this life and that chance involved being reared by two loving parents, not just one. I do not understand, but I trust that God has a special plan for you. You are in my thoughts and prayers daily, not only for your welfare, but also I pray that one day we will be reunited. Until that reunion, however, I commit you to God’s care, for He can care for you as no one else can.
From the Niger to the Mississippi (A Profile)
Because he is so well-known among Union students and he speaks near perfect English, you might not realize that Hananiah “Hani” Nyabam is a native of Nigeria rather than the USA. Having received a good education in Nigeria, Hani was accepted into several colleges throughout the United States, but Hani moved to the United States in August of 2005 to attend Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia on a soccer scholarship. Since then, he has remained in the USA, fearful that, if he returns to Nigeria, he may not be permitted to return to the United States because of the tricky visa-granting system. After a year in Georgia, Hani decided to transfer to Union University when both he and his best friend from home, Rabo, were offered soccer scholarships.
Hani has played soccer for as long as he can remember. In school, the 1-2 graders had their own quarter-field, as well as the 3-5 graders, so they were always kicking a ball around every chance they got. The middle school and high school each had their own full-sized field. However, in middle school they played mostly on the basketball court. “This improved our accuracy and control,” said Hani, “because we would have to learn to balance better on the concrete, as well as have to shoot at a pole rather than a goal.” Although Hani did not come to the United States solely to play soccer, his athletic ability funded his education.
But how on earth did Hani learn to speak such excellent English? According to Hani, he attended an American Accredited School in his hometown, the city of Jos, during 1-2 grade and then 7-12 grade, taking a small break to attend a boarding school in another city from 3-6 grade. The Nyabams worked to send Hani to the AAS so that one day they could hopefully send him to college in the United States, his oldest brother having moved to the States for school years earlier. In addition to this in-school immersion in English, Hani spoke English at home, as he did not speak his parents’ native languages. “Everyone grows up speaking the language of their village,” Hani explained. “You know many different languages, but not all the same ones as everyone else. I speak some French, as well as Hausa (the language of my state), and West African Creole (which is basically a form of broken English).”
Despite his excellent education in Nigeria, Hani struggled at Union to do well, as he had been taught to do many things differently. Although he took Literature classes in Nigeria, they were constructed quite differently than in the USA. “Writing styles were also different,” said Hani. “I was taught differently how to write and make essays. They never taught us good reading skills, so I am a very slow reader.” Because of this, Hani says that he not only struggles with spelling, but he doesn’t like to read books, especially textbooks.
Teaching styles are not the only thing in Nigeria that are different than the USA. The way of life is almost foreign to the American fast-paced, do-what-you-need-to-get-to-the-top way of life. “Time is of no essence to us,” Hani stated. He gave the example that if a couple says their wedding is going to be at 10am, the couple themselves probably won’t even show up until 11 or 12 o’clock. Being on time is not important, and being late is not considered rude. Although Hani believes that the majority of the people in the southern United States are fairly kind, Nigerians beat them to the punch any day. “For example,” Hani related, “if someone comes to you and asks you for money, even if you know that you need that money to pay a bill in a couple of weeks, you give them that money.” Regardless, theft is still prevalent. “One year our house was broken into three times in a five month period!” exclaimed Hani.
Another concept now foreign to the American way of life is the idea of a curfew. Nigeria is split about 50/50 between Muslims and Christians, with a slight Christian majority. As a result, religious riots are not uncommon. “I live in the city Jos, which is considered to be the gateway to Christianity for the country,” said Hani. “After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 terrible riots broke out in my city because the Muslims wanted to gain control of the city.” The rioting comes and goes. Hani’s mother told him in a recent telephone conversation that there has been religious rioting for some unknown reason near their home lately, and so a curfew has been reinstated.
So what religious beliefs do Hani and his family espouse? Well, Mr. and Mrs. Nyabam learned about Christ through missionaries in their area many years ago. Mrs. Nyabam worked in banking and then insurance while Mr. Nyabam worked for a textile company called NASCO while Hani was a child. Now, however, both have stopped their jobs to work as missionaries for a ministry called Prevailing Prayer Ministry (PPM). Hani received Christ as a young child when, just after his grandmother’s funeral his sister asked him if he wanted to end up in heaven where she had gone. And so, he accepted Christ. Despite his Christian heritage, Hani had never heard of John Calvin when he first attended the Presbyterian Covenant College. The prevalence of Baptists who lead double lives at Union University caught Hani by surprise also. Regardless, he is glad “to be surrounded by a Christian environment.”
If American children think they have it bad with an occasional spanking, they should be thankful they are not Nigerian! “I was raised to be obedient,” stated Hani. “Disobedience was not tolerated at all! If we disobeyed we were whipped with branches, twigs, belts- anything our parents could get their hands on.” Hani did not lead the life of an abused child, though. He is the youngest of four, with two older brothers and an older sister, all 10+ years older than he. He specifically remembers family dinners, especially on Sundays, to which everyone contributed by cooking something.
“The food is one of the things I miss most- I love Nigerian food!” said Hani. Although they had two fast-food restaurants, a knock-off McDonalds called Mr Bigs and a wanna-be Chic-fil-a called Chickin Lickins, they were high-priced and not very good. Nigerians eat lots of different vegetable soups, rice, and a variety of meat, including goat, beef, lamb, kabobs, and chicken. “One tribe in Nigeria (not mine!) even eats dog!” recalled Hani. With their meals they also eat a bread-like substance made from corn flour called Tuwo. Most of their food they grow themselves. In Nigeria, you buy a plot of land on which you build a compound with a 13-15 ft high wall and a gate around it. Inside their walls the Nyabams grow many different kinds of fruit trees, including guavas, mangos, and papayas. They also raised poultry. On the outside of their wall they grow corn, tomatoes, or whatever may be in season at the time. Also inside the walls is their home. Hani recalls that if family or friends decided to come work in the city for a while, they would live with them indefinitely, without any question of paying rent or any such obligation. Friends and family would also just stop by unannounced at any given time, as many people did not have telephones in their homes to call ahead.
While many people have electricity and other such amenities, they are not a given in the average Nigerian household. “Electricity will be off and on- you never know how long you will have it,” said Hani. “When it goes off, you just do something else. We played a lot of cards and boardgames.”
Not only time and electricity are relaxed, but so are many of the country’s laws. “We can pretty much do what we want,” said Hani. “There is no legal age for smoking or drinking. Neither is there a speed limit.” Surprisingly, however, there are fewer accidents than in the United States because people are generally better drivers. They also drive mostly European-made cars like Mercedes, Mazda, BMW, and Peugeot. “I never saw an American-made car, like a Mustang for instance, until I came to the USA,” remembered Hani. The Nigerian public transportation system is also unusual. Some larger cities had buses, but they don’t stop for you to get on- you must jump off and on them at your desired location. Instead of calling a taxi-cab, in Nigeria you walk about 15 minutes to the highway near your town and wait for a taxi to come by. Then, you hail cabs until you find one going where you need to go, and then you barter with the driver for a reasonable price. “Usually in a typical 5-seater sedan, you will fit 7-8 people,” said Hani. “The other option is to cram several people on the back of a motorcycle-taxi.” Generally though, within your own town, you walk or bike to your destination. Because they walk so much, the sight of fat people upon landing in the USA shocked Hani, as he had never before seen obesity in his life.
The medical system is also quite different from the USA. There is no medical insurance- you can only buy insurance for physical property like your car or your house. “When you get sick,” explained Hani,” you go to your family physician. They write you a prescription and you take it to the drug story where you pay for it all out of pocket in cash. It is not a solid medical system.” Hani gave an example in passing of the extent of its deficiency. Apparently when he was born, the Nigerian doctors told his mother that he was dead, and so they had to fly to London to find out that he really was very much alive!
Hani plans to stay in the United States as long as possible. “It would be hard to reintegrate myself into the Nigerian culture after being gone so long,” said Hani. After graduating from Union University in December 2009 with a degree in Computer Science, Hani was hired by Aeneas Internet &Telephone as an Account Executive where he works to educate people on how they need to improve their electronics and, in turn, sells them these improvements. Although he never planned on becoming a United States citizen, after the recent Christmas Day attack by the Nigerian Muslim man, Hani is thinking about pursuing citizenship. At the minimum, he plans to get his green card so that he can visit home and still be allowed to return to the USA to work. Although he had no desire to return to Nigeria permanently, he said that he “most misses his family, the people, and their simpler, more laid-back way of life.”
Hani has played soccer for as long as he can remember. In school, the 1-2 graders had their own quarter-field, as well as the 3-5 graders, so they were always kicking a ball around every chance they got. The middle school and high school each had their own full-sized field. However, in middle school they played mostly on the basketball court. “This improved our accuracy and control,” said Hani, “because we would have to learn to balance better on the concrete, as well as have to shoot at a pole rather than a goal.” Although Hani did not come to the United States solely to play soccer, his athletic ability funded his education.
But how on earth did Hani learn to speak such excellent English? According to Hani, he attended an American Accredited School in his hometown, the city of Jos, during 1-2 grade and then 7-12 grade, taking a small break to attend a boarding school in another city from 3-6 grade. The Nyabams worked to send Hani to the AAS so that one day they could hopefully send him to college in the United States, his oldest brother having moved to the States for school years earlier. In addition to this in-school immersion in English, Hani spoke English at home, as he did not speak his parents’ native languages. “Everyone grows up speaking the language of their village,” Hani explained. “You know many different languages, but not all the same ones as everyone else. I speak some French, as well as Hausa (the language of my state), and West African Creole (which is basically a form of broken English).”
Despite his excellent education in Nigeria, Hani struggled at Union to do well, as he had been taught to do many things differently. Although he took Literature classes in Nigeria, they were constructed quite differently than in the USA. “Writing styles were also different,” said Hani. “I was taught differently how to write and make essays. They never taught us good reading skills, so I am a very slow reader.” Because of this, Hani says that he not only struggles with spelling, but he doesn’t like to read books, especially textbooks.
Teaching styles are not the only thing in Nigeria that are different than the USA. The way of life is almost foreign to the American fast-paced, do-what-you-need-to-get-to-the-top way of life. “Time is of no essence to us,” Hani stated. He gave the example that if a couple says their wedding is going to be at 10am, the couple themselves probably won’t even show up until 11 or 12 o’clock. Being on time is not important, and being late is not considered rude. Although Hani believes that the majority of the people in the southern United States are fairly kind, Nigerians beat them to the punch any day. “For example,” Hani related, “if someone comes to you and asks you for money, even if you know that you need that money to pay a bill in a couple of weeks, you give them that money.” Regardless, theft is still prevalent. “One year our house was broken into three times in a five month period!” exclaimed Hani.
Another concept now foreign to the American way of life is the idea of a curfew. Nigeria is split about 50/50 between Muslims and Christians, with a slight Christian majority. As a result, religious riots are not uncommon. “I live in the city Jos, which is considered to be the gateway to Christianity for the country,” said Hani. “After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 terrible riots broke out in my city because the Muslims wanted to gain control of the city.” The rioting comes and goes. Hani’s mother told him in a recent telephone conversation that there has been religious rioting for some unknown reason near their home lately, and so a curfew has been reinstated.
So what religious beliefs do Hani and his family espouse? Well, Mr. and Mrs. Nyabam learned about Christ through missionaries in their area many years ago. Mrs. Nyabam worked in banking and then insurance while Mr. Nyabam worked for a textile company called NASCO while Hani was a child. Now, however, both have stopped their jobs to work as missionaries for a ministry called Prevailing Prayer Ministry (PPM). Hani received Christ as a young child when, just after his grandmother’s funeral his sister asked him if he wanted to end up in heaven where she had gone. And so, he accepted Christ. Despite his Christian heritage, Hani had never heard of John Calvin when he first attended the Presbyterian Covenant College. The prevalence of Baptists who lead double lives at Union University caught Hani by surprise also. Regardless, he is glad “to be surrounded by a Christian environment.”
If American children think they have it bad with an occasional spanking, they should be thankful they are not Nigerian! “I was raised to be obedient,” stated Hani. “Disobedience was not tolerated at all! If we disobeyed we were whipped with branches, twigs, belts- anything our parents could get their hands on.” Hani did not lead the life of an abused child, though. He is the youngest of four, with two older brothers and an older sister, all 10+ years older than he. He specifically remembers family dinners, especially on Sundays, to which everyone contributed by cooking something.
“The food is one of the things I miss most- I love Nigerian food!” said Hani. Although they had two fast-food restaurants, a knock-off McDonalds called Mr Bigs and a wanna-be Chic-fil-a called Chickin Lickins, they were high-priced and not very good. Nigerians eat lots of different vegetable soups, rice, and a variety of meat, including goat, beef, lamb, kabobs, and chicken. “One tribe in Nigeria (not mine!) even eats dog!” recalled Hani. With their meals they also eat a bread-like substance made from corn flour called Tuwo. Most of their food they grow themselves. In Nigeria, you buy a plot of land on which you build a compound with a 13-15 ft high wall and a gate around it. Inside their walls the Nyabams grow many different kinds of fruit trees, including guavas, mangos, and papayas. They also raised poultry. On the outside of their wall they grow corn, tomatoes, or whatever may be in season at the time. Also inside the walls is their home. Hani recalls that if family or friends decided to come work in the city for a while, they would live with them indefinitely, without any question of paying rent or any such obligation. Friends and family would also just stop by unannounced at any given time, as many people did not have telephones in their homes to call ahead.
While many people have electricity and other such amenities, they are not a given in the average Nigerian household. “Electricity will be off and on- you never know how long you will have it,” said Hani. “When it goes off, you just do something else. We played a lot of cards and boardgames.”
Not only time and electricity are relaxed, but so are many of the country’s laws. “We can pretty much do what we want,” said Hani. “There is no legal age for smoking or drinking. Neither is there a speed limit.” Surprisingly, however, there are fewer accidents than in the United States because people are generally better drivers. They also drive mostly European-made cars like Mercedes, Mazda, BMW, and Peugeot. “I never saw an American-made car, like a Mustang for instance, until I came to the USA,” remembered Hani. The Nigerian public transportation system is also unusual. Some larger cities had buses, but they don’t stop for you to get on- you must jump off and on them at your desired location. Instead of calling a taxi-cab, in Nigeria you walk about 15 minutes to the highway near your town and wait for a taxi to come by. Then, you hail cabs until you find one going where you need to go, and then you barter with the driver for a reasonable price. “Usually in a typical 5-seater sedan, you will fit 7-8 people,” said Hani. “The other option is to cram several people on the back of a motorcycle-taxi.” Generally though, within your own town, you walk or bike to your destination. Because they walk so much, the sight of fat people upon landing in the USA shocked Hani, as he had never before seen obesity in his life.
The medical system is also quite different from the USA. There is no medical insurance- you can only buy insurance for physical property like your car or your house. “When you get sick,” explained Hani,” you go to your family physician. They write you a prescription and you take it to the drug story where you pay for it all out of pocket in cash. It is not a solid medical system.” Hani gave an example in passing of the extent of its deficiency. Apparently when he was born, the Nigerian doctors told his mother that he was dead, and so they had to fly to London to find out that he really was very much alive!
Hani plans to stay in the United States as long as possible. “It would be hard to reintegrate myself into the Nigerian culture after being gone so long,” said Hani. After graduating from Union University in December 2009 with a degree in Computer Science, Hani was hired by Aeneas Internet &Telephone as an Account Executive where he works to educate people on how they need to improve their electronics and, in turn, sells them these improvements. Although he never planned on becoming a United States citizen, after the recent Christmas Day attack by the Nigerian Muslim man, Hani is thinking about pursuing citizenship. At the minimum, he plans to get his green card so that he can visit home and still be allowed to return to the USA to work. Although he had no desire to return to Nigeria permanently, he said that he “most misses his family, the people, and their simpler, more laid-back way of life.”
From the Niger to the Mississippi (Creative Non-Fiction)
“You speak four languages?!” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah. English, West African Creole (which is like broken English), Hausa, and French,” said Hananiah ‘Hani’ Nyabam. “I went to an American Accredited School in Nigeria for 1st and 2nd and then 7th through 12th grades so that I could come to the United States for college, and I learned English there.”
“So it must not have been hard for you to transition to classes here at Union then?” I said.
“Well, knowing English helped me a lot, but sure, it was hard. Literature and writing classes were the hardest. I was taught differently how to write and make essays. They don’t teach you good reading skills in Nigeria, so I am a slow reader and it was a struggle for me to read my homework.”
Hani, a native of Nigeria, moved to the United States in 2005 to attend Covenant College on a soccer scholarship. After a year there, he transferred to Union University to play with his best friend from home who had also received a scholarship for soccer. Hani graduated in December 2009 with a degree in Computer Science and now works at Aeneas Internet and Telephone as an account executive where he educates people about technological improvements and sells them these innovations.
“Have you been home since you moved here for school?” I asked.
“No, I haven’t been home since August 2005 because the visa-granting system is tricky, and so there is always a chance that I wouldn’t be permitted to return to the US.” Hani explained.
“So are you planning on staying in the United States or will you move back home?”
“I plan to stay here for now,” Hani said. “I don’t want to be a US citizen. I don’t see the point, and I’m not allowed to have dual-citizenship. I might become one now after the Nigerian bomber on Christmas Day, but before that there was no reason. For now I will get a Green Card and just see what happens.”
But what would make Hani want to leave his home and his family behind for good and stay in the United States? What is Nigeria like? How does it compare to the US? All these questions flashed through my mind as I questioned Hani, and I asked him to explain.
The way of life in Nigeria is almost foreign to the American fast-paced, do-what-you-need-to-get-to-the-top way of life. “Time is of no essence to us,” Hani stated. He gave the example that if a couple says that their wedding is going to be at 10am, the couple themselves probably won’t even show up until 11 or 12 o’clock. Being on time is not important, and being late is not considered rude. Although Hani considers the majority of southerners in the US to be fairly kind, Nigerians surpass their compassion any day. “For example,” Hani related, “if someone comes to you and asks you for money, even if you know that you need that money to pay a bill in a couple of weeks, you give them that money.” Surprisingly, theft is still prevalent. “One day our house was broken into three times in a five month period!” Hani exclaimed to me.
The household in Nigeria is set up differently than in the US in many ways, as well. Most Nigerians own a plot of land on which they build a house and a compound with at thirteen to fifteen feet heigh security wall around the premises. “Inside the walls we grow fruit trees—guavas, papayas, mangos, etc—and raise poultry,” Hani said, “On the outside of the wall we grow corn, tomatoes, and other similar crops in season.” Their home itself is large enough that extended family can comfortably live with them if needed. “My father is the head of the household, and he raised me to be obedient,” said Hani. “Disobedience is not tolerated at all! I was whipped with branches, twigs, and belts for disobedience.” This did not prevent his family from being close-knit. The regularly ate meals together as a family and took turns cooking. Hani’s mother worked as a banker and then selling insurance while his father was a business manager for NASCO, a textile company, during his childhood. In more recent years, they both became missionaries to their country and founded Prevailing Prayer Ministry (PPM).
“I became a Christian as a child when my grandmother died. My sister lead me to Christ after her funeral,” Hani reminisced. “Although I went to a missionary school in 3rd- 5th grade, I didn’t really learn much about Christianity and its history because my parents were also new believers, and so it wasn’t until I moved the United States that I was able to live out and learn more about my faith.”
“Is Nigeria predominantly a Christian country?” asked.
“Right now it is split about 50/50 between Muslims and Christians, but with a few more Christians,” Hani replied. “I lived in the city Jos, which is considered to be the gateway to Christianity for the country. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, terrible riots broke out in my city because Muslims wanted to gain control of the city.” Although they were unsuccessful, rioting continues indefinitely. Frequently, the government instates curfews to help prevent violence.
“But I still don’t fully understand why you don’t want to return to Nigeria. You say you liked your country and its simpler way of life, yet you choose to stay here. Why?” I continued.
“I would rather live in a Christian country and be surrounded by believers than not.” Hani explained. “America is a land of opportunity, but more importantly, it is a country founded on Christianity. Also, it would be difficult to reintegrate into the more primitive ways of Nigeria after experiencing the innovations of the United States—not only on a technological level, but also on such levels as government and education. Regardless, I miss my family, the Nigerian people, and their simpler, more laid-back way of life.”
“Yeah. English, West African Creole (which is like broken English), Hausa, and French,” said Hananiah ‘Hani’ Nyabam. “I went to an American Accredited School in Nigeria for 1st and 2nd and then 7th through 12th grades so that I could come to the United States for college, and I learned English there.”
“So it must not have been hard for you to transition to classes here at Union then?” I said.
“Well, knowing English helped me a lot, but sure, it was hard. Literature and writing classes were the hardest. I was taught differently how to write and make essays. They don’t teach you good reading skills in Nigeria, so I am a slow reader and it was a struggle for me to read my homework.”
Hani, a native of Nigeria, moved to the United States in 2005 to attend Covenant College on a soccer scholarship. After a year there, he transferred to Union University to play with his best friend from home who had also received a scholarship for soccer. Hani graduated in December 2009 with a degree in Computer Science and now works at Aeneas Internet and Telephone as an account executive where he educates people about technological improvements and sells them these innovations.
“Have you been home since you moved here for school?” I asked.
“No, I haven’t been home since August 2005 because the visa-granting system is tricky, and so there is always a chance that I wouldn’t be permitted to return to the US.” Hani explained.
“So are you planning on staying in the United States or will you move back home?”
“I plan to stay here for now,” Hani said. “I don’t want to be a US citizen. I don’t see the point, and I’m not allowed to have dual-citizenship. I might become one now after the Nigerian bomber on Christmas Day, but before that there was no reason. For now I will get a Green Card and just see what happens.”
But what would make Hani want to leave his home and his family behind for good and stay in the United States? What is Nigeria like? How does it compare to the US? All these questions flashed through my mind as I questioned Hani, and I asked him to explain.
The way of life in Nigeria is almost foreign to the American fast-paced, do-what-you-need-to-get-to-the-top way of life. “Time is of no essence to us,” Hani stated. He gave the example that if a couple says that their wedding is going to be at 10am, the couple themselves probably won’t even show up until 11 or 12 o’clock. Being on time is not important, and being late is not considered rude. Although Hani considers the majority of southerners in the US to be fairly kind, Nigerians surpass their compassion any day. “For example,” Hani related, “if someone comes to you and asks you for money, even if you know that you need that money to pay a bill in a couple of weeks, you give them that money.” Surprisingly, theft is still prevalent. “One day our house was broken into three times in a five month period!” Hani exclaimed to me.
The household in Nigeria is set up differently than in the US in many ways, as well. Most Nigerians own a plot of land on which they build a house and a compound with at thirteen to fifteen feet heigh security wall around the premises. “Inside the walls we grow fruit trees—guavas, papayas, mangos, etc—and raise poultry,” Hani said, “On the outside of the wall we grow corn, tomatoes, and other similar crops in season.” Their home itself is large enough that extended family can comfortably live with them if needed. “My father is the head of the household, and he raised me to be obedient,” said Hani. “Disobedience is not tolerated at all! I was whipped with branches, twigs, and belts for disobedience.” This did not prevent his family from being close-knit. The regularly ate meals together as a family and took turns cooking. Hani’s mother worked as a banker and then selling insurance while his father was a business manager for NASCO, a textile company, during his childhood. In more recent years, they both became missionaries to their country and founded Prevailing Prayer Ministry (PPM).
“I became a Christian as a child when my grandmother died. My sister lead me to Christ after her funeral,” Hani reminisced. “Although I went to a missionary school in 3rd- 5th grade, I didn’t really learn much about Christianity and its history because my parents were also new believers, and so it wasn’t until I moved the United States that I was able to live out and learn more about my faith.”
“Is Nigeria predominantly a Christian country?” asked.
“Right now it is split about 50/50 between Muslims and Christians, but with a few more Christians,” Hani replied. “I lived in the city Jos, which is considered to be the gateway to Christianity for the country. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, terrible riots broke out in my city because Muslims wanted to gain control of the city.” Although they were unsuccessful, rioting continues indefinitely. Frequently, the government instates curfews to help prevent violence.
“But I still don’t fully understand why you don’t want to return to Nigeria. You say you liked your country and its simpler way of life, yet you choose to stay here. Why?” I continued.
“I would rather live in a Christian country and be surrounded by believers than not.” Hani explained. “America is a land of opportunity, but more importantly, it is a country founded on Christianity. Also, it would be difficult to reintegrate into the more primitive ways of Nigeria after experiencing the innovations of the United States—not only on a technological level, but also on such levels as government and education. Regardless, I miss my family, the Nigerian people, and their simpler, more laid-back way of life.”
Cottonballs
Leaning on the fence, I surveyed the pasture, smiling as the familiar cotton balls lifted their fuzzy faces at the sound of my voice and came running from the far end of the field where they were grazing. “Baa,” they bleated in unison as they rushed forward, “Baa.” We first bought sheep when I was eight years old. A friendly neighbor, James Keith, instructed my parents that we should have a specific call that would signal them to come from wherever they were when we needed them. Now, twelve years later, all we have to do is yell “Baa” and all thirty-something of them come at full speed. I remembered all the times school groups had come out to the farm on field trips while I was growing up. I was homeschooled through sixth grade, so I could help my Mom out and do my own schoolwork later. My mom would have the children try to call the sheep to the fence. They never would come. But as soon as a member of my family yelled, “baa,” they would drop what they were doing and come immediately. This always illustrated so well what Jesus was talking about in John 10 when he said, “The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.”
Although the farm was a family project, I always loved taking care of the animals more than anyone else. Every single cotton ball had his or her own name— I could look at the flock and tell you why each one was unique and different. I could look at the flock and always tell if even one was missing. This helped me to understand what Jesus was talking about later on in John 10 when he said “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” Friends would come out to the farm and I would bring a sheep over to them and tell them “This is Icicle,” or “Snow”, or “Sugar,” or “Black-eyed Susie,” or whichever sheep it might be. “How can you tell them apart like that?” was always the first question people asked. I’d always shrug, unsure how to answer. “You just get to know them when you’re around them a lot. They all have their own personalities and differences.” It always baffled me that, just as I could tell you the names, breeds, ages, and ancestry of the ten to fifty sheep we owned at any given time, Jesus knows not only all this but so much more about each of the 6.5 billion people in the world. He knows how many hairs are on each head. He knows every thought that crosses any mind. He knows each life story before it is even lived.
Climbing over the fence to greet my old friends, I assessed the furry faces that pressed their noses into my hand in hopes of finding some treat or bit of food there. In my absence since I graduated from high school two years before, many of the ewes that had been on the farm since I was eight years old were gone. It made me sad. Icicle, who was my very own and very first sheep, had died during my first semester of college. It was odd now that she was gone, as she had always been the first to come running to see me when I entered the pasture. Her third lamb, Sugar, looking almost exactly like her mother, took her mother’s place following me as I made my rounds. She had two new lambs herself. I knew that my work was cut out for my creating two names that had not already been used several times over the years. We didn’t need another “Piper” or “Pepper” or “Pattie” or “Spice” to confuse matters even more!
I smiled as they frolicked, jumping with all four hooves off the ground. When they started wandering too far, Sugar would bleat in that special way the ewes do when they are calling their young, and the two would come running back to their mother and try to steal a snack. After awhile, they would grow tired and lay down to rest beside their mother as she chewed her cud. “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isaiah 40:11). The verse came to me like the whispering of the wind in the pines that bordered the field. What comfort to know I have a shepherd who loves me like that. I always have thought that sheep were the best of mothers. I’ve never seen such attentive mothers. They know where their children are at all times. Their children respect them so much that at the very sound of their voices, the lambs come without question. At the same time, they indulge their young, loving on them, feeding them, cleaning them, and keeping them warm. It’s a picture of God that I wish more people could witness first hand.
I stayed at the farm until dark. I sure had missed watching the beautiful array of colors from the hillside overlooking the pond as the sun set. It had been too long since I last had the opportunity to soak in the beauty of God’s creation. As I sat on a fallen tree, the sheep came to graze around where I sat. I smiled, and tears came to my eyes as the familiar moment brought back a flood of memories. Although I miss getting to spend time at the farm on a regular basis while I’m away at school, I realized there that my childhood experiences had prepared me for life in so many more ways than I had ever thought. I wasn’t just knowledgeable about livestock and agriculture. I had learned so much about my God, and the truths remained in my heart despite what life threw my way. I would never trade my childhood for anything.
Although the farm was a family project, I always loved taking care of the animals more than anyone else. Every single cotton ball had his or her own name— I could look at the flock and tell you why each one was unique and different. I could look at the flock and always tell if even one was missing. This helped me to understand what Jesus was talking about later on in John 10 when he said “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” Friends would come out to the farm and I would bring a sheep over to them and tell them “This is Icicle,” or “Snow”, or “Sugar,” or “Black-eyed Susie,” or whichever sheep it might be. “How can you tell them apart like that?” was always the first question people asked. I’d always shrug, unsure how to answer. “You just get to know them when you’re around them a lot. They all have their own personalities and differences.” It always baffled me that, just as I could tell you the names, breeds, ages, and ancestry of the ten to fifty sheep we owned at any given time, Jesus knows not only all this but so much more about each of the 6.5 billion people in the world. He knows how many hairs are on each head. He knows every thought that crosses any mind. He knows each life story before it is even lived.
Climbing over the fence to greet my old friends, I assessed the furry faces that pressed their noses into my hand in hopes of finding some treat or bit of food there. In my absence since I graduated from high school two years before, many of the ewes that had been on the farm since I was eight years old were gone. It made me sad. Icicle, who was my very own and very first sheep, had died during my first semester of college. It was odd now that she was gone, as she had always been the first to come running to see me when I entered the pasture. Her third lamb, Sugar, looking almost exactly like her mother, took her mother’s place following me as I made my rounds. She had two new lambs herself. I knew that my work was cut out for my creating two names that had not already been used several times over the years. We didn’t need another “Piper” or “Pepper” or “Pattie” or “Spice” to confuse matters even more!
I smiled as they frolicked, jumping with all four hooves off the ground. When they started wandering too far, Sugar would bleat in that special way the ewes do when they are calling their young, and the two would come running back to their mother and try to steal a snack. After awhile, they would grow tired and lay down to rest beside their mother as she chewed her cud. “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young” (Isaiah 40:11). The verse came to me like the whispering of the wind in the pines that bordered the field. What comfort to know I have a shepherd who loves me like that. I always have thought that sheep were the best of mothers. I’ve never seen such attentive mothers. They know where their children are at all times. Their children respect them so much that at the very sound of their voices, the lambs come without question. At the same time, they indulge their young, loving on them, feeding them, cleaning them, and keeping them warm. It’s a picture of God that I wish more people could witness first hand.
I stayed at the farm until dark. I sure had missed watching the beautiful array of colors from the hillside overlooking the pond as the sun set. It had been too long since I last had the opportunity to soak in the beauty of God’s creation. As I sat on a fallen tree, the sheep came to graze around where I sat. I smiled, and tears came to my eyes as the familiar moment brought back a flood of memories. Although I miss getting to spend time at the farm on a regular basis while I’m away at school, I realized there that my childhood experiences had prepared me for life in so many more ways than I had ever thought. I wasn’t just knowledgeable about livestock and agriculture. I had learned so much about my God, and the truths remained in my heart despite what life threw my way. I would never trade my childhood for anything.
Grandmother's Hands
Blue veins like tropical snakes criss-cross
Underneath the worldly-wise skin
That has long since lost its elasticity,
That has so thinned you can almost see the bones.
I watch as you run your finger over the page
In search of that verse that contains the wisdom
You have learned to be truer with the passage of time.
Have they also touched the parchment
Of some crumbling papyrus scroll,
Or is my imagination getting the best of be
As I soak up your fountain of knowledge
Like water poured out on desert sand?
How many paintbrushes have your ancient artist’s hands
Touched as you stroked pain across canvas year after year
The way God does the clouds each day at sunset?
How many friends and family members have you cared for
While quoting words of comfort in their ears
From the only book you find worth reading
Over and over year after year?
How many prayers have you prayed for me
As you changed my diapers, taught me to read,
Played with my dolls, and cooked with me?
You lift your tired but joyful eyes
When you find the sought-after verse.
Grandmother, will I have hands like yours one day?
Your young skin will not last forever, she says with a laugh.
Underneath the worldly-wise skin
That has long since lost its elasticity,
That has so thinned you can almost see the bones.
I watch as you run your finger over the page
In search of that verse that contains the wisdom
You have learned to be truer with the passage of time.
Have they also touched the parchment
Of some crumbling papyrus scroll,
Or is my imagination getting the best of be
As I soak up your fountain of knowledge
Like water poured out on desert sand?
How many paintbrushes have your ancient artist’s hands
Touched as you stroked pain across canvas year after year
The way God does the clouds each day at sunset?
How many friends and family members have you cared for
While quoting words of comfort in their ears
From the only book you find worth reading
Over and over year after year?
How many prayers have you prayed for me
As you changed my diapers, taught me to read,
Played with my dolls, and cooked with me?
You lift your tired but joyful eyes
When you find the sought-after verse.
Grandmother, will I have hands like yours one day?
Your young skin will not last forever, she says with a laugh.
Abstractions Realized
A bomb exploding in a civilian village,
killing the enemies loved ones,
laughing at someone else’s pain;
Hate.
An elderly couple holding hands
as they walk through the garden
paths of a nursing home;
Love.
A wilted rose lying shattered
against the cold, sharp etchings
of a black marble tombstone;
Death.
A newborn baby’s first cry,
a child skipping down a sidewalk,
the sun gleaming as breeze blows over water;
Life.
Leaving home and loved ones
to kill an enemy you do not know,
bombardments and bullets battering;
War.
A cloudless sky on a sunny day,
a daisy alone in a quiet green field,
being around those you love;
Peace.
killing the enemies loved ones,
laughing at someone else’s pain;
Hate.
An elderly couple holding hands
as they walk through the garden
paths of a nursing home;
Love.
A wilted rose lying shattered
against the cold, sharp etchings
of a black marble tombstone;
Death.
A newborn baby’s first cry,
a child skipping down a sidewalk,
the sun gleaming as breeze blows over water;
Life.
Leaving home and loved ones
to kill an enemy you do not know,
bombardments and bullets battering;
War.
A cloudless sky on a sunny day,
a daisy alone in a quiet green field,
being around those you love;
Peace.
Discriminations
All the top dollar salaries,
The doctors and the engineers,
The jobs that little kids want
To achieve when they grow up,
Demand mathematical logic
And order scientific analysis.
To build the tallest building
Insists that you solve
A series of equations.
To save a bleeding-to-death victim
Of a drunk driving accident
Measures your knowledge of pints
And quarts and gallons.
Discrimination, that’s what it is.
Algebra for Dummies is no joke.
But though it graces my overflowing bookshelves,
I learned in its pages that I’m worse that a dummy.
When it comes to adding, to subtracting and multiplying
My brain reveals me as an ignoramus.
The doctors and the engineers,
The jobs that little kids want
To achieve when they grow up,
Demand mathematical logic
And order scientific analysis.
To build the tallest building
Insists that you solve
A series of equations.
To save a bleeding-to-death victim
Of a drunk driving accident
Measures your knowledge of pints
And quarts and gallons.
Discrimination, that’s what it is.
Algebra for Dummies is no joke.
But though it graces my overflowing bookshelves,
I learned in its pages that I’m worse that a dummy.
When it comes to adding, to subtracting and multiplying
My brain reveals me as an ignoramus.
Chance Encounter During A Film Break
Dressed in all black,
Looking typically suspicious
His back never to the door, yet
Occasionally monitoring his smartphone
Or the chatter coming from his high tech gadgets,
He sits alert in the corner booth.
As he moves a step closer, my brother Peter
Sees not a blond hair out of place,
No, not a grimace on Jack’s gnarly face,
Despite the great torture
He’s undoubtedly undergone
In a single day’s work.
What hour did he know of
The twenty-four later revealed?
What grim act of terror
Would rivet millions to their seats?
What great or weak United States President
Would he devotedly serve this go-round?
A holster strapped to his leg,
As his cuffs would bind outlaws,
Housed a cold, black Glock 30,
And the clips in his belt hung like ominous clouds.
Had he and his character so united that they
Merged into one on and off the set?
Was that Jack’s shiny black SUV
Parallel parked at the curb outside?
Or was that Peter’s imagination
Wishing what he only should dream?
How many high-sped chases, real or fantastic,
Had its tires endured?
Peter half expected the man’s blutooth
To blink before hearing
“Yes, I am calling on behalf of CTU. Yes, the crisis
Has been averted. Tell
All teams to stand down now!”
Peter stepped forward.
Their eyes instantaneously meet.
“Hi, my name is Peter and I’m one of your biggest fans.
Can I get your autograph?”
And the gruff voice grates in response, “Sure,
Which name should I use?
Jack Bauer or Kiefer Sutherland?”
Looking typically suspicious
His back never to the door, yet
Occasionally monitoring his smartphone
Or the chatter coming from his high tech gadgets,
He sits alert in the corner booth.
As he moves a step closer, my brother Peter
Sees not a blond hair out of place,
No, not a grimace on Jack’s gnarly face,
Despite the great torture
He’s undoubtedly undergone
In a single day’s work.
What hour did he know of
The twenty-four later revealed?
What grim act of terror
Would rivet millions to their seats?
What great or weak United States President
Would he devotedly serve this go-round?
A holster strapped to his leg,
As his cuffs would bind outlaws,
Housed a cold, black Glock 30,
And the clips in his belt hung like ominous clouds.
Had he and his character so united that they
Merged into one on and off the set?
Was that Jack’s shiny black SUV
Parallel parked at the curb outside?
Or was that Peter’s imagination
Wishing what he only should dream?
How many high-sped chases, real or fantastic,
Had its tires endured?
Peter half expected the man’s blutooth
To blink before hearing
“Yes, I am calling on behalf of CTU. Yes, the crisis
Has been averted. Tell
All teams to stand down now!”
Peter stepped forward.
Their eyes instantaneously meet.
“Hi, my name is Peter and I’m one of your biggest fans.
Can I get your autograph?”
And the gruff voice grates in response, “Sure,
Which name should I use?
Jack Bauer or Kiefer Sutherland?”
Red
You light the sky at dawn of day
And paint the clouds at sunset.
You color the roses of love
And darken each man’s veins.
You set apart the Savior’s words,
Yet also stain the Scarlet Letter
Two gems claim your color in January and July.
Each heart that beats you know inside out,
The rosy cheeks of each child’s vitality,
The lips of every lover’s passion.
You are the beauty in things most cherished.
And paint the clouds at sunset.
You color the roses of love
And darken each man’s veins.
You set apart the Savior’s words,
Yet also stain the Scarlet Letter
Two gems claim your color in January and July.
Each heart that beats you know inside out,
The rosy cheeks of each child’s vitality,
The lips of every lover’s passion.
You are the beauty in things most cherished.
Dickens and Promiscuity as Portrayed in Bleak House
Written during the beginning of the Realism, Charles Dickens’ lengthy Victorian novel Bleak House is a masterpiece of fiction that contains many social and political commentaries relative not only in Dickens’s world but also in the world today. A timeless issue in literature, the fallen woman plays a significant role in the novel’s plot. In determining Dickens’ views on fallen women it is important to consider the reactions of four primary characters in Bleak House towards Lady Dedlock’s transgression.
First of all, from the beginning of Bleak House, Miss Barbary gives a very decided opinion about her sister, Lady Dedlock’s, youthful indiscretions which resulted in Esther’s birth. To begin with, Esther does not understand her bastardly origin, rather believing herself to be an orphaned child left in the care of her severe aunt. “She was so very good herself, I thought,” Esther describes Miss Barbary, “that the badness of other people made her frown all her life” (28). The succeeding description that Esther attributes to her aunt is less than flattering; however, she is the virgin, the sister who supposedly played her cards right, living by the letter of the law. In short, Dickens paints a picture of an exceedingly self-righteous older woman whose bitterness and anger over her sister’s offense has eaten her up inside so that she has no quality of life left to live. On Esther’s birthday, Dickens’ records that Miss Barbary tells her, “It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday; that you had never been born” (30). Esther responds by asking her if her mother died on her birthday, which, of course, she did not. However, based on her reaction and vehement statements of reproach, it would seem that Miss Barbary wishes that it were so.
Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come—and soon enough—when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have forgiven her the wrong she did to me, and say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know—than any one will ever know, but I, the sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written, Forget your mother, and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. (30)
Miss Barbary believes that Lady Dedlock not only sinned against God, but also against all womankind, of whom Miss Barbary herself is the greatest of sufferers. She victimized herself via Lady Dedlock’s disgrace, depriving her sister of her own child and herself becoming an old maid. Miss Barbary’s bitterness shrivels her up and ruins her life. Ironically, although she warns Esther lest she reap the consequences for her family’s actions, it appears that Miss Barbary had bitterness and hatred heaped in her own soul over her sister’s sin. Through Miss Barbary, Dickens shows that failure to forgive even the worst of sins wastes away at the soul, and also uses her character to warn against judging others for their sins.
Secondly, Esther’s response to the reality that she is her mother’s bastard child must be taken into account. Throughout the first five hundred pages of the novel, several minor characters note the close similarity in the appearances of Lady Dedlock and Esther; however, Esther’s face is so marred during her illness that no resemblance remains afterward. One day, while Esther is staying at Chesney Wold to recover her strength, Lady Dedlock comes to her while she is resting in the park-woods. As she approaches, Esther notes that there is “something in her faced that [she] had pined for and dreamed of when [she] was a child” (578). With weeping, kisses, and passion, Lady Dedlock reveals her maternity to Esther, saying, “O my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! O try to forgive me!” (579). Although one might expect Esther to respond in either anger or shock, she instead says that "When I saw her at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt,through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of likeness; as that nobody could ever now look at me, and look at her, and remotely think of any near tie between us. (579)"
In other words, rather than hold bitterness or anger over the entire situation, she rejoices that her illness has so disfigured her that her appearance would not lead to the revelation of her mother’s indiscretion. Lady Dedlock goes on to tell her that she must bear the burden for her sin alone “on [her] guilty feet. I bear it, and I hide it” (Ibid). She asks Esther then to keep her identity and their relationship secret. Rather than taking offense, Esther affirms her mother’s decision and agrees that it is the wisest course of action under the circumstances. In sharp contrast to her aunt, Esther deems her mother’s transgression almost as her own fault. She is frightened that she will be the cause of her mother’s downfall, which she perceives as an pardonable wrongdoing. Through Esther, Dickens not only provides hope for redemption and forgiveness to the fallen woman, but he also conjectures about the affects promiscuity may have on bastard children.
Thirdly, Sir Leicester Dedlock, the husband to the guilty party, plays a key role in portraying Dickens’ views of the fallen woman in his novel. In chapter 54, “Springing a Mine”, Mr. Bucket finally reveals the truth about Lady Dedlock’s promiscuity to Sir Leicester when he solves the murder mystery surrounding Mr. Tulkinghorn’s death. Sir Leicester’s response to this shocking revelation is surprising. As he contemplates what to do, he realizes that
"It is she… [about whom] he has never had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she, who….has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself; and cannot bear to look upon her cast down from the high places she has so well graced." (838)
As he considers all of this, he falls to his knees uttering her name “in a tone of mourning and compassion rather than reproach” (Ibid). Instead of becoming irate when he hears the truth, Sir Leicester refuses to view her as his perfect Victorian wife fallen from her ivory tower, but rather as his love who still remains on a golden pedestal. As the plot progresses and Lady Dedlock runs away, leaving an explanatory note behind her, Sir Leicester has a stroke as a result of his grief that makes him “the decrepit shadow of himself” (857). Despite a handicap that requires him to write rather than speak, he orders a search party out to find Lady Dedlock, to whom he desires to offer “full forgiveness” (859). Sir Leicester’s response to Lady Dedlock is perhaps Dickens’ strongest statement about the nature of fallen women. While many people considered such a sin unpardonable and worthy of death, Sir Leicester reverses the norm by offering pardon. He serves as a Christ-figure by continuing in his undying love for his wife even after he learns of her betrayal and disgrace.
Fourthly, Lady Dedlock’s response to her own sin is of exceeding importance in Dickens’ novel. She not only decides to hide her secret for years, but she also takes whatever measures she deems necessary to continue to cover up her sin when it begins to surface. Several chance events, such as the spontaneous combustion of Mr. Krook, the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn, and the deferral of Mr. Guppy by Esther, help her to conceal it for a while, but ultimately all those she holds dear find her out. In accordance with the biblical truth that your sins will find you out, although it takes many years, Lady Dedlock’s transgression ultimately catches up with her. Next, when she realizes that all hope is lost for hiding her secret any longer, she writes a note to her husband and then runs away in disgrace. Sadly, although Esther and, more importantly, Sir Leicester offer redemption and love, Lady Dedlock cannot accept their grace and forgive herself. She feels she must do some sort of penance for her misdeed, and so she runs away before even learning of Sir Leicester’s reaction. She would rather flee the shame and rejection that she believes will come with confrontation than humble herself enough to accept whatever penalty those she has wronged deem fit. Although Mr. Bucket and Esther lead a perilous search for her, they do not find her until it is too late—she is already frozen to death by the gate of the public burial ground where her premarital lover, Captain “Nemo” Hawdon, lies.
Dickens depicts an interesting commentary on fallen womanhood and those that it affects in his novel Bleak House.
Through Miss Barbary he presents the affects that harbored bitterness can have on the life of the unforgiving. Esther shows how lies can affect children of indiscretion through both her childhood under Miss Barbary’s care and her blame-taking response to the truth. Sir Leicester reveals that full forgiveness can be extended to fallen women on the basis of true love, yet Lady Dedlock shows that not all women can reach a point where they are able to forgive themselves before arriving at a point of self-destruction caused by imposing penance on themselves for their transgressions. Dickens’ personal view of the fallen woman is multi-faceted yet hopeful. He critiques the life-long ripple effects that the sin of a fallen woman may have on those who surround her. While he offers hope, he still harbors skepticism as to whether or not a fallen woman can really accept the hope of forgiveness even if it is offered.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.
First of all, from the beginning of Bleak House, Miss Barbary gives a very decided opinion about her sister, Lady Dedlock’s, youthful indiscretions which resulted in Esther’s birth. To begin with, Esther does not understand her bastardly origin, rather believing herself to be an orphaned child left in the care of her severe aunt. “She was so very good herself, I thought,” Esther describes Miss Barbary, “that the badness of other people made her frown all her life” (28). The succeeding description that Esther attributes to her aunt is less than flattering; however, she is the virgin, the sister who supposedly played her cards right, living by the letter of the law. In short, Dickens paints a picture of an exceedingly self-righteous older woman whose bitterness and anger over her sister’s offense has eaten her up inside so that she has no quality of life left to live. On Esther’s birthday, Dickens’ records that Miss Barbary tells her, “It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday; that you had never been born” (30). Esther responds by asking her if her mother died on her birthday, which, of course, she did not. However, based on her reaction and vehement statements of reproach, it would seem that Miss Barbary wishes that it were so.
Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come—and soon enough—when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have forgiven her the wrong she did to me, and say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know—than any one will ever know, but I, the sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written, Forget your mother, and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. (30)
Miss Barbary believes that Lady Dedlock not only sinned against God, but also against all womankind, of whom Miss Barbary herself is the greatest of sufferers. She victimized herself via Lady Dedlock’s disgrace, depriving her sister of her own child and herself becoming an old maid. Miss Barbary’s bitterness shrivels her up and ruins her life. Ironically, although she warns Esther lest she reap the consequences for her family’s actions, it appears that Miss Barbary had bitterness and hatred heaped in her own soul over her sister’s sin. Through Miss Barbary, Dickens shows that failure to forgive even the worst of sins wastes away at the soul, and also uses her character to warn against judging others for their sins.
Secondly, Esther’s response to the reality that she is her mother’s bastard child must be taken into account. Throughout the first five hundred pages of the novel, several minor characters note the close similarity in the appearances of Lady Dedlock and Esther; however, Esther’s face is so marred during her illness that no resemblance remains afterward. One day, while Esther is staying at Chesney Wold to recover her strength, Lady Dedlock comes to her while she is resting in the park-woods. As she approaches, Esther notes that there is “something in her faced that [she] had pined for and dreamed of when [she] was a child” (578). With weeping, kisses, and passion, Lady Dedlock reveals her maternity to Esther, saying, “O my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! O try to forgive me!” (579). Although one might expect Esther to respond in either anger or shock, she instead says that "When I saw her at my feet on the bare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt,through all my tumult of emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was so changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of likeness; as that nobody could ever now look at me, and look at her, and remotely think of any near tie between us. (579)"
In other words, rather than hold bitterness or anger over the entire situation, she rejoices that her illness has so disfigured her that her appearance would not lead to the revelation of her mother’s indiscretion. Lady Dedlock goes on to tell her that she must bear the burden for her sin alone “on [her] guilty feet. I bear it, and I hide it” (Ibid). She asks Esther then to keep her identity and their relationship secret. Rather than taking offense, Esther affirms her mother’s decision and agrees that it is the wisest course of action under the circumstances. In sharp contrast to her aunt, Esther deems her mother’s transgression almost as her own fault. She is frightened that she will be the cause of her mother’s downfall, which she perceives as an pardonable wrongdoing. Through Esther, Dickens not only provides hope for redemption and forgiveness to the fallen woman, but he also conjectures about the affects promiscuity may have on bastard children.
Thirdly, Sir Leicester Dedlock, the husband to the guilty party, plays a key role in portraying Dickens’ views of the fallen woman in his novel. In chapter 54, “Springing a Mine”, Mr. Bucket finally reveals the truth about Lady Dedlock’s promiscuity to Sir Leicester when he solves the murder mystery surrounding Mr. Tulkinghorn’s death. Sir Leicester’s response to this shocking revelation is surprising. As he contemplates what to do, he realizes that
"It is she… [about whom] he has never had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired, honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she, who….has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her, almost to the exclusion of himself; and cannot bear to look upon her cast down from the high places she has so well graced." (838)
As he considers all of this, he falls to his knees uttering her name “in a tone of mourning and compassion rather than reproach” (Ibid). Instead of becoming irate when he hears the truth, Sir Leicester refuses to view her as his perfect Victorian wife fallen from her ivory tower, but rather as his love who still remains on a golden pedestal. As the plot progresses and Lady Dedlock runs away, leaving an explanatory note behind her, Sir Leicester has a stroke as a result of his grief that makes him “the decrepit shadow of himself” (857). Despite a handicap that requires him to write rather than speak, he orders a search party out to find Lady Dedlock, to whom he desires to offer “full forgiveness” (859). Sir Leicester’s response to Lady Dedlock is perhaps Dickens’ strongest statement about the nature of fallen women. While many people considered such a sin unpardonable and worthy of death, Sir Leicester reverses the norm by offering pardon. He serves as a Christ-figure by continuing in his undying love for his wife even after he learns of her betrayal and disgrace.
Fourthly, Lady Dedlock’s response to her own sin is of exceeding importance in Dickens’ novel. She not only decides to hide her secret for years, but she also takes whatever measures she deems necessary to continue to cover up her sin when it begins to surface. Several chance events, such as the spontaneous combustion of Mr. Krook, the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn, and the deferral of Mr. Guppy by Esther, help her to conceal it for a while, but ultimately all those she holds dear find her out. In accordance with the biblical truth that your sins will find you out, although it takes many years, Lady Dedlock’s transgression ultimately catches up with her. Next, when she realizes that all hope is lost for hiding her secret any longer, she writes a note to her husband and then runs away in disgrace. Sadly, although Esther and, more importantly, Sir Leicester offer redemption and love, Lady Dedlock cannot accept their grace and forgive herself. She feels she must do some sort of penance for her misdeed, and so she runs away before even learning of Sir Leicester’s reaction. She would rather flee the shame and rejection that she believes will come with confrontation than humble herself enough to accept whatever penalty those she has wronged deem fit. Although Mr. Bucket and Esther lead a perilous search for her, they do not find her until it is too late—she is already frozen to death by the gate of the public burial ground where her premarital lover, Captain “Nemo” Hawdon, lies.
Dickens depicts an interesting commentary on fallen womanhood and those that it affects in his novel Bleak House.
Through Miss Barbary he presents the affects that harbored bitterness can have on the life of the unforgiving. Esther shows how lies can affect children of indiscretion through both her childhood under Miss Barbary’s care and her blame-taking response to the truth. Sir Leicester reveals that full forgiveness can be extended to fallen women on the basis of true love, yet Lady Dedlock shows that not all women can reach a point where they are able to forgive themselves before arriving at a point of self-destruction caused by imposing penance on themselves for their transgressions. Dickens’ personal view of the fallen woman is multi-faceted yet hopeful. He critiques the life-long ripple effects that the sin of a fallen woman may have on those who surround her. While he offers hope, he still harbors skepticism as to whether or not a fallen woman can really accept the hope of forgiveness even if it is offered.
Works Cited
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. London: Penguin, 2003. Print.
The Coquette as Inoffensive as a Shadow
Throughout Villette, Lucy has two potential suitors—Dr. John Graham Bretton and Monsieur Paul Emmanuel. Although initially her devotion takes a decided course, her affections for each man takes a pivotal turn roughly midway through the novel in Volume II.
Prior to this turning point, in Volume I, the reader senses Lucy’s affection for Graham in the flippant manner she adopts to describe Paulina “Polly” Home during their concurrent visit at Bretton. As the novel progresses, Lucy slyly observes Dr. John while he ministers to residents at Madame Beck’s penssionate; however, she withholds his true identity from the reader until she falls ill and is forced to recover in the home of Mrs. Louis Bretton and her son, Graham—Dr. John. For a lengthy interval, Lucy gravitates towards Dr. John, accepting five letters from him as well as invitations to outings to the theater and art museums. The letters she receives from him are “the letter[s] of [her] hope, the fruition of [her] wish, the release from [her] doubt, the ransom from [her] terror… a morsel of real solid joy” (265). Meanwhile, Lucy and M. Paul introduced when Lucy is forced to substitute for an actress in M. Paul’s play who falls ill on Madame Beck’s fete day. They interact frequently and often capriciously at the school on Rue Fossette. M. Paul is constantly the pedantic master who instructs Lucy in all manner of Labassecouerian learning, as well as the recurrently hotheaded friend whom Lucy constantly frustrates.
In the chapter entitled “The Hotel Crecy” of Volume II, during a party in the home of M. de Bassompierre, Dr. John remembers Polly’s childhood attachment to him at Bretton and appeals to Lucy Snowe to aid him in his endeavor to renew Paulina’s interests. Lucy refuses. Along the way of his request, Graham tells Lucy that, were she a man, they would be best friends, for “[their] opinions would have melted into each other” (349). Lucy contrarily questions his statement, wondering if the very opposite would not be true. “We may see the same objects,” Lucy replies, “yet we estimate them differently” (349). He then reveals his ignorance of Lucy’s true character by deeming her “a being inoffensive as a shadow” (351). Evidently, despite the copious amount of time they have spent together, Dr. John has remained ignorant of Lucy’s true feelings for him—unobservant of her frustrations, her pent-up passions and desires. Suddenly, the eaves dropping M. Paul appears and contradicts Dr. John’s words, revealing his depth of knowledge of his protégée and colleague, Lucy Snowe. She describes him as “the sudden boa-constrictor” as he violently terms her a flirt, a coquette with fire in her soul and lightning in her eyes (352). Though he exaggerates because of his jealousy toward Graham, M. Paul discloses in his insult that he sees Lucy in a much truer light. These two statements from her potential suitors at the end of Volume II serve as a turning point for the romance of Lucy Snowe. Not only do they initially alter how she spends her time, but also affect the rest of her life.
By way of concretely terminating her former passions for Graham, Lucy decides almost immediately to bury his previously treasured letters in a sealed jar in a tree stump. Along with his letters, Lucy buries all but familial affections for the man she once obsessively loved. “In all this,” writes Lucy, “I had a dreary something—not pleasure—but a sad, lonely satisfaction” (328). During the ensuing relationship that develops between Lucy and M. Paul, Dr. John quickly fades from Lucy’s scope of thought and consideration. As time goes on and the novel draws to a close, Lucy achieves a sort of indifference that allows her to listen without envy to Paulina’s commendations of Dr John (412-418). When Graham and Paulina develop a romance without any outside help and decide to marry, Lucy ultimately acts, not unhappily, as a mediator between the couple and M. de Bassompierre (472-483).
On the other hand, a romance blossoms between Lucy Snowe and M. Paul during the remaining volume of Villette. Not only does he tutor and converse with her every day, but they interact as friends as well. When, once, Lucy Snowe begins to make a man’s watch guard, M. Paul becomes frightfully incensed because he envies the unknown recipient, whom he wrongly believes to be Dr. John (366-368). Not only is their relationship built largely around jealousy and passion, but it has several other odd conventions as well. M. Paul is always snooping in Lucy’s things, as well as filling her desk with chocolates and a variety of literature. Next, they are constantly annoying one another. For example, on M. Paul’s fete day, after everyone has given him a present, M. Paul is angry because Lucy has offered him nothing. She, however, is quite annoyed at his impatience, and therefore withholds out of spite the watch guard she had always intended to give him (376-385). Oddly, Lucy and M. Paul also spend a significant amount of time trying to convert one another. In “The Apple of Discord,” they discuss her Protestantism versus his Catholicism at length. Then, for a time, M. Paul completely avoids Lucy because his mentor, Pere Silas, instructs him not to consort with Protestants who refuse to convert. Although neither converts, they reach an accord to accept one another’s nonconformity.
Towards the end of the novel, in the chapter entitled “The Dryad”, M. Paul reveals to Lucy that he too sees the mysterious Nun-apparition, and uses this revelation as a venue to express his affection for Lucy (407). His words to her sharply contrast with Graham’s earlier reference to Lucy as being “inoffensive as a shadow” (351). M. Paul goes beyond the surface level of who Lucy is and why he is attracted to her and points out the kindred nature of their spirits. Unlike Dr John, he acknowledges that they do not see everything through the same lens, pointing out their differences of faith as an example. However, in hopes of proving to Lucy that they are meant to be together, he notes that they have similar faces, implementing the Victorian ideals of physiognomy and phrenology as further proof of their similar destinies. He sees the Nun as further connection between them, and even goes so far as to claim possession of Lucy, saying, “I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star…where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle” (407).
When M. Paul decides that he must leave Villette and travel, Lucy becomes overwrought at the prospect of losing her only love. However, just when her only chance at human love seems to be fading and the world to be conspiring against her, M. Paul reveals that he has lovingly arranged for Lucy to have her own home and school to work from until his return three years hence, at which time they are to be married. Before taking his leave of her, M. Paul at last declares his love to his “coquette,” saying, “Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. By my dearest, first on earth”(541).
In conclusion, Dr John’s fateful words that deem Lucy “as inoffensive as a shadow” terminate all affection that Lucy has for him, while M. Paul’s subsequent determination that she is a “coquette” creates the spark that ignites the flames of passion for the two teachers. The conversations at Hotel Crecy serve not only as a turning point in Lucy’s romance, but also as pivotal moment that redirects the remaining course of the novel.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Villette (Penguin Classics). New York: Penguin Classics, 2004. Print.
Prior to this turning point, in Volume I, the reader senses Lucy’s affection for Graham in the flippant manner she adopts to describe Paulina “Polly” Home during their concurrent visit at Bretton. As the novel progresses, Lucy slyly observes Dr. John while he ministers to residents at Madame Beck’s penssionate; however, she withholds his true identity from the reader until she falls ill and is forced to recover in the home of Mrs. Louis Bretton and her son, Graham—Dr. John. For a lengthy interval, Lucy gravitates towards Dr. John, accepting five letters from him as well as invitations to outings to the theater and art museums. The letters she receives from him are “the letter[s] of [her] hope, the fruition of [her] wish, the release from [her] doubt, the ransom from [her] terror… a morsel of real solid joy” (265). Meanwhile, Lucy and M. Paul introduced when Lucy is forced to substitute for an actress in M. Paul’s play who falls ill on Madame Beck’s fete day. They interact frequently and often capriciously at the school on Rue Fossette. M. Paul is constantly the pedantic master who instructs Lucy in all manner of Labassecouerian learning, as well as the recurrently hotheaded friend whom Lucy constantly frustrates.
In the chapter entitled “The Hotel Crecy” of Volume II, during a party in the home of M. de Bassompierre, Dr. John remembers Polly’s childhood attachment to him at Bretton and appeals to Lucy Snowe to aid him in his endeavor to renew Paulina’s interests. Lucy refuses. Along the way of his request, Graham tells Lucy that, were she a man, they would be best friends, for “[their] opinions would have melted into each other” (349). Lucy contrarily questions his statement, wondering if the very opposite would not be true. “We may see the same objects,” Lucy replies, “yet we estimate them differently” (349). He then reveals his ignorance of Lucy’s true character by deeming her “a being inoffensive as a shadow” (351). Evidently, despite the copious amount of time they have spent together, Dr. John has remained ignorant of Lucy’s true feelings for him—unobservant of her frustrations, her pent-up passions and desires. Suddenly, the eaves dropping M. Paul appears and contradicts Dr. John’s words, revealing his depth of knowledge of his protégée and colleague, Lucy Snowe. She describes him as “the sudden boa-constrictor” as he violently terms her a flirt, a coquette with fire in her soul and lightning in her eyes (352). Though he exaggerates because of his jealousy toward Graham, M. Paul discloses in his insult that he sees Lucy in a much truer light. These two statements from her potential suitors at the end of Volume II serve as a turning point for the romance of Lucy Snowe. Not only do they initially alter how she spends her time, but also affect the rest of her life.
By way of concretely terminating her former passions for Graham, Lucy decides almost immediately to bury his previously treasured letters in a sealed jar in a tree stump. Along with his letters, Lucy buries all but familial affections for the man she once obsessively loved. “In all this,” writes Lucy, “I had a dreary something—not pleasure—but a sad, lonely satisfaction” (328). During the ensuing relationship that develops between Lucy and M. Paul, Dr. John quickly fades from Lucy’s scope of thought and consideration. As time goes on and the novel draws to a close, Lucy achieves a sort of indifference that allows her to listen without envy to Paulina’s commendations of Dr John (412-418). When Graham and Paulina develop a romance without any outside help and decide to marry, Lucy ultimately acts, not unhappily, as a mediator between the couple and M. de Bassompierre (472-483).
On the other hand, a romance blossoms between Lucy Snowe and M. Paul during the remaining volume of Villette. Not only does he tutor and converse with her every day, but they interact as friends as well. When, once, Lucy Snowe begins to make a man’s watch guard, M. Paul becomes frightfully incensed because he envies the unknown recipient, whom he wrongly believes to be Dr. John (366-368). Not only is their relationship built largely around jealousy and passion, but it has several other odd conventions as well. M. Paul is always snooping in Lucy’s things, as well as filling her desk with chocolates and a variety of literature. Next, they are constantly annoying one another. For example, on M. Paul’s fete day, after everyone has given him a present, M. Paul is angry because Lucy has offered him nothing. She, however, is quite annoyed at his impatience, and therefore withholds out of spite the watch guard she had always intended to give him (376-385). Oddly, Lucy and M. Paul also spend a significant amount of time trying to convert one another. In “The Apple of Discord,” they discuss her Protestantism versus his Catholicism at length. Then, for a time, M. Paul completely avoids Lucy because his mentor, Pere Silas, instructs him not to consort with Protestants who refuse to convert. Although neither converts, they reach an accord to accept one another’s nonconformity.
Towards the end of the novel, in the chapter entitled “The Dryad”, M. Paul reveals to Lucy that he too sees the mysterious Nun-apparition, and uses this revelation as a venue to express his affection for Lucy (407). His words to her sharply contrast with Graham’s earlier reference to Lucy as being “inoffensive as a shadow” (351). M. Paul goes beyond the surface level of who Lucy is and why he is attracted to her and points out the kindred nature of their spirits. Unlike Dr John, he acknowledges that they do not see everything through the same lens, pointing out their differences of faith as an example. However, in hopes of proving to Lucy that they are meant to be together, he notes that they have similar faces, implementing the Victorian ideals of physiognomy and phrenology as further proof of their similar destinies. He sees the Nun as further connection between them, and even goes so far as to claim possession of Lucy, saying, “I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star…where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle” (407).
When M. Paul decides that he must leave Villette and travel, Lucy becomes overwrought at the prospect of losing her only love. However, just when her only chance at human love seems to be fading and the world to be conspiring against her, M. Paul reveals that he has lovingly arranged for Lucy to have her own home and school to work from until his return three years hence, at which time they are to be married. Before taking his leave of her, M. Paul at last declares his love to his “coquette,” saying, “Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. By my dearest, first on earth”(541).
In conclusion, Dr John’s fateful words that deem Lucy “as inoffensive as a shadow” terminate all affection that Lucy has for him, while M. Paul’s subsequent determination that she is a “coquette” creates the spark that ignites the flames of passion for the two teachers. The conversations at Hotel Crecy serve not only as a turning point in Lucy’s romance, but also as pivotal moment that redirects the remaining course of the novel.
Works Cited
Brontë, Charlotte. Villette (Penguin Classics). New York: Penguin Classics, 2004. Print.
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