Unconscious Liar - Anthony Scott

There’s a hand on her face,

either pushing, shoving,

or goading, nudging

in directions pointless or problematic.

There’s a fist on her face,

frequently flailing,

always assailing,

the mindless pounding perpetual.

There’s a hound on her face,

dogging and barking,

whining, remarking

trailing every scent, unsatisfied.

There’s a mist on her face,

a fog of phrase

her words, a maze,

she’s damned by her own delusion

And life is a litany of handling and hitting,

hounding and lying,

forever denying

herself one look

in the mirror.

While We Were Dancing - Gordon Gillis

While we were dancing,
you screamed in an artful way.

A siren’s call of shredding vocal chords,
the brushstroke masterpiece of a shattered jaw line.

Backhand leading; now my hand’s back is bleeding,
bruised, I suppose I could laugh

About being sorry, if I didn’t hurt
so vividly, so heroically.

You did it to yourself, as if you’d jumped down
The flight of stairs, while

I embrace the lies that I know I believe and sing, while I blame it
on my job, my life
while I blame it on everything.

Your mandolin cries, manhandled and manipulated,
destiny stringing you along,

dying from your green black eye,

dying for your blood red blonde.

One quart, two quarts, swimming floors and waving walls,
weaving through the swerving house,

I know to flail my hands,
contact smooth glossy flesh, eat the world

that we all know,
munch it down in a daily dose.

And bounce down the steps,
in a broken doll house,

as I devour myself
by emptying you.

A Life in 6 Words - Michael Swinemer

A Life in 6 Words One

I was born many years ago.

A Life in 6 Words Two

Naivete
Crucible
Nihilism
Failure
Nightshift
Reinvention

A Life in 6 Words Three

Immortal at least until I die.

What This Nation Needs - Randy Deabay

Our nation is on a brink. This brink is to be great once again, or to fall like the empires that built the annuals of history. Our nation does not need spectacular new ideas, nor world wind governmental change, but something so much simpler, so much easier.

This nation needs not deceit, but caring; not judgment, but understanding; and not hatred but a renewed love of our neighbor. Today, we need to stand up for what we believe in, and we need to believe in what has built America. Today, the historical significance of each battle, each drop of blood and sweat shed to build this nation is at a crossroad, and only we, the citizens, can save it from a future of unknown divisions.

Our country, built on the ideal of opportunity, an ideal of working together to create the most significant country of known history, and we have the amazing opportunity to carry this forward. Today, we need to remember Bobby Kennedy’s words, and come together to make America great once again. Today we need to reconcile our divisions, and come together for our country, and to honor John F. Kennedy’s words: “Do not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Today is monumental, today is the brink of greatness, or disaster, and the path that we, this nation, take shall affect our future beyond imagination. Today we need to begin to mend fences, cross aisles, understand our neighbors, appreciate our opportunities, and come together once again so we may take our country to new and greater heights. No more division, no more sadness, just the opportunity to come together to make the change this country so desperately needs.

Today we need to honor those who fought to make our country great, from the revolutionaries to the civil war heroes, to our presidents in time of great threats, to our imagination that has taken our scientific community to heights not long ago believed impossible. Today, we can choose to be great or just average. Today is a door that we can open to acceptance and cohesiveness. The choice lies in our hands; what shall we do?

Louisiana Cooking Philosophy - Anthony Scott

Pinch it, dash it, bring it, fling it,
by the teaspoon, by the capful,
pour it in by the cupful

Don’t fear the flavor, Savor!
Trust it, let it, like a lover,

stimulating,

Escalating

Naked, massaging your entire tongue
leaves you breathless when she’s done

A thousand was, she works, she laughs,
Nude Vidalia, unabashed
or in sassafras, she sweetly teases
Flavor freed, she always pleases

in which I talk to you - Katrina Anderson

You are God...butterflied and blue-eyed,

make-up artist extraordinaire, blond, black and brown haired.

You are the God who wades in my darks

and separates the whites.

Waltzing, graceful God—

You are the pastel chalk I use

when all my crayons break.

The God of paper flowers and comic strips—the God who sits

on a couch, inside my belly and tells me

stories of war and Christmas and last week.

You are God—interdependent, 3 in one,

Father, Ghost and Son—

You drape last Tuesday across a chair

and love me

despite the holes in my nylons.

Oh God of asylums and peace pipes,

please put me in Your silver goblet and drink me

down with Your half-chewed turkey this Thanksgiving.

Oh God of every season, of every reason to believe

in thorns and blood and rolling stones,

help me sit down and let You stand.

Oh selfish, self-less God,

break me to pieces in Your hand

and give me a thousand tongues to sing

of this freedom.

I killed a young boy - Gordon Gillis

I killed a young boy
on my drive to work this morning.


not a freeway, but fast just the same,
it was four lanes in two directions with one small figure
nearly transparent in the fog.


Baby blue footed pajamas, ragged and torn.
he was dragging a loveweary stuffed dog, faded chocolate brown and
browned milkcream color spots, with one glass beady eye, and a gentle ju-ju ribbon
worn to strands and fibers around his noose-neck.


He was one of those platinum blond children of the corn with
bright blue eyes, but one of those
platinum blond that darkens
to brown, and eyes that follow.


Chubby little guy, standing curiously turned at the front of
my gas eating child killing roaring black giant world killing sport utility vehicle.
He knew for just one moment that this rushing brute of a car,
rushing brute of a man didn’t want to be his friend.


Didn’t want to play, didn’t want to take the time to watch him any longer,
with his trappings of childhood slung happily around him,
a little cold for being outside, but also a little flushed
for being outside.


I wish now that there was time to brake; he wasn’t there until
it was too late to do anything else but hit him, solid and square.
Tiny body would not be, and was not, a match for the solid
and unyielding metal and plastic.


So short, and so small, I couldn’t see him
at all when I felt the barest of thumps.
If there is anything that big, unwieldy world killing vehicles are good for,
it is not noticing what you’re driving on, or over.


It spread over me like a slow flood,
like a stopped motion waters break.
The birth of an empty and meaningless road, asphalt and concrete median,
slickly black in the almost rainy morning.


The rearview showed a gently tumbled bundle,
laundry on a Sunday morning jumped in a pile of warm that gets cold too fast,
and then it isn’t Sunday morning
jumped in laundry time again ever.


And just like him,
the littlest one that is gone
but wished for,
you never see that loss coming.


You can stare and stare at the oncoming traffic,
translucent in the fog and light of a six o’clock morning,
and you can fade off into your morning
face burning coffee.


Blast furnace fast over empty miles, in between the concrete and yellow lines,
there’s always that little boy you’d thought was long ago that bundle in your mirror,
standing squarely in front of you, with that curious stare, wondering when it is again,
that you’re going to stop and play with him.


And in that troubling moment, but only a moment, you realize what was crushed
under your wheels, and there is the bitterest of coffee smiles.
we desperately clamor to mature, to pass that little guy and think,
ever so hatefully, that it was about time you grew up anyway.

How Long Do We Graze in the Field? - James Preston Holmes

I remember back in grade school when things were much easier. God was good, America was good, everyone who followed God was good, and everything America did was good. Christopher Columbus was a great man, and it was perplexing why he wasn’t a saint. Abraham Lincoln, rifle in one hand, sword in the other, rode in on his white horse and freed the slaves from the evil, vile, rebellious South. All of this was so simple. Until the day that I found out none of it was true. Howard Zinn points out in his article, published on March 8, 2006, “Lessons of Iraq War Start with U.S. History,” how “important [it is] to consider why the administration so easily fooled so many people into supporting the war.” Zinn points out an “absence of historical perspective,” and an “inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism.” I believe it goes further than that. I believe it also directly relates to the complacency of the American people, too busy listening to their iPods to hear what is going on, too busy watching the latest “reality” television show to watch the news. Even if they did see and hear what was going on, they would be too fat with fast food and an easy life to do anything about it, and this is the way the government wants it.

Many of us see the current president as a lying, scheming, manipulative capitalist pig who rolls in the money he has made from the blood of American and Iraqi lives, at worst, and, at best, a puppet of lying, scheming, manipulative, capitalist pigs who, well, I think you get the picture. Unfortunately, as Zinn points out, Bush is definitely not the first president to lie for personal or lobbyist gain. Take Polk, for example, who, in 1846, “lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico.” Polk would have had us all believe that it was because “Mexico ‘shed American blood upon the American soil,’” however, truth be known, it was because “Polk, and the slave0owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.” Again, in 1898, President McKinley lied to the American people about the reasons for the war in the Philippines, “claiming we only wanted to ‘civilize’ the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.”

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. With the number of deaths in Iraq, not including our own blood, almost touching one million, I think it is time the American people took a step back and thought about why it is we are in this war. Is it to find weapons of mass destruction that could be used against us? Well, no, it was proven that there aren’t any there. Not only that, it was proven that Bush knew there weren’t any there when he sent Americans to their deaths at the hands of Hussein’s blood-letters.

All of this tells me that it is not just now, in this day and age, that Americans don’t ask the tough questions of their leaders and demand the truth, but forever it has been that way. And, really, I can be more forgiving of those in the 1800s not asking the tough questions and believing what they were told; they didn’t have access to the vast network of information that we have today: the internet. Americans need to wake up and realize that we are not the “uniquely virtuous nation” that we believe we are.

Of course, the lies mentioned by Zinn do not end with the war in the Philippines, but continue throughout the grand and glorious history of our great country. And what is the most interesting part? That none of the lies Zinn mentions ever appear in a history book. Not only did Columbus not discover America, but he wasn’t a hero when he got here. He was a butcher. Abraham Lincoln didn’t free all the slaves; he just freed those slaves from states that seceded from the Union, giving the South further justification for their withdrawal. And what drives this point home is that my own mother, not from ten generations ago, not even from five, but from two, completely refuses to acknowledge that fact. History has driven it into the minds of Americans that their heroes are infallible, and nothing they do or did could ever be questionable in any way.
W, as a nation, need to come away from this complacency and this herd mentality that everything we are fed is pure and right. We need to become critical thinkers that question, and scrutinize, and determine for ourselves what the proper course of action is regarding everything we allow our leaders to do. We need to “inspire [ourselves] to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join people around the world in the common cause of peace and justice.”

Desgarrar - Katrina Anderson

I went through a great divorce--
left pieces of my lips on your collarbone, your
abdomen, your belt buckle.

The letter I sent contains your personal items:
whispers, last winter, a sonogram

I trust you will be able to take care of the weeds,
the smoke rings I blew in your hair--grey.

This isn't a dent,
there's no need to apologize,
I conceived this on my own.

And Zen - Michael Swinemer

I

Sit as quietly as I can

Make no sound

Silent as a stone

Never worked never works won’t work won’t ever work

Treacherous mind

Treasonous soul

I

Am not my breath

Flowing in through my nose

Down to my belly

And out again from my mouth

Not a breath

Just a man

Who cannot be

His own breath

I

Shut out every noise

Except my breath

And the clock

And birds above

And voices below

Every noise

Except the world

I

Know nothing

Like one is told

Except

My own transcendental impotence

The very form and concept

Of someone who does not

Touch some irritating Infinite

I

Want it to be there

Something profound

Something brought with

Ohms

And stinging carbonating sleeping feet

It could be right there

An open window

To a room with a view

Of everything

And I’m hanging from the windowsill

And can’t pull myself

Up

So

It looks like

I

Am just one

With

Me

And I cannot drink tea

From

An empty cup

Letter From the Co-editor

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the second issue of Upcountry: A Journal of Sights and Insights, sponsored by the Honors Program at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. This journal has been a collaboration of many different people, and the result is a diverse collection of pieces that offer insight into the heart of the university. This issue of Upcountry represents the high quality of scholastic efforts UMPI has produced, as well as the finest of artistic capabilities. The university is not simply an institution of learning; it is a hotbed that engenders creativity and encourages free expression. As a co-editor of Upcountry, I am proud to present this installation for the perusal of others.

Firstly, I must thank Dr. Melissa Crowe, the Director of the Honors Program and co-editor of Upcountry. Without her enormous efforts in soliciting, selecting, and editing the pieces, this issue would have been a great deal less notable.

Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who contributed to the journal. The fruits of your imaginations have brought Upcountry to life, and the amount of pieces and enthusiasm made the editing experience a pleasant one for me. Thank you for allowing the editors of Upcountry to present your wonderful work, and I hope to get the opportunity to read additional masterpieces for the next issue.

Cheers,
Desirée Ellis
Co-editor

My Preconceptions Speak Too Loud: An Apology - Jym Greenfield

You

Have caught my attention
Your frugal ways
Your stringy, dyed hair
Your hollow wrinkles
Your forced uncertain smile
Tells me who you are

Then I learn of your
Fight and you

Who

Fought to survive
And how you won
And still lost
You picked up the street-bottles
And hid the change
To buy those bus tickets
Away from that man who

Beat

You and your little boy every day

The

Son who grew up
And gave you wrinkles
Who gave you gray hair
Who drained away your money
And now the two of you are at

Odds

Because he is ashamed of you
For your dyed hair
your miserly ways
your hollow wrinkles
And your empty, forced smile

Some Concern Over Milk Supply - Heather Nunez

Heather Nunez is a fourth-year student majoring in Fine Art and Art Education. She writes, “Ideally, I would paint all day, and spend time with my beautiful family. But, as practicality dictates, I will teach to live.” Her works consist of mixed-media sculptural objects and oil paintings on canvas.

Marilyn Monroe Mannequin - Victoria Osgood

This is voyeurism at its best:

Long, dark eyelashes

peer over the
ridge of the celebrated
novel he pretends
to read

As he
Watches with
an eagle eye, she
Amuses, cleaning the last
bit of syrup with her luscious
lips, those lips, sliding them down
the base of the delicate utensil, gracefully
clasped between her alluring, plastic fingers

how she enjoys every bit of this regalement.

When she casts an eye in his direction, discovers his
amorous stare, a slow grin approaches her lips,
those lips, and resides. Her gentle hand
glides his deviating eye to her size
twelve thighs, the trunks that
brace that body, it’s
nudity an image
conjured in
his young
mind, so
full of
thoughts,
yet oblivious,
he’s trapped.

Victoria Osgood is a senior, majoring in Elementary Education, with a concentration in English. After graduating in May 2008, Victoria plans to teach in Aroostook County and continue to write poetry as well. "Marilyn Monroe Mannequin," is intended to resemble a pair of lips in its physical form.

The Misunderstanding of Oppression in Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” - Scarlett Cunningham

Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” is famously known for contesting institutionalized forms of oppression and expresses its distaste for politics of exclusion through resisting orthodoxy altogether. Ginsberg’s poem deals thematically with racism, homophobia, academic elitism, and western patterns of war and aggression, but seems impervious to female suffering under the patriarchal system. Ginsberg practices and perpetuates misogyny in his poetry although he was otherwise a frontrunner in the fight against intellectual bigotry and a cultural climate laced with both sexual repression and violence.

Ginsberg expresses a deep distrust of formal institutions including government, universities, corporate America, and marriage, the last of which Ginsberg views as the culmination of the ultimate perverse union of repression and cheer that existed as a residual of World War Two. Ginsberg aptly captures the intellectual elitism characteristic of the conservative gatekeepers of academia, referring to comrades “who were expelled from the academies for crazy & / publishing obscene odes on the windows of the / skull” (Lines 18-20). Attendees of Oxford are, in Ginsberg’s perception, the least likely to stage a revolt. Ginsberg also challenges capitalism during the McCarthy era, a daring and even dangerous feat. Throughout the poem are images of men, pointedly not engaging in any career-oriented activity. His male characters are not participating in the most basic but revered tenets of capitalism: Men must work to make a living in order to compete with other Americans for resources. Interestingly enough, the women are shown in menial labor positions such as waitresses and secretaries, contributing to the idea that women are perpetuating the corrupt capitalist system. In contrast, the men are either handing out communist pamphlets or “cower[ing] in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn-/ ing their money in wastebaskets” (10). Women are either unwilling or incapable of participating in the passive resistance.

Whereas Ginsberg expresses no interest in the material conditions of women, he very much concerns himself with the male homosexual experience. Ginsberg wrote during a time in which homosexuals were treated as extreme deviants. As Sarah Evans explains, “Cold War rhetoric added a dimension of sexual fear. Anticommunism meshed with homophobia in a campaign to purge public employment and the military of ‘sexual perverts’” (Evans 245). Among the civil rights violations that occurred, homosexuals or suspected homosexuals were dismissed from the workplace, labeled as communists, and removed from gay bars (245). Ginsberg’s decision to write so openly about the male homosexual experience was clearly radical and brave. However, while he picks up the torch for male homosexuality, he leaves the lesbian American experience to fend for itself. Ginsberg’s poetry deals with disarming cultural taboos about gay male sex, about our culture’s fear of indecent exposure in general, but fails to expose the constraints placed on female sexuality.

Raymond-Jean-Frontain, in Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, writes that Ginsberg “emerges [as] the patron saint of gay liberation—as well as the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements” (Frontain 35). Ginsberg writes openly about a male lover: “ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe” (Line 268). Again when speaking to Carl, he says, “I’m with you in Rockland, / where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries” (363-364). During the 1950’s when he was writing, secretarial work was certainly a female- dominated profession. This line matches the overall dismissive tone he takes towards women throughout the poem. They are objects mentioned only in their relation to men. He talks about his lover Carl “drinking the tea of the breast of the spinsters of Utica,” ‘spinster’ being a traditionally derogatory categorization of women (378). Spinsters often were unmarried, not because they could not secure a husband, but because they were lesbians. These women lived without access to male privilege because of this refusal to get married. Although Ginsberg is quick to judge the institution of marriage harshly, he does not comment upon the harsh reality women who choose not to marry were often faced with. He depicts women as the perpetrators rather than the victims of heterosexual mores.

Ginsberg is sensitive to the vulnerability of the male homosexual heart in dealings with other men: “who […] tr[ied] to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath/ when the blond and naked angel came to pierce them with a sword” (123-126). Ginsberg is however, oblivious of female emotions. Men cannot simply stop and smell the roses because women will seduce them into sexual relations with them, thereby trapping them into marital constraints. Ginsberg also ignores the possibility of lesbian desire in his poetry although lesbians, like gay men, are dealing with the same politics of exclusion. There is no space for lesbians in the world of “Howl,” because females are child hungry creatures whose intent is to either satisfy male sexual desire or sap male creative energy. Females are both means to escape American mass culture through sexual encounters and traps that men must fall into in order to achieve the American Dream.

Sarah M. Evans sheds light on the Beat movement of which Ginsberg was a part. Overall, the movement itself was not inclusive of women: “[o]n the fringe of college campuses, young people gathered to listen to folk music, to talk about the terrors of nuclear war, and to criticize the materialism and hypocrisy of American culture. Beatniks like Jack Kerouac [and Ginsberg] challenged American mass culture but hardly its sex roles. Their praise of sex, drugs, and Zen tended to portray women as simply mechanisms for achieving cosmic orgasm” (Evans 267). Ginsberg failed to realize that the politics of war he so protested were intrinsically linked to the politics of gender. The same logocentrism that permeates the rhetoric of war permeates the rhetoric of sexism. Evans writes that in the era of McCarthyism, “[m]ixed in with deep cultural anxieties about global politics were fears about the changing place of women and the changing sexual norms” (244). The term “bombshells” is one common example of this conflation of sex and violence. Ginsberg writes, “who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of/ beer […] and fell off the bed/ […] and ended fainting/ on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and/ come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness” (Lines 133-139). Women, in Ginsberg’s poem, are treated as the means to an end rather than as an end unto themselves.

“Howl” continues, “who sweetened the snatches of millions of girls, trembling/ in the sunset” (140-141). Women are no more than sex objects to be used for male experimentation. There is not one allusion to female pleasure anywhere in the poem. He describes women to have genitalia that can only be “sweetened” by a male gracing them with the all-conquering phallus. His poetry is clearly phallocentric. The poem is entirely told from a highly misogynous male point of view—women are entertainment for male “whoring” stunts: “who went out whoring through Colorado/ […] joy/ to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls/ in empty lots and diner backyards” (145 and 147-149). In regards to the public sphere, he mentions only “dirty” waitresses and secretaries. Not one positive image of femininity either in the private or public spheres exists in the entire poem.

Although no definitive answer exists to why Ginsberg engaged in misogyny in his poem, males, even homosexual males, can exhibit an unwillingness to admit their privilege; men have, after all, been conditioned to believe in the naturalness of their political and socio-economic dominance. Peggy McIntosh in “White Privilege Male Privilege” explains that “denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages” (McIntosh 9). Ginsberg’s interpretation of sexuality alternates between male homoeroticism and the traditional male heterosexual interpretation of women. He writes of men who “let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly / motorcyclists, and screamed with joy” (Lines 114-115). He talks on the next page of “innumerable lays of girls in empty lots” (147-148). In the case of both hetero and homosexual encounters, his tone is irreverent, but only in the case of homosexual encounters does he approach anything resembling “joy.” Likewise, the only evidence of intimacy in the poem is between the speaker and Carl. Gay or not, Ginsberg is trapped within the confines of a very heterosexual notion of male privilege.
Monogamy and compulsory heterosexuality are two cultural institutions the poem critiques. These men only reach “joy” once they lower their inhibitions. These people go into the “public parks,” “scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may” (121-122). This is a clear attack on monogamy. “Whomever” can be male, female, old or young, and of any sexual orientation, and the man spraying everyone with his semen gains a power over “whomever” comes his way. There is no choice in the matter of whether or not the passerby wishes to come into contact with his semen. The man also gains an immense measure of freedom, for he need not be bound by marriage, commitment, or loyalty, just by a sexual experience. He need not have any regard to consequences for he is beyond the established order that ordains what sexual behavior is appropriate and which his not. This view may be sexually liberating for men but can only hamper female sexual liberation in the quest for feminine sexual desire to be expressed in its multiplicities and then accepted by society. Instead, in the world of “Howl,” women are reduced to sexual fodder. The gay community must negotiate heterosexual rules of right conduct, but women have always also been victim to cultural inscription upon their bodies from birth.

As previously mentioned, the “who,” in the poem is throughout alluding to the position of the male subject. Therefore, it is clear that Ginsberg perceives a process in American society whereby men lose the potential for relationships with other men, relationships of both homosexual and homosocial varieties, to women in the heteronormative framework: “who lost their love boys to the three old shrews of fate / the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar / the one eyed shrew who winks out of the womb / and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but / sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden / threads of the craftsman’s loom” (127-132 emphasis mine). Not one time in “Howl” is “who” describing actions or feelings of women. The Beat movement’s extension of liberty to sit in one’s underwear and smoke marijuana in pursuit of oblivious escape from America’s predicament is not extended to women. Ginsberg harbors a false interpretation of the work of American women. They at no time in history sat on their “asses,” as he puts it. Their work at home contributed to America’s success in World War Two. After the return of their husbands, women for the most part returned to more traditional female jobs. In addition to working like men, women also had to withstand the cultural pressure to be sexually appealing at all times for their husbands, as well as doting mothers with a spotless house. Such thoughtless comments on the part of Ginsberg illustrate the Beat movement’s acceptance of the undervaluation of the female role in American life. More importantly than the undervaluation of their work is that the female role is presented as biologically determined rather than as a psychologically-compromising cultural construction. It is true that women did help uphold the illusion that the American Dream was possible and desirable, but he does not ponder the cost women would have to pay for refusing to participate in making sure that the men did not see the cracks and gaps in the illusion. In “Howl,” females are viewed as a trap to lure men into marriage. Far from a desire to squelch “the intellectual golden / threads of the craftsman’s loom,” women desired the unbridled opportunities to try the intellectual golden loom for themselves. Ginsberg denies the possibility that women might also, like him, be unhappy with their social standing in the current system and wish to express such discontentment with verse, play, or song. Indeed, he seems ignorant of the fact that they are capable of endeavors outside of the sexual entertainment of men.

Ginsberg’s attacks on marriage are derived from his belief that women who desire a monogamous relationship only do so for the ulterior motives of children and financial security. This may be viewed in the larger context of the American Dream that always seemed to exist right beyond the fingertips of the American consciousness. His point is that not everything is alright. America is not healed from the traumatic stress of World War Two. The state of marriage is not bliss in America despite what the media portrays. These are all valid cultural critiques that deserve attention in literature. The only problem is that he largely attributes the hypocrisy and superficiality of the American Dream to women. He does not realize that women’s roles are just as socially constructed as those of homosexuals and people of color. “Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! / Gone down the American river! / Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! […] Breakthroughs! Over the river!” (Lines 342-345). Here, the American River symbolizes the American Dream. All of the great dreams, epiphanies, and appreciations of the sublime that men are capable of, are shoved aside in favor of the white picket fence, life-draining wife, necessary children, and adequate income to participate in the new boom of consumerism in post World War Two America. Ginsberg, in short, strongly contests suburbia. Because of women, men cannot transcend.

Whereas Ginsberg interprets masculinity as a construct that should and can be changed, his poetry conveys an essentialist perception of femininity that is static and immutable. R.W. Connel argues in “Masculinities and Globalization” for a multiplicity of masculinities, some culturally sanctioned and others less so. There are subordinate forms of masculinity. Male violence, racism, and homophobia are all interrelated. “Many men exist in a state with some tension with, or distance from, hegemonic masculinity; others […] are taken as exemplars of hegemonic masculinity and are required to live up to it strenuously” (83). Ginsberg seems to recognize the potential for reconstructing masculinity by both his refusal to assume the role of protector and provider and by his refusal to participate in supporting the violence inherent in war. He shows how passive protest through writing can be used to contradict the status quo.
In contrast, he views femininity in a narrow, hegemonic vacuum. Ginsberg participates in the stereotypically-male, heterosexual interpretation of male-female relationships. His poetry contains myriad examples of homosocial bonding—a term usually reserved to explain the bonding between heterosexual men that ensures their solidarity against everything feminine and everything homosexual. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a famous queer theorist explains that “homosocial desire is constituted in Western literature between men whose bonding is forged through their rivalry over a woman who mediates their relationship and deflects any taint of homoeroticism” (2433). Clearly Ginsberg is not drawing close to other men by fighting over women, but he does seem to harbor resentment towards women in his struggle for independence from heterosexual norms. The men that are “stuck” in a limiting relationship with a female are out of the Beat movement’s reach.

The beat movement of which Ginsberg was a part exhibits the anti-female stance described by Sedgwick, despite the fact that there is no mediating female in the triangle. This resentment is expressed in his male characters’ homosocial bonding with other men. His dealings with Carl, his lover, the men who spray their semen to passersby, the men who distribute communist pamphlets would all fall under this category. After all, the “who” he uses to narrate the behavior of his characters is always male. Men are the ones doing the action, and the women are the ones being acted upon, sexually or otherwise. One might argue that a homosexual man cannot participate in homosocial bonding, that the term is reserved for heterosexual men, but the essence of homosociality among men as understood by Sedgwick is the promotion of misogyny, for such a promotion ensures the status quo of male heterosexual desire remaining the desire around which all other desires must pivot; furthermore, Ginsberg does not convey a critical stance on homosocial bonding. This suggests that Ginsberg inadvertently reinforces the very heterosexual order he intends to subvert.

Is Ginsberg drawing a line between himself and woman as the “other” to protect himself from his own status as an outsider? One possible function of the misogyny in Ginsberg’s poetry is that it separates homosexuality from femininity. It exists as a defense mechanism to thwart a society that conflates gender identity with sexual orientation. The media and cultural depictions of homosexuality overall qualify male homosexuals as feminine and lesbians as masculine. This does not adequately capture the variances in the spectrum of sexuality that accounts for virtually endless possibilities. Ginsberg does not identify with the female perspective and remains stolid in relation to them throughout “Howl.” Outsider status allows one to be critical of oppression. Ginsberg is not entirely inside male power but is not entirely outside heterosexual power either. This gives him a unique opportunity to view the politics of gender and orientation from the shadows or boundaries of each category, an opportunity he does not take. This might protect him from being labeled as feminine or insecure in his own sexuality.

Sedgwick also holds that “while lesbian, gay, and anti-homophobic scholarship have much to learn from feminism, one cannot assume that the interests of the various actors coincide. Any alliances among movements to end oppression are strategic and political, but not necessarily natural” (Sedgwick 2434). While I can appreciate that various interest groups have unique and specific needs, I believe that any literary or political movement that seeks to end the oppression of one group should seek to also extend the same goal to all marginalized groups. The effectiveness of an interest group can be unnecessarily limited precisely because of the blind spot that prevents its members from connecting different forms of oppression. For example, feminism only really became a model for ending oppression in general after it included the concerns of women of color.

Sedgwick contends that “’obligatory heterosexuality’ is built into male dominated kinship systems, [and] that homophobia is a necessary consequence of such patriarchal institutions as heterosexual marriage” (Sedgwick, 2436). Therefore, Ginsberg’s critique of marriage as a heterosexual institution is warranted, but he does not imagine that it is also a patriarchal institution. Gayle Rubin explains that “The suppression of the homosexual component of sexuality, and by corollary, the oppression of homosexuals, is…a product of the same system whose rules and relations oppress women” (2437). Sedgwick explains that in Greek society, women and slaves were never disparate groups but homosexuality among men was accepted. She interprets this as meaning that while “heterosexuality is necessary for the maintenance of any patriarchy, homophobia, against males, at any rate, is not” (2438). I would argue that this also shows that even in cases where homophobia does not exist, misogyny still does. One does not necessarily dissolve with the eradication of the other. Therefore, Ginsberg does not need to value women or see them in a similar position in order to desire sexual freedom for gay men.

In conclusion, “Howl” merits a prime example of the rebellion of the underdog in times of great cultural upheaval. Nonetheless, an analysis of its gender politics reveals its limitations. The overall success of the Beat movement is debatable, a failure to see how its members’ biases conflict with the professed values of the movement makes the transition from theory into practice less viable for Ginsberg.

Works Cited

Connell, R.W. The Men and the Boys. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000.
Evans, Sarah. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl And Other Poems. “Howl.” San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1956.

Frontain, Raymond-Jean. “Proof that Poetry Can Be about Assholes.” Gay and Lesbian Review. May-June 2007.

Sedgwick, Eve. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Comp. and ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 2432-2438.

Scarlett Cunningham is an English major minoring in political science. After graduation in December, she plans on doing graduate work in women's studies. Her ultimate goal is to teach both English and women's studies at the university level.

Thy Rod and Staff (Or, Prometheus in Yorkshire) - Andrew Bellamy

When I heard the Beatles over a second-hand transistor radio singing She Loves You, I was liberated. It was from another world, far away from St. Michael’s Catholic School for Boys and transmitted straight to me like a message from home, though I had no idea who she was. I was still trying to figure out who I was.

My teachers called me Samuel; other students called me Sammy; except my best friend, who called me Sam. I tried to be all these people and I was only thirteen. My best mate was Jack and he was Jack no matter who was around. He was a boy of baffling intelligences, a compendium of sexual knowledge with all its appropriate terminology (knowing where one puts his prick in the act and teaching me to J. Arthur), also knowing a great deal about tortures and executions and other such things, especially those done under the militant papist queen Bloody Mary. An innate non-conformist, a bad seed, he had brushed against even the headmaster himself. Several times I noticed the marks left by fierce canings. The headmaster was not just a strict disciplinarian like the others; years later he was committed to an insane asylum. However, that was much later and at this time all I could do was try to avoid the stone orbs that resided under those bushy eyebrows, behind exaggerated angular features.

Jack had a stash he kept in his mattress: a jack-knife (which he had used to cut the slit in his mattress), a handful of knickknacks and cigarettes he could never smoke, the transistor radio and a couple of books—Arabian Nights and Catcher in the Rye. He read these many times over, usually at night, holding his cigarette lighter up to the pages. Being a subversive was something he took seriously and, in 1963, cool was barely a decade old. His last caning was for scrawling “The Kingdom of God is Within You” across his arm with an ink-pen, although he admitted to me that he had not read one page of Tolstoy’s literary leviathan. It was excusable, as I hadn’t heard of it before he explained to me the intent of his physical graffiti.

Father Bainton was the discoverer of this particular misdemeanour of Jack’s and might not have noticed if Jack hadn’t been so fond of rolling up his sleeve for the sake of his peers’ attention. Bainton, a mild-mannered man, only pleaded with him to try and behave before sending him to the headmaster whom was less gracious. For all the hate and fear the raving authoritarian evoked, Bainton elicited matching respect and admiration. I often had confession with him, during which he would speak tenderly and honestly: “And what of your thoughts, Samuel?”—I am silent—“have you sinned in your thoughts? Either by anger or lust?” Does he know about Arabian Nights and the hard-on it gave me, I wonder. I tell him I had a thought of anger toward another boy, judging that the lesser sin, and add pride to that, but then realise I have not been proud, so I add lying. Before prescribing my penance he will recount to me a story of how he once himself had this angry thought toward a colleague over something and I will nod, perplexed by my priest’s confession. In the end, my affection for the man had only grown.

I had not lied when I said I’d been angry toward another boy. That boy, George Barfield, had shoved me against a wall and I’d taken it because Jack wasn’t there. He was two years older and almost a foot taller than both of us, but that didn’t matter to Jack. That’s why I don’t tell him. If I did, he’d fight him and get into more trouble.

Jack and I had big plans for the Friday night coming. Jack had really come up with the whole scheme on his own and told it to me in its entirety. On Friday night, when Father Epstein comes by with his lamp to check on everyone we’ll be in our bunks like the others. He will walk one end of the dormitory to the other (where Brother Morris has already settled down to bed) and then back again to exit from the same door he entered by, locking it behind him. When he comes by the second time it will not be us under our blankets but our pillows and a stack of others Jack has bought for the night with knickknacks and cigarettes. This is likewise the currency he has paid off potential squealers with, those few he couldn’t silence with threats.

We should then be stealthily off to Yorkshire, a few kilometres away, to go to an address Jack’s older brother gave him to hear a band “like the Beatles” playing a club called the Ramrod. I had fashioned in my mind an image of the four young men from Liverpool on stage with their Rickenbacker guitars singing the yeah, yeah, yeah chorus to Jack's and my elated forms. Afterward, Jack says we’ll “get with a brass like Sunny at the Edmont but take her all the way.” We will steal fire from the gods. Then, I said something about the Beatles and he said “You dumb berk, they’re not the Beatles, they’re just some rock ‘n’ roll band. Anyway, what you gay or somethin’ when I’m talkin’ ‘bout shaggin’?” He had told me about gay; so I knew, but I couldn’t possibly perceive the implications of his knowing this. This was before the Stonewall riots, and the word had not yet entered the mainstream lexicon. I was as oblivious to this as I was to Jack’s life away from St. Michael’s. I had my own family problems and Jack only lied about himself anyway.

On Thursday night, I fell off to sleep thinking over the plan and dreamt of mother. Rarely had I ever dreamt of mother. So, when I awoke, I thought it peculiar. In my dream, she was wearing a mink fur, like she was when I saw her last and she was smoking. She was wearing white gloves and her hand was warm and velvety on my cheek. She’s in Paris now. I don’t know why. I’m glad she doesn’t write me, though. There was still twenty minutes before the day started, so everyone was lying still as stones and if any of the other boys were awake they were trying not to be. Thinking that Jack’s members might be burning with the same eagerness as my own I rolled over gently and looked down to the bunk below mine to see if he had stirred yet.
I saw Jack, his whole body twisting and jerking, his arms flailing the air but tight to his body, his legs vibrating and kicking sporadically, his nostrils trickling blood. I just sat there and stared at him, with an open mouth and glazed-over eyes, a vacuous look. My body was stiff. As I came to myself, I tried to call for help but my throat had become a great gaping chasm and all I could muster was a drawn out succession of squeaky vowel sounds. Brother Morris came running from outside and wrapped his arms tightly around Jack to restrain his trashing limbs, yelling in an intelligible way for help.

Other boys were waking; several of the men had come to assist Brother Morris. I, having climbed down from by bunk, was staring past their hunched figures at the body that has become absolutely still. Morris rushed out of the room with the boy in his arms. I saw his pale face as they exited, pointed toward me like he was staring back but his eyes were closed. He must have bit his tongue; there was blood all around his mouth. Left behind were bloodstained bed-sheets and limp-faced boys, but not I. I was left standing at a closed door. I ran around to the window, my bare feet soaked with the cold dew. I saw them laying Jack down on a bed and Father Bainton checking his pulse, his face looking up at the others. My eyes were locked on Bainton’s face, waiting for it to grant me some telling expression of his condition. The only sound I could hear was my heart beating—once, then twice—and Brother Morris closed the curtains.


The world is ugly, today. Less than an hour ago, I was thinking of my mother, who I haven’t seen in nearly three months and don’t care if I ever see again—now, I wonder if Jack is alive and I cannot weep for fear. My face is flushed, warm and sticky and I am in my nightshirt, sitting in wet grass behind the building where Jack is. The day, after a late start, had begun but I was mostly unaware of everything except the torrents of desire that washed over me to tear down this wall I was leaning against. The silence was thunderous.

Breaking the stillness, I heard a door opened. Father Bainton walked around the building and sat down beside me. “You’re still here?” (He knew I would be.) “You’re close to Jack. Even when we’ve encouraged otherwise. We haven’t told the others boys yet but he’s regained consciousness. I suggested an assembly but it seems we’ll be giving the word to individual classes so that the schedule’s interrupted no further.” He seemed perturbed by his colleagues’ uncaring rigidity.

“Can I see him?” I asked.

“No. Not yet. So, please go about your day.” He patted me on the shoulder and walked away. For the next fourteen hours I tried to maintain the illusion of life; I knew Jack was alive but I felt somewhere in the shuffle I had died in some way. Above all this, I considered myself absurd. I was not going back to the dormitory in any case, where the bloodied sheets remained—what complete absence of thought could account for that, I can’t imagine.

I did a great deal of traipsing around in such a way as to go undetected. When the way was clear I finally went up to the window and found, to my relief, the curtains drawn back. I could now see Jack, sitting up in the bed and looking better albeit disoriented. He was unattended, presently, so I tapped on the window and he didn’t seem to notice. So, I tapped on it again and this time he glanced in my direction. I then alternated tapping with a pointing gesture toward the door. He was now looking straight at me. They were like a stranger’s eyes though and an odd realisation pricked me worse than the night-chill: that Jack did not recognise me. I backed away from the window into blackness, turned around and took off running.

When I slowed to catch my breath, I was as alone as I felt and the few lingering lights at St. Michael’s were out of sight. I walked to Yorkshire that night. I went to the Ramrod, where now thoroughly detached from reality I thought I’d tear a lock of hair from Paul McCartney’s head to return to Jack with. Even if it hadn’t been evident how delusional I was, they would not have let me in for the simple reason that I was under-age. This was one part that had been left out of the plan. I hadn’t thought of it at all, and Jack no doubt wanted a chance for improvisation. But he wasn’t here. So I walked down to the Moonlite, a pub in the dirtiest part of town with tobacco smoke emitting from its windows like out of chimneys. Everybody there seemed to have as much of a grasp on reality as myself and no one minded my being there.

I sat down in an empty booth and concentrated on breathing. The air was heavy and putrid and I wanted desperately to get used to it. Looking around, I saw what could only be a party of carnival dropouts on one side and caricatures of them reflected on the other. One woman with legs as hairy as a man’s was moving suggestively amongst them. If that’s the only brass round here, I’ll be going home with both hands empty. I looked at one man, beef-faced and unkempt, covered in hair-stubble, and after a few seconds I noticed he was staring straight back at me. I diverted my eyes immediately to the table before me. I judged that the safest place for them momentarily. Meanwhile, I was feeling the heaviness of the air less and less but the heaviness of my eyelids more and more and ere long I’d nodded off.

I see Jack. He’s convulsing forcefully as before. I soon realise I am looking down on him in his bed just as before, his body in violent mad motion and I in a paralytic state, unable to help him. Blood drips from his nostrils. His face is white as his bed-sheets.

I awoke with a jump in my seat. I had not been out for twenty minutes but I knew I’d been here much too long. I looked around for the door as another rush of drowsiness was already coming to overpower me and saw the beef-faced man staring at me. So, I hurried out, having evidently drawn too much attention to myself with my jolt. Outside the Moonlite, I found the air cold and crisp, and was rejuvenated by it. I had come to Yorkshire and gained nothing. Starting down the darkened street toward St. Michael’s, I wondered if they ever noticed I was missing. Behind me the silence of the vacant cityscape was broken by the sound of the Moonlite’s door slamming shut a second time. I walked forward a ways and then turned to see who was behind me. It was the beef-faced man and I was glad when I saw him turn a right and start down another street, not wanting to share my street with any stranger and, least of all, him.

I wanted to think of Jack to keep my mind off my grim surroundings but I didn’t want to think of him as the stranger on the sick bed. I tried to think of him as laughing Jack, cussing Jack, fighting Jack, running Jack. I wasn’t sure if it was nostalgia or guilt that caused the sound of his footsteps in my mind.

It was only moments before I realised the footsteps were not in my mind. I quickened my pace and made a sharp turn down another street—not a person in sight. The footsteps were coming from directly behind me now and, though I wanted very badly to turn around and face my pursuer, my whole body was stiff and all I could do was replicate my continuous motion forward. I felt a huge, bristly hand reach around my face and cover my mouth, and another take hold of me by the belt and lift me off my feet. I let out a muffled yelp instinctively but I knew there was no one around to hear it and presently abandoned all hope of rescue.

He has me in a dark side street now, his hand still over my mouth, now pressing my head back against a building’s brick wall. I’m facing him and his other hand is on my side, callused and cold on my bare side where my nightshirt has been pulled up. His putrid Moonlite breath is in my face. I think I can wrench myself away from him, but I cannot run; he is too big and fast. I think of my friend for consolation but can only picture seizure Jack. I break free of his grasp and throw myself onto the street.

I began twisting and jerking my whole body, rigidly flailing my arms, and kicking my legs sporadically, with my eyes rolled back in my head. I had smacked my face on the asphalt when I fell and blood now trickled from my nostrils. The man looked down at my convulsing frame, backed away several steps and took off running. I didn’t stop for over a quarter of an hour, until I was sure he was gone.

That night I collapsed on the ground at Saint Michael’s, having run the whole way back, and lied there for a couple of hours listening to my heart pound, having been dead. I wonder if I am like Prometheus, who being immortal died many deaths. Or am I like the prophet Samuel, who Father Bainton had compared me to? He heard God call to him three times in one night and didn’t know who it was. My thoughts were disrupted by the awareness that it was no longer my beating heart I was hearing but a rapping sound above my head. I stood up. My bare feet became cold in the dew-soaked grass and I found myself looking at Jack, who was standing in the window, tapping it and gesturing toward the door.

Fire Flower - Tammy Bragdon

Tammy Bragdon is an Art student in the field of photography. After her graduation in the spring, she hopes to open a photo shop. Tammy writes, “I’m the youngest of 10 kids, so I spent a lot of my time alone off drawing and taking pictures of everything I loved or liked.” As an artist, Tammy is inspired by nature because, as she puts it, “You can look at one thing [a flower, the sky] about 10,000 times and it will never look the same twice.”

The Shore Line - Luke Joseph

The fog would roll in early on those mornings,
the night wasn’t spent sleeping.
The kisses and gazes shared were supposed to last a week,
they kept me awake during my solitary ride.
Drops of rain never fell on those mornings,
but many drops of tears did.
It would be so quiet in the sleepy town,
you could hear our hearts and the waves beat rapidly.
More than waves of water crashed on the shore line,
the current of emotions was so strong, it could have overflowed that river.
Hours after I had painfully pulled out of that parking lot,
Your presence was still in my passenger seat.
That was love at its truest.
But like a cancer, distance grew,
and we had changed.
You used to be fresh in my mind,
I could shut my eyes and remember every inch of you.
Now the edges are blurry,
and your beauty has lost its crispness.
But always remembered will be the way I felt
during those foggy mornings on the shore line.

Luke Joseph is a senior PE student with a son named Camden who plans to someday become a physical therapist. He writes, “I wrote this piece two years ago. It's inspired by a three-year relationship that ended too early with a great girl.”

The Frog Effect: What Makes a Victim - Megan Linscott

What makes a willing victim? What does it take to rebel? Obedience is preached as a virtue, but is it more important than thinking for yourself? Free will is important. It's what makes us human. Blindly obeying an authority is a costly mistake. It's a simple enough concept… but what if you don't realize you're being controlled? Throughout history, groups of people have tried to dominate other groups, maybe through war, maybe enslavement, maybe genocide. Sometimes they've been successful, and sometimes not. There is a difference between those successes and failures. Some groups allow themselves to be pushed around, but others won't stand for it. Why? Maybe it's the frog effect.

Authority is a powerful thing. It demands, and usually receives, obedience. In Crispin Sartwell's "The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror," he makes the startling and disturbing statement that anyone is capable of genocide. The reader wants badly to dismiss the claim, but Sartwell can back it up with flawless logic. People, on the whole, are capable of genocide because they are capable of such unwavering obedience to authority. He claims, "Hitler didn't kill 6 million Jews, or King Leopold 10 million Africans. They used people just like me and you. They mobilized a society" (Sartwell 3). Obviously, this is relevant to claims such as those of the Nazis, who, after the Holocaust, cried that they were just following orders, but it's relevant in another way. In order for one person or group of people to dominate another, it's not only the followers of the oppressor who must be obedient. The cooperation of the oppressed is needed as well. The situation can't exist without a victim.

In 1971, an experiment took place in the basement of the Psychology building at Stanford University. The experiment, known as the "Stanford Prison Experiment," would later become famous. Phillip Zimbardo designed it. It was supposed to provide insight into prison life. Zimbardo ran ads in the newspaper to attract a group of white, middle class, mentally stable college men. Half became guards, half prisoners. The guards could not use violence or weapons, but they were allowed to use any other means necessary to control the prisoners. The experiment, which was supposed to last two weeks, was so 'successful' that it had to be called off after only six days. That was all the time it took for the guards to completely assert their authority over the prisoners. Zimbardo later wrote about the experience in "The Mind is a Formidable Jailor." "You cannot be a prisoner if no one will be your guard, and you cannot be a prison guard if no one takes you or your prison seriously," he writes. "Therefore, over time a perverted symbiotic relationship developed" (Zimbardo 5). It seems like the perfect description of the oppressor/victim cycle: perverted symbiotic relationship. One role cannot exist without the other. It's just as Zimbardo said, the experiment would've failed had either group refused to cooperate. Without guards, the prisoners would no longer have been imprisoned, and with prisoners, the guards would have had nothing to guard. One needs the other to exist… and this reasoning can be applied to something on a much larger scale. However if this is true, it begs a question: Why doesn't the victim do something?

During the Holocaust, German Jews faced unbelievable horrors, and that turned out to be exactly the problem. People didn't believe something that horrible could really happen. Elie Wiesel tells of his real life experience in the Holocaust in his book Night. It's a fascinating book in that it discusses not only events that took place during the Holocaust, but how it began, and why no one stopped it. It's able to do this because, unlike many books about the Holocaust, it starts at the beginning. It shares what the Jews were thinking before they ever knew about concentration camps. Wiesel writes, "[E]ven we doubted [Hitler's] resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century" (8).
Even the Jews themselves didn't believe it at first, but they can hardly be blamed. They weren't suddenly torn from their homes and thrown into concentration camps. First, they lost their rights, quietly, one by one. It happened so slowly, that at first the Jews didn't notice. When they did, they couldn’t comprehend the danger. Wiesel writes, "The Germans were already in our town, the Fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out – and the Jews of Sighet were still smiling" (10). By the time they finally realized what was happening, it was too late to do anything. They had no rights left to them, and the Nazis had been successful in dehumanizing them:

First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death… A Jew was henceforth prohibited to own gold, jewelry, or any other valuables. Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death… Three days later, a new decree: every Jews had to wear the yellow star… But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafés, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o'clock in the evening. (Wiesel 10-11)

And yet, none rebelled. These things were still tolerable. The Jews excused the loss of their freedoms because the loss did not yet seem severe enough to provoke a risky response. "The synagogues were no longer open. People gathered in private homes: no need to provoke the Germans" (Wiesel 10). Why bring the monster down on themselves when it's easier (and apparently safer) to simply give it its way? Even Wiesel's father, a prominent member of the Jewish community, remains unworried: "'The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal…'" (Wiesel 11). They felt that there was no need to cause problems over such small measures.

Unfortunately, all the measures were small, and the Jews continued to take them mostly without question. "Then came the ghettos" (Wiesel 11). The Jews were all moved into a small part of town, surrounded by barbed wire fences, and forbidden to leave. And still most complied. "People thought this was a good thing… We would live among Jews, among brothers…" (Wiesel 12), Wiesel explains. The situation continued to worsen by small increments. The Jews could not bring themselves to resist. They had done nothing about the last change, and the newer one was only a bit worse. No need to be an alarmist. But the point at which it was necessary to do something never seemed to come. When it finally did, there was no longer anything to be done.

They say that if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll jump out immediately. However, if the water is initially cool and heated slowly, the frog will be boiled alive before it jumps out. It won't have noticed the change until it's too late. The well known anecdote can be applied to people, as well. When the Holocaust first began, neither the Jews nor anyone else attempted to stop it. Things got worse for the Jews incrementally. Had they be taken from their homes, and thrown without ceremony into concentration camps, perhaps the situation would've been different. They would've been alerted of the danger immediately. As things stood, they couldn't see it until it was too late.

Perhaps you're thinking "so what?" If so, you're thinking like a victim already. "'The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal…'" (Wiesel 11). But it did turn out to be lethal. The most frightening aspect of all this is that it's not ancient history. The Holocaust was less than a century ago. There are many alive today who were involved. Still, people tend to brush it off, uninterested or unwilling to think about such depressing things. They think it can never happen again… but it can. People don't realize their capacity for either the role of the victim or that of the oppressor, but the truth of the matter is, most people are capable of both. Even in this day and age, people willingly give up freedoms in exchange for what they feel is security, but regardless of the reason, they are surrendering their free will. Without it, they are primed to be abused as victims, unable to defend themselves against an unforeseen attack, or opressers, following the orders of a leader with blind obedience. It's important to be aware of what's happening, or anyone could become a frog waiting to be boiled alive, even you.


Works Cited

Sartwell, Crispin. "The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror." Los Angeles Times 11 April, 2004: p. 1-3

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.

Zimbardo, Phillip. "The Mind is a Formidable Jailor." The New York Times Magazine 8 April, 1973: p. 1-9.

Megan Linscott is a freshman at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. She loves English, but plans to major in French. "The Frog Effect" was written for her English class in response to several discussions about humans' capacity for obedience.