Emerson - Seventy Salads Long

(Nature through nature.)
Emerson’s “Nature” touches on many of our class’s themes. We have discussed Nature (capital ‘N’), nature, evolution (yet to be covered), religiosity vs. spirituality, unity, the recapturing of youth, pride, and the sympathetic imagination. Nature (capital N) is “the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance” (Emerson, 351). It is the means by which we can “escape the barriers which render [us] comparatively impotent” (Emerson, 351) and find unity (break out the hammer). Evolution is Nature’s device, creating endless variety and beauty, unpredictable and titillating even to the drinker of the glass-half-empty. nature (little n), as in the natural or physical world, is a manifestation of Nature. It demonstrates the beauty of which Nature is capable. Though it is only a part of Nature, it can inspire humans to discover their own internal peace and beauty, that is, to discover Nature within. Here, Emerson finds Nature by immersing himself in nature: “Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball-I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me-I am part or particle of God” (Emerson, from “Nature”, http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/poems/famous/emerson.html)
While searching for Nature (natura naturans – active and co-creative) we must not mistake it for nature (natura naturata – passive and fixed).


In discussions and DBs, we reminisce often about childhood and innocent qualities we may have lost. I am resistant to do so because it seems to me like a regression. I know it need not be so and that not everyone intends this when they speak of recapturing youth. Qualities associated with youth can be usefully reintroduced into our lives if we have lost them, but we should not demur from life’s natural progression. As Emerson says, “The direction is forever onward, but the artist still goes back for materials” (Emerson, 357).

During our first year of college, most of us have gained a shade of modesty. We have learned, as Logan might now say, How hard it can be. We have made “the discovery that wisdom has other tongues and ministers than we, that though we should hold our peace the truth would not the less be spoken” (Emerson, 361).


As Charlotte has said, we have, this semester, begun to implement the sympathetic imagination by attempting to join with another thing or being, especially through compassion – suffering with – the ultimate experience of the sympathetic imagination. Emerson writes about the poet’s desire for profound sympathy with his subject: “It is an odd jealousy, but the poet finds himself not near enough to his object” (Emerson, 363).


Emerson masterfully paints these themes, and the eloquence with which he does so puts them to rest, as many of our class discussions cannot. The beauty of his poetry is often greater than the reality he uses it to describe. Yet he is adamant that “[t]he reality is more excellent than the report” (Emerson, 365). But perhaps we can use poetry such as his to cultivate the sensitivity required to realize such pervasive beauty.

(Hopkins expresses divinity through natural beauty and metaphors such as the kingfisher.)
Emerson and Hopkins both find the Mystery all about us. For Emerson it is Nature, the “wisdom… infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor” (Emerson, 365). Hopkins’ Mystery is cloaked in Christian terminology – Mary or Christ – but described with new shoots and birdcalls. It is as pervasive as air, essential, “more than meat and drink, / My meal at every wink” (Hopkins, 372). Human beings are conduits through which Nature or God flow. “Let all God’s glory through” (Hopkins, 372), writes Hopkins. While Emerson paints the Mystery with strokes of words, Hopkins plays the mystery on strings of alliteration and rhyme and drums of rhythm and cadence. They both use nature to write about Nature.
(Hopkins' flaming dragonfly.)


My new favorite line: “[M]an’s life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow” (Emerson, 365).

Oleanna and Johnny Lee

(Thy type of feminism that promotes the bipartisan battle between the sexes.)
The themes of power (student vs. teacher), sexual tension between males and females, the danger and power of subjective determinations, and abuse of the right to claim sexual abuse are prominent throughout Oleanna. Carol enters John’s office feeling powerless; when she leaves, she may feel empowered, but in actuality she has claimed victim-hood and prolonged her helplessness. From Mamet’s writing, it is very difficult to make a solid case for John sexually assaulting his student. Not only do his actions not support the claim (he merely puts his arm around her because she is distressed, about to break down), but his response afterwards, at least until he beats Carol, evinces innocence and disbelief that Carol has charged him with assault. It is in fact not Carol he charges him. It is her group, enforced by the power of a lawyer, that contrives her complaint. “On behalf of my group,” she says, I will charge you with being “part of that group” (Mamet, 32). Carol is struggling with her own weakness when she comes to see John, and she is passive throughout the play; when she grabs power she becomes weaker and pathetic, despicable. She further displays her own weakness by allowing a group message to overwhelm her. She doesn’t know what she wants, and, as she says, “what I ‘feel’ is irrelevant” (Mamet, 31). (I suspect that what she wants is to belong. She sits in the back of class by herself – alone – wishing that she could understand the lecture, or even “what it means to be here” (Mamet, 24).

(The idea is that anyone can be a feminist. I may be prejudiced, but Carol's motives aren't so inclusive.)
So Mamet deals with several obvious issues, but he also presents a discussion of what it means to learn and how we go about learning in our institutions of higher learning. Carol is a multiple-choice student. She doesn’t listen; she lists. She takes her notes with her everywhere, hoping that they will serve as a brain while hers is busy feeling sorry for her. Though some of John’s teaching methods seem to contradict is educational ideals, he at least sits down with Carol and wants to help her understand. He tries to soothe her fear by sharing characteristics they have in common and, in a breach of dignity, by diving her an automatic A in his class. John complains about the spout-out regurgitate-back education paradigm, which, ironically, is the very route Carol takes to indict him. It’s bizarre because during Act 1 she is too dumb to be as insidious as she later proves, but in Act 2 she’s too intelligent (although cults are influential) to be so stupid. Carol not only switches power roles with John, she takes the teacher pose as well. “We don’t ‘express’ ourselves very well,” (Mamet, 31) she says, mocking John. “We don’t say what we mean.” So how do we clarify, how do we learn what is really meant? We “consult the Report,” (ibid. 31) or we consult our lawyer, or our group; essentially, we consult the textbook. No matte how we feel, don’t bother trying to clarify communications by communicating. Find someone or something that can get you power, that immediate A, memorize it, use it, and usurp the throne. This is not learning. This is not healthy empowerment or communication. It’s pathetic.

(See how much emotion this brings up in me. Why? Is it “prejudice? An unreasoned belief” (Mamet, 21). Indeed, “when it is threatened, or opposed, [I] feel anger” (Mamet, 21). I wonder, what are these ingrained prejudices that stir up such reactivity. Are they collective, societal, imprinted in my sex? How much does my sex define the way I read this play and how much of my sex is determined by culturally defined interactions such as the ones in Oleanna?)

Johnny Lee is immeasurably more honorable than either of the figures in Oleanna. Many of his difficulties are based in his belief that he will never have to face his reality. He hopes to escape by passing the homo-multiple-choice exams his mother often forces upon him. If only he can give the appropriate response – the one that matches the cultural answer key – he will never have to actually begin working with the raw experiential material that is his difficult life. Certainly, more external and incredibly painful issues arise once he confronts his mother with his homosexuality, but opening the closet is the first step out into the light.

(Words can certainly hurt, but one must draw the line. What is to be permitted? We cannot be overly sensitive or we promote cases like Carol's.)

Johnny, like Carol, like all of us, wants to belong. The desire is so strong that it nearly gets him killed by a deranged internet pedophile who traps him beneath his “hard on” in his apartment. The desire to belong nearly persuades Johnny to continue living a lie so that his family will not boot him out. He ends his story by claiming that the discrimination he experiences is not unique to the Korean community; it is ubiquitous. What he is looking for is not just a place within the gay community, not only within his family, not in New York and not amongst Koreans. He is looking for a place that he belongs within the human community. What can we all share that brings us together rather than tears us apart? As communal animals, we are driven to find solidarity. Even in America, the one does not exist without the many. Somehow, I think most people find a way to relate to Johnny’s suffering, even though most have not experienced the type or degree of discrimination he did. Commonality in suffering inspires compassion, which must be a building block for strengthening our human community.

(So true.)